Interactive pedagogy elevating learners as producers of knowledge in the isiZulu classroom

Abstract

The modern era demands a radical pedagogical shift and a complete overhaul of traditional teaching methods that flaunt teachers as the sole producers of knowledge and learners as impetuous consumers of knowledge. In this article I propose interactive teaching methods and strategies as the pedagogical approach to be advocated by 21st-century isiZulu teachers so that learners are empowered on all cognitive levels as producers of knowledge. This pedagogical shift in the isiZulu classroom has the power to revoke the historical debt of the marginalisation of indigenous African languages, which native speakers of these languages inherited from the apartheid education system of South Africa. Used as the guiding theoretical framework, the transformative learning theory is set to challenge the status quo and disrupt the current instructional classroom practice that is regressive to change demanded by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The participatory action research methodology, reflecting the encounters with student teachers at a teacher education institution in South Africa, provides a critical analysis of how interactive teaching methods and strategies can be used in an authentic classroom environment.