Training multilingual English language teachers: challenges for higher education

In South Africa, English is used as a language of learning and teaching for most students from Grade 4 onwards. National policies have requirements for all teachers regarding language proficiency in English, and they also require all teachers from Grades R (pre-school) to 6 to be English language teachers. Because most teachers are not English home language speakers, it is necessary to build academic language proficiency across school subjects along the lines of multilingual content and language integrated learning (MCLIL). National policy documents show little awareness of this and constrain teacher education for multilingual contexts.