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22 September 2021 | Story Michelle Nöthling | Photo Supplied
Annemarie Le Roux.

“I love working with children.” This is one of the first things Annemarie le Roux mentions when asked to describe herself. This love for children propelled Annemarie into the field of education and she graduated in 2006 with a BEd in Foundation Phase at the UFS. Annemarie immediately immersed herself in the Deaf community, enriching the lives of children at the Thiboloha School for the Deaf in Qwaqwa and the De la Bat School for the Deaf in Worcester. 

The academic world enticed Annemarie back to the University of the Free State (UFS) and she was appointed as a junior lecturer in the Department of South African Sign Language (SASL) and Deaf Studies in 2013. Going from strength to strength, Annemarie completed her master’s degree in SASL in 2019, and published an article earlier this year that she co-wrote with Marga Stander. In this article, they found that SASL “has become an increasingly popular language that hearing university students want to learn as a second language” and subsequently explored different teaching methods used for this emerging group of interested students. 

Although now firmly established in academia, Annemarie is still committed to the practical application of SASL. “I am closely involved in student and community engagement through the SIGNALS Sign Language student association that helps empower the Deaf community and South African Sign Language.” She also interprets for the Deaf community whenever she gets an opportunity, as well as for Deaf students in class and meetings.

On the importance of Sign Language and the recognition of the Deaf community in South Africa, Annemarie believes it will open greater opportunities for development. “More people will be able to learn SASL, and it might even become a subject in school for hearing children.”

News Archive

Students take part in prestigious programme at Stanford University
2013-08-05

 

Ready for Stanford. From the left are: Patricia Mapipi, SinazoMabunu, Claudio Carlos, Elzahn van der Westhuizen, Stefan van der Westhuizen and Zakariyya Patel.
Photo: Jerry Mokoroane
05 August 2013

At the end of August 2013 six Kovsies will depart for Stanford Sophomore College in San Francisco, USA, to take part in a prestigious residential programme. The programme stems from a key partnership between the UFS and Stanford University.

This programme involves the most talented second-year undergraduate students from both the UFS and Oxford universities joining the Stanford Sophomore College.These students spend over two weeks during the USA summer recess engaged in a programme which concentrates on the academic studying of innovative and multidisciplinary topics.

The Kovsies students selected for the 2013 programme are: Patricia Mapipi and Sinazo Mabunu from the Faculty of the Humanities; Claudio Carlos and Elzahn van der Westhuizen from the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences; and Stefan van der Westhuizen and Zakariyya Patel from the Faculty of Health Sciences.

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