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a township or rural area where the LoLT is isiZulu. In addition, Mashiya (2011) and Phindane (2014) argue that for the majority of these learners entering Grade 4, the LoLT switches again (for the second time). This implies that 30% of the learners at the FP, mostly black children, are taught in a second language which in most cases is English, which they hardly speak at home in some districts. Fleisch (2008) adds a further dimension, that learners as well as teachers in townships and rural areas experience problems with EFAL learning and teaching, because they are not learning in a communicative language context. They hardly ever hear or speak English in their own communities. These learners live in a world in which English is essentially a foreign language.
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sociocultural thinking, people are constantly exposed to literacy events or human actions that involves the use of print in one way or another within a particular social group. Thus, such literacy practices imparts on the political, social, and cultural aspects of people’s life. From this discernment, the term literacy shifts from the conventional knowledge (read and write) to a new paradigm where people have (various) literacies which develop continuously as we learn new skills in life (Bloch, 2009).
According to Pinto, Bigozzi, Gamannossi, and Vezzani (2009), the term 'emergent literacy' is used to denotes the acquisition of literacy as a developmental continuum, with its origins beginning early in the life of a child, rather than a conceptual process which begins when children start formal schooling Thus, emergent literacy overlaps with the term 'early literacy’
which refers to how young children construct their own literacy individually and in a meaningful way as part of developmental and social learning processes. The emergent perspective of literacy is largely based on the cognitive construction of knowledge and hence, literacy learning in school is more than the acquisition of reading skills (Moats, 2009b). In one of the recent report on teaching of reading and writing in Foundation Phase in South African context, Pretorius, Jackson, McKay, Murray, and Spaull (2016, pp. 8-9) stress that:
Even before children formally start school they get socialised – to a greater or lesser degree into aspects of literacy from parents, caregivers and significant others in their environment. The values, attitudes, skills, knowledge and practices related to reading and writing activities that children acquire indirectly during the preschool years fall under the rubric of emergent literacy. The more strongly emergent literacy develops in the preschool years, the easier children find it to learn to read and write once they enter formal schooling.
Therefore, in the emergent approach, the acquisition of literacy skills is a dynamic, ongoing process that begins long before children begin formal schooling. It consists of children's formal and informal interactions with oral and written language before attending school. The children then use their prior knowledge and experiences to support the task of learning to read and write in school. With this kind of emergent thinking, literacy teaching demands that teachers acquire the new techniques to enable critical decision making and communicate meaning from reading
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and writing, using a variety of socially contextual symbols (Gunn, Simmons, & Kameenui, 2004; Pretorius et al., 2016).
In the field of emergent literacy, an important issue is its relationship to formal literary learning.
Research has focused on this relationship but there is no single consensus on a single literacy acquisition model (Joubert, Bester, & Meyer, 2008). Understanding the relationship between written signs and meanings is a complex process that involves a diverse of skills and abilities embedded in peoples’ context (Bloch, 2000). For instance Kuccer and Silva (2013), presents a multidimensional model made of interactive domains namely the linguistic, cognitive, socio- cultural and developmental dimensions to describe literacy acquisition. They argue that for literacy learning and teaching to be effective, it is paramount for the teachers to view literacy as a dynamic and a multidimensional process. Therefore, any person who wants to be literate has to continuously and efficiently engage with the cognitive, linguistic, socio-cultural and developmental dimensions of literacy (see Figure 3.1). Kuccer (2009) describes each dimension and also to demonstrate the interrelations among them during a literacy event as shown in Figure 3.1.
This model is a reflection and expansion of the preliminary works of Luke (1995) and The New London Group (1996), whose principles are widely used in Australia to provide teacher students with the opportunity to develop effective classroom practices.
Figure 3.1: The Dimensions of literacy: Kuccer (2009, p. 5)
According to Kuccer (2009), although these dimensions are perceived as separate domains, in the real pedagogical practices, the teacher is expected to draw from the four dimensions. This
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is because these dimensions are interrelated and operate in a trans-active and symbolic manner (Kuccer, 2009, p. 5), with each impacting on the other, in a complex manner. The summary of the four dimensions are presented as follows:
3.4.1 The cognitive dimension of the literacy model
According to the model, the centre of literacy is the cognitive dimension, where the language user’s purpose is to explore, discover, construct and share meaning. Readers and writers at this level of this model are expected to apply various mental processes and approaches to create meaning, rather than to transfer meaning in a literacy event. Cognitive psychologies have explored the mental process of reading and writing and realised reading constitutes the very process whereby learning occurs and it lies at the roots of the academic performance. Therefore to improve academic performance at all levels of schooling, requires a strong competence in reading and writing which brings in the idea of social dimension of this model.
3.4.2 The linguistic dimension of the literacy model
The linguistic is second dimension of literacy from the centre of this model, and perceived as the language driver through which meaning is expressed in different systems. The reader uses systems of language different to construct meaning through the linguistic dimensions. Some of these systems include pragmatic, text type, Genre, text structure, semantic, morphemic etc.
Therefore the reader and writer should coordinate and use all these systems to express meaning.
Linguistics will emphasis on technical way which entails the textual dimensions or language of reading and writing. The next two dimensions of the literacy encompasses the social aspect.
3.4.3 Socio-cultural dimension of the literacy model
The socio-cultural dimension locates literacy as a social process and focuses on how various groups in a specific context employ literacy in the real world. The socio-cultural dimension shifts our attention from the text and the mind, to that of literacy event and literacy practices.
Literacy does not only occur simply because an individual teacher possesses and applies the necessary linguistic and cognitive strategies or processes (Moats, 2014), but it is also an expression of group identity that signals power relationships (Kuccer & Silva, 2013). The way a person uses literacy within a given group reflects the nature of the group and the group position in the society Thus, teachers should realise that literacy is not a simple ‘act’ or
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cognition process, it rather represents multiple social enactments or behaviours. Typically, it continues through the course of one’s life, as long as literacy is encountered and used in new or novel ways as explained in the next section.
3.4.4 The developmental dimension of the literacy model
The developmental dimension of this model reflects growth in an individual’s ability to effectively engage the linguistics and cognitive and sociocultural dimensions of literacy in a wide range of contexts. For instance, learners develop new abilities in written languages. They begin to tactically move and compose various dimensions of language, with more control and flexibility to expand their horizons (Kuccer, 2009; Moats, 2014).
In summary, the multidimensional model views literacy education as a complex process which should be conceptualised from multiple lenses, in order to fully understand the classroom practices of reading and writing. Such literacy experiences are supposed to be continuous and lifelong so as to allow the literacy progression of the reader and effective instruction in particular school events (Kuccer & Silva, 2013).