Luganda orthography and composition writing: A case study of selected secondary schools in Mubende District

Abstract

This study was to investigate the relationship between Orthography and Composition writing in selected secondary schools in Mubende District. The study specifically was to implore the nature of cacography in the learners’ written compositions, the factors responsible for cacography, and to find out the possible solutions to cacography in Luganda written compositions at the ordinary level. Self-constructed questionnaires were used to collect data from both teachers and ordinary level learners of Luganda regarding the teaching, learning and performance of learners in orthography. Observation of teachers in the classroom situation was also carried out to get additional data. To analyze the results, the researcher employed both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The results revealed that the cacography learners of Luganda commit include; substitution errors, addition errors, distortion errors, capitalization and omission errors; almost all stakeholders of education; teachers, students, parents, education officers are responsible for the existence of cacography. The factors responsible for cacography include; carelessness, ignoring of orthography teaching by some teachers, the widening gap among education stakeholders and the poor methods of teaching among others, and all stakeholders need to work together to eliminate cacography among ordinary level learners of Luganda. In view of the findings, the researcher concluded that; cacography is still a very big challenge to both ordinary level learners and teachers of Luganda. It is not only learners with a problem of spelling words in Luganda, but also teachers. The wrong spellings (Cacography) affect learners’ scoring in both papers; 335/1 and 335/2. The researcher therefore, recommended that the Ministry of Education and Sports should see to it that both teachers and students are helped to get the ability and competence to spell Luganda words correctly. The researcher recommended the provision of enough and appropriate teaching learning materials, strengthening supervision and inspection tools, and calling for refresher seminars and workshops to better the teaching and learning of orthography.