Translanguaging in an English First Additional Language context in the further education and training phase

Abstract

English is used as a medium of teaching and learning in most South African public schools although most of these learners are English First Additional Language (EFAL) speakers. To counter this anxiety, translanguaging as a multilingual intervention becomes handy. Translanguaging is about engaging in multilingual discourse practices; it is an approach to bilingualism that is centred not on languages, as has been often the case but on the practices of bilinguals that are readily observable. This study aimed at exploring how grade 11 EFAL learners feel/behave when the teacher orders them to abandon their home languages the moment they enter the classroom and how to promote one’s home language in the classroom.This qualitative study involved 12 grade 11 EFAL learners, equally divided into two interview focus groups. These EFAL learners were purposively selected from one education district in South Africa. The findings indicate that learning involves building on what the learner knows, so that the learner brings it to the current situation, restructures it and creates new knowledge. Also, more knowledge is needed about how to prepare teachers to best serve multilingual learner populations, including how to incorporate new understandings of translanguaging into instruction and assessment practices.