Senior Secondary Setswana is a two year first language cause, designed to fit into the Senior Secondary Programme Aims which aim to link the Three Year Junior Secondary, from below and tertiary education to the top. It is a single subject course with content made up of seven domains in all.

The content has been divided into modules such that there is one module per term adding up to six modules for the whole course.

Each module contains all the seven domains thus emphasising the holistic approach advocated for the teaching of Setswana.

Each domain consists of topics that describe the content area; general objectives that describe desired outcomes in broad terms and specific objectives that focus expected performance; conditions, standard and criterion of performance.

The subject aims are directly drawn from the Senior Secondary Programme aims whereby those programme aims deemed to have a direct bearing on Setswana have been selected and translated into subject aims.

Aims of the Senior Secondary Setswana

The study of Setswana aims to:

1. equip students with writing, reading, listening, speaking skills which will develop confidence and ability to assess their personal strengths and weaknesses.
2. develop in learners, self esteem, confidence, pride and appreciation of the national cultural heritage.
3. provide learners with a range of experiences through the study of literature, including the moral justification for appropriate choices in life.
4. provide knowledge of communication and study skills including skills to generate technical terminology appropriate for different technological situations.
5. equip learners with knowledge of cultural practices including those that promote conservation of the environment and implications for the future.
6. instil in learners, positive attitudes towards their cultural heritage in order that they may adopt the virtues and strengths inherent in their
7. equip learners with the following foundation skills:

• • problem solving
  • critical thinking
  • communication

8. encourage learners to acquire knowledge, attitudes, values and practices that will ensure good family and health practices that are conducive to a productive life.
9. encourage learners to embrace a culture of learning.

Rationale

Setswana encourages students to investigate their cultural heritage for values and virtues that are necessary for survival within the modern world. The strengths and virtues inherited from culture are relevant in preparing students for the world of work  as well as providing solutions to day to day problems with regard to preservation of self, environment and citizenry.

Setswana creates opportunity for appreciation and respect for the wealth of culture maintaining in Botswana.

It provides solid background knowledge and skills needed by students in the acquisition and mastery of other languages.

The programme follows the communicative approach whereby the learner’s abilities are developed not so much by the time they spend rehearsing grammatical patterns but on the opportunities they are given to interpret, to express and to negotiate meaning in real life situations.

Culture

Culture is found in the physical materials used for different purposes. It is also found in ideas, knowledge and beliefs held by Batswana. Patterns of behaviour (customs, tradition and crafts) also portray culture. Botswana has a variety of cultures all of which change with time.

The cultural section of Senior Secondary School level will provide learners with an opportunity to investigate further into their cultural heritage. This will provide learners with insight into the past practices which they can evaluate and compare with the present in order to judge

Domains

The study of Setswana has the following components: Communication skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing; Study Skills, Literature and Culture.

Communication Skills:

The bias of the syllabus is on communicative competence such that language structure is taught in conjunction with communication skills that enforce appropriate use of language to meet communicative purposes. The communication skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing are taught through linguistics competence; socio-linguistic competence, discourse competence and strategic competence.

Study Skills

Included in the syllabus are study skills, entailing reference and research skills. The approach to teaching these is a practical and basic one whereby acquired skills are immediately put to use, especially in conjunction with the cultural section below. It is obvious that there are not many books written on culture yet, hence the students need the skills to collect their own information from relevant sources in order to process and present it for term papers/projects. Details of these are fully given in the teacher’s guide.

Literature:

Literature provides learners with an opportunity to explore literary aspects in order to acquaint themselves with the philosophy and values of Batswana. Instructional materials used for this section are by design chosen for their illustrative purposes i.e. prose, drama and poetry which emphasise the concepts of self-reliance, democracy, self-sufficiency, development, tolerance and therefore social harmony. Instructional

materials will be prescribed from both traditional and modern literature.

Assessment Procedures

The Setswana Senior Secondary Syllabus assessment is skill oriented as is the content. The text books used in schools are mainly for practice as by the end of the course any course relevant material may be used to test the students’ skills.

There will be two papers written at the end of the course Some objectives that are emphasised do not lend themselves to pen an paper testing; in particular listening skills and cultural heritage content. These objectives have to be assessed during the course. Guidance on appropriate procedures and moderation will be provided by the national examining body.

The teachers guide will also provide guidance on how to assess projects and term papers for course work. The students profiles for projects, term papers and other course work will be prepared in conjunction with the relevant examining body.

Content Layout

All the seven Senior Secondary Setswana domains occur in each and every module. A module in this case represents the amount of related content in a space of time, which is one term. Each module is numbered according to the position of the term it stands for, thus module one will be for term 1 etc. Each domain is also coded such that it retains its number throughout the document. For example Listening is always .1, speaking .2, reading .3writing .4, study skills, .5, literature .6,and culture .7. The third unit represents the general objectiveand the last one the specific objective. Thus 1.1.1.1 means that you are looking at the first specific objective of the first general objective under listening in term 1.

Language content being made up of skills and other processes that stretch throughout the course means that some objectives will appear in part in one module while the other part is in a different module further down the course. For example, 1.4.4.3 a) on page 14 and 3.4.2.2 on page 23 under essay writing. This