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A multilingual movement at the UFS

03 January 2023 | Story Dr Cindé Greyling | Photo Anja Aucamp

Dr Nomalungelo Ngubane, the Director: Academy for Multilingualism, is working through various initiatives to ensure that the UFS becomes and remains the South African leader in multilingualism.

The Academy for Multilingualism was established at the beginning of 2021, flowing from the UFS Language Policy (2016) that is currently under review, and which expresses the university’s commitment to multilingualism, with a particular emphasis on Sesotho, Afrikaans, and isiZulu, while English remains the primary medium of instruction for undergraduate and postgraduate studies.

The Student Language Preference Survey continues to indicate that many students have difficulty understanding English lectures due to language differences. Multilingual models from places like South America, India and South Africa were considered in order to structure the approach at the UFS.

Promoting indigenous languages

To mitigate the English barrier, the academy is developing multilingual academic glossaries. The multilingual glossaries are also intended to drive the promotion of indigenous languages (Sesotho/Afrikaans/IsiZulu) as academic languages, and to create multilingual learning spaces that embrace diverse languages.

Academic word lists from seven departments are in the process of being translated – in conjunction with the Unit of Lexicography – to create glossaries. The team at South African Sign Languages will add videos to these glossaries to provide unique and inclusive content in the realm of multilingualism.

In 2022, the academy, in collaboration with the Library and Information Services, launched an African Languages Press with the aim of promoting and advancing publications of literature and research books using South African indigenous languages.

The Academy for Multilingualism also promotes multilingualism through the Initiative for Creative African Narratives (iCAN), a programme that encourages students to write short stories in their indigenous home languages. By incorporating student narratives into learning material, students learn about one another, from one another.

The iCAN multilingual booklets are also used to encourage extensive reading among undergraduates and among learners in the surrounding community schools.

Use of translanguaging practices

The academy is also working with the Centre for Teaching and Learning’s (CTL) A_STEP programme to pilot the use of translanguaging practices in tutor sessions. UFS staff will also be trained on teaching and translanguaging practices. Voice-over translations of English lessons into Afrikaans and Sesotho in the Faculty of Theology and Religion paved the way for the academy to proceed with this practice in other subjects. The Translanguaging Seminar 2022, hosted by the academy and the CTL, was used as a platform for sharing translanguaging knowledge and practices by academics from the UFS and other institutions.

The Kovsies Multilingual Mokete has become a popular annual tradition celebrating different cultural expressions – in visual art, poetry, storytelling, drama, music, and song – by different language groups and in the different languages that are dominant at the UFS (i.e. English, Afrikaans, Sesotho, isiZulu, and Sign Language). This year’s event was held on the South Campus in October.

With its various initiatives, the Academy for Multilingualism will ensure that the UFS becomes and remains the South African leader in multilingualism.

News Archive

UFS in forefront with ASGI-SA initiative

2006-05-10

At the conceptualisation colloquium and stakeholder dialogue were from the left Dr Aldo Stroebel (senior researcher at the UFS Research Development Directorate), Dr Edith Vries (acting Chief Executive Officer of the Independent Development Trust) and Prof Frans Swanepoel (Director: UFS Research Development Directorate).

UFS in forefront with ASGI-SA initiative

Two staff members of the University of the Free State (UFS) have been appointed as members of the advisory board of the national programme for the creation of small enterprises and jobs in the second economy. This programme forms part of government’s Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (ASGI-SA).

Prof Frans Swanepoel, Director of the UFS Research Development Directorate and Dr Aldo Stroebel, senior researcher at the UFS Research Development Directorate, are working with a team of experts from the UFS on a draft implementation strategy for the national programme. Both Prof Swanepoel and Dr Stroebel are also associated to the UFS Centre for Sustainable Agriculture.

“The strategy is being developed in collaboration with institutions like the Independent Development Trust, the Department of Agriculture, the National Development Agency and the Department of Trade and Industry,” says Prof Swanepoel.

The other team members of the UFS are Prof Basie Wessels, Director of the Mangaung-University Community Partnership Programme (MUCPP) and Mr Benedict Mokoena, project manager at the MUCPP.

Dr Stroebel was also member of the organising committee of a conceptualisation colloquium and stakeholder dialogue that was recently presented in Johannesburg. The conference was attended by more than 400 delegates from government departments, higher-education institutions and civil society, including Dr Kobus Laubscher, member of the UFS Council.

The conference was facilitated by Ms Vuyo Mahlati, previously from the WK Kellogg Foundation’s Africa programme and opened by Ms Thoko Didiza, Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs.

“The colloquium formed the basis of an induction workshop during which a group of 150 individuals (50 teams of three) from all nine provinces, identified to initiate the implementation of the national programme, was trained and orientated towards an induction manual in collaboration with Hand-in-Hand, an Indian counterpart,” says Prof Swanepoel.

Dr Stroebel and Mr Benedict Mokoena formed part of the team to conceptualise and finalise this training manual. The induction training includes a case study of a successful community self-help partnership model, namely the MUCPP at the UFS. Prof Wessels and Mr Mokoena are both playing a leading role in the further development of subsequent training initiatives throughout South Africa, in partnership with the relevant provincial departments.

“The involvement of the UFS in the programme is a compliment to us. It reflects the value government sees in the use of academics and experts in the management of the ASGI-SA initiative. It is also an indication of one of the aims of the UFS to play a role in South Africa and Africa and in the transformation and change that is taking place in our country,” says Prof Swanepoel.

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel: (051) 401-2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
10 May 2006

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