**4. Discussion of themes**

The purpose of this case study was to explore the use of interactive strategies in the teaching of EFAL by UNISA student teachers during their teaching practice in township schools of South Africa. Emanating from the results, the following themes emerged and are discussed below.


#### **4.1 Theme 1- use of pictures, charts and flashcards**

It was expected that student teachers would use interactive strategies during their lesson presentations as it may provide for diverse learning opportunities, since learners are motivated to play an active role [18]. However, only two of the student teachers observed during teaching practice used small group discussion, while the other four used pictures, charts or flashcards in their EFAL lesson presentations. Student teachers discussed their particular choice of strategies and justified their use:

*I use flashcards, or flash words. … which means my level of flashing will be different. If I'm flashing the sentence, the simplest sentence that I'm going to show them is the opportunity I give learners who are struggling to spell the words. (Student Teacher 1)*

*I believe in charts. Something like this one (grabbing the charts bound together), these are charts that keep the learners through the lesson and I actually fold them because they get lost. If you take the chart with the picture there, it unlocks the child's memory to know what the teacher is all about and what is supposed to write (sic). (Student Teacher 2)*

*The most effective strategy for me is pictures and charts. (Student Teacher 3)*

*The strategy that I use is the direct approach. The direct approach is when I use the pictures that I have with me and then learners will be talking one by one. (Student Teacher 4)*

The student teachers believed that the use of pictures, charts and flashcards was effective in involving learners in the lesson, or in helping the learners talk to each other and discuss using English as the medium of communication.

The student teachers reported that they utilised pictures, charts and flashcards to enhance their teaching, as it also offered learners an opportunity to viewand-read. Learners, for example, looked at the word or sentence displayed on the chart, read it aloud, and then they wrote it in their books. This strategy assisted learners reinforce the spelling of the word or sentence in their minds, thus improving retention of information. Read [11] affirms that reading-andviewing skills may enable learners to write the words using correct spelling. Sun [40] found that the use of charts and flashcards supported comprehension through both textual and illustrated contexts and reinforced the meanings and memory of words, thus developing vocabulary. The common use of pictures, charts and flashcards could be a confirmation that the schools visited were poorly resourced, and consequently, there were no other resources available to use, except pictures, charts and flashcards, which could be easily produced by student teachers (even at their own expense). It is assumed that student teachers took an active role in creating the above-mentioned teaching aids for learners to understand and enjoy their lessons.

Interactive teaching strategies such as brainstorming, case studies and role-play suggested by [13] were not used by the student teachers in their teaching practice. The reason could be the student teachers were not adequately trained to apply the above-mentioned interactive teaching strategies.

Non-availability of resources may have served as a poor motivator for student teachers, influencing how they taught their EFAL lessons. In ODL institutions, students are generally computer-literate and use computers, smart-phones and other devices to communicate, to prepare assignments and to access information [41]. However, the lack of computers at these schools may have affected student teachers' enthusiasm and preparedness to work, although it seems that all used other more traditional visual aids.
