In this paper we describe and discuss the language practices of mathematics, science and English language teachers and learners in a sample of urban and rural, primary and secondary schools in South Africa. We focus particularly on the reception and production of language through code-switching, exploratory talk and discourse-specific talk. We situate the article in the policy and practice environment of post-apartheid South African education in which additive bi/multilingualism is officially advocated. We use the metaphor of a journey to describe how teachers and learners move from informal, exploratory talk in learners’ main languages to discourse-specific talk and writing in English. A key finding from our study is that few teachers and learners completed this complex journey and that the constraints differed across classroom context, level and subject being taught.

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