Enhancing plurilinguistic abilities through group work in an english first additional language context: teachers’ perspectives

Abstract

Language is an ever-developing and ever-changing phenomenon, thus ways to teach a language also develop and undergo changes in the progress of time. To keep up with these developments, translanguaging was used in this study. Translanguaging is the most recent all-encompassing method in language planning and evaluation that is needed to replace past linguistic practices that viewed languages as separate entities in a globalised world. The study aims to determine why English first additional language teachers use group work in the Further Education and Training phase. For this qualitative study, only 8 English First Additional Language teachers teaching in the Further Education and Training phase were selected as participants in individual interviews. These participants were stationed at 4 high schools in South Africa. The results indicate that as the learners translanguage as they work in groups, they appreciate each other’s linguistic background. Communicative language teaching is one of the most effective methods of teaching and learning a second language because it provides opportunities for learners to practice and improve their communicative competence in pedagogic and real-life situations. Learners are largely content with linguistic concepts in a multilingual setting that dwells on the known to the unknown. Working in groups may make the learners improve their understanding of content and also language proficiency as the subject under discussion will be tackled using different languages apart from English First Additional Language. Besides, language and culture are interconnected; therefore, keeping up with one’s home language(s) allows for greater participation in the home culture and builds stronger ties between different languages.