Department of Language, Cultural and Creative Studies
repository.mzuni.ac.mw/handle/123456789/26
2024-03-29T00:35:16ZFacing the Enemy Head-On: The Role of Pasimba Radio Program in Promoting the Fight against HIV and AIDS in Malawi
repository.mzuni.ac.mw/handle/123456789/425
Facing the Enemy Head-On: The Role of Pasimba Radio Program in Promoting the Fight against HIV and AIDS in Malawi
Madula, Precious; Hong, Yu; Kondowe, Wellman
Radio programs are very important in developing countries in informing the
masses about public health matters. Their role is quite visible in the fight against
HIV/AIDS through dissemination of messages aimed at informing the publics
about the dangers of HIV/AIDS and what prevention measures can be employed.
Drawing on framing and social learning theory together with readings
on media effects, this study aimed at establishing whether Pasimba radio program
is having an impact in promoting behavioral change among couples in
Malawi. Data was collected through a survey (N = 100) and data was analyzed
using cross tabulations, chi-square, correlation and regression. Results indicate
that there is a significant relationship between respondents who listen to
the program and those that have the propensity to undergo HIV test. This implies
that Pasimba program is having an impact in influencing behavioral change
and that there is a correlation between listening to the program and having the
motivation to know one’s serostatus.
2017-01-01T00:00:00ZNursing education and its impact on patient-healthcare provider communication in Malawian hospitals
repository.mzuni.ac.mw/handle/123456789/424
Nursing education and its impact on patient-healthcare provider communication in Malawian hospitals
Madula, Precious
Having good communication skills is essential for healthcare providers to establish good healthcare
provider - patient relationships. Good patient-healthcare provider communication has better health
outcomes, high compliance to therapeutic regimes, higher patient and healthcare provider satisfaction
and a decrease in malpractice risk. Sadly, medical colleges tend to emphasise much on the biomedical
sciences at the expense of communication skills subjects. This study explored communication
curriculum that is offered to nursing students at Mzuzu University to establish whether the courses
prepare students to address critical communication skills needed by nurses in practice. Selfadministered
questionnaires (N=280) were issued to healthcare providers, student nurses and patients.
Analysis was done using SPSS Version 20 and Chi-Square tests were carried out. Findings support
literature suggesting that communication skills are important and that some healthcare providers have
problems when communicating with their clients.
2013-09-01T00:00:00ZInference generation and text comprehension in bilingual children: A case study
repository.mzuni.ac.mw/handle/123456789/415
Inference generation and text comprehension in bilingual children: A case study
Hara, Agness; Tappe, Heike
The current study explores inference-making processes in 10–12-year-old bilingual Malawian
children who either listened to stories in their primary language, or L1 (Chichewa), as
compared to their secondary language (L2) (English), or viewed cartoon films containing no
verbal content. The 127 children who participated in the study were divided into six groups
characterised by different conditions of stimulus presentation – stimuli varied with respect
to their modality (non-verbal film versus pre-recorded stories) or the language of stimulus
presentation (English or Chichewa). The results indicate that the pre-recorded audio recordings
seem to have supported inference-making more than the corresponding wordless films.
This finding illustrates the significance of linguistically presented content. The linguistically
presented content elicited even more inferences when it was presented in the children’s L1
(Chichewa) rather than in their medium of academic instruction (English). However, the
results also indicate that the children from the private school (with English as a medium of
instruction) drew more inferences than the children from the public school (where Chichewa
is the medium of instruction). Furthermore, the results reveal that while the children were able
to use knowledge transfer from a variety of knowledge bases to draw inferences, the inferencing
process was impeded when the story content deviated too much from their own experiences.
Lastly we found indications of variations in inferencing patterns that seemed to correlate to
the language in which the stimulus material was presented and responded to.
2016-01-01T00:00:00ZLanguage specific narrative text structure elements in multilingual children
repository.mzuni.ac.mw/handle/123456789/414
Language specific narrative text structure elements in multilingual children
Tappe, Heike; Hara, Agness
The investigation of narrative skills in children is significant in many respects; amongst other
things, narratives can yield information about a child’s use of decontextualised, literate
language features (Curenton and Justice 2004) while simultaneously providing access to the
child’s level of competence concerning narrative-specific aspects. Narrative abilities have been
linked to literacy development and academic achievement (Dickinson and Tabors 2001) and
are often used to predict language progress (Botting, Faragher, Simkin, Knox and Conti-
Ramsden 2001). Moreover, narrative skills constitute an area of verbal language development
in which delays are difficult to compensate (Girolametto, Wiigs, Smyth, Weitzman and Pearce
2001, Manhardt and Rescorla 2002). However, in multilingual settings the assessment of
narrative skills cannot be restricted to language proficiency measurements in each of a child’s
languages. Rather, this assessment needs to include “linguistic descriptions of ethno-linguistic
discourse patterns (contrastive rhetoric)” (Barnitz 1986:95) in order to assess the roles which
cultural knowledge and language-specific narrative text structure elements play in the
development of narrative skills in multilingual children. This article discusses the necessity to
identify such language-specific elements of story structures. Empirical findings are presented
which illustrate that 10- to 12-year-old children from Malawi exhibit narrative practices while
they retell visually and aurally presented stories. It appears that these narrative practices are
influenced by African folktales. The children’s retellings in both Chichewa and English cannot
simply be measured by canonical narrative text structures commonly used in academic settings.
The global significance of such a discussion is reflected by a growing concern that academic
success may be compromised by a misalignment between the narrative practices in a child’s
primary language(s) and the narrative practices in a respective language of teaching and
learning (e.g. Makoe and McKinney 2009, Souto-Manning 2013).
2013-01-01T00:00:00Z