Background: Despite South Africa’s huge investment in professional development, there is not a lot of research that shows that teachers change their teaching practices by attending formal interventions. This article focuses on English as First Additional Language (EFAL) and explores how one Grade 2 teacher changed her practice of oral language teaching while enrolled for an Advanced Certificate in Teaching (ACT) programme. The programme was offered to Foundation Phase teachers to improve their teaching knowledge and ultimately change their teaching practices. Objectives: The article explores one teacher’s oral language teaching and use of teacher resources in a township school. The purpose is to understand how her instructional practices changed or did not change during the 18 months while she was enrolled with the ACT programme. Method: Data were collected over 18 months by observing six video-recorded literacy lessons, corroborated with interviews and field notes. These were analysed using principles of teaching EFAL espoused in the programme’s intended curriculum. Results: The two exemplars offered demonstrate a gradual shift in teaching of oral language and use of resources by the end of the programme. The teacher code-switched appropriately most of the time and adequately used various strategies. She created opportunities to develop learners’ oral vocabulary; however, explicit sentence building was absent. Findings further revealed that the teacher’s engagement with many collaborative professional development activities, school support, together with her goal-achieving character, contributed to instructional changes. Conclusion: This study highlights that there are a number of other factors, such as the school context, the teacher’s motivation and other informal learning opportunities that support teacher learning from a formal professional development intervention. It also advocates for more robust studies on how a teacher’s practices change as a result of formal professional development opportunities.

中文翻译：

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基础阶段以英语作为第一附加语言的英语口语教学：不断变化的实践案例研究

背景：尽管南非在专业发展方面投入巨资，但没有太多研究表明教师通过参加正式干预来改变他们的教学方式。本文重点介绍英语作为第一附加语言（EFAL），并探讨一位2年级老师在注册高级教学证书（ACT）计划时如何改变她的口语教学实践。该计划提供给基础阶段的教师，以提高他们的教学知识并最终改变他们的教学实践。目标：本文探讨了乡镇学校一名教师的口语教学和教师资源的使用。目的是了解在加入ACT计划的18个月内，她的教学习惯是如何变化或没有变化。方法：通过观察六个视频记录的扫盲课程，并在访谈和现场笔记中得到证实，在18个月内收集了数据。使用计划目标课程中支持的EFAL教学原则对这些内容进行了分析。结果：所提供的两个范例表明，到课程结束时，口语教学和资源使用都在逐步转变。教师大部分时间都在适当地进行代码转换，并充分使用了各种策略。她创造了发展学习者口语词汇的机会。但是，没有明确的句子构建。调查结果进一步表明，教师参与许多协作式专业发展活动，学校支持以及她的目标实现性格，促成了教学上的改变。结论：这项研究强调，还有许多其他因素，例如学校环境，教师的动机和其他非正式学习机会，可以支持教师从正式的专业发展干预中学习。它还主张就正规的专业发展机会导致教师的行为发生变化的方式进行更强有力的研究。