University of the Western Cape

Several national departments and bodies, provincial departments, schools and parents, academic groups have benefited from the impact advanced by the Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research (CMDR). The research on translanguaging, linguistic citizenship and broadly decolonial multilingual education has given the National Department of Basic Education the scientific language to logical plot mother tongue-based bilingual education and by extension multilingual education. In the Western Cape alone, teachers and learners in grade 4 at 176 schools are now living, learning and dreaming of alternative futures through mother tonguebased bilingual education. Principals can plan and develop strategy to make space for the practices of isiXhosa and Kaaps at their schools. Teachers can update their pedagogical skill set and validate their own practices and that of the learners. Parents have additional choices of instruction for their children. isiXhosa and Kaaps learners feel included and unburdened by the cognitive load of foreign sounding, colonial and standard languages such as English and Afrikaans. At universities, isiXhosa and Kaaps are being implemented as part of language policies.