Abstract
M.A.
The movement of former township learners to suburban schools has resulted in more
non-native learners taking English as a Home Language (EHL). In some suburban
schools, the former township learners are now in the majority, with implications for the
conceptualization of EHL as a curriculum option.
EHL classrooms in suburban schools with a majority non-native English learner
population were investigated for their communicativeness. It might be expected that
such classrooms will exhibit an affinity with English as a Second Language (ESL)
classrooms. Therefore, ESL classrooms, which have attracted a lot of attention from
researchers, were used as a tool in understanding the nature of the said EHL
classrooms. Once the data on the communicative orientation of the EHL classrooms
were obtained, they were compared to the data from ESL classrooms.
There were few significant differences between the EHL classrooms and the ESL ones.
The conclusion was that non-native EHL has a lot in common with ESL. The most
important difference from the standpoint of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)
was found to be in the learning content selection, with the EHL settings using more
literary works, and so focusing less on the direct teaching of grammatical forms.
However, a disturbing pattern was the inability of the learners in the EHL settings and
the ESL settings to take full advantage of CLT, which suggests that CLT might not be
suitable for learners with rudimentary language skills.