Christa Van Der Walt
Biographic Data
| ID | 110338 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christa Van Der Walt |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christa |
| FAMILY NAME | Van Der Walt |
| SIGNATURE | VAN DER WALT C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Stellenbosch University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3403-560X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 20 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Students’ Perceived Language Competence and Attitudes Towards Multilingualism at a South African University
South Africa is well-known for the implementation of multilingual language policies at various educational levels which are upheld by its Constitution. Higher education institutions in the country strive to comply with the call to bolster multilingualism, but the number of research studies that have focused on students’ language proficiency and language attitudes is remarkably low. To analyse these issues, the current study relied on a questionna…
English-Plus Multilingualism as the New Linguistic Capital? Implications of University Students’ Attitudes Towards Languages of Instruction in a Multilingual Environment
This article investigates university students’ attitudes and perceptions about language in a multilingual country where most instruction is in English and annual national literacy results have been declining for at least 15 years. Despite this decline, English seems to be entrenched as the language of instruction, and at university it seems a foregone conclusion that instruction will occur in English. Bourdieu’s concept of linguistic capital is o…
Language of Learning and Teaching in a Multilingual School Environment
One of the enduring problems of South African educational policy changes in the past 20 years is the fact that curricula, legislation and policies have changed radically while the staff complement has remained relatively stable. Despite a progressive national language policy, schools have increasingly introduced English as the sole language of learning and teaching (LoLT), preferably from the earliest grades. In all the debate about the ‘best’ la…
Conclusion
Special issue on bi/multilingual identity in South Africa
Establishing and maintaining international collaborative research teams
Despite the growing impetus for international collaborative research teams (ICRT), there are relatively few resources available to guide and support researchers through the processes of establishing and maintaining ICRTs. In particular, no articles were found that provided researchers' firsthand accounts of being a member of such a team. Having access to such personal accounts can help both experienced and novice researchers learn more directly a…
Academic biliteracy in South African higher education
Academic support for higher education students in multilingual contexts often focuses on the development of separate language proficiencies, on the one hand, and on general study skills, on the other hand. In bi/multilingual education contexts where students are presented with lectures and study material in more than one language, successful students develop specific practices that allow them to exploit their bi/multilingual proficiency, that is,…
Julian Edge
(Re)locating TESOL in an Age of Empire was conceived at a symposium organized by the Centre for the Study of Professional Discourse and Development at Aston University, Birmingham in 2003. The central issue for this collection of papers is presented in the introduction where the editor asks, ‘Is it (not) reasonable to see the whole operation of teaching English to speakers of other languages ... as one strand of the USA-led globalization process …
University Students’ Attitudes Towards and Experiences of Bilingual Classrooms
To improve throughput rates in higher education it is important to investigate ways in which instruction can be made more effective when students have to use language(s) that are not their home or primary language. At the University of Stellenbosch, as is the case elsewhere in South Africa, a language policy and implementation plan was formulated in 2002 to manage language in education issues. One of the options for language use in the class is b…
The international comprehensibility of varieties of South African English
The justification for the continued use of a high status ('international') variety of English in education and the media in South Africa is that re-standardizing to a local variety will result in South Africans becoming incomprehensible to the rest of the world. The study challenges the truth of this statement while it attempts to devise a more contextualized research methodology in the area of intelligibility and comprehensibility studies. It co…
English as a Language of Learning in South Africa
It is commonly accepted that a language reflects a particular culture and that learners should be made aware of the implicit values and beliefs of that culture in contrast to their own. However, in countries where English is used as a language of wider communication the users of English increasingly imbue that language with the accent, lexical items and value systems of their first language, particularly when English is also taught by non‐native …
Four questions they should ask on your annual report form
English-Plus Multilingualism as the New Linguistic Capital? Implications of University Students’ Attitudes Towards Languages of Instruction in a Multilingual Environment
This article investigates university students’ attitudes and perceptions about language in a multilingual country where most instruction is in English and annual national literacy results have been declining for at least 15 years. Despite this decline, English seems to be entrenched as the language of instruction, and at university it seems a foregone conclusion that instruction will occur in English. Bourdieu’s concept of linguistic capital is o…
Academic biliteracy in South African higher education
Academic support for higher education students in multilingual contexts often focuses on the development of separate language proficiencies, on the one hand, and on general study skills, on the other hand. In bi/multilingual education contexts where students are presented with lectures and study material in more than one language, successful students develop specific practices that allow them to exploit their bi/multilingual proficiency, that is,…
University Students’ Attitudes Towards and Experiences of Bilingual Classrooms
To improve throughput rates in higher education it is important to investigate ways in which instruction can be made more effective when students have to use language(s) that are not their home or primary language. At the University of Stellenbosch, as is the case elsewhere in South Africa, a language policy and implementation plan was formulated in 2002 to manage language in education issues. One of the options for language use in the class is b…
The international comprehensibility of varieties of South African English
The justification for the continued use of a high status ('international') variety of English in education and the media in South Africa is that re-standardizing to a local variety will result in South Africans becoming incomprehensible to the rest of the world. The study challenges the truth of this statement while it attempts to devise a more contextualized research methodology in the area of intelligibility and comprehensibility studies. It co…
Establishing and maintaining international collaborative research teams
Despite the growing impetus for international collaborative research teams (ICRT), there are relatively few resources available to guide and support researchers through the processes of establishing and maintaining ICRTs. In particular, no articles were found that provided researchers' firsthand accounts of being a member of such a team. Having access to such personal accounts can help both experienced and novice researchers learn more directly a…
English as a Language of Learning in South Africa
It is commonly accepted that a language reflects a particular culture and that learners should be made aware of the implicit values and beliefs of that culture in contrast to their own. However, in countries where English is used as a language of wider communication the users of English increasingly imbue that language with the accent, lexical items and value systems of their first language, particularly when English is also taught by non‐native …
Four questions they should ask on your annual report form
The international comprehensibility of varieties of South African English
The justification for the continued use of a high status ('international') variety of English in education and the media in South Africa is that re-standardizing to a local variety will result in South Africans becoming incomprehensible to the rest of the world. The study challenges the truth of this statement while it attempts to devise a more contextualized research methodology in the area of intelligibility and comprehensibility studies. It co…
University Students’ Attitudes Towards and Experiences of Bilingual Classrooms
To improve throughput rates in higher education it is important to investigate ways in which instruction can be made more effective when students have to use language(s) that are not their home or primary language. At the University of Stellenbosch, as is the case elsewhere in South Africa, a language policy and implementation plan was formulated in 2002 to manage language in education issues. One of the options for language use in the class is b…
Julian Edge
(Re)locating TESOL in an Age of Empire was conceived at a symposium organized by the Centre for the Study of Professional Discourse and Development at Aston University, Birmingham in 2003. The central issue for this collection of papers is presented in the introduction where the editor asks, ‘Is it (not) reasonable to see the whole operation of teaching English to speakers of other languages ... as one strand of the USA-led globalization process …
Academic biliteracy in South African higher education
Academic support for higher education students in multilingual contexts often focuses on the development of separate language proficiencies, on the one hand, and on general study skills, on the other hand. In bi/multilingual education contexts where students are presented with lectures and study material in more than one language, successful students develop specific practices that allow them to exploit their bi/multilingual proficiency, that is,…
Establishing and maintaining international collaborative research teams
Despite the growing impetus for international collaborative research teams (ICRT), there are relatively few resources available to guide and support researchers through the processes of establishing and maintaining ICRTs. In particular, no articles were found that provided researchers' firsthand accounts of being a member of such a team. Having access to such personal accounts can help both experienced and novice researchers learn more directly a…
Special issue on bi/multilingual identity in South Africa
Language of Learning and Teaching in a Multilingual School Environment
One of the enduring problems of South African educational policy changes in the past 20 years is the fact that curricula, legislation and policies have changed radically while the staff complement has remained relatively stable. Despite a progressive national language policy, schools have increasingly introduced English as the sole language of learning and teaching (LoLT), preferably from the earliest grades. In all the debate about the ‘best’ la…
Conclusion
English-Plus Multilingualism as the New Linguistic Capital? Implications of University Students’ Attitudes Towards Languages of Instruction in a Multilingual Environment
This article investigates university students’ attitudes and perceptions about language in a multilingual country where most instruction is in English and annual national literacy results have been declining for at least 15 years. Despite this decline, English seems to be entrenched as the language of instruction, and at university it seems a foregone conclusion that instruction will occur in English. Bourdieu’s concept of linguistic capital is o…
Students’ Perceived Language Competence and Attitudes Towards Multilingualism at a South African University
South Africa is well-known for the implementation of multilingual language policies at various educational levels which are upheld by its Constitution. Higher education institutions in the country strive to comply with the call to bolster multilingualism, but the number of research studies that have focused on students’ language proficiency and language attitudes is remarkably low. To analyse these issues, the current study relied on a questionna…
Sociology (10 works) · Linguistics (8 works) · Multilingual Education and Policy (8 works) · Pedagogy (8 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Second Language Learning and Teaching (8 works) · EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning (7 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Mathematics education (4 works)