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This article discusses a one-year intervention that was implemented using the Read to Learn (R2L) approach with 46 isiZulu-speaking students at a South African University in 2011. All the students were in the BCom4 Access Programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and originated from Quintile 1-4 schools. Participating students were taught to understand and read selected texts. They were then assisted through a process of ‘scaffolding’, in which they ultimately learnt how to independently write a text of the same genre, using the six stages of the R2L teaching cycle. Of the original 46 students, 10 were closely tracked. Various data were collected and analysed during the study period. Findings revealed that there was a marked improvement in both reading (an increase of at least two levels) and writing abilities at both the micro and the macro levels of text. These results suggest that the R2L approach, as a reading intervention, can contribute towards the improvement of the academic literacy levels of disadvantaged students at tertiary level.

This study reports on a balanced reading programme (BRP) designed for a multi-cultural, South African classroom at the Foundation Phase. The BRP uses the mother tongue as a valuable resource to access meaning within a supportive learning environment. The main focus of the study is on the achievements of six Zulu children with differing levels of literacy potential after exposure to a year-long balanced approach to literacy. The study also examines parents’ views on the BRP and their perceptions of the reading process. Data were drawn from the following sources: teacher observations and interactions with learners; semi-structured interviews with parents; analysis of learner assessments and parental questionnaires. It seems that the BRP enhances both the self-confidence and cognitive growth of EAL learners. It also seems that collaborative, interactive learning, extensive independent reading, a language experience approach, home and community support and high teacher expectations of learners, combined with high levels of intrinsic learner motivation can positively impact on EAL learners’ academic progress and social growth at school.

The research reported on in this article examines the attitudes towards student linguistic diversity and multilingual pedagogies of 30 university lecturer participants enrolled for an accredited short course on multilingual pedagogies at a South African institution. The aim of the course is to support lecturers in helping students gain access to their disciplines using multilingual strategies including translation and translanguaging. Staff from a range of disciplines drawn from 8 faculties formed the first cohort of participants. Within a postmodern research paradigm, an interpretive approach was used to understand and analyze data collected from questionnaires, language histories and a language portrait exercise. We discuss findings on staff perceptions of translanguaging in their teaching; their knowledge of and sensitivity towards their students' linguistic repertoires, their own language backgrounds and the challenges they face in catering for linguistic diversity in their lectures. We also present participants' examples of multilingual pedagogies based on what they had learned from the MP course.

South Africa's history of segregation and the privileging of English and Afrikaans as the only languages of teaching and learning beyond primary schooling, make the post-apartheid period a complex one, especially in light of the Constitutional commitment to multilingualism in the 11 official languages. Research on literacy and language teaching contextualises the impact of curriculum and language policy initiatives aimed at improving learner performance. We review research concerning the transition from the study of first additional language (FAL) as subject, to the use of FAL as the language of learning and teaching (LoLT). Also considered are major studies on learner performance nationally and South Africa's comparability globally. The impact of home language (HL) literacy development on performance in English as the LoLT links to research on language development in teacher education programmes, and shows connections between the capacity of teachers to develop languages for literacy and LoLT and learner success. Research on the development of early childhood literacy in the HL demonstrates the positive impact on literacy development in the LoLT.

This report describes ongoing research on reading in African languages. It draws mainly on contributions from two British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) "Language in Africa" (LiA) Special Interest Group (SIG) meetings: the LiA SIG strand at BAAL 2013 and the seminar on "Reading Methodologies in African Languages" held at The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London in January 2014. This report will only cover contributions that focused on reading research and practice.

This paper reports on a study that examines the attitudes of university students and immigrants to the introduction of Swahili at a tertiary institution in South Africa. Data were obtained from a questionnaire survey and interviews with questions that covered the domains in which Swahili could be most useful, who should learn it and the reasons why they should learn it. The data were analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively within a theoretical framework which drew on theories of identity, multilingualism, migration and language ecology. The findings were categorised in terms of the main themes emerging from the analysis, including intercultural communication, African unification and Swahili as a "lingua franca." The attitudes of the immigrant sector were then compared to those of the South African students and the informal sector. Although there was consensus on the viability of Swahili in South Africa, the two groups differed in the emphases they placed on the various themes. The immigrants favoured the learning of Swahili within the South African context, for the promotion of intercultural communication which would facilitate their integration into the community, and for African unification. The South African respondents saw value in learning it for travelling beyond the borders of South Africa. The study concludes with a consideration of the implications of such findings for promoting the learning and teaching of Swahili as an additional language in the South African context.

This introduction to the Special Edition provides a rationale for the inclusion of the selected articles. We begin with a consideration of various factors that led to the marginalisation of African languages, including the hegemony of English, colonialism and ensuing language policies that still hold today. Such policies proclaimed languages exogenous to the continent as official languages for formal public discourses, including the education domain. This led to the low visibility of indigenous languages in such domains. European missionaries also contributed to this by imposing Western linguistic frameworks on the continuum of African languages such that they became separate, named and bounded, which is counter-intuitive to the heteroglossic, multilingual realities of language use in African indigenous communities. We then examine the expanding role of African languages in response to technology, social media, globalisation and more responsive and dynamic language policies. The articles in this Special Edition cover language policy and language in education; language and identity negotiation in contexts of migration; language use on social media platforms; language and the workplace and language use in advertising. These contributions reveal that the multilingual reality of Africa's language ecology is increasingly visible in many domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the visibility of an African language, isiZulu, in the public domain of education in South Africa. It explores synergies and disjunctures in language use and exposure for children across the continuum from home to ECD centre and early primary school, and how they affect children's competence in reading in two languages by Grade 4. Our qualitative cross-sectional study finds isiZulu is visible in the homes, communities and at each grade level, along with other African languages; but use of, and exposure to, these African languages varies widely. In most homes, while storytelling is common, little reading is done; educational settings, in contrast, are print-rich environments, displaying isiZulu and English and making English highly visible very early on. Teaching of reading in both languages is done at a very slow pace, using restrictive pedagogies, and with little continuity across Grades, but enables Grades 3 and 4 children to read simple, connected text in both isiZulu and English. The article calls for language appropriate, specialised reading teaching that strengthens learners' language and reading development bilingually, and increases and consolidates the visibility of the African language in the curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this paper is on the effects of the use of the home language (i.e. isiZulu) on teachers' and learners' understanding and use of core concepts in mathematics and science at the senior phase, in contexts where the language of instruction is English. It reports on a national, collaborative, multilingual research project which attempts to address the challenge posed by the National Language Policy of South Africa, namely, that learners have a right to learn through their home language where feasible. The project involved four South African universities and four languages: isiZulu, isiXhosa, Afrikaans and English. The first phase of the research was the identification and translation of core concepts in the science and mathematics curriculum, which culminated in the development of a multilingual resource book. The second phase involved the evaluation of the book with in-service teachers by means of questionnaires, workshops and focus-group interviews for purposes of triangulation. These data were the basis on which teachers for the tracer study were selected. This part of the study involved classroom observation of mathematics and science lessons at intervals over a two-month period. Findings from the KwaZulu-Natal regional data revealed various complexities regarding the use of the home language for communicating scientific and mathematical knowledge. These included unfamiliar terms leading to the question of standardisation and an initial preference for the use of terminology in English with explanations in the home language.

The aim of the one-day symposium was to bring together scholars in applied linguistics with an interest in the African languages for the launch of the new AILA Africa regional network. Contributions were in the form of invited research papers from several African countries. This report focuses on the South African contribution, which highlighted current research into the use and development of the African languages for academic purposes in response to the South African National Language Education Policy (South Africa, DoE 2002) with its focus on the development of multilingualism in the country.

Discusses a case study in the learning and teaching of Zulu as an additional language. It involved the organic development of a mutually supportive relationship between two lecturers from separate disciplines who assumed multiple identities in order to more effectively collaborate in the revision and development of two graduate courses. (Author/VWL)

The aim of the research reported on in this article was to explore the effects on student learning and performance of the use of two languages of instruction, viz. isiZulu and English, in a course on the teaching of isiZulu as an additional language at school level. The course was for third year BA students considering a language teaching career. The content of the course came from the Applied Linguistics field and had not been translated from English into isiZulu. In addition, the discipline content was taught by a non-isiZulu speaking applied linguistics lecturer who had recently joined a three-year major course in isiZulu but was not fluent. The course was team taught by the Applied Linguist and an isiZulu lecturer who made the content accessible to the students through translation of difficult terms and concepts into isiZulu. Students were free to use either language. The research questions focused on how the two languages interacted naturally within a translanguaging framework in order to scaffold learning, and whether and how the use of isiZulu would facilitate understanding of key disciplinary concepts when the terminology had not yet been developed. Class sessions were recorded and transcribed with informed consent. Instances of translanguaging were analyzed in terms of the functions they were fulfilling within a broad discourse analysis framework. Findings revealed that what began as planned and systematic code-switching became, over time, translanguaging. Students appreciated the affordance for meaningful engagement with the subject content as they found it easier to challenge the lecturers and to present their own points of view in isiZulu. The experience also created rich affordances for building an academic discourse in isiZulu. Finally, teaching on the course created learning experiences for the lecturers who increased their knowledge of the languages concerned and the subject content respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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