Investigating the Effects of Non-Standard Dialects on the Written Competency of Setswana Home Language Grade 10 Learners

This article investigated the impact of non-standard dialects on Grade 10 learners at the two selected high schools in Winterveldt concerning writing Setswana and how to improve the written competency of Setswana Home Language (HL) learners. The study was conducted at two high schools where 56 participants were selected from Grade 10, with 28 participants from each school. The study employed a qualitative method. In this regard, two focus groups consisting of ten learners each from each school were interviewed. Similarly, class observations, constructive analysis, and text analysis were also used to collect the data. According to the data, it is evident that Non-standard dialects had a significant influence on the written and spoken outputs of the learners and most learners and teachers could not differentiate. The data also suggested that the Setswana written by female learners is better in comparison with how or what the Setswana male learners write. Based on the findings and conclusions the following recommendations can be made: (1)The government and the Department of Education must employ or rather hire native Setswana speakers to teach Setswana home language. (2) When learners do not understand certain aspects of the Setswana classes, teachers must not speak Sepitori to make the learners understand and (3 )The use of non-standard dialects must be minimised in schools to reduce its influence on Setswana. The study findings will provide insights to the Department of Education about the challenges that Setswana L1 learners encounter that prevent them from excelling in written competency of the Setswana home language. This will help in policy implementation. Keywords: Language, Standard Language, Home Language, Non-Standard Dialects