The Power of Inclusion

Abstract

The year 2019 saw the emergence of COVID-19, an infectious disease spread through human-to-human transmission. This resulted in the immediate worldwide suspension of contact classes as countries tried to contain the wide spread of the pandemic. Consequently, educational institutions were thus left with only one option: e-learning. E-learning is the delivery of learning experiences through the use of electronic mail, the internet, the world wide web, and it can either be synchronous or asynchronous. Through the translanguaging lens, this chapter reports on a qualitative study that sought to explore the crucial role language plays in the e-learning of multilingual science students at a secondary school in South Africa. The e-learning lessons were in the form of videos, multilingual glossaries, and narrated slides in English and isiZulu languages. Data was collected through lesson observations and interviews held via Microsoft Teams. This chapter suggests numerous cognitive and socio-cultural benefits of multilingual e-learning pedagogy and recommends its use in education.