Abstract
South Africa is a diverse and multilingual society, in part, because of the country's
historical legacies of injustice and inequality. South Africa's era of Apartheid was
based on segregation by law; based on discrimination of racial profiles. South Africa's
past legacy of oppression created a foundation for the emergence of a new
democratically ruled South African society that strives to encourage freedom, human
rights, equal opportunity, and social justice for all members in society. The study of
English Home Language (HL) is important due to its interconnection and link with other
topics and school subjects. Through this interconnection and link, English HL lessons
can have a direct impact on learners as they challenge learners’ ideas and
misconceptions through language and literature on a range of topics. In many schools
in South Africa, English HL can be seen as a subject vital to future success.
Furthermore, the English language achieves a hegemonic status in South Africa and
worldwide. Through this hegemonic nature of the English language, learners
comprehend the significance of the English-speaking language as a compulsory
school subject as it is often seen as a language of power in society. This notion of
power is a fundamental benefit to the application, purpose and intent of social justice
teaching and learning in the practice of English HL. This would ensure that learners
strive to do extremely well alongside the teacher during the lesson. Teachers would
therefore aid the teaching and learning of learners and attempt to remove oppressive
obstacles from that of an English HL classroom setting.
Deconstructing barriers in society that foster oppression becomes essential for
implementing social justice, which is only attained by observing learners’ roles in the
classroom by focusing on power relations. This understanding of power dynamics
guarantees that all learners participate actively in the teaching and study of English
HL. Therefore, social justice can be implemented and put into practice if learners begin
to equally shape their requirements. This can only be achieved by guaranteeing that
teachers and learners engage meaningfully in which teachers strive in establishing
human agency and human capacities for working collaboratively to create change in
the classroom and as a result in our society as well.
iii
This study showed through demographic questionnaire, focus group interviews and
semi-structed interviews that there is a need to change traditional teaching practices
by introducing justice practises and methods inside an English HL classroom based
on data collected from Grade 10 English HL learners and Grade 10 English HL teacher
conducted in a public government school. Furthermore, this study highlights the
fundamental issue of social justice ambiguity and the lack of a formalised structure.
These formal polices, practices and procedures need to be established and created
from social justice ideologies, critical theory, and social constructivism, which are
necessary for the fostering of Social Justice. As a result, it is critical to stress that an
English HL classroom must fundamentally highlight and question historical injustices,
as well as encourage the implementation of societal fairness in the English HL
classroom.
KEY WORDS:
Social justice, multilingualism, medium of instruction, learner voice and agency,
distributive justice, critical theory.