Abstract:

The South African Language in Education Policy emphasize that learners be developed in listening and speaking, reading and viewing, writing and presenting and language usage skills.The problem of the learner’s low English language proficiency that is prevalent in historically disadvantaged schools in South Africa, has been noted by various scholars. In line with international benchmarks, the use of Visual Arts has been identified as an appropriate tool to support learners and improve the quality of teaching and learning of EFAL. Visual Arts is one of the learning areas introduced in South African curriculum when education was restructured in 1994. The desk review study was conducted primarily aiming to investigate, assess and suggest how integration of Visual Arts into English FAL teaching could support the learners, in order for them to be more proficient in English learning. The literature reviewed shows that in South Africa, the proper skills needed to be able to use arts-integrated teaching methods are lacking in the education sector in general because most teachers have limited Art skills caused by their own education having been compromised by insufficiently trained arts educators. Literature further indicates that learners should be afforded opportunities to learn and communicate their understandings through various forms of representation. Many scholars in the assert that the quality meaningful visual arts integration in the teaching and learning has the ability to provide opportunities for the learning of a language including English FAL. The most important learning approaches to be used are inquiry-based and experiential learning. Integrating Visual Arts in English FAL learning would enable learners to learn with increasing autonomy, initiative and self-reflection, thus developing skills they need in order to be proficient in English FAL.

Keywords:

Visual Arts, Language proficiency, Literacy levels, learner engagement, Language acquisition.