Banda, FelixIipinge, Kristof2025-11-032025-11-032025Iipinge, K. & Banda, F. (2025) Learners’ perceptions of English essay writing problems in northern Namibia: Towards Oshiwambo-English translanguaging discourse in English classrooms. Southern African linguistics and applied language studies. [Online] 1–13.https://doi.org/10.2989/16073614.2025.2511123https://hdl.handle.net/10566/21359Literature shows that Namibian learners encounter several challenges when writing essays in English. Hence, several studies have been carried out from the teachers’ perspective to identify problems that learners encounter when writing in English. However, there are few studies that were done to explore learners’ perceptions of their writing problems. Consequently, this article is aimed at exploring learners’ perceptions of challenges in writing in English and the strategies to overcome them. In addition, the article examines prospects for translanguaging as pedagogical discourse in multilingual contexts of northern Namibia. In this regard, structured, one-on-one interviews were conducted with 21 Oshiwambo-speaking learners from seven public schools in the Omusati region. The findings suggest that while some learners were concerned about using Oshiwambo to teach forms of writing in English, the overriding finding was that Oshiwambo should be used more than is currently the case. The article concludes with a discussion of the pedagogic implications of Oshiwambo-English translanguaging discourse, the strategic grouping of learners, peer learning, collaboration and teacher mentoring, for the transformation of the classroom into an interactive space for fluid and creative multilingual resource use in task orientation, topic brainstorming, essay drafting, proofreading and editing.enwriting problemsNorthern NamibiaOshiwambo-Englishtranslanguaging discourseEnglish classroomsArticle