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The research discussed in this article was undertaken in response to the following: (1) the proposal in the Language Task Action Group’s document, Towards a National Language Plan for South Africa (1996), that a national language policy be designed to promote the development and status of the historically disadvantaged African languages and to counter the hegemony of English; (2) the Department of Education’s Language‐in‐Education‐Policy for schools which promotes additive bilingualism and multilingualism, with all the languages that a learner knows being viewed as resources for further learning; and (3) the Norms and Standards for Educators, published in the South African Government Gazette in February 2000, which states that ‘reflexive competence’—competence in reflection—is one of the three strands of competence required of all teachers. Providing support for the development of such competence has been one of the goals of the flexible learning Bachelor of Education programme of the University of the Witwatersrand since its inception in 1999. The majority of the teachers in this B Ed programme speak and write English as an additional language but where they have been required to demonstrate aspects of their reflexive competence, they have been expected to do this in English only. This article reports on a small‐scale project which investigated whether a group of teachers participating in a B Ed programme would prefer to engage in reflective discussion (oral or written) in English, in their main language(s) or to switch between languages. In other words, which language(s) would they prefer to use in order to demonstrate aspects of their ‘reflexive competence’? The findings, in support of opportunities for codeswitching being included in oral presentations and reflective writing in teacher development programmes, warrant further investigation.
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