In a globalised world English has largely become a second language across Europe.Increasingly attention is focused on the nature of the teaching of English in multilingual and multicultural contexts (Kramsch, 2014). Policymakers and educationalists at both university and school levels have had to grasp the complexities of introducing English as a subject and as a medium of instruction (Hultgren et al, 2015). The situation is made more difficult by the long‐established instability of the subject English, and lack of an agreed ‘core’ and rationale in its teaching (Cormack, 2008). There are also a wide range of English teaching approaches and methodologies like Communicative Language Teaching, genre-based pedagogy, and Content and Language Integrated Learning  (Graves & Garton, 2017) to name just a few. South Africa has a long and complicated history in relation to English. Language teaching and struggles over the medium of instruction in schools lay at the heart of political resistance to apartheid.

The current South African national curriculum is strongly framed and regulated and organised around subjects. Subject English is offered at two levels: English Home Language (EHL) and English First Additional Language (EFAL). Despite very different target students with different learning needs, the two curricula are very similar.  The approach for both EFAL and EHL is described as “text-based, communicative, integrated and process orientated” (DBE, 2011, p.11). A critical approach to texts is articulated- “The purpose of a text-based approach is to enable learners to become competent, confident and critical readers, writers, viewers and designers of texts” (ibid.). The purpose of teaching literature and grammar is the same across curricula.

Given these similarities, this study sought to understand how the two subjects are taught with a particular focus on how reading and writing competence is supported through the pedagogies. How is subject English constituted in South African high school classrooms? The research is located within a broader study that aimed to understand pedagogic evaluation in high school history, mathematics, English and mathematical literacy classrooms.

To address the question I analyse classroom observation data from Grade 8 and grade 10 classrooms. The main question is: How does pedagogic evaluation illustrate what is legitimated in various English classrooms, and how does this vary across EHL and EFAL?

Specific research questions are:

• How is content explained in lessons?
• What questioning strategies are used?
• How do teachers provide feedback on learner responses?
• What kinds of reading and writing activities are prevalent across classrooms?

The broad framing concept of the study is pedagogic evaluation. According to Bernstein (2000, p. 50), “the key to pedagogic practice is continuous evaluation”. Thus, evaluation marks out criteria for the recognition and realisation of legitimate knowledge statements (Bernstein, 2000) and is central to the reproduction of knowledge in pedagogic contexts. ‘Legitimate’ does not necessarily mean correct from the point of view of the subject or discipline. Bernstein uses the term evaluation rather than assessment. In other words, pedagogic evaluation is broader than tasks that assess accuracy of learners’ knowledge and encompasses all forms of pedagogic communication such as teacher and learner talk or written productions, textbooks and other curriculum resources, tests and examinations. That said, the study does privilege an understanding of English as engagement in the reading and production of written text.

Bernstein’s notion of pedagogy as constant evaluation is not dissimilar to ‘formative assessment’ (Wiliam and Thompson, 2007). In the broader study, we adapted Wiliam and Thomson’s framework for formative assessment, focusing on the first three aspects of their framework to develop empirical indicators for pedagogic evaluation: Articulating purpose and explaining content; Checking understanding through questions and tasks and giving feedback.

The project collected data in eight case study high schools in two South African provinces, the Western Cape and Eastern Cape. These two provinces represent distinct socio-economic, historical, and educational contexts. Eastern Cape is one of the poorest provinces in South Africa with high levels of unemployment, rural poverty, and limited infrastructure. The Western Cape in contrast is more urbanized, has better infrastructure, higher income levels and generally higher educational outcomes. Educational policy in general, and curriculum and assessment policy in particular, is developed at a national level. It is instructive to research how policies are implemented in these diverse contexts. Comparing the provinces provides valuable lessons for understanding the complexities of educational inequality and for considering policy options that can improve the quality of education across the country. The study focused on the Grade 8 and Grade 10 levels in Mathematics, Mathematical Literacy, English (First Additional Language and Home Language) and History. In each of the eight schools, seven teachers were observed across two consecutive lessons and were interviewed. 54 teachers were interviewed and classroom video data from 99 lessons was collected. School-based assessment tasks and learner scripts were also collected from all teachers. This paper focuses only on the English data collected from a total of 30 Grade 8 and Grade 10 teachers, 12 lessons teaching English as a Home Language and 18 English as a First Additional Language.

Across the three indicators there is a spread of scores across fee and non-fee-paying schools’ lessons suggesting that in relation to pedagogic evaluation as measured on the three selected indicators there is no significant or consistent difference between fee paying and non-fee paying schools in English. Likewise there are minimal differences in scores between English Home Language and English First Additional Language lessons (apart from one school, Hudson). In general, learners speak very little in classrooms, especially in EFAL lessons. Teacher explanations tend largely to be clear, but are often simplistic. Inaccurate and partial explanations or responses are common. Questioning strategies that drive conceptual learning in the subject, or focus clearly on developing language skills or content, are rare. Teachers’ feedback on learner responses across 23 out of 30 lessons was found to be low or very low – absent, superficial or inaccurate. Differences between classrooms lie in the function of classroom discourse. Different semiotic practices are deployed in different classrooms which entail different ways of dealing with phenomena, addressing questions, defining tasks and responding to them. The textbook and reference to text is a stabiliser of pedagogy in certain classrooms where subject-specific criteria are foregrounded. In other instances a moral discourse (EHL) or highly procedural and instrumental discourse (EFAL) dominates classroom instruction. Across all classrooms the nature of productive writing and reading practices are interrogated with a view to identifying optimal use of reading and writing pedagogies both from teachers’ and learners’ perspectives.

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