Many high school learners in developing countries, such as South Africa, still face the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on their education. This is evident in the current discourses about finding innovative approaches to reduce the persistent learning gaps that resulted from prolonged school closures due to the pandemic. Although intervention strategies such as trimmed curricula and recovery plans have been implemented in the post-pandemic era, there is a persistent need for more innovative approaches to addressing knowledge gaps for English first additional language (English FAL) learners in rural high schools. Hence, this qualitative study investigated how rural high school learners used self-initiated strategies to reduce learning loss in English FAL. The study used interpretivism and situational learning theory for paradigmatic and theoretical purposes. For data generation, ten learners from one rural high school were purposively selected to participate in the semi-structured interviews, and their responses were thematically analysed. The findings revealed that rural high school learners viewed self-directed learning as an act of taking responsibility for their own learning, as a tool to identify knowledge gaps and monitor their academic progress in their quest to reduce learning loss in English FAL. Additionally, the self-initiated strategies included seeking external support, using English as a communication tool in the household, engaging with different texts, watching TV programs, and using YouTube as a language learning tool.

Keywords: Approaches, EFAL, learning loss, rural, self-directed learning.