Perceptions toward effective teaching strategies in Afrikaans first additional language classrooms

Abstract

The aim of this study is to establish the different perceptions that both teachers and learners of Afrikaans First Additional Language (FAL) hold towards the different teaching strategies and their effectiveness in the language learning process of Afrikaans FAL in a high school setting. The sample group of this study come from various linguistic and cultural backgrounds, yet are learning Afrikaans in the same context, where the expectation is that they will possess near-native fluency by the time they matriculate from the South African school system. In this study, a secondary aim was to evaluate teaching strategies based on to the perceptions of both the teachers and learners at one high school, looking in particular at the phenomenon of codeswitching (CS) as an alternative or complementary approach to the monolingual approach that has dominated the education sphere. The study was conducted at a single-sex English-medium high school in Pretoria among the Grade 8 to 11 learners and all the teachers of Afrikaans FAL at this high school. Pretoria, in the Tshwane municipal district, is a large city in South Africa, where Afrikaans is one of the eleven official languages of South Africa and the second most spoken language in Pretoria (after Sepedi). A mixed methodology approach was employed, using Likert-type-type scale questionnaires to collect descriptive data for the quantitative part of the research and open-ended questions, as well as focus group interviews, for the qualitative part of the research. The framework used to frame this study was that of Social Constructivism, as conceived by Vygotsky (1978). The conclusion reached at the end of the end of the study, after all the findings were studied and analysed, was that both teacher and learner groups prefer the bilingual approach, where the target language (TL) is used as far as possible, but where there is allowance for CS by the teacher, especially when explaining something, and by the learners, if they do not yet possess the necessary vocabulary to ask or answer something in the Target Language. The helpfulness of Codeswitching in terms of the learning of a First Additional Language was also clearly illustrated by the findings in this study.