Abstract
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