TSEBO: Journal of Humanities

The Perception of Ambiguous Sentences by English L2 Speakers

'Mampoi Irene Chele-Mabena — 2021-05-14

This paper explores and compares the perception of lexical and structural ambiguity by English L2 speakers. The study on which it is based used data collected from the National University of Lesotho students in the second, third and fourth years of study. The students were selected from the departments of Law, Nursing, Pastoral Care and Counselling, English and Political Science. A structure is considered perceived if it occurs accurately 90 percent of the time. The study finds that students fail to perceive ambiguous sentences and that their perception of structural ambiguity is better perceived than that of lexical ambiguity.

Supporting vulnerable learners in Lesotho Education System

Paseka Andrew Mosia — 2021-05-14

This article explores a dissonance between the way reports published by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), explain how schools are supported and empowered to be inclusive of learners with barriers to learning and development, and perception that teachers, in one school, have of the support to vulnerable learners. A qualitative approach was used to gather and analyse data, and results indicate that the MOET documents learners' registration annually, including learners with disability and orphans, and spends huge sums of money on bursaries and book subsidies. The Ministry's records also show training of teachers on counselling as it plans to establish support structures from schools to the Ministry headquarters. However, teachers deny receiving any training on counselling and yearn for any form of support from MOET: schools lack systematic methods of assessing learners’ needs, and psycho-social support to learners is not only minimal but also lacks continuity. Teachers mostly focus on their teaching load in overcrowded classes while mostly oblivious of learners’ individual psycho-social needs. It is recommended that the MOET develop clear policy guidelines on psychosocial support to vulnerable learners, provide requisite resources for such support and devise mechanisms to assess efficiency of such support.

Usage, Syntactic Maturity and Syntactic Development of Subordinate Clauses Among NUL Students

'Matšitso Eugenia Maleke — 2021-05-14

Many scholars became interested in looking at the syntactic maturity of students in their writing. In investigating this, they set themselves different measures. The current study explores usage, syntactic maturity and syntactic development of subordinate clauses among the National University of Lesotho (NUL) second and third year English language and Linguistics students. They were requested to perform the task ofwriting an essay on given topic. The findings of the present study reveal that NUL students have a reasonably high level of syntactic maturity in their writing as shown by how they used subordinate clauses. The data also demonstrate that there is no difference between second and third year students as far as the use of subordinate clauses is concerned. The study concludes that one year difference between the two years of study is not a great difference academically, which is why there is no difference in syntactic development in NUL students’ writing as measured through the use of subordinate clauses.