Language Teaching Research Quarterly

The purpose of this paper is to describe and reflect on the position of what are called second additional languages in the language teaching landscape of South African schools. This landscape is crowded, with different South African languages vying for attention. Amidst efforts to increase the number of learners who offer an African language as one of the subjects in the school exit examination, initiatives to introduce languages like Mandarin and Swahili put additional pressure on an already over-burdened system. The paper considers this crowded landscape and the implications for the teaching of German, French and Mandarin at secondary school level. These are only three of at least fifteen languages offered as second additional languages. This paper focuses on these three because they are most widely taught in mainstream schools. The policies and practices as well as the problems with teaching these languages are described, focusing on the types of learner who will choose these languages, the approach to teaching them and possible actions that could ensure the continued offering of second additional languages at primary and secondary schools.