Developing children’s early literacy in Zambian preschools: a postcolonial exploration of preschool teachers’ beliefs, understandings and practices

Literacy development among preschool children in former colonised countries has been an issue of concern because of various factors, including teaching strategies and methods which are anchored in Western ideologies of education. This study was conducted to explore preschool teachers’ beliefs and understandings about early literacy and what literacy practices they engage learners in. The study was conducted using Indigenous research methodology. Twenty preschool teachers from Lusaka District were recruited to participate in the study. Results were analysed using thematic analysis. The study established that preschool teachers believed that early literacy starts in the womb before the baby is born. Literacy development then continues until the child goes to school. Although the data showed that preschool teachers believed that using local languages to teach early literacy is effective, it was established in this study that using local languages for initial literacy comes with tensions that need serious attention. The findings further showed that preschool teachers had different definitions and understandings about early literacy. The findings revealed that preschool teachers’ understandings and definitions of early literacy were influenced by their own understandings acquired culturally from their Indigenous knowledge systems (IKS), their education and training background and the Zambian education curriculum and policy guides. The study established that the most common strategies and methods used by preschool teachers include the use of learning corners, learning through participation, phonics, stories, songs, discovery learning, teaching from known to unknown, learner-centred and learning through play. These strategies were grounded in both Western and Indigenous forms of learning in which preschool teachers remain agents of education. Using Indigenous and Western teaching strategies and methods created a third space of learning, described by Gupta (2015) as the third space of pedagogical hybridity. In the third space, children not only acquired academic content based on Western worldviews but they also saw themselves as centred and located people worthy of study. This is contrary to the views perpetuated by the colonial project that Africans are good-for-nothing people. The study has contributed to the scholarship and body of knowledge on the role of Indigenous ways of knowing in formal preschools in Zambia. It has shown that Indigenous ways of knowing can be used as alternatives to Western teaching strategies and methods. The study has further demonstrated the need for African governments and Indigenous researchers to start focussing on researching into how Indigenous knowledges can be applied in literacy and other subject areas in formal academic institutions and in schools. This will help decolonise methodologies and foreground Indigenous methods which are currently layered below Western methods.