Intensive reading is reading closely for understanding. You may need to read something twice in order to understand it fully.
Scanning is what is done at the check-out counter in the supermarket. The cashier scans the bar-code of the product. The computer then matches the bar-code up with a price and the price appears on the screen. Scanning when you are reading is also a kind of ‘matching’ because you look for specific matching information. Let us say you want to know what percentage of goals land in an unsaveable zone. You will scan for the word ‘percentage’ or the percentage symbol (%) and a number. You will then read the sentence to make sure that it contains the information you need. Remember that when you scan you don’t read every word: you glance over the text, looking for specific information.
Activity 3.3 - A man who left his mark on South Africa (individual and pair)
Pre reading:
Skim the biographical sketch below to see what it is about by looking at the title, the pictures and the first line of each paragraph. You have one minute to do this.
Enoch Mankayi Sontonga
circa 1873–18 April 1905
1 The humble and obscure life of Enoch Sontonga is an antithesis of the dreams he inspired in generations of Africans through his famous composition ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’. Details of his short life are hard to come by. He was born in Uitenhage (Eastern Cape), in about 1873. Trained as a teacher at the Lovedale Institution, he was sent to a Methodist Mission school in Nancefield, near Johannesburg. He married Diana Mgqibisa, the daughter of a prominent minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and had one son. A choirmaster and photographer, he wrote the first verse and chorus of ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’ when he was 24 (1897), one of many songs he wrote for his pupils. Later the same year, he composed the music. The song is a prayer for God’s blessing on the land and all its people. Sontonga’s choir sang the song around Johannesburg and KwaZulu, and other choirs followed them. It was first sung in public in 1899 at the ordination of Rev. Boweni, a Shangaan Methodist Minister.
2 Most of Sontonga’s songs were sad, recounting the suffering of African people in Johannesburg, but they were so popular that after his death choirs used to borrow them from his wife. According to sources, she eventually sold the rights to the song for a mere sixpence. She died in 1929. Sontonga died of unknown causes at the young age of 32, in 1905. He was buried in Braamfontein, Johannesburg and his grave has only recently been discovered after intensive research.
3 Sontonga wrote his songs down in an exercise book, which was lent out to other choirmasters and eventually became the property of a family member known as Boxing Granny. She never missed a boxing match in Soweto, hence the nickname. She died at about the time Sontonga’s grave was declared a heritage site in 1996, but the book was never found. Solomon Plaatje, one of South Africa’s greatest writers and a founding member of the ANC, was the first to have the song recorded, accompanied by Sylvia Colenso on the piano. This was on 16 October 1923, in London.
4 In 1925 the ANC adopted the song as the closing anthem for their meetings. In 1927 seven additional Xhosa stanzas were added by Samuel Mqhayi, a poet. The song was published in a local newspaper in the same year, and was included in the Presbyterian Xhosa hymnbook ‘Ingwade Yama-culo Ase-rabe’ in 1929. A Sesotho version was published in 1942 by Moses Mphahlele.
5 The Rev. J. L. Dube’s Ohlange Zulu Choir popularised ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’ at concerts in Johannesburg, and it became a popular church hymn that was also adopted as the anthem at political meetings. For decades ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’ was regarded as the national anthem of South Africa by the oppressed and it was always sung as an act of defiance against the apartheid regime. There are no standard versions or translations of ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’ so the words vary from place to place and from occasion to occasion. Generally the first stanza is sung in Xhosa or Zulu, followed by the Sesotho version. The song spread beyond the borders of South Africa and has been translated and adapted into a number of other languages. It is still the national anthem of Tanzania and Zambia and has also been sung in Zimbabwe and Namibia for many years. A proclamation issued by the State President on 20 April 1994 stipulated that both both ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’ and ‘Die Stem’ (the Call of South Africa), written by Afrikaans poet C.J. Langenhoven in 1918, would be the national anthems of South Africa. In 1996 a shortened, combined version of the two anthems was released as the new National Anthem. On 18 April 2005 Minister of Arts and Culture, Pallo Jordan, said at the unveiling of the Enoch Sontonga Memorial:
6 There is a saying that goes “those whom the gods love die young” – Sontonga was one of those. His work will be immortalised as South Africa’s and other African countries’ national anthems.’
7 And so today, we celebrate Enoch Sontonga’s gift to us, a heroic message of calm, written in the eye of the storm. Today it forms part of South Africa’s national identity; and along with ‘Die Stem’, it brings together all the different strands of the country’s past in a union of inclusiveness, symbolising the oneness of South Africa’s people.
Enoch Sontonga Memorial
Questions
1. Now discuss your ideas of what this text is about with your partner. Do you have the same idea? How are they different?
2. So far you have skimmed the text. Don’t read it yet. You are first going to practise your scanning skills. You have three minutes to find the following information. This gives you 15 seconds for each question. Your teacher will time you and stop you. See how many answers you can find by running your eye over the passage.
a. Where was Enoch Sontonga born?
b. What was his wife’s name?
c. How old was he when he wrote ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’?
d. When was it first sung in public?
e. What year did he die?
f. What was the name of the family member that inherited the exercise book?
g. When was ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’ first recorded?
h. When did the ANC begin using it at meetings?
i. Who added seven additional stanzas?
j. What did Moses Mphahlele do?
k. What other African countries use it as their national anthem?
l. Who spoke at the unveiling of the Enoch Sontonga Memorial?
So far you have skimmed and scanned the text. Now read it intensively, confirming your ideas (during reading).
Post-reading:
3. The opening line describes Enoch Sontonga as leading a humble and obscure life. How is this in contrast to what he is remembered for?
4. Can you explain the role this song played in the history of South Africa?
5. What explanation can you give for the song spreading across different languages and different countries in the way that it has?
| Here are the first two stanzas with
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