The experiences of teachers and learners of being multilingual in resource constrained environments

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the experiences of teachers and learners in being multilingual in resource-constrained environments where the LoLT is English. The sociocultural theory was used as the theoretical framework for this study. Given the factors involved, a mixed-method approach was favourable for collecting and analysing data. The qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews with five teachers and focus group discussions with an overall number of seventeen learners from two different township schools in Pretoria. The quantitative data was collected from the same schools through a survey questionnaire with a total number of forty-seven respondents. Inductive thematic analysis and descriptive statistics were utilised for analysis of data. The key recurring discoveries from the participants were overcrowding, language diversity, insufficient training received by teachers, limited educational resources, lack of LoLT proficiency from learners, and being restricted to use other languages by the school policy. Educational resources serve as a bridge to mediate inefficient language development in multilingual learners, the lack of resources hinders positive learning experiences. Experiences of the participants across languages are regarded as problematic instead of a resource. Although these experiences are known to act as barriers to the process of teaching and learning, this study contributes by providing a deep comprehension of multilingualism in the South African setting. It provides resolutions to enhance the use of multilingualism for effective teaching and learning.