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Are you the next 3MT South Africa winner?

15 July 2021 | Story Lunga Luthuli

The Three-Minute Thesis Competition, also known as the ‘3MT’, is an annual competition held at 200 universities around the world. It is open to PhD and master’s students, challenging participants to present their research in just 180 seconds – in a way that is understood by an audience with no background in the research area.

Click here for more information

The competition originated at the University of Queensland, Australia. The UFS Postgraduate School was the first to bring the ‘Three-Minute Thesis’ (3MT) competition to Africa, and it has now become an annual event at the UFS.

The competition aims to assist participants in the development of presentation, research, and academic communication skills, as well as to support the development of research students.

Each faculty will run the 3MT at faculty level. Winners from each faculty will compete against each other during the institutional competition on 1 October 2021 and will stand a chance to win these awesome cash prizes.

UFS INSTITUTIONAL PRIZES FOR 2021 ARE:

Position	Prizes 2021
Master’s winner	R6 000
Master’s 1^st runner-up	R4 000
Master’s 2^nd runner-up	R2 000
PhD winner	R8 000
PhD 1^st runner-up	R6 000
PhD 2^nd runner-up	R4 000

Winners of the institutional competition will go ahead to compete against other universities on 29 October 2021.

News Archive

CD-ROM for learning Afrikaans as foreign language launched

2009-04-30

At the launch of the CD-Rom, Gesellig Afrikaans, are from the left: Ms Riana de Beer, Research Assistant at the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch, German and French, Mr Christo Steyn from Bare Creative who did the digitalisation of the CD-ROM, Prof. Van Niekerk, Prof. Engela Pretorius, Vice-Dean of the Faculty of the Humanities, Prof. Driekie Hay, Vice-Rector: Academic Planning, and Mr François Marais, Director of the Centre for Higher Education Studies and Development at the UFS.
Photo: Lacea Loader

The Department of Afrikaans and Dutch, German and French at the University of the Free State (UFS) recently launched a CD-ROM course to learn Afrikaans as foreign language at the Main Campus in Bloemfontein.

For the past ten years the Department has been offering a course in Afrikaans as foreign language to small groups at the UFS. “However, the need for this course has escalated to such an extent on the Main and Qwaqwa Campuses of the UFS that we have decided to produce the CD-ROM. We have also found that not a lot of courses to learn Afrikaans were available. Those that do exist, do not recognise the needs of adult learners,” said Prof. Angelique van Niekerk from the Department.

“International students are often interested in learning new cultures and languages and staff members would also like to learn Afrikaans in order to understand the language better. Now they are able to master the basic principles and concepts of the language,” said Prof. Van Niekerk.

The course, which will be presented on the Main Campus, comprises a basic and an advanced course. Course attendants will receive both these CD-ROMs. English is used as the back-up language and translations of all the texts are available on the CD. Contemporary Afrikaans music is used to assist in fixing sound patterns, and the pronunciation of Afrikaans sounds, words and sentences is available through the sound component of the course. Uncomplicated language jokes, advertisement texts and cartoons are used to enhance the course content and a vocabulary list and list of idiomatic language uses will be kept updated by the learners. Explanations of basic grammatical constructions are given in both Afrikaans and English and learners are assessed at the end of the course. Aspects like word order, temporal indications, etc. are covered amongst other things.

“Mastering a foreign language is time-consuming and contact with the language is very important. Although there is a contact session with a facilitator of two hours per week, it is a handy course for people who cannot attend classes regularly,” said Prof. Van Niekerk.

The CD-ROM is available from at Prof. Angelique van Niekerk, vnieka.hum@ufs.ac.za, Tel. no. 051-4012339, at R150 per CD.

Media Release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@ufs.ac.za
28 April 2009

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