Teachers’ pedagogical practices in teaching isiZulu Home Language in multilingual Soweto schools

Defined by ethnic and linguistic diversity, South Africa’s education system has undergone a profound transformation from its historically fragmented and exclusionary structure to a unified framework grounded in inclusivity, redress and social cohesion. Despite the various new policies and their aspirational goals of equality and reparation, significant disparities in the quality of education persist across the system, highlighting ongoing challenges in achieving truly equitable outcomes. Against this backdrop, this qualitative study investigated teachers’ inclusive pedagogic practices in teaching isiZulu Home Language to non-native learners. The study is framed theoretically by translanguaging. The study adopted a multiple case study design to examine teachers’ adoption of multilingual pedagogies in teaching non-native speakers of isiZulu in a Home Language class. Purposive sampling was used to identify six teachers from two multilingual schools in Soweto to understand their perspectives of teaching isiZulu Home Language to non-native learners. The study captured teachers’ perspectives and practices through interviews and observations, with the interview and observation schedules prepared in advance. Analysed thematically, findings of the study revealed that teachers advocate for the use of translanguaging which is a pedadagogic practice where teachers alternate between different languages to address diversity in classrooms, scaffolding, learner-centred pedagogies and the incorporation of digital pedagogies to address linguistic diversity in their classrooms.