South Africa is a multilingual country with 11 official languages. However, English dominates as the language of access and power and although the Language-in-Education Policy (1997) recommends school language policies that will promote additive bilingualism and the use of learners ’ home languages as languages of learning and teaching, there has been little implementation of these recommenda-tions by schools. This is despite the fact that the majority of learners do not have the necessary English language proficiency to successfully engage with the curriculum and that teachers frequently are obliged to resort to using the learners ’ home language to mediate understanding. This research investigates the classroom language practices of six Grade 8 science teachers, teaching science through the medium of English where they and their learners share a common home language, Xhosa. Teachers ’ lessons were videotaped, transcribed and analysed for the opportunities they offered learners for language development and conceptual challenge. The purpose of the research is to better understand the teachers ’ perceptions and problems and to be able to draw on examples of good practice, to inform teacher training and to develop a coherent bilingual approach for teaching science through the medium of English as an addi-tional language. doi: 10.2167/le554.
The majority of learners in South African schools are African language speakers, yet the dominance of English in the political economy has meant that schools choose to switch to English medium instruction by Grade 4, before learners have the necessary English proficiency to access the curriculum, with negative effects on learning. This paper outlines South Africa's long engagement with such issues and documents the translanguaging practices of a teacher who breaks the post-colonial monolingual ideologies prevalent in classrooms and engages with learners' linguistic resources to provide access to both science knowledge and English.
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