An investigation into challenges facing Further Education Training (FET) leaners in the study of Isixhosa in the Port Elizabeth district

The essential function of a language is communication. Effective communication takes place when speakers understand each other‟s language. Speakers of different languages these days stay with each other. This kind of setting results into multilingualism. Multilingualism refers to the use or maintenance of more than one language in a certain context. In this regard it may refer to the fact that many languages are spoken in South Africa. It serves as a natural solution to the problem of language contact that is extremely widespread throughout South Africa and the world at large. The recognition of the multilingual nature of South African society by the Constitution of this country , as (Made 2010) puts it, necessitates the creation of tools of implementation and redress, in the form of appropriate language policies. Such language policies are designed to correct the universal tendency to practise monolingualism in multilingual societies which disempowers non-mother tongue speakers of the dominant language, to the detriment of both their rights as citizens and in communicative equity in exercising these rights. Many Black South Africans took employment in the industrial centres through urbanization, where they learnt many languages such as Fanakalo, English, Afrikaans and many other languages in the African continent. This resulted into linguistic heterogeneity. Heterogeneity brings speakers of languages together at different workplaces, schools and even places of abode