**1. Introduction**

South Africa is a diverse country with 12 official languages including the Sign Language. Linguistic diversity and multilingualism in education, specifically when teaching and learning have to take place in the students' second or third language, can create challenges for both teachers and students. Without the necessary support, these language challenges can also lead to learning difficulties across the curriculum. It is important for students to attain a certain level of mastery of the language of instruction, predominantly English, to enable them to progress academically. This is one of the challenges that students at the primary school level who are English Language learners (ELL) are faced with when being taught in English as their primary language

of instruction. The students are often not able to effectively engage with the content and the teachers find it difficult at times to explain concepts in English, which in some instances is also the teachers' second or third language.

It is common knowledge that teachers in linguistically diverse classrooms employ various strategies such as code-switching, code-mixing, direct instruction and translanguaging to assist students to better understand the content which is being presented to them. According to Richard Nordquist [1], code-switching is the method of swapping between different dialects of a language or, even, changing between two or more different languages. Research indicates that code-switching can be perceived as either an advantage or a disadvantage. Translanguaging is another strategy used in linguistically diverse classrooms and utilises two languages to mediate and arrange mental processes in learning, as defined by Rosemary Wildsmith-Cromarty [2]. As defined by Garcia [3, 4], translanguaging is a unitary meaning-making system of the speakers in which multiple discursive practices are used to understand the bilingual world and to create a space where the students make use of all their linguistic and semiotic repertoire [5]. "It *is the process by which bilingual students make use of the many resources their bilingual status offers"* ([6], p. 559). During a study of translanguaging, the students were allowed to write their essays, assessments and examinations in a language of their choice. This, in itself, can be considered another strategy as students identified that writing in the language of their choice allowed them to express themselves confidently and clearly [2].

According to the PIRLS 2021 study on literacy levels, approximately 81 per cent of South African Grade 4 students do not reach the international benchmark for literacy and, therefore, do not have the basic reading skills to proceed to the next grade. This is an indication that more needs to be done to support language development and access to curriculum content. Conversely, there are pockets of success recorded regularly. Not much research has been directed towards investigating and disseminating the strategies which teachers use to effectively support and accommodate learning in linguistically diverse classrooms. There is a need to tap into these successes and best practices and explore how these can be used to further strengthen teacher professional development programmes. Consequently, the research question for the study was "What are teachers' instructional and support strategies for facilitating learning in linguistically diverse primary classes?"
