<![CDATA[Multilingual education has always been a controversial issue in South Africa, because most South African learners’ home languages are different from that of the language of learning and teaching (LoLT) in schools. The aim of this study was to explore the pedagogical approaches that teachers in ex-Model C schools (former White schools) use in multilingual classes in the Foundation Phase (grades 1-3) in Gqeberha, South Africa, with a view to understanding how learners are catered for when their home languages are different from the LoLT, which is predominantly English. The study embraced an interpretivist paradigm, was qualitative in nature and adopted a phenomenological design to describe foundation phase teachers’ (grades1-3) pedagogical approaches in teaching multilingual learners. The data collection process involved conducting semi-structured interviews with 15 purposively selected foundation phase teachers from 3 ex-Model C schools in Gqeberha to establish the pedagogical approaches that they used to support learners whose home language was not the LoLT. The data were analysed thematically by studying patterns, including that some teachers are positively predisposed to multilingual teaching and learning and implement approaches such as experiential learning, they do not feel equipped to teach multilingual learners in their classes, since they require more focused training.]]>
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