This paper presents an argument that language-use in multilingual mathematics classrooms in South Africa is as much a function of politics as it is of cognition and communication. It draws from a wider study focusing on language practices in intermediate multilingual mathematics classrooms in South Africa. In the study the notion of cultural…

Presents eight language learning principles that suggest ways instructors can integrate language in their classrooms to reinforce anything from vocabulary to thinking and social skills in the form of group and pair work. The principles were developed to improve an imbalance between students' skills and teachers' expectations at Peninsula Technikon…

This article explores the complex relationship between language and mathematics education in multilingual settings by presenting an analysis of one lesson from a multilingual primary mathematics classroom in South Africa taught by an appropriately qualified and experienced teacher. English emerged as a dominant language in this classroom, and this…

An experiment in English-as-a-Second-Language pedagogy in a South African university's teacher education program looked at the effects of students' participation in construction of the course syllabus. Results are discussed from three perspectives: learning theory; the culture of learning; and cognitive style. The metaphor of mental…

The writer argues that there are significant gaps in the way in which academic literacy theory has been conceptualized in the South African context. Although there has been much research about the transition from school to university, school literacy has tended to be presented as self-evident and the implications of students studying in an…

This book, written in English and Zulu, presents stories written by older people from the Muthande Society for the Aged Literacy Programme in South Africa. It is suitable for people learning to read for the first time or for people learning to read in a second language. In the Muthande Society for the Aged Literacy Programme, both teachers and…

What made the teaching and learning experiences of a five-week pre-freshman composition primer course for minority students and a ten-session seminar on contemporary American literature for a group of teachers of English as a second language (ESL) from black and colored schools in South Africa so radically different for the professor who taught…

This paper considers the concept of English as a global language in the context of South African educational policy. The paper first notes that the richer a country is the more possible it is for the rulers to take the social costs of language policy into account, i.e., the Netherlands and Canada can spend vast sums on different aspects of…

The status of English as learned and used by Chinese students in South Africa was investigated to provide perspective on the language policy. Language planners in South Africa require that all secondary school students be taught and tested through the medium of either English or Afrikaans, regardless of their mother tongue. The students are…