A Translingual Approach to Learning and Teaching in a Bilingual Social Sciences Classroom

This chapter reports findings from translingual learning, teaching, and assessment in a Grade 9 social sciences classroom. The independent samples test for the equality of variance shows that overall learners performed better when the language of input was IsiZulu, irrespective of the language of output. These findings show that learners learn optimally in a language they know the most, whilst their linguistic repertoire serves as a resource for optimal learning. This chapter, therefore, argues and advocates for the use of all linguistic repertoires for learning in content subjects within the constructs of translanguaging as pedagogy. However, in contexts where one language is dominantly used by learners in their everyday lives, the dominant language must be used as a language of input.