Zimbabwe Form 1-4 (O-Level) Indigenous Languages and Literature

This course covers both Indigenous Languages and Literature in Indigenous Languages, focusing on developing comprehensive language skills and literary appreciation. It builds upon the foundation laid in Grades 3-7, preparing learners for higher-level study and promoting cultural identity and heritage. The curriculum emphasizes a communicative approach, incorporating diverse learning styles and cultural contexts.

Indigenous Languages

The Indigenous Languages component aims to enhance listening, speaking, reading, writing, and non-verbal communication skills. It emphasizes practical application in various contexts, fostering critical thinking, problem-solving, and cultural understanding.

Curriculum Topics:

• Composition: Covers various composition types (narrative, descriptive, factual, letters), structure (introduction, body, conclusion), creative writing, orthographic accuracy, and style.
• Language Usage and Registers: Includes figurative expressions, homophones, synonyms, antonyms, counting, relations, ancient and modern communication methods, directions, announcements, and appropriate registers for different situations.
• Comprehension and Summary: Focuses on understanding stories, news, songs, poems, folktales, reports, graphs, pictures, maps, puzzles, and cartoons. Developing skills in answering questions, inferring meaning, and summarizing information.
• Language Structure: Covers parts of speech, construction of nouns, pronouns, qualificatives, copulatives, verbs, adverbs, conjunctives, ideophones, and question forms.

Literature in Indigenous Languages

This component explores various literary works, including prose, drama, poetry, and orature (Indigenous Knowledge Systems). It aims to develop literary appreciation, critical analysis, and creative writing skills, fostering an understanding of cultural heritage and values.

Curriculum Topics:

• Background to the Study of Literature: Introduces the definition of literature, genres (drama, prose, poetry), Indigenous Knowledge Systems (orature), and the significance of literature in society.
• Historical Background to Texts: Covers author biographies, sources of inspiration, and their perception of the world.
• Storyline, Plot, and Subplots: Focuses on outlining storylines, illustrating plots, understanding plot development, and analyzing the relationship between plots and subplots.
• Conflict and Conflict Management: Explores types of conflicts, their causes, conflict lines, build-up, management, and significance in plot development.
• Setting: Examines setting in terms of place, time, chronological order of events, and its significance.
• Themes and Sub-themes: Covers identifying and discussing main and sub-themes, emerging issues, and their relationship to the environment.
• Characterisation: Focuses on describing characters, their roles, relationships, development, cultural values, beliefs, morals, and personal responses to them.
• Literary Techniques: Explores linguistic devices, titling, narrative techniques (interior monologue, flashback, flash-forward), poetic devices, and their impact on the reader.
• Heritage, Cultural Values, and Beliefs: Examines heritage sites, cultural values, beliefs, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, cultural diversity, and their importance in society.
• Lessons in Texts: Focuses on identifying and discussing lessons learned and their relation to cross-cutting themes.
• Creative Works: Covers various creative works, their production, presentation, exhibition, publication, copyright issues, and marketing strategies.

Assessment

Both components are assessed through continuous (30%) and summative (70%) assessments. Continuous assessment includes practical assignments, theory tests, projects, and oral/aural activities. Summative assessment involves written exams covering composition, comprehension, language usage, registers, and language structure for Indigenous Languages, and poetry, orature, drama, and prose for Literature in Indigenous Languages. Details of the assessment scheme, including weighting and paper descriptions, are outlined in the respective syllabi.