Teaching context

I am an Associate Profefessor in the Linguistics Department where I focus on courses related to media studies and discourse. Previously I was a lecturer in the media department's journalism programme. I taught audio-visual production to first, second and third-year students, where the focus was to equip them with the skills they need to conceptualise, produce and disseminate news-focused content for audio-visual platforms such as radio and television.  I also teach taught mass communication and culture, which gives students a foundation on how media impacts society and how society impacts media.  I was also the lecturer responsible for teaching media law, which provide students with the legal context in which media in South Africa operate, and court and crime reporting, where my students got a taste of what it entails to be journalists covering the crime news beat. In 2019, I was invited as a visiting lecturer at the University of Cape Town to teach an honours course in Public Argumentation, a foundational course in Rhetoric Studies, which is the field in which my PhD is based.

My students are young South Africans from all walks of life who are passionate about using media and communications to tell the stories of their communities in the hope of bringing about change. Most of them are multilingual and can be characterised as digital natives, which means even though they have varying degrees of access to data and digital equipment, most have grown up in a world where digital tools are a way of life. My past students have made a notable impact in the South African journalism industry, applying the skills they gained in the course of their studies.

Every year I prepare very comprehensive course outlines so that my students know exactly what to expect on a week by week basis. These outlines include a visual representation of how learning will occur and how much time students should devote to a particular task. I also make sure that these outlines are translated into isiXhosa and Afrikaans because of my inclination towards fostering a multilingual teaching and learning environement.