The weekly column
Article 95, April 2002
NONGQAWUSE: suggestions for a CALL/Internet lesson
by Rolf Palmberg
Department of Teacher Education
Åbo Akademi University
Finland
Nongqawuse is a reading comprehension program (click here to download) which offers learners an opportunity to practise their ability to understand the plain sense of what is stated in a text and their ability to read between the lines (or, rather, "between the words"). While making the learners read and re-read written text both for specific and global information (this is especially true for the follow-up task), the program also develops in the learners flexible and critical reading skills.
Pre-computer work
Depending on the proficiency level of the learners you may have to pre-teach (or revise) some of the vocabulary items included in the text, for example ancestor, cattle, condition, corn, deadline, elders, fatal, holy, imagine, noon, overlook, predict, settler, spirit, terrible, tribe, vision, worldly. Alternatively, invite the learners to use bilingual dictionaries while they are working. The text, on the other hand, should not be shown or read to the learners.
Computer work
Ask the learners to work in pairs with the program. Invite them to discuss (and agree on) their reading strategies. When they have completed the task, invite them to work in pairs and make up additional questions about the story. Also, ask them to discuss whether they believe the story is true or not.
Follow-up task on the Internet
Next, tell the learners that there are things they must find out about Nongqawuse using the Internet. More specifically, ask them to find the answers to the following questions:
- When did the above story take place?
- What did the incident become known as?
- Who were the Europeans referred to in the text?
- What is the Xhosa National Suicide site?
- Where is it located?
- How many Xhosas are there today?
- Where do they live?
- What happened to Nongqawuse?
Ask them to write down the answers on a piece of paper. Learners who have found the answers are invited to find the answers to their own questions (if any, and if different from the above ones). When most of the learners have finished their task, ask them to work in pairs and walk around in the class comparing their answers with each other.
About the program
The learners' task is to give correct answers to multiple-choice questions on the story of Nongqawuse. By choosing the SEE THE TEXT-option, the learners can read the text whenever they want, but only about a third of the words will be visible (the visible words are selected randomly by the computer and will thus differ for each time). By choosing the ANSWER QUESTIONS-option, the learners get randomly selected questions about the text. In order to make the program more challenging, the learners gain points for correct answers but lose points for wrong answers. They also lose points for every time they choose to see (parts of) the text.
The text
Nongqawuse was a 14-year-old girl of the Xhosa tribe in South Africa.
One day, when she was sitting on a rock overlooking the Gxara River, she had a fatal vision. She imagined that she saw the spirits of her ancestors, and they were speaking to her.
She run to tell the village elders what she had seen. She told them that the dead people were prepared to rise again and lead a holy war against the European settlers who were taking over their country. But there was one condition: the Xhosas had to kill their cattle and burn their corns. And they had to do it very soon, within a year’s time.
The Xhosas met the deadline. On the appointed day, they got up early to watch the sun. But instead of stopping halfway at noon and turning back to set in the east, as predicted, the sun continued on its course.
The end result was terrible. More than 20.000 people died because they had neither food nor any means of providing themselves with food. They had destroyed all their worldly possessions, even their own homes.
About the Author
For more information on Rolf Palmberg, the author, please click here
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