The educational changes brought about by the South African Constitution and the Language in Education policy has resulted in the emergence of multilingual classrooms in South Africa. The focus of the inquiry was to find out how teachers make sense of teaching in such classrooms. Much of the current literature regarding second language teaching focuses on either the recommendation of different methods of teaching a second language or describing the experiences of second language learners. There are not many studies that try to understand the phenomenon from the teacher’s point of view. This study describes the lived experiences of six Intermediate Phase teachers, teaching second language learners in multilingual classrooms. The research context was an ex-Model C school in Gauteng where each of the official languages are represented as home languages among the learners. The research design was qualitative in nature and data collection techniques included interviews, observation and document perusal. The findings from the data reflect that teachers found teaching in multilingual classrooms both challenging and difficult. The inability to communicate with second language learners or speak other official languages was cited as contributing to the challenge. A lack of adequate training in language acquisition and a need for support in teaching multilingual classes was expressed by the teachers. The study concludes that teachers in multilingual classrooms need support and recommendations were made of how this could be accomplished. The results of this inquiry show that further research in this area pertinent to the South African context is indicated. / Mrs. J.V. Fourie
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:3741 |
| Date | 25 August 2008 |
| Creators | Hooijer, Elizabeth Lynne |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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