Creating dialogues in whole-class teaching in multilingual classrooms: language practices and policy imperatives

Abstract

Teaching science or indeed any subject in a language that learners are not proficient in is difficult even for the best of teachers. In South Africa, the situ- ation is compounded by various contextual issues including a long tradition of the dominance of transmission methods and teacher talk. The result is poor achieve- ment in science as learners simply memorise and regurgitate concepts in exami- nations. Yet, one of the guiding principles of South Africa’s National Curriculum Statement is to achieve “Active and critical learning: encouraging an active and crit- ical approach to learning, rather than rote and uncritical learning of given truths” (Department of Education, The National Curriculum Statement (NCR): Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement Grades 10–12 Physical Sciences, Department of Education, Pretoria, p. 4, 2012 ). Thus, the curriculum explicitly discourages uncrit- ical learning. Recent research has explored small group work as a potential strategy to promote active learner engagement. However, the uptake of group work remains low. Teachers are not confident in managing group work while teaching the content-heavy curriculum to often very large classes in the challenging contexts of multilingualism. In this chapter, I draw on (Mortimer & Scott, in Meaning making in secondary science classrooms . McGraw-Hill Education, Berkshire, UK, 2003 ) framework to illustrate the potential for whole class teaching to create dialogic discourse that enables the active learner engagement anticipated in the South African curriculum. I discuss some of the tensions that such an approach raises in the current South African language policy context, in particular the implications for leveraging the linguistic resources of the classroom to optimise learner participation.