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The research team was directed by G.Mejler, a linguist from the
University of Amsterdam who had been working in Mozambique for some
years, and included 2 young Mozambicans with a B.A. in Education, two
psychologists (a Danish and an East German), and myself on a part-time
basis. The project was part of the activities of the Institute; the
equipment was donated by the Dutch Government.
The study adopted a naturalistic rather than an experimental approach:
the method used in data collection consisted of recording episodes of
the spontaneous talk of rural children at home in LI, and of teacher-
pupil interaction in the first 2 years of school in L2.
The sample consisted of:
- 20 children (mean age 6.9) from a Communal Village in Southern
Mozambique living with their families and speaking Tsonga as LI;
- 20 children (mean age 6.10) from a Communal Village in Korthern
Mozambique living with their families and speaking Makua as LI;
- 5 classrooms and their teachers (40-60 children per class) in a
village in Southern Mozambique.
The children at the time of recording in their homes (March-April and
June-July 1983) had started school a few weeks earlier, or were going to
start a few months later. The recording of classroom interaction, carried
out in October 1984, did not involve the same children but a comparable
sample. The villages where the children lived had a population between
2,000 and 3,500; the families were large, with relatives and neighbours
living close and sharing many outdoor activities; with the exception of
one, adults were non-llterate or minimally literate (using the Census
definition).
The team of researchers lived in the rural villages for two months, and
got to know the children and their families. Radio microphones and
transmitters were sewn into garments worn by the target children, so
that their talk with peers and adults could be taped by a recorder
within a radius of 200 metres, while the investigators took notes on the
context and on adults and children’s activities. A total of 180 hours of
talk in the extended family environment (4⅛ hours for each child) was