Translanguaging As An Intervention Strategy For Making Up For Barriers In Teaching Languages

Abstract

The writing of this article is informed by our experience of teaching student educators in the School of Education, Language Education unit at the University of Limpopo. Our university subscribes to the ethic of care which is captured in the School of Education’s conceptual framework. The School of Education’s theoretical framework, through its metaphor of rebirth serves as the fundamental underpinning towards bringing in the ethos of care and regeneration in developing students educators who are compassionate towards critical reconstruction of our black communities. The usage of English First Additional Language as a language of teaching and learning in South African universities still poses some challenges to student-educators. This is due to the fact that English is an additional language to the majority of black people and is complex because of its vocabulary and language structure which are different from indigenous languages. What prompted us to embark on this study is our concern about the failure in the usage of English as a dominating language in teaching and learning, and this hinders students’ communicative abilities in their respective modules. Student-educators resort to apply code-switching and code-mixing in their module interaction with their lecturers. They lack the communicative competence in English to actively participate in deliberations in varying activities in their modules. The inability to access information and communicate fluently through the English language warrants an intervention process or programme of teaching and learning. In this article, we strongly argue that translanguaging can be a transformative pedagogical approach towards empowering student-educators to express themselves freely and excel academically. An intervention practices, deduced from the above, are suggested as practical solutions for the problem. Participants for this study are the year 4 students training to be language educators (English, Xitsonga, Tshivenda and Sepedi) from the School of Education. These students are at the exit level for the Bed SPF programme. They have been involved with Work Integrated Learning through teaching practice through which they are expected to have honed their competencies in Language teaching as stated in the Curriculum Assessment and Policy Statement (CAPS) (Department of Education, 2011). Our study applied an interpretivist paradigm where social critical learning theory will be applied. Student-educators’ writing skills are analysed through their written assignments. We also observed students’ interaction with their peers and the module lecturers in the usage of the language. We recommend that translanguaging may serve as a vehicle through which the barriers for meaningful teaching and learning in previously disadvantaged underprepared students can be eased. Translanguaging may be used in cases where there is a breakdown in communication and understanding between lecturers and student-educators. Moreover, the process can also be transferred to interactions between learners and educators in schools.