Nhlanhla Mpofu

In recent years there’s been growing recognition among education experts that integrating content and language learning is key to promoting comprehensive academic achievement.

This is particularly relevant in multilingual education systems where English serves as the primary medium of instruction.

So, in 2013, South Africa’s Department of Basic Education, which is responsible for primary and secondary education, set out to enhance academic performance through a strategy called English Across the Curriculum. This approach involves integrating language skills in content subjects such as history. Language skills include listening and speaking; reading and viewing; writing and presenting; and language structures and conventions.

The initiative was designed to guide teachers in public schools who lacked prior experience in merging content subjects like history, physical sciences and mathematics with language learning. It was a compulsory tool to reinforce the use of English as a language of learning and teaching and a way