Abstract:
The contribution argues that there is a renewed interest by mainly Afrikaans
and English speaking South Africans in learning another indigenous South
African language. This came about as a direct result of the changed official
language policy, elevating all the indigenous Bantu languages to that of being
official. It is further argued that many individuals interested in learning a new
language, do not have the time or the inclination to do so in a formal classroom
context. Access to a computer has increased dramatically in the last two
decades, and hence e-learning becomes a viable option in this regard. The
contribution argues that computer-assisted language learning (CALL) can
very sensibly complement and even substitute the language teacher. Some
existing computer-assisted language courses aimed at learning Xhosa are
briefly explored, and finally the attention is turned to the particular challenges
experienced in developing an interactive multimedia Xhosa acquisition
course within the Multitaal framework.
