Abstract
Despite improvements in educational provision in South Africa since 1994, the opportunities for learners from historically under-resourced schools to gain access to powerful English resources remain limited and unequal (Prinsloo 2012). In this article I will provide a detailed description of literacy practices in a township high school in Cape Town, specifically of the orientations to text that are made available to learners. I will draw on feminist poststructuralist theory, in which the subject is theorised as constructed and contested in language to construct difference. The analysis of classroom discourse and text-based tasks shows that the orientations to reading that were offered were characterised by a focus on the surface meaning of the texts and by an absence of critical engagement, despite the latter being required in the new Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement. The analysis reveals how the power dynamics of our racialised past and dominant ideologies about gender, class and race continue to define teaching in our classrooms in ways that limit access to the English resources that learners in under-resourced schools need for academic success.
Highlights
The access to and acquisition of English are complex and uneven endeavours
To contribute towards the building of a detailed description of the teaching and learning of English, a case study of the reading and writing practices in a Grade 11 classroom in a township high school in Cape Town was undertaken, to describe and analyse the orientations to text that are constructed for English First Additional Language learners
The literacy practices and discursive positions described and analysed in this study can be situated in a long history of unequal access to resources, including access that has been denied to generations of teachers in their schooling and teacher training
Summary
The access to and acquisition of English are complex and uneven endeavours. Prinsloo’s research (2012) in three different school contexts in South Africa shows that teachers and learners have access to different types of English, depending on the socio-economic profile of the school. Learners in privileged contexts generally have access, via their teachers, to the varieties of English most valued for educational and economic success. This is not generally the case in schools historically disadvantaged by the inequity of apartheid education policies. Despite poor learners’ desire to learn the English they need for upward mobility, in other words the English of the elite and of the academy, social and historical factors are complicating their efforts This ongoing marked inequity requires researchers interested in language and learning to ask why that inequity persists and to develop a detailed description of how English is being taught and learnt. Evidence is provided of learner profiles that suggests that the literacy resources that learners bring to the classroom are not being valued or accessed
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
