Background: While the concept of translanguaging has gained significant traction in education in multilingual contexts, it is also debated and contested. Claims are made about what translanguaging can and cannot do, how different it might be from code-switching, whether it arises from a single repertoire of language resources or from use of…

Background: Our article argues that the role of translingual instruction in mathematics classrooms is under-recognised in South Africa, as policymakers, teacher educators, teachers, learners, and parents assume that mathematics is just about numbers and calculations and not language. This is despite findings on the value of using children's…

Background: The unequal learning outcomes and achievement gaps in language and literacy, particularly affecting poor and working-class children in South African schools, are longstanding issues. These disparities were highlighted once again in the poor literacy results of PIRLS 2021, indicating systemic challenges within the education system.…

This paper explores how a transnational emergent multilingual (TEM) student established himself in relation to his teacher and peers in a culturally and linguistically diverse, sheltered English Instruction classroom. Specifically, it documents how the student initiated translingual and cross-cultural social interactions positioning himself as a…

This qualitative study investigated the ways in which one secondary social studies teacher engaged bilingual youth through translanguaging and citizenship education. We employed a translanguaging framework (García 2014) to document the ways in which a ninth grade bilingual teacher created language spaces with students. This study demonstrates the…

Since its inception in the 1990s Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has transformed from an initiative to improve communicative competence in foreign languages into a complex language-aware construct in which translanguaging and curriculum integration are identifiable pedagogical practices. This shift of paradigm in its…

Background: South Africa's "Language-in-Education Policy" (LiEP) provides for bi/multilingual education, but schools are only supported to choose monolingual English language policies from Grade 4 and ignore the learners' home language or languages as resources for learning. Many teachers translanguage orally, using the learners' home…

This article draws from an exploratory study of science teachers' experiences when utilising learners' home languages in teaching grade 9 learners in three South African high schools. This research investigated teacher use of learners' home languages in science instruction, with a particular focus on the affordances and challenges of using…