SAALT | South African Association for Language Teaching

SAALT Newsletter: October Edition

Celebrating Writing Centres, Libraries, and the Heart of Education

October marks a special time for education in South Africa, where we celebrate not only the spaces that nurture intellectual growth but also the individuals who inspire it. This month’s newsletter brings focus to the vital role of writing centres and libraries in the South African Higher Educational setting. As we celebrate Teacher’s Day on 5 October, National Dictionary Day on 16 October, and International Library Day on 24 October, we honour the dedication of educators, the power of words, and the invaluable contribution of our academic support services. Let us explore the ways these resources continue to transform learning for students and educators alike.

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In honour of October’s Ode to learning we are excited to share the knowledge and insights from three guest contributors to this month’s issue:

  • Ms Nokuthula Musa, Executive Director: Core Programmes at the National Library of South Africa, shares her insights on the crucial role that public libraries play in fostering emergent literacy skills among young learners. Her contribution highlights the importance of access to literacy resources in shaping the academic futures of children.
  • Dr Avasha Rambiritch, Senior Lecturer in Academic Literacy and a key figure in South Africa’s writing centre initiatives, offers an engaging excerpt from her book, “Reimagining Writing Centre Practices: A South African Perspective”. In addition Dr Rambiritch also shares information on the first International Conference of the South African Association of Academic Literacy Practitioners (SAAALP).
  • Mr Zander Janse van Rensburg, Manager of the Writing Centres at North-West University, explores the intersection of artificial intelligence and academic support services in his thought-provoking opinion piece, Writing Centres in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Ethical Challenges and New Possibilities. His contribution examines how AI is reshaping the landscape of academic writing assistance and the ethical questions it raises.

Public Libraries Nurturing Young Readers

Nokuthula Musa

“The public library, the local gateway to knowledge, provides a basic condition for lifelong learning, independent decision- making and cultural development of the individual and social groups.”

IFLA-UNESCO Public Library Manifesto 2022

Public libraries play a crucial role in fostering the early literacy development of children within their communities. These libraries work with local Early Childhood (ECD) centres and schools to implement reading promotion programmes aimed at young children. Public libraries offer a variety of resources, including children’s books, toys, and games, alongside engaging in reading promotion activities such as storytelling, arts and crafts, and puppet shows. In addition to traditional services, some public libraries have embraced digital innovation to deliver children’s services. For example, Gauteng and Western Cape Provincial Library Services provide tablets loaded with games and educational activities, and gaming consoles to their public libraries. The City of Johannesburg Library Services host virtual book reading sessions for children on Facebook and offer coding programmes for primary school children in its public libraries.


Figure 1: Shared book reading session at Oukasie Library, Madibeng Municipality (photo supplied by Zandile Nyathi)


Figure 2: Children engaged in different activities (Source: @Joburg libraries)


Mobile library outreach to ECD centres in Mandeni, KwaZulu Natal (Photo supplied by Lindelani Dhlodhlo)

At national level, the National Library of South Africa (NLSA) actively promotes reading through various initiatives, such as World Read Aloud Day, in collaboration with provincial and public libraries. As a partner of Puku Children’s Literature Foundation, the NLSA is a key contributor to the 100 recommended children’s literature catalogues in South African indigenous languages. Other partners in this endeavour include UNISA, the University of Western Cape, IBBYSA and BiblionefSA. Catalogues in IsiXhosa, Setswana and Sesotho have already been completed.


Figure 3: IsiXhosa Catalogue of top 100 recommended children’s books

  “The only thing that you absolutely have to know is the location of the library.”―Albert Einstein

It was Albert Einstein who argued that, “the only thing that you absolutely have to know is the location of the library”. In addition to this task given to us by Einstein, we need to remember that public libraries provide more than just books—they are centres of learning and community engagement. To locate a library in your area, visit: www.salibraries.ac.za/directory/

What can we do to help nurture young readers?

  • Follow your local library on social media: Stay updated with activities and programmes for children by following your local library on social media platforms.
  • Discover reading programmes: Learn about events like holiday reading programmes and other literacy-promotion activities.
  • Get involved: Take a child to the library and encourage them to participate in reading activities.
  • Gift a book: Consider buying a book for a child in your family to help instil a lifelong love for reading.

“At the moment that we persuade a child, any child, to cross that magic threshold into a library, we change their lives forever, for the better. It’s an enormous force for good.”
– Barack Obama

Dr Avasha Rambiritch, Senior Lecturer in Academic Literacy and a key figure in South Africa’s writing centre initiatives, offers an engaging excerpt from a book focused on writing centres in South Africa. Her piece delves into the transformative work that writing centres do in empowering students to develop strong academic writing skills.

Reimagining Writing Centre Practices: A South African Perspective

Dr Avasha Rambiritch

The aim of this volume is to further conversations and research on the notion of the internationalisation of writing centres and the necessity to focus on the key issues of multilingualism, discipline-based writing, social justice, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as specialised consultant/tutor training. Writing centres at South African universities have established themselves as fundamental to the support and development of our students. Thus, the time is ripe for us as writing centre practitioners in the South African context to continue writing our own writing centre narrative, to grapple with context specific issues and questions, and to provide context-specific answers and solutions that speak to the lived realities of our students. We hope to achieve this through this book.

We share a few excerpts from the book:

A tenant of the writing centre movement, ‘regardless of the work actually done in writing centers,’ write Gardner and Ramsey (2005: 26), is that ‘writing specialists do their best work when opposing the practices of mainstream education, creating an anti-space’. This anti-space, sometimes called liminal space, is transformed again in the South African writing centre movement, as a global village. Taken up in this volume, the South African writing centre movement’s global village – re-examining and challenging concepts of ‘safe space,’ challenging internalised Anglocentric academic writing practices, employing Ubuntu pedagogies, and Rambiritich and Drennan’s re-imaging tutor training as an empowering, mentorly action – provides all writing centre practitioners a view of the global movement as a movement of community. As Rambiritch and Drennan write in the introduction, what is done here in this volume is a reimagining of the writing centre, ‘from one that prioritised the institution, to one that prioritises the student, and … the uniqueness that each student brings to our space’ (see Introduction: viii), a pluricultural and plurilingual uniqueness. Throughout are transformative pedagogies, practices, and rhetorical foundations that ‘[enable] students’ critical engagement with regard to academic literacies’ (see Chapter Eleven). (Foreword, Hotson & Bell, 2023:xiii).

More than thirty years after the establishment of the first writing centre in the country, the field of writing centre research in the South African context is firmly cemented and while writing centre practitioners will continue to embrace writing centre literature from the Global North – and other places – the time is ripe for us to as writing centre practitioners in the South African context to continue writing our own writing centre narrative, to grapple with context-specific issues and questions and to provide context-specific answers and solutions that speak to the lived realities of our students. The transformation and evolution of the writing centre are, no doubt, inevitable and necessary. The support we provide, the training we offer and the conversations we encourage, within and outside the confines of our writing centres, must align with this transformation and evolution. Our responsibility in writing centre work has shifted too, from a focus on academic success only, to a focus on the development of and respect for, the uniqueness that each student brings to our space. This book then is a celebration of these practices; for such reimagined, sustainable practices open up the possibility of embracing diversity and embodies the writing centre as a global village (Rambiritch, 2023). It paves the way for discussions that acknowledge alternate and multiple forms of knowledge and knowledge production, a space welcoming a widely diverse and international student body, the proverbial melting pot – a colourful tapestry of tongues, histories and nationalities (Rambiritch, 2023). As we take the first small steps in our journey to transforming our writing centre, we carry with us the burden of the past and the future of our students. For what is a writing centre, if not a place crafted from the mistakes of yesterday and the dreams of tomorrow? (Introduction, Rambiritch & Drennan, 2023:xv).

References

Rambiritch, A. 2023. Navigating the social turn: Reimagining space and safety in the South African writing centre. SKRIB, 1(1): 1-22.

Gardner, P., & Ramsey, W. 2005.  The polyvalent mission of writing centers.  The Writing Center Journal, 25(1), 25-42.

First International Conference of the South African Association of Academic Literacy Practitioners (SAAALP)

Dr Avasha Rambiritch

The first international conference of the South African Association of Academic Literacy Practitioners (SAAALP) took place on 26-27 September 2024, at the Future Africa Campus of the University of Pretoria. 


SAAALP Launch (Photo supplied by Dr Avasha Rambiritch)

The conference, funded largely by the South African Digital Language Resources (SADilAR) and part of a large-scale research  project on Multilingualism in the Writing Centre, focused on the theme: Multilingualism and curriculum decolonisation in higher education: Reflecting on decades of academic literacy and writing centre practice in South African higher education and beyond. Two keynote speakers were carefully selected to address the delegates. The national keynote speaker Professor Emmanuel Mgqwashu is the Director of Teaching Learning  at the University of North West and the international keynote speaker Professor Noreen Lape is the Director of the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Scholarship and Eberly Multilingual Writing Centre at Dickinson College in the United States.


(Photo supplied by Dr Avasha Rambiritch)
Professor Emmanuel Mgqashu delivering his keynote address


Professor Noreen Lape delivering her keynote address (Photo supplied by Dr Avasha Rambiritch)

Over the two days of the conference, academic literacy and writing centre practitioners deliberated on best practices to embrace and enhance our commitment to multilingualism, decolonisation and social justice, foregrounding the urgency to create epistemological access for all South African students whose languages and cultures are often marginalised in higher education institutions (Heleta, 2016; Andrews, Prezensky & Fouche, 2020). Grappling with these often difficult questions required presenters and delegates to consider a reimagining of current practices by grappling with difficult and challenging questions such as:

  • What do multilingualism and curriculum decolonisation mean to academic literacy and writing centre practitioners?
  • To what extent are academic literacy and writing centre practitioners changing the direction of their teaching, learning, and support to embrace the persistent calls for a decolonised curriculum and multilingual education?
  • How have academic literacy and writing centres contributed to entrenching the hegemony of English and/or Eurocentric epistemologies? 
  • Are we working towards inclusive learning for all, and relatedly, are we working towards valuing and respecting our student’s linguistic repertoires?
  • Are we effectively investigating strategies that support multilingual students? What practical strategies are practitioners employing to challenge the dominant monoglossic language ideologies?
  • How can we use technology to disrupt the dominance of Western knowledge systems and monolingualism in SA higher education?
  • Should SA universities, with their resilient past, be the starting point for multilingual education?

The conference concluded with a round table discussion focused on the issues above and included panellists from the US, UK, SA and Uganda. 


(Photo supplied by Dr Avasha Rambiritch)
SAAALP conference attendees socialising at the Gala dinner

In keeping with the overall theme of diversity and multiculturalism, the conference welcomed delegates from all corners of the globe and Africa, with representation from almost all South African institutions of higher education. The conference organising committee has also secured a reputable publisher to publish an edited collection of peer-reviewed papers from the conference which we hope will ensure that the knowledge shared during this platform reaches a wider audience.

Writing Centres in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Ethical Challenges and New Possibilitiesi

Zander Janse van Rensburg – NWU Writing Centre

As artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly evolves, writing centres are presented with an opportunity to rethink and expand their role and practices. Traditionally, writing centres have focused on fostering academic literacy and helping students develop their academic writing skills, that is, striving to ‘create better writers, not better writing’. Of course, as the maxim of Stephan North dictates, the writer’s development should be prioritised above ‘fixing’ the writing. However, the writing will improve as the writer’s skills develop. Now, with the rise of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, the task of developing the writer is changing. The ability of AI fundamentally alters how students read, write, and learn.

We are all acutely aware of the potential threats AI poses to academic integrity, as it enables students to generate text with ease, raising concerns about originality and intellectual honesty. However, rather than viewing this as an insurmountable challenge, I propose that writing centres are uniquely positioned to harness the capabilities of AI to facilitate academic writing and skill acquisition.

Writing centres can take the lead in framing AI as a tool to support, rather than undermine, academic literacy, writing, and integrity. Taking into account this strategy, writing centres can use AI to build on their core practices, supporting writers through various stages of the writing process. For example, one common practice in writing centres is to guide students through brainstorming and idea generation. AI tools like ChatGPT can assist students in generating, sound boarding initial ideas, or organising complex topics, within the limits of ethical use. The consultants could then work with students to evaluate these AI-generated ideas, teaching them how to refine and expand on them. In terms of drafting, AI can provide students with preliminary structures or outline suggestions. This is where consultants can guide students to refine their understanding of the structure. In addition, consultants can show students how to take a basic AI-generated outline and adapt it to suit their specific argument or purpose. Then with revision, another key stage in writing centre practice, is another area where AI can play a supportive role. Students often struggle to identify patterns of error in their writing, and AI tools can help by highlighting repetitive mistakes rather than correcting them. For example, an AI tool might identify consistent problems with sentence structure or grammatical errors. Writing centres can then help students use these insights to understand the ‘why’ behind these errors, building their ability to self-edit.

For writing centres to remain effective in this AI-enhanced landscape, we must also ensure that consultants are trained in the responsible use of AI. Incorporating AI tools into our own workflows, such as using AI for time-intensive administrative tasks or even to provide initial feedback on lower-order concerns like grammar, can allow consultants to focus on higher-order concerns. However, the core of the writing centre experience, the one-on-one interaction between consultant and student, remains irreplaceable. This human connection is crucial to helping students develop their unique academic voices and navigate the complexities of writing in the AI era.

Ultimately, writing centres have always been spaces for fostering independent thinking and ethical writing practices. AI is not a threat to this mission, but an opportunity to expand our approaches. By thoughtfully incorporating AI into our existing practices, writing centres can continue to fulfil their mission of creating better writers while preparing students for the realities of a rapidly changing academic landscape.

  1. ChatGPT4o (September 2023) was used to refine and provide feedback argumentation, formulation, and surface-level grammar.

Joining the SAALT Community

SAALT’s official outlet for scholarly publications in our field is the Journal for Language Teaching. It is an accredited publication on the books of the Department of Higher Education, so academics writing in this journal may apply for subsidy after successfully publishing their article. The journal’s editor-in-chief is Dr Kabelo Sebolai. “The JLT is publishing an ever greater diversity of articles, the latest issue on the teaching of African languages being a good illustration of this. We are therefore constantly looking to increase both the membership and the expertise of our reviewing panels”. Not feeling quite ready yet to take this on? The JLT will also provide mentorship on how to review consistently and productively. Step up to the challenge, and contact the editor at sebolaik@cput.ac.za, or register for that role by following the steps at https://www.journals.ac.za/jlt/information/authors

SAALT Special Interest Groups (SIGS)

Don’t forget to join one of our Special Interest Groups (SIGS). Please go to:

You can also follow this link to join our SAALT WhatsApp community: 

Upcoming Events

As the year is nearing its end everyone needs some good news and something to look forward to – that’s in addition to the festive season waiting on the other side of this final stretch of 2024. Don’t worry, SAALT has some amazing news in store. The SAALT 2025 conference venue and theme will be announced in our next newsletter!

Exciting opportunities: Coursework MA Applied Linguistics at the University of Pretoria

One of the most exciting pieces of news this year: a newly conceived and developed MA in Applied Linguistics will be offered at the University of Pretoria from 2025.

South Africa is in dire need of professionals who can design responsible interventions to solve our many language problems. In fact, as Albert Weideman, chairperson of the Inter-institutional Centre for Language Development and Assessment (ICELDA) points out: “We have more language problems crying out for designed solutions than can be solved in a lifetime.”

ICELDA, a four-university consortium for devising designed solutions in language curriculum, test and policy design, is supporting this to the hilt. ICELDA’s hope is that this may be the start of the formation of a large corps of experts that can bring solutions to the vexing language problems that beset us. The consortium has generously made funds available to ensure the success of this new programme. It has made scholarships available for prospective students, and it hopes that its request to SAALT to match these will also be successful. Their network of professional expertise is available to fill in where the University of Pretoria needs it. We may also look forward to seeing other institutions following suit: there is a good chance of it being offered at North-West University in good time, and in Afrikaans at Akademia.

The course will be a taught course, with compulsory modules and electives. For the mini-dissertation, a wide panel of supervisory professionals is standing ready.

Interested in gaining a qualification of undoubted quality? Get in touch with Dr Avasha Rambiritch (avasha.rambiritch@up.ac.za).