Abstract
South Africa faces persistent language challenges in multilingual classrooms where English is the Language of Learning and Teaching (LoLT), but not the learners’ home language, as highlighted by PIRLS results in the early grades. In Physical Sciences, National Senior Certificate (NSC) diagnostic reports show persistent language-related errors in definitions and concepts. The aim of this study is to understand and describe physical sciences teachers’ perceptions and classroom practices regarding ICT-supported focused vocabulary instruction in multilingual South African schools.
This study adopted a pragmatic paradigm and employed an exploratory sequential mixed-methods case study design. Phase 1 focused on the NSC Physical Sciences diagnostic reports from 2019 to 2025, which were analysed using direct content analysis and vocabulary error categories (C1–C10). Phase 2 consisted of an online questionnaire for physical sciences teachers, distributed via voluntary, non-probability sampling, containing both closed and open items.
The findings showed that learners’ recurring vocabulary-related errors in NSC examinations were concentrated around omitted key words, confusion between closely related scientific terms, and the use of everyday language instead of precise scientific terminology. Teachers reported high awareness of vocabulary as a barrier to conceptual understanding and generally positive attitudes towards ICT, yet they predominantly used ICT tools for conceptual visualisation rather than for structured, low-language-demand vocabulary practice aligned with NSC diagnostic report error patterns. The study concludes that there is a misalignment between the vocabulary demands revealed in NSC diagnostic reports and the ways in which ICT is currently integrated into physical sciences, and it recommends the design of Cognitive Load Theory-informed, ICT-mediated vocabulary tasks that directly target recurrent NSC error categories in multilingual FET classrooms.