'Reading on the Line': An Analysis of Literacy Practices in ESL Classes in a South African Township School

The writer argues that there are significant gaps in the way in which academic literacy theory has been conceptualised in the South African context. Although there has been much research about the transition from school to university, school literacy has tended to be presented as self-evident and the implications of students studying in an additional language, English, have tended to be addressed in functional terms. This paper uses insights from a critical ethnographic study of English in an urban, black working-class secondary school to describe the instrumental literacy practices that characterise English classes at the school. The data suggest that students are deeply ambivalent about English. I argue that their seemingly contradictory language attitudes and classroom practices are intimately linked to their attempts to define appropriate roles and identities in relation to the unstable school and township environment, as well as their construction of their place in the world within and beyond the township environment. The data illustrate the need for academic literacy intervention to take into consideration students' language attitudes and motivation, as well the need for subject-specific knowledge of school discourse practices.