Undergraduate science degrees in South Africa seldom offer explicit courses focussing on improving the disciplinary writing skills required for effectively communicating scientific research. Similarly, most students entering the 'Honours' degree in Molecular Medicine at a South African university have not commonly been afforded opportunities to…

This article explores some of the complexities of teaching art and design history to students in a Design Extended Curriculum Programme at a university of technology in the context of post-1994 South African society--a society troubled by the ghosts of colonial and apartheid histories that agitate the present/future. Tracking a series of…

In this conceptual paper, borne from the experiences of two academic literacy lecturers at the NWU, we ask, regarding elements of assessment, how we can sensibly adapt an intervention-style writing course in a post-COVID higher education context. We propose a course correction model, applicable to academic literacy writing courses, to address the…

Research has shown that written feedback is important for student learning and development. However, the messages embedded in feedback may lead to students being misled about what they need to learn or how they need to develop. This article reports on a small-scale investigation into the messages embedded in feedback. Legitimation Code Theory was…

This study was conducted at a university based in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The purpose of the study was to determine if the explicit instruction of selected grammar aspect, modal auxiliary verbs, improved students' ability to write English. The study was qualitative in nature and a case study design was adopted. The focus was in relation to a…

The varying literacy standards that undergraduate students represent are a reflection of their interim grasp of academic literacy (Paxton 2007). The aim of this study is to analyse a small group of undergraduate first-year students' depiction of their interim grasp of academic writing and to reflect on how lecturers use formative feedback to…

This paper argues that curriculum decision-making in the South African University of Technology (UoT) environment is affected not only by industry and disciplinary demands, but also by socio-structural features and ideologies particular to this educational sector. It supports the view that recontextualisation processes are subject to multiple…

Learner-centred teaching education generally involves methods of teaching that move the focus of instruction from the teacher to the learner. The "learner-centred" label is subsequently attached to teaching strategies, learning events, classroom layout and learning programmes. Aspects such as active learning, learner commitment and the…

This study explored foundation phase first-year student teachers' perceptions about mathematics. The focus on their attitudes towards mathematics in two roles -- (1) as learners of mathematics, based on their prior experiences at school and (2) as aspirant teachers of mathematics for children in the early grades. Data sources were students'…

The purpose of this study was to explore the motivation of a group of township learners who participated in a science fair known as Expo, by using phenomenography to explore their conceptions and experiences of Expo. The data comprised paragraphs written by the learners before the regional Expo and focus group interviews conducted afterwards. The…

This article reports on an activity in a first-year engineering mathematics class designed to strengthen students' personal identities as novice engineers. The literature on identity suggests that students are more likely to be retained in an engineering degree programme if they develop an identity as an engineer and that development of such an…

Based on a questionnaire to academic staff, this article examines the reading and writing tasks assigned to undergraduate science students at a South African university. The article finds that although academic staff in science value clearly written and well-organised writing, few see it as their task to induct students into this literacy. Instead…

Student plagiarism is a pervasive and increasing problem at all levels of study in tertiary institutions. This study attempted explicitly and implicitly to address issues of plagiarism within the broad context of an academic writing framework in tutorials in a first-year module at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. Despite these…

This article explores how a linguistically diverse, subject English class can become a multilingual contact zone in which naturalised linguistic identities are made visible and interrogated. The research is situated in a highly diverse, educational context--Wits School of Education in Johannesburg, South Africa. This is framed by a society in…

An understanding of student learning and of the reasons for differential student performance is crucial to improving teaching and learning practices in tertiary education. This article aims to contribute to that understanding by reporting on an empirical study which examined two sets of student texts on the topic "What is law?", written…