VLIR-UOS TEAM Symposium

Johan Anker was born in Humansdorp (RSA) in 1952, studied at the universities of Stellenbosch, Cape Town and Unisa and completed his MA (Unisa) and PhD (Cape Town) in Afrikaans Literature. He taught Afrikaans at school and different Teacher’s Colleges and was the Assistant Dean of Education at the Wellington campus of the CPUT from 2004-2016. He retired in April 2017. Prof Anker supervised and examined MA, MEd and PhD studies, did research in and published more than 30 academic articles and delivered 12 papers at international conferences about Afrikaans literature, literature and trauma, Young Adult Literature and reading comprehension. He is also a critical reader of articles for different literature and educational journals. He is a writer of texts books for schools and for 20 years he was also part of the Language Committee for Afrikaans in the South African Academy for Science and Arts.

Joanne Arendse currently holds the position of Branch Librarian at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) Wellington Campus. She is mainly responsible for managing the campus branch library and to provide professional academic information support services to CPUT researchers, postgraduate and undergraduate students in the faculty of Education. Joanne is a passionate and experienced information specialist who is actively involved in the development of academic digital library information services, research and information literacy skills teaching on all levels and university community engagement projects. Some of her research focus areas include digital information literacies, multilingualism, diversity and inclusivity in education and work sector, community engagement and service learning.

Her academic qualifications include a Bachelor's degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Stellenbosch and she is currently studying towards a Master’s degree in Information Sciences at the University of South Africa (UNISA). Additional to these formal qualifications she attended the Carnegie Library Leadership Academy in 2011, HERS SA Academy for women in the Higher Education sector in South Africa in 2016 and was elected the first CPUT librarian to visit Virginia Tech University Libraries in the US, as part of a librarian research exchange collaboration agreement between the two universities in 2015.

Zannie Bock is Associate Professor of Linguistics and Deputy Dean of Teaching and Learning in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Her recent publications are in decolonial pedagogies, and narrative and discourse analysis, with a focus on racialising discourses among university students. She is the project co-ordinator and co-editor of the first southern African textbook in Linguistics, Language, Society and Communication: An Introduction, Van Schaik. She is also co-editor, with Christopher Stroud, of the Bloomsbury volume, Language and Decoloniality in Higher Education: Reclaiming Voices from the South (2021).

Carl Boel was a secondary education teacher in English and Dutch for 15 years. Since 2006 he investigated how technology could enhance his courses and teaching practice. He inspired hundreds of teachers and staff with keynotes and workshops. In 2016 he started working at Ghent University as a lecturer in academic writing and presentation skills. These courses were integrated into other courses within the concept of language across the curriculum. In 2018 he was asked by Odisee to create a MOOC strengthening novice preservice teachers in their communication and self-regulating skills. Since 2019 he works as a researcher at Thomas More investigating how the affordances of XR can enhance a learning and training experience. He combines expertise from both research and industry with a focus on evidence-based instructional design. Carl is a researcher on XR in education, both at Thomas More University of Applied Sciences and at Ghent University, where he is completing his PhD on this topic. He is involved in several research projects on XR, both domestic and internationally. Carl also leads the Learning Network on XR in education in Flanders and was the main author for the advisory policy report on XR in education for the Ministry of Education in Flanders. As a consultant he has designed, developed and tested multiple learning experiences for companies, organizations and governmental institutions.

An De Moor is a language and education expert. She is also Vice-President of the National Reading Strategy and was advisor of the Commission Better Education, both by order of the Flemish Government. She is the Language Policy Co-ordinator for all 25 professional Bachelor’s programmes at Odisee University of Applied Sciences and for the Master's programs at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven campus Brussels, and is also a member of the board of directors of the Flemish-Dutch Cultural House DeBuren in Brussels. In addition to being the President of the non-profit association ‘Movement Flanders-Europe’, An has received numerous awards such as the 'Frans Drijversprijs', the 'Order of the Golden Dragon', 'Academic of the year 2016' from the Flemish Association of Academics and in 2018 she received the 'Praise of the Dutch Language Award’ in the Brussels parliament.

Dorothy E. Esau works in the Education Faculty of CPUT, Wellington Campus as Lecturer in Education (Senior Phase & Further Education & Training) and is the coordinator for Professional Practice. She also teaches Research Methods of Education in the B. Ed Honours programme and is currently supervising three Master students in her faculty. Her research area of specialisation is support and mentorship of teachers, and more specifically, Novice Teachers. She has initiated a mentorship programme for novice teachers in one of the Western Cape Education Department districts, with a special focus on the Eight Dimensions of Holistic Wellbeing (physical, vocational, psychological, spiritual, intellectual, social, environmental and financial). 

Published articles

Re-positioning the competences of beginner teachers in South Africa: A capabilities perspective

DE Esau, R Maarman. South African Journal of Higher Education 33(6), 111-132, 2019 

Re-imagining support for newly qualified teachers in relation to initial teacher education policy in

DE Esau, R Maarman. South African Journal of Education 41 (4),1, 2021

Hanlie Dippenaar is the Assistant Dean on the Wellington campus of CPUT. She holds a PhD from Northwest University and is an associate professor in the Department of English. She has been working in the field of Language Teaching for the past 30 years. Her research interests combine Community Engagement, Service-learning and Language teaching. She currently explores collaboration between university partners, using Activity Theory and Change Laboratories. Her other research interests are in tutor programmes in the Faculty of Education, work readiness of English teachers, literacy development and language across the curriculum. She works with schools and institutions in the Wellington area on the enhancement of reading skills, as part of the professional development of pre-service teachers of English.

Rinelle Evans is currently a professor emerita involved with teacher education in the Faculty of Education, University of Pretoria. She holds a doctorate in instructional communication via television technology and also obtained a Masters degree (cum laude) in teaching English to speakers of other languages from the University of Birmingham, England.

She is an NRF-rated researcher (C2) and has not only published several textbooks, study guides and video material for English language learners, but also numerous academic articles in refereed and non-refereed journals. Her scholarly book, Complex classroom encounters – a South African perspective was published with a Canadian counterpart. Her teaching career spans over 30 years and on six occasions she has received awards in recognition of good teaching practice, amongst others the Dean’s Award for Excellence in the Scholarship of Teacher Education (2014).

Her academic interests relate to English language teaching, instructional design & communication, and language-in-education matters. She has successfully supervised 26 postgraduates to completion and has a sound track record of conference presentations and assistance with the professional development of academics. 

She has extensive managerial experience and before moving to higher education was a deputy principal at a large co-ed school and also managed the University of Pretoria’s satellite campus in Witbank. She has served on various educational panels responsible for in-service training, assessment, materials development, and policy making in the English Second Language arena. 

Nell Foster is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Diversity & Learning at Ghent University and the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Her research focuses on the social and learning dimensions of Functional Multilingual Learning in primary schools, and in particular the perspectives of the pupils. She is also a pedagogical advisor at the Université libre de Bruxelles, specialised in the domain of English medium instruction. 

Candice Livingston is an Associate Professor and the Research co-ordinator at the Faculty of Education at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology where she is involved with numerous literacy projects (both nationally and internationally). She is a member of the Faculty Research, Ethics and Teaching and Learning committees.  Her research interests include teaching with technology, language across the curriculum, the study of fairy tales and storytelling. In 2019 and 2021, she received Teaching Excellence Awards from CPUT and is currently a TAU fellow.

Linda Manashe is a Courseware Developer at the Centre for Innovative Educational Technologies (CIET) and a member of the Language Working Group at Cape Peninsula University of Technology.  She holds an Honor’s Degree in Information Technology. Her main fields of research include multilingualism, multilingual education, and educational technologies. She has co-authored and published a few accredited articles, a book chapter, also presented a number of papers at national conferences. She is currently studying towards her Master’s degree focusing on the impact of the online multilingual glossaries platform on the academic experiences and success of students at CPUT. She is also a member of the Community of Practice for the Teaching and Learning of African Languages (CoPAL).

Publications: https://scholar.google.co.za/citations?user=5-3N5qsAAAAJ&hl=en

Ilse Mestdagh has been the language policy coordinator at Howest since 2010. In this role, she supports courses at Howest to implement and embed a language policy. Currently, she also leads a language policy project to support the language development of graduate students. She also has more than 20 years of teaching experience and has been with the Journalism program for ten years, where she teaches writing skills, print journalism and Dutch. She is also responsible for student counseling.

Ellen Simon is a Professor of English Linguistics at Ghent University. She specializes in second language acquisition and phonology (the sound systems of language). She also has a keen interest in second language proficiency and how the acquisition of language structure and proficiency development are related to one another. She is currently involved in the supervision of projects on literacy development in South Africa, the development of storytelling competences in Turkish-Dutch bilingual children and the linguistic expectations from Newly Arrived Migrants in Flemish secondary schools. She’s teaching courses in English linguistics, Phonology and Old and Middle English.

Stuart Garfield Strauss is a full-time PhD student registered to UGent in Belgium and UWC in South Africa and forms part of the ‘Training the teachers of tomorrow’ project. He completed his matric at the Carlton-van Heerden High School in Upington, Northern Cape in 1980. He started his undergraduate studies at UWC in 1981 and then completed the B.A. degree in 1984 and then a Higher Diploma in Education in 1992. In 1986 he started as an English teacher at a high school, and in 2012 completed a M.Phil degree at the University of Stellenbosch in 2012. Stuart continued his studies at US and also completed an M.A. degree, focusing on code-switching and translanguaging in 2016.

Piet Van Avermaet is head of the Centre for Diversity and Learning, at the Linguistics Department of Ghent University. He teaches 'multicultural studies', 'multilingualism in education' and 'language policy' at the same University. His expertise and research interests cover topics related to multilingualism in education, social inequality in education, language policy and practice in education, language policy and practice in contexts of (social) inclusion, language assessment, diversity and inclusion, integration and participation, discrimination in education, migration.

Ann Van Kerckhove works as a teacher trainer and is affiliated with the Odisee co-university of applied sciences. She is also a language coach and anchor person for educational development and quality besides an IKCO process supervisor. As a professional bachelor in secondary education (history, geography and Dutch) and master in Linguistics and Literature, she has more than twenty years of teaching experience. She also participated in various research projects (e.g. Ear Openers).

Maxime Van Raemdonck is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Diversity & Learning (Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts & Philosophy – Ghent University). Her work focuses on the dynamics of language policy in secondary schools and the implementation of Functional Multilingual Learning (FML). Thereby she focuses on teachers’ language beliefs and practices toward students’ home languages.

Quentin Williams is Director of the Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research (CMDR) and an Associate Professor of Sociolinguistics in the Linguistics Department at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). He is also the Ghent Visiting Professor (Leerstoel Houer) at the Centre for Afrikaans and the study of South Africa at Ghent University (Belgium) (2022/2023). His most recent books are Struggles for Multilingualism and Linguistic Citizenship with Tommaso Milani and Ana Deumert (Multilingual Matters, 2022), and Global HipHopography with Jaspal Singh (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022). He leads the Trilingual Dictionary of Kaaps (TWK) project that will develop the first dictionary of Kaaps (see here: www.dwkaaps.co.za).   

Gerti Wouters is Doctor in the linguistics and literature. She has been the Head of the Department of Communication and before that teacher in print and online Journalism and photography in Howest. Since 2012 she is Head of the Department of Journalism of the same University of Applied Sciences.. She won the First prize for Literature from the Province of West Flanders in 1996 and also the First prize for Literature from the Royal Academy of Linguistics and Literature in 1997 for 'Elcerlyc is also a woman'.