Transcribing and Transforming: Towards Inclusive, Multilingual Child Speech Training for South African Speech-Language Therapy Students

Phonetic transcription is an important skill for speech and language therapists [1] and much has been written about the development of the skill for students in undergraduate training programmes [2, 3]. Knowledge of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) [4] and broad or narrow phonetic transcription is useful when analysing disordered speech, as it enables consideration of the separate units of speech in a linear sequence, and, in later stages of analysis, to identify and prioritise aspects of speech for therapy [5]. A recent survey of 759 UK speech and language therapists found that 75% made use of phonetic transcription, with 61% using it frequently [1]. No such data is available for South African therapists; the figures may well be similar, although Munson and Brinkman [6] caution that many fail to master phonetic transcription and resort to binary correct/incorrect systems that are less useful.

As conveners and lecturers of the Child Speech/Speech Sound Disorders course at our university, our aim is to develop speech-language therapy (SLT) students who have an understanding of the complexities of children’s speech development and the difficulties that may occur in this process. In addition to knowledge about frameworks and theories underpinning children’s speech development, we strive for students to have the necessary skills to assess and manage children with speech difficulties as well as the opportunity to develop these skills in parallel clinical training. Phonetic transcription is a skill that some individuals seem to acquire relatively easily, but for others it presents more challenges [2]. In the survey by Knight et al. [1], 30% of clinicians found learning phonetic transcription a challenge, in contrast to 35% who reported that it was quite easy for them.

In addition to these fundamental aspects of training likely to be very similar in SLT programmes around the world, we are faced with some challenges more specific to our setting in South Africa, a low-to-middle-income country with an overburdened health system and quadruple burden of disease (epidemics relating to maternal, newborn, and child health; HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis [TB]); non-communicable diseases; and violence and injury), a failing education system, and widespread poverty and social inequality [7]. The SLT students graduating from our 4-year degree programme need to be skilled generalists capable of working in remote locations, setting up services, and treating the full spectrum of clients in a competent way. In South Africa, all training programmes are 4-year bachelor (undergraduate) degree programmes. There is no pre-clinical, qualifying degree, and postgraduate qualifications are then optional for additional research or specialist training but are not needed to register with the regulatory body. The SLT training programmes (including curricula, teaching staff, and client population) have been shaped by colonialism and reflect largely white, middle-class female values, with acceptance of English and Afrikaans dominance [8]. There is a great need for further transformation of the SLT profession in South Africa, and much has been written about the challenges faced by therapists working here, the relevance of the profession in this country, and the need to become more responsive to the population in a way that is evidence-based, ethical, and culturally and linguistically appropriate [8-11].

In higher education (HE), more generally, national student-driven movements such as “#RhodesMustFall” and “#FeesMustFall” in 2015 and 2016, respectively, highlighted student dissatisfaction with the pace of transformation in the country, and galvanised institutions to action to start addressing some of these issues. Although the “#FeesMustFall” campaign started in response to a funding crisis in HE, the issues that were subsequently highlighted included not only funding, but also a need for HE to be “Africanised” or “decolonised.” Decolonisation in the academic setting entails the development of new theories and the expansion of existing ones based on empirical evidence comprising data from the African context, to be able to reform and enhance the curriculum to reflect alternative theories and local practices [12].

Student-led protests have also called for reviews of language policies within HE, a call that has a direct implication for South African speech and language therapists whose focus is often on English and Afrikaans with other languages excluded. The country is linguistically and culturally diverse with 11 official languages recognised by the constitution and many more being spoken. Therapists need to be able to offer services to people who speak all of these languages, a challenge since many students and practitioners are only proficient in a small number of them. Even where students can speak several languages, this may not always help, as the distribution of languages is geographical. For example, a student who is proficient in Sesotho, Setswana, and English may still struggle when assessing a child in Afrikaans or isiZulu. To help support SLT students in developing their language competencies, students at our university attend a year-long (2-semester) course focusing on the main languages of the Western Cape (Afrikaans or isiXhosa, depending on their language background) and South African sign language. These courses, embedded in the 4-year degree programme, equip students with basic conversational skills in these languages, but further engagement is needed for students to feel confident to use the languages in their assessment and therapy. Furthermore, the curriculum cannot include all the languages that are spoken in different geographic regions.

The issue of language mismatch between clients and therapists is exacerbated by the historic exclusion of black African language-speaking students in university training programmes. Even more than 20 years after the country’s new democracy, there remains an imbalance in the demographics of the profession and its students when compared to the demographics of the country, although the profile of students is gradually changing. There is a dearth of speech and language therapists and appropriately trained specialists who can speak local languages and understand local cultural practices, with only an estimated 15% of therapists able to offer assessment and therapy in local African languages [9].

Working with young children in clinics, schools, and communities requires a contextually relevant framework for understanding the process of language acquisition across a range of languages. Clinicians need a nuanced understanding of language and its relationship to culture. They must be skilled in culturally and linguistically appropriate assessment and interventions with children, understanding the difficulties that may occur and the ways to address them. Effectiveness in this context means working in a respectful, culturally and linguistically appropriate way to achieve outcomes seen as relevant by a child and his/her family and community. In South Africa, it remains typical for speech and language therapists to assess their clients using English or Afrikaans assessments developed and normed in the USA, UK, or -Australia [9], in some cases even when English (or Afrikaans) is only the client’s third or fourth language. Decisions are often made about a child’s abilities and needs based on comparisons with these norms, irrespective of the fact that the child may not be a first-language speaker of these particular languages.

Against this political backdrop and our work with SLT students, we asked whether the skill of phonetic transcription has the potential to help these students engage with diverse languages beyond their own, ultimately helping the profession to transform. Our objectives were to describe:

(a) the local context in terms of a potential role for phonetic transcription in a decolonised curriculum; (b) transcription in the Child Speech curriculum and its value as a tool for engaging with multiple languages; and (c) participant observations regarding transcription in this course based on written reflective logs kept by the 3 course facilitators.

A descriptive, exploratory, case-study design [13] was used as such an approach is suited to exploration of a phenomenon within its context using a variety of data sources [14]. This type of case study emphasises contextual conditions because they are relevant to the phenomenon under study, and the boundaries may not be clear between the phenomenon and the context. Our unit of study was delimited to a second-year course, Child Speech, focusing on the course as it was taught over the past 3 years. Hartley [15] notes that case-study research aims “to provide an analysis of the context and processes which illuminate the theoretical issues being studied” (p. 323). Case studies have an important function in generating hypotheses and building theory [15]. The study consisted of 3 stages. In the first stage, we explored the relevant literature to try to understand the role of phonetic transcription in the Child Speech curriculum and the concurrent challenges faced by SLT training programmes in South Africa in the light of a transformational agenda. In the second part, we focused on the curriculum itself, in particular the teaching and learning activities that pertain to phonetic transcription. Finally, we drew on participant observations from the course facilitators who carried out these activities. The 3 course facilitators recorded and shared with each other their reflections on the Child Speech curriculum and the activities relating to transcription.

Our university is 1 of 7 in South Africa that has an SLT undergraduate training programme. We 3 authors of this paper are core members of the teaching team who have developed the course curriculum for Child Speech and presented it over the past 3 years. This course is part of the second year of the degree in SLT and runs for 1 semester (from January to May, i.e., 48 contact hours). It builds on basic phonetic transcription skills taught in the introductory linguistics course in the first year of study, and links in with the language courses taught to students in the second year -(Afrikaans or isiXhosa, depending on the students’ existing proficiency in these languages) and the sign language course in the third year. Concurrent to this course is the Child Language course, which focuses on aspects of children’s language development beyond articulation and phonology. We typically have about 45–50 SLT students per year group. The 3 course facilitators (the authors of this paper) are all speech and language therapists experienced in working with local children and phonetic transcription. One (O.M.) is a first-language Setswana speaker who is also proficient in most of the local languages, including English. The other 2 are first-language English speakers with basic competence in isiXhosa.

The main method of data collection was document review. We collated and described relevant documents to build a picture of the case under study. The documents were used to describe the context and the curriculum. For the context, we searched local and international guidelines relating to SLT competencies, and reviewed language policies pertinent to HE in South Africa and other documents relating to transformation in this area. We were particularly interested in finding and describing documents that specifically mentioned phonetic transcription, or those which focused on transformation in South Africa with a focus on languages and language diversity. Regarding the curriculum, we described curriculum documents for the Child Speech course with a particular focus on teaching and learning of transcription. Finally, we included course instructors’ observations based on their reflective logs. Our approach to teaching this course follows a team-teaching model with 3 lecturers working together to plan and teach the course. Intrinsic to this approach is making reflective notes after classes, and then sharing these in discussion with the team with a view to improving the course. For this project, we focused on the individual reflections brought by the 3 lecturers to these discussions, and particularly those related to phonetic transcription.

For each of the 3 objectives, relevant documents were reviewed and analysed using conventional content analysis, with the aim of distilling key themes from each in relation to our project, as based on the guidelines for document review described by Terre Blanche et al. [16]. The researchers immersed themselves in the documents, removed sections that were irrelevant, and focused on distilling key themes that related to phonetic transcription, or transformation and language diversity. The data extracted was reviewed by a second researcher and disagreements were resolved by discussion.

Three main documents were found that are of relevance to our project. They are described in this section and include an international position paper for speech and language therapists working with multilingual children with speech difficulties [17], A South African draft policy for language in HE [18], and a university-specific document [19] that presents a draft framework for curriculum revision. These documents related most closely to our focus on children’s speech and phonetic transcription, language diversity in South Africa, and current challenges in HE. We believe that the context of our work will be better understood by distilling their key messages.

The Multilingual Children with Speech Sound Disorders: Position Paper [17] is an aspirational guideline that sets out to describe the principles and practice needed when working with multilingual children with speech difficulties. This document makes specific mention of phonetic transcription, which is seen to have a key role in the assessment and management of multilingual children with speech difficulties. The position paper notes:

“Speech and language therapists receive sufficient training in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA, International Phonetic Association, 2005), the Extensions to the IPA … and prosody to ensure they are competent in transcribing speech, both typical and disordered, in their own languages and the languages of the children within their communities. Specific training should also address multilingual speech acquisition compared with monolingual speech acquisition in cross-linguistic contexts… and apply this knowledge to the identification of children with speech sound disorders” (p. 3).

Although we also reviewed local SLT guidelines, phonetic transcription was not specifically mentioned as a key skill, although the assessment of children’s articulation and phonology is detailed as an important aspect of the scope of SLT practice [20]. Guidelines from the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists [21], the American Speech Language Hearing Association [22], and the UK Health Professions Council [23] indicate that the therapists must be able to analyse their clients’ speech using phonetic transcription when appropriate. The position paper emphasises that therapists should be able to transcribe in their own language/s as well as languages in which they are not proficient, i.e., this is not a language-specific skill. Training is needed to facilitate the development of the skill, and prosody should be a focus along with segmental aspects.

Moving our attention to language policy in South -Africa, the draft Revised Language Policy for Higher Education [18], published in 2017, is relevant for HE in general and also for speech and language therapists. The policy acknowledges the failure of HE in South Africa to -establish multilingualism as a day-to-day part of institutional life as well as seeking to address the underdevelopment of indigenous African languages in HE. Relevant for speech and language therapists, it is noted that the policy seeks to address:

“the role of higher education in preparing sufficient language teachers, interpreters, translators and other language practitioners to serve the needs of our multilingual society” (p. 13).

Furthermore, it sets out to:

“ensure transformation in higher education through enhancing the status and roles of previously marginalized languages to foster institutional inclusivity and social cohesion” (p. 12).

The policy is underpinned by values enshrined in the country’s constitution that emphasise parity of esteem for all official languages, and the encouragement of an environment where multilingualism is celebrated and viewed as a resource rather than a problem.

The third document that is pertinent to our context is our own university’s draft Curriculum Change Framework [19]. This framework was drafted in response to the growing awareness among staff and students of the need to change our university into a more inclusive learning environment and one that celebrates African knowledge, languages, and its people. The framework offers some suggestions for moving towards a decolonised curriculum, although it suggests there are no easy answers and that deep reflection and wide consultation are key starting points in what must necessarily be an ongoing process of change. The framework describes the context of the “#FeesMustFall” student-led protests and notes that contexts that are not socially just and inclusive provide the conditions needed for students to exercise resistance, protest, and contestation. The authors go on to say:

“In the South African context, traditional ways of reviewing or reforming curricula placed a heavy focus on content, programmes, levels, years of study, selection and sequencing, as well as graduate attributes. The student protests were the first rupture with this tradition and focused on competing perspectives of knowledge and how different knowledges are valued. Curricula have strong links with social practices by underscoring what is valued and legitimated as credible knowledge by society. It is not surprising that in the student protests of 2015 and 2016, the traditional curriculum came into the spotlight, with an explicit focus on knowledge and how knowledge serves to include and exclude. Questions that were raised by students and became the focus of the (Curriculum Change Working Group) engagements across (the university) were: What knowledge? Whose knowledge? What gets privileged? Whose interests dominate?”

The document describes the outcomes of meetings with students at the time of the protests and the demands that they brought to the fore. Particularly relevant to our work are issues related to language, assessment, and pedagogy. Some students feel alienated in the classroom as the content taught has little bearing on their lived realities or experiences. Students commented on a lack of engagement with African languages on campus, asking why English takes precedence while indigenous languages are less valued, especially considering that approximately 70% of the population have access to health care in the public sector, and that most have African languages as their first language. Learning through indigenous local languages must not, however, be limited to mere translation of English concepts; it should also entail the development of African languages as part of knowledge production. It should be noted that this draft framework has received mixed feedback from staff and students at the university and has not yet been adopted as an official statement of the university’s pedagogical values.

These 3 documents highlighted important contextual factors. Phonetic transcription, although not specifically mentioned as a key skill in South African documents, is regarded as a key ability for speech and language therapists in international guidelines of best practice. The particular value of transcription when working with multilingual children who speak languages not known to the therapist is stated here, giving impetus to our project. At a national level, the South African government has updated its language in HE policy, and the draft version of this document calls for a greater recognition of local indigenous languages in HE. It calls, in particular, for the fostering of professionals whose work centers on language; although they are not specifically mentioned, this may be seen to include speech and language therapists. Similarly, at a more micro-level, the UCT-specific curriculum framework document emphasises the need for the university to change at many levels and in a variety of ways (beyond the scope of this paper), but language takes a central place amongst the concerns with a stated need by students to include a wider view of languages beyond English.

Our curriculum is underpinned by the principles of constructive alignment [24, 25], defined as the application of constructivist learning theory to the design of curricula. It is a form of outcomes-based education in which intended learning outcomes are clearly defined and drive the rest of the educational process [26], with courses aligned vertically throughout all 4 years of the BSc. programme, as well as horizontally within years. This course follows on from first-year courses that focus on linguistics in general, and include an introduction to phonetics and phonetic transcription as well as a course entitled “Human Communication Development” (see [25] for more detail), which introduces students to the basic principles of speech and language development throughout the lifespan. The overarching learning outcome of the Child Speech course is to describe, identify, assess, and manage speech difficulties in children. There are 2 specific learning outcomes of the course that are especially relevant for our discussion on transcription, namely:

Outcome 3: Describe and discuss principles of speech assessment of children in context.

Outcome 4: Describe and discuss comprehensive management of children with speech difficulties in context.

Here, we focus only on these 2 intended learning outcomes of the course, which are presented in Table 1, together with a summary of their aligned content, teaching and learning activities, assessment, and focus on attitudes. We have provided examples of 4 teaching and learning activities used to achieve the stated outcomes, in particular those that have relevance for phonetic transcription.

This activity is part of learning outcomes 3 and 4 (Table 1). The specific outcomes of the activity are for students to develop their basic vocabulary for assessment and therapy purposes in local languages, be able to describe the sound structure of local languages, and accurately transcribe words from local languages produced by first-language speakers.

Students were divided into small groups (5–6 students) based on their languages. We tried to cover as many different languages as possible and have at least 1 first-language speaker leading each group. In a few cases, where a language did not have a first-language speaker in the class, a student who was competent in the language was the group leader. Other group members comprised a mix of students with some or no knowledge of the language. The groups (e.g., Afrikaans, isiXhosa, Setswana, Sesotho, Sepedi, isiZulu, and French) were required to generate a list of 12 words from the given language which could serve as a core vocabulary list for a speech and language therapist to use to illustrate key points about the sound structure of the language. Students were asked to include words that could be easily represented by objects; that young children would know and have experienced; that, together, cover a range of consonants and vowels of the language; and which include a range of long and shorter words. Figure 1 shows an example of a simple isiZulu word. Having produced the word list, the students were then asked to make sure that all students in the group could pronounce the words, know what they mean, and transcribe them. IPA charts were referred to, and discussions focused on IPA symbols that were new to students as well as particular sounds that some students were learning to say for the first time. Each group was then asked to present their language to the rest of the class by sharing information about the language and associated historical and cultural facts. The small core word list was introduced with each group being effective in teaching the rest of the class about the words, their meaning, and production, and using phonetic transcription as an integral part of the activity. They also had to list the phonetic inventory, explain typical development in that language (if such information was available or through their own impressions and experiences), and discuss any considerations that speech and language therapists might need to be aware of when making decisions about whether or not a child has a speech sound disorder.

This activity is part of learning outcomes 3 and 4 (Table 1). The specific outcomes of the activity are for students to develop their phonetic transcription skills.

Students move through a series of graded activities to develop their abilities in perception and transcription. They start by working in pairs and are given a list of English words which one student says and the other transcribes. Facilitators walk around the lecture room and encourage students to listen to how words are produced rather than how they expect them to be said. The students swop roles, and, given the diversity of the student group, this then gives opportunities to note similarities and differences between the different accents and leads to a discussion of differences, particularly in vowel lengths and voicing features. Following this activity, students are given an opportunity to listen to recordings of children’s single word and connected speech. This is slightly more challenging since there are no visual cues, students are not aware of the targets, and the prosodic features of connected speech can be more challenging than single words. Students work in pairs and are encouraged to listen multiple times, and then discuss and debate their transcriptions. The activity concludes with students being given a model answer by an experienced speech and language therapist and cross-checks being made with their own versions. Students then have the opportunity to transcribe words and phrases from a broader range of languages such as Setswana and isiXhosa. In the case of the Setswana speech activity, for example, students would be reminded about what they had learnt about Setswana in Activity 1, and then one of the course instructors, e.g., O.M., a first-language Setswana speaker, produces single words and short phrases for students to transcribe. As for the first activity, the task was not solely about phonetic transcription; students learnt what the words meant (if they did not know) and were encouraged to produce the words.

This activity is linked to learning outcome 3 (Table 1). The specific outcome of the activity is for students to be able to use an isiXhosa speech assessment and develop their own speech assessment materials.

Students are introduced to “Masincokoleni” (Let’s Chat) an isiXhosa speech assessment for preschool children [27]. It consists of a series of pictures that children are asked to name, and it was developed in a user-friendly way so that speech and language therapists who are not proficient in isiXhosa would be able to administer and score the test results. Figure 2 gives an example of the way in which phonetic transcription has been used to achieve this user-friendly approach. Students are given an opportunity to use this assessment, either with each other in a role-play situation, or when working with isiXhosa speakers in their clinical practice. Once students are familiar with the assessment and the principles of its development, they are given a project that requires them to develop similar picture-based materials for assessment of a local language. Students may work together in small groups and are encouraged to “play to their strengths” by using whatever language skills they have and sharing these in the class. The assessments are then presented to the class and a critique by class members is given.

This activity is linked to learning outcome 4 (Table 1). The specific outcome of the activity is for students to be able to interpret phonetically transcribed data presented for mono- and bilingual children, and then use this information to develop a management plan for therapy.

Students are presented with brief case-history information about a child together with phonetically transcribed data for the child’s language/s. Students were asked to describe the child’s phonetic inventory, detail any phonological processes used, and make suggestions for long- and short-term aims to address the child’s difficulties. These cases reflect what is typical for South -Africa, with many of the children being bilingual and a range of languages being covered. Students are encouraged to look back at Activity 1 for information about the languages. Table 2 shows an example of an activity of this nature.

The above activities were initially selected as ways to promote students’ transcription skills. Focusing on Table 1, it can be seen how they can also be used to achieve broader learning outcomes relating to the assessment and management of children with speech difficulties. In an aligned curriculum, activities must contribute towards outcomes, at the same time as attaining the delineated knowledge, skills, and attitude. Table 1 shows the many different attitudinal components that we associate with these learning outcomes. After a few iterations of our transcription activities in this course, we realised that these activities were powerful promoters of attitudinal aspects. For example, explicitly introducing and working with language materials from marginalised languages helps students to switch their perspective from their own limitations to what the client needs and can expect. Students became more aware of their role as agents of change (developing new resources and promoting the use of multilingualism) and started to see phonetic transcription as an SLT-specific tool that might be part of their problem-solving process when working with unfamiliar languages.

Reflections from the teaching team suggest that the activities described are effective in helping students to develop their phonetic transcription skills in the context of learning about children’s speech development and difficulties. Students move from a heavy reliance on their IPA charts to a more automatic approach to transcription, although vowels and some consonants (e.g., the clicks of isiXhosa) often require deliberation and debate. The teaching team considered that many of the activities described appear to be very much about “doing,” but that the very neatly defined skill of phonetic transcription seems to be the catalyst for other, often attitudinal, outcomes in the lecture room. All students are at a similar stage in their development of transcription skills, but they differ in their language abilities in all the different languages of this country including English, the language of learning and teaching at our university. Phonetic transcription levels the playing field and, from this equal footing, it seems that students are led to wanting to share their languages, be more open to learning from each other, and also engage with what they do not know. Many of our activities move beyond the teaching of phonetics and phonetic transcription to making links with the lexicon and actually learning the language as might be done in a conversational language class.

“In the simplest sense it provides a way for the students to be aware that other languages contain different phonemes (like clicks and other consonants). Getting them to transcribe another language gets them to think of the phonemes in that language. It also helps them ‘access’ the pronunciation of a language – for example if they have no idea how the word ‘ugqirha’ is pronounced from the orthography, the phonetic transcription allows them to work it out.”

“I thought it would be a good idea to make students aware of differences in phonological structures of various languages since many times English tools and norms are used as guidelines. This was also an attempt to decolonise the curriculum by bringing in other languages that are often marginalised. I wanted to encourage students to start thinking about the impact of relying on tools that aren’t always linguistically and culturally appropriate for our context. This could help in encouraging an interest in research that is beneficial for our profession.”

“This was a successful activity that engaged all students in the class; the class was abuzz and discussions were lively. Focusing on a small set of words is not too daunting. Students have a chance to demonstrate their expertise in their home language, and other students have the opportunity to learn from this.”

“Some of the students are eager to learn more about the languages and how they can assist children with speech sound disorders who speak multiple languages. There was a general awareness that multilingualism changes the way you approach assessment and management of speech sound disorders. There were some who were very keen – they approached me to ask more about norms of different languages.”

Phonetic transcription is not an easy skill for all students to master, and some students are daunted by the course content as well as the challenges of phonetic transcription and being exposed to new languages. Furthermore, there are some students who are not yet ready or willing to see the need or value to look beyond their own first language. When students do not see the bigger picture of what the people in their country need, they are not likely to be motivated to develop expertise beyond their own language. In this regard, one of the facilitators noted:

“I feel like we’re still battling with issues that this generation of speech and language therapists should be dealing with better.”

SLT students in South Africa are faced with the challenge of a demanding curriculum that requires them to acquire a range of knowledge and develop a core set of skills to practise effectively as a clinician in their country. In addition to these profession-specific challenges, students are in a specific social context where change is urgently needed (and demanded) and, irrespective of their background, they are all looking to see their own language and culture acknowledged and celebrated in the curriculum. Since language and the teaching of language-related skills lies at the heart of our SLT curriculum, the Child Speech course is fertile ground for including a range of languages and practising the fundamental skills of our profession. Phonetic transcription is a skill that we set out to develop in this course, but we also use this activity to introduce different languages, to learn to produce new words, and to make sense of new languages. In a sense, we have a class full of (adult) language learners who must develop their language abilities in a range of new languages. At the same time, we are training them to be speech and language therapists; in this role they will be able to help their clients develop language. Some psycholinguistic approaches to language learning and reading emphasise the way in which a lexical store is built up over time, by storing information that is related to words’ meaning and pronunciation and the spelling of particular items [28]. In the Child Speech course, we considered that students learning basic proficiency in some of the local languages need to go through this process, and we set about developing their lexical stores for certain languages using word meanings, opportunities to produce and spell words, and the support of an SLT-specific tool, IPA. Students emerge not only with the ability to competently transcribe speech (irrespective of the language), but also an increased awareness and proficiency in some languages and a sense of how phonetic transcription can help them to produce and work with these languages.

Our work was not intended to be limited to the development of skills. We also set out to develop knowledge of the languages of South Africa and to change student attitudes. We want to prepare SLT students better for their practice in a multilingual environment, be more inclusive in the languages that we use in class, and also avoid marginalizing languages as has happened in the past and which has led to intense unhappiness and contestation. Attitudinal aspects included empowering students to focus on their own language abilities, beyond English, and inviting them to share their knowledge with the members of the class who do not share their level. Padgitt et al. [29] made a similar point, noting that it is possible to change students’ attitudes and values regarding phonetic transcription, even if their knowledge of the content does not change a great deal.

Our approach of using phonetic transcription to encourage language diversity in the classroom brings with it some challenges. For many students, English is perceived as the most important language at the university and there is a hesitance to use their home language in the university environment. This has been clearly seen when we have invited students to submit a project in any language of their choice; very few students opt to submit work in languages other than English. Despite the calls from students to include a more representative range of languages in the classroom, in practical terms, they often seem hesitant to move away from English. This phenomenon may be linked to perceived power relations at the university as well as a lack of technical terms and related literature for many of the local languages. These are aspects that should be explored in future projects with students sharing their perspectives.

Much has been written in South Africa about the need for speech and language therapists to work with all the people of the country in all of their languages, and that treatment should not be refused where the client and therapist do not have a language in common [9, 11]. However, there are no widely available practical guidelines for doing this work, making it difficult for the therapist to deal with such situations. The tutorial recently published by McLeod and Verdon [30]is a very helpful start. We considered that the area of phonology may be a good starting point for therapists who find themselves in this situation, because the nature of a phonetic inventory is finite and learning a basic core vocabulary to enable work with young children is a realistic goal. The core vocabulary activity described in our first activity illustrates this point and was an attempt to move students forward in a problem-solving approach. This approach is linked to communal constructivism [24], a constructivist-based approach to learning, where materials and resources are built together by a class as part of a learning activity and then shared amongst the group and used for future learning. Our strategy is that SLT students would be able to draw on the core vocabulary word lists (Activity 1) created for the different languages when faced with a child who speaks that language, both during their university studies but also beyond this into their careers. This type of project also highlights the language expertise in the class, so that students become aware of this and can request support when needed, particularly in the clinical years. However, this identification of expertise must be balanced carefully because students cannot be expected to serve as translators for their classmates to the detriment of their own work. The ultimate plan has to be to empower all students to develop their language skills.

The scaffolded approach to phonetic transcription is not a novel one. Other authors [3, 6] have used a carefully graded approach to developing confidence in SLT students learning phonetic transcription. While our approach was aimed at moving from solely English transcription to transcription in a range of other local languages, other authors have more systematically manipulated other variables such as the mode of presentation and number of talkers. Video stimuli offer both visual and auditory cues which is how most speech perception takes place [6], although transcribing with auditory information only and with multiple talkers are also advocated for developing the skill of phonetic transcription. There is also the opportunity to carefully select items for transcription that highlight contrasts that may be challenging for students; Padgitt et al. [29] used this approach and it can be extended to include a range of languages.

The activities presented in this paper were developed over time, and they continue to develop with each year of the course as feedback from students and facilitators is received. Many of the activities rely on the resources that the students bring to the class. For example, the success of Activity 1 is dependent on the careful composition of the groups. In some classes, expertise from a particular language has been lacking. While we are hopeful that our class demographics will continue to become increasingly diverse, it would also be helpful to build a database of recorded speech samples that includes both adult targets and children’s speech so that students will be able to have access to video recordings. This will enable them to practise their transcription and production skills in their own time, without having to rely on classmates. Knight [3] used podcasts effectively to give students increased opportunities for exposure and practice with phonetic transcription.

This project has several limitations which will need to be addressed in future work. The notion of investigating transcription as a vehicle for transformation is something that emerged as we worked our way through a semester of this course against the political backdrop of student dissatisfaction with HE in general and a revised national language policy. We have provided information about the context in which the course took place and the activities that we used to develop transcription skills. At the same time, we aimed to move beyond the old ways of working with a focus on English only and no consideration of a wider language diversity and the reality of where our students will be doing their work. Our results are not generalisable beyond our setting and since little has been written about phonetic transcription as a vehicle for transformation, this work is preliminary, speculative, and on a very small scale. Future research should obtain a wider sample of feedback from SLT students, rather than focusing only on the reflections of the facilitators as we have done here. Our preliminary observations described here suggest that phonetic transcription has the potential to encourage SLT students to engage with language diversity in multilingual settings, ultimately helping to foster institutional inclusivity and social cohesion as was set out in the Revised Language Policy for Higher Education in this country [18] and has been an issue at the heart of South African students’ protests in recent years.

The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions to the Child Speech course made by Zenia Jeggo and Zinhle Maphalala, including Figures 1 and 2, respectively, which have been used with their consent. Thanks also to Heather Brookes for discussions about decolonisation which helped to shape our thinking and improve the Child Speech course.

The authors have no ethical conflicts to disclose

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.