The majority of learners in Southern Africa receive their education through the medium of a second language , English. Although teachers of English play a crucial role in helping learners to acquire language skills in the medium of instruction, we argue that subject content teachers' lack of attention to the teaching of the four language skills may be a raison d'être for learners' lack of academic achievement. A situation analysis conducted among three study populations examined the extent to which subject content teachers took res ponsibility for the teaching of language skills in the content classroom, as w ell as possible reasons for not doing so. It also shed some light on the amount of language teaching that actually took place in a content classroom. The aim of the situation an alysis was to determine whether there was a need for a specialised training course for English second language m edium of instruction teachers.