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Navigating the complexities of learning history in English in two South African schools

Chimbunde, P.; Lekhethe, T.K.; Moreeng, B.B.; (2024) Navigating the complexities of learning history in English in two South African schools. History Education Research Journal , 21 (1) , Article 5. 10.14324/HERJ.21.1.05. Green open access

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Abstract

Despite extensive research into the intersection between English aptitude and academic achievement, the challenges that learners for whom English is not their first language face when taught history in English are still underexplored. Underpinned by Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, this study investigates the linguistic challenges that South African learners face when taught history using the English language, and then explores how learners would want to be taught. Using semi-structured interviews and classroom observations, this phenomenological study adopting a qualitative approach generated data from 12 purposively sampled participants drawn from two rural schools. Themed findings explicate that learners had poor command of the English language used for teaching and learning, and hence misunderstood command words, lacked confidence, mispronounced words and did not read for comprehension. The learners proposed that history teachers must employ scaffolding and translanguaging approaches to enhance mastery of history concepts. These findings suggest the need for schools through the Department of Education in South Africa, and in any other countries in similar contexts, to embrace scaffolding and translanguaging as pedagogical approaches in teaching history for understanding, rather than for uniformity. These insights could inform policies and practice for the language of teaching for the history curriculum in countries that are multilingual societies.

Type: Article
Title: Navigating the complexities of learning history in English in two South African schools
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.14324/HERJ.21.1.05
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.14324/HERJ.21.1.05
Language: English
Additional information: © 2024, Pfuurai Chimbunde, Thapelo Kagiso Lekhethe and Boitumelo Benjamin Moreeng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY) 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Keywords: African-language speakers, complexities, English, history, South African school
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10192252
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