Western Cape School and award ceremony

The 2008 Western Cape Seasonal School was a joint project between The English Academy, the Cape Peninsular University of Technology’s Faculty of Education and Social Sciences and the Western Cape Education Department.  Its theme was Transcending transactions: dreams, visions and literature.  The purpose of the Seasonal School was to inspire teachers of English with fresh ideas on how to nurture a love for literature in their learners.  This is particularly important today when the focus of education is maths, science and technology and, for many, reading is an unknown pastime. The Seasonal School provided an excellent opportunity for teachers to listen to papers and panel discussions presented by interesting and experienced speakers on a wide range of topics related to the teaching of English.

The Seasonal School was hosted by Prof. Rajendra Chetty, Head of Department (Research) at the Faculty of Education, Cape Peninsular University of Technology, and his team of able colleagues, headed by Dr Janet Condy.  Support was also received from Fazeela Haffeje, English curriculum Advisor for the Western Cape Education Department.  More than thirty teachers, English Academy members and their guests, as well as the speakers and organising team, attended the School. A very special guest was Prof. Rosemary Gray, an Honorary Life Vice-President and winner of the Academy’s Gold Medal, in her capacity as the English Representative for the Gauteng PanSALB Language Committee.  It was truly a great pleasure to have her with us.

The Seasonal School was opened by Prof. Maureen Robinson, Dean of the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences (CPUT), and Dr Barbara Basel, President of the English Academy, welcomed everyone present on behalf of the English Academy.  During the course of the morning, the following interesting, challenging and enjoyable talks were presented.
Dr Mastin Prinsloo of the University of Cape Town spoke about the important role language plays in the teaching of maths and science.

Dr Janet Condy and Philip Thraves (CPUT), together with some of their students, told us about their successful ‘Fluffy’ reading programme. With the help of a very large fluffy teddy bear, students are encouraged to read. Each student takes ‘Fluffy’ home and he sits with them while they read to their siblings or their neighbours’ children.

Niki Daly, an international award-winning author-illustrator of children’s books, gave a very stimulating audio-visual presentation. Niki told us how he first started to write and, with the help of many colourful illustrations, allowed the audience to forget their age and to see the world once again through the eyes of a child.

Ms Marguerite MacRobert, a lecturer in the Dept. of Curriculum Studies, Faculty of Education at the University of Stellenbosch, gave an interesting interactive presentation entitled ‘Giving inspiring, relevant literature lessons and still getting through the syllabus in Grades 10 to 12’.  Marguerite’s passion for her subject was obvious and her exciting ideas on how to get teenagers equally enthusiastic about the classics were an inspiration to all the teachers in the audience.

After an enjoyable lunch, the English Academy’s Sol Plaatje Prize was presented. This award is made biennially for excellence in translation of a literary text of at least 1 000 words in one of the other official South African languages into English.  The 2007 Sol Plaatje Prize was awarded to Michiel Heyns for his translation of Marlene van Niekerk’s Agaat. This novel was awarded the Sunday Times Fiction Prize for 2006, and was published as The Way of the Women in the UK in November 2007.  Prof. Andrew Foley of Wits University, a member of the adjudication panel for this award, read the citation and Michiel Heyns gave an entertaining acceptance speech.

The session immediately after lunch is one that is usually dreaded by speakers and audiences alike because both find it difficult to stay awake.  However, this was not a problem at the Cape Town 2008 Seasonal School because our after-lunch speaker was Robin Malan, a well-known teacher, writer and champion of literature. Robin soon had his audience’s attention as he shared with them his innovative approach to teaching Shakespeare’s sonnets in his talk ‘A life and 140 syllables: a possible approach to teaching poetry’.

The last presentation of the day was a panel discussion ably chaired by Fazeelah Haffejee (WCED). The topic for discussion was Scrap the set-book! What then? The three panellists were Prof. Andrew Foley, Ms Anne Hill and Dr Malcolm Venter. While none of them was entirely in favour of scrapping set works, they all believed that the choice of set works is often very difficult to understand. Works that appear to bear no relationship to the lives of South Africa’s youth are repeatedly prescribed while the exciting work of contemporary South African writers is ignored.

I should like to say a special thank-you to Rajendra and his colleagues for providing the venue and arranging the catering and flowers, all of which helped to make this a most enjoyable function. Of added interest were the publishers’ book tables, offering a wide range of books on English literature and language teaching as well as educational methodology and management.

Barbara Basel
President, English Academy of Southern Africa.

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Academy’s Durban school was a multicultural celebration

Writers young and old, teachers, academics and NGO workers gave enthusiastic support to the Academy School held in Westville on 31 May 2008. Mr Thayalan Reddy, an Academy Vice President, organised the highly successful event with the help of a large team. Special mention must be made of Academy member Ms Mary Johnstone, principal of Westville Girls High, who offered her school as the venue, and members of her staff.

A cocktail party was held on the Westville campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal the previous evening to launch the school. It was attended by Academy Vice President Colin Gardner from Pietermaritzburg, VIPs and other members of the public. In his speech of welcome, Mr Reddy explained that the Academy had been in existence for nearly fifty years, and because of its resilience had been able to evolve into an organisation that is respected internationally. He especially mentioned the new Sol Plaatje Prize for translation. The guest speaker was Prof. Priya Narismulu of UKZN, and Academy Vice President Prof. Elwyn Jenkins followed with a short account of the current state of South African youth literature.

The school was held in the spectacular modern setting of the Westville Girls’school library, filled with displays of books to support the theme of “The Magic of the Word – For the Young, by the Young”. Academy member Prof. Lindy Stiebel of the Department of English at the Howard College campus of UKZN co-chaired the morning session with Mr Reddy.

Ms Val MacGarry, Deputy Education Specialist of the KZN Department of Education, opened with an account of the difficulties of getting books to all learners and the steps taken by her Department, including mobile libraries (two of which have already been stolen), centralised libraries for clusters of rural schools, and classroom libraries. Prof. Elwyn Jenkins, author of National Character in South African English Children’s Literature, gave the keynote address on South African books for young adults. Bat Centre cultural activist Nise Malenge and authors Jenny Robson and Elana Bregin (previous winners of the Academy’s Percy FitzPatrick Award for Youth Literature), G. Mahalingum and Gcina Mhlope spoke about their passion for words and read or performed extracts from their work.

After lunch the Norah Taylor Trophy was presented to students from Durban Girls’ College, who are sharing it this year with Roedean School for their achievements in the English Olympiad, a project of SACEE and the Grahamstown Foundation that is financially supported by the Academy. The rest of the programme, facilitated by Ms Milly Reddy, HOD of English at Westville Girls, was a thrilling series of readings of their work (some in isiZulu) by young people (African, Indian, coloured and white, it is worth mentioning) who spoke about themselves and how they have already achieved recognition – such as a member of the SA schools debating team who will be participating in the word championships in Washington, a poet who has been selected for a two-week cultural programme in the UK, and a young girl whose prize for her winning short story was to have it filmed by a professional company for showing on television.

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Meeting the people’s needs: speaking skills workshop

This year’s Seasonal School in Gauteng was a complete break from past practice. The Autumn School, which took place on 17 May at Wits University, featured a practical workshop on speaking skills, followed by a dynamic lecture on speech-making in literature. Jointly organized by the English Academy and the Johannesburg chapter of Toastmasters International, this event marked the prelude to a commemorative lecture planned in honour of the late Joe Garmeson, whose generous bequest to both organizations continues to contribute to their financial sustainability.

The speaking skills workshop, facilitated by Adolph Kaestner of Toastmasters International, drew many people from the corporate world, all of whom had a common goal – to improve their speech-making and presentation abilities. The delegates were not disappointed, for by the end of the first session they had all been reassured that they could indeed become better public speakers. Using a sophisticated powerpoint presentation, Adolph (Dolf) introduced his audience to the fundamentals of public speaking, outlining the importance of factors such as voice, eye contact, gestures, language, dress, stage management, time management, and audience needs. The participants were taken through the code of practice which include ways of communicating, steps to writing a presentation, and the presentation tools. This was a very interactive workshop. Drinking from Dolf’s deep well of experience in the field, the participants took copious notes, with the tea and lunch breaks providing them with the opportunity to share specific points of interest with the facilitator and with each other.

There couldn’t have been a more suitable follow-up to the workshop than Professor Peter Titlestad’s fascinating lecture on ‘Oratory and Evil Rhetoric: Milton’s Satan and Others’. Peter captured the audience’s attention right from the start when he gave a quick overview of the South African situation on language use and its impact on current writing. His discussion on the dynamics of political rhetoric, perverse rhetoric and false analogy could easily be related to the kind of flattering, propagandist or attack-and-counter-attack speech-making that takes place in boardroom meetings and parliamentary sessions around the world today. The speaker concluded by calling on all present to keep their tool of communication – language – bright and shiny at all times, like the instruments of a surgeon.

The day was a complete success. Officiating as the Academy’s representative, Professor Andrew Foley thanked all the participants and presented gifts to the two speakers as a token of appreciation for their excellent presentations. Many of the participants not only signed up for Academy membership but also expressed a strong desire to be part of a similar venture in future.

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