Building a reading culture among Grade 12 learners in an EFAL classroom: the case of one High School in King William's Town education district

longitudinal ethnographic action-based study because it covers correlated aspects/variables towards building a reading culture in schools from a constructivist perspective. The concept of building a reading culture in this study arises against the backdrop of several studies that bemoan the English language deficit and hegemony around the globe general, South Africa in particular, leading to a massive failure rate of the Grade 12 learners in school. This phenomenon is widespread despite a call by the government of the day in its language policy to promote bilingual education, extend multilingualism.

The study advocated for mother languages as valuable linguistic repertoires in acquiring a new language. Comprehensible input and intercultural translatability influenced it. The notion of comprehensible input in the context for this study assumes that the teacher chooses a text to read, for example, upper-intermediate level learners from a lower advanced level coursebook, but doing so with the level of the learners' academic performance in mind. Based on this view, learners can acquire comprehensible input to help them gain new/ more languages. In this way, the study sought to inculcate a reading culture in high school learners in an English First Additional Language Classroom to overcome poor readership, tilting into acquiring language naturally, rather than learning it consciously and perceiving it as a deficit.

While intercultural translatability presupposes that, no approach can be transferred directly from one local context to another. However, we can all find something from an approach designed in one context that is 'translatable' to enhance our local context, which is what this study espoused since it is ongoing action-based research.

The school where I conducted the study has become a symbol of good practice, in which the neighbouring schools visit for assimilation of some of the successful reading strategies. As a language teacher then, I used to take some of my learners for outreach, visiting neighbouring schools and homes of senior citizens to perform literary activities such as narration, reading aloud, school debates etc.

Considering the above, in this study, I argue that there are not enough studies conducted in the teaching of reading from a constructivist perspective, the rationale for this study. Among other propositions to building reading culture was to come up with different approaches that may induce learners into the act of reading. This is a qualitative study utilising an interpretivism paradigm because such a paradigm is embedded in the notion that there is no universal truth and that a single phenomenon can have a plethora of interpretations. Fundamentally, this study advocated for reading to be taught as a social practice across curriculum to create a positive learning environment free of fear and devoid of anxiety.