SADiLAR positions
In 2016, North-West University seconded me to SADiLAR to oversee the ICELDA/SADiLAR node dedicated to Language Testing and Writing Development. In 2023, I led the National Language Resources Audit for higher education. Following its successful completion, I now lead the Higher Education Support Programme to advance multilingualism in South Africa’s universities. The support programme is a direct response to the findings of the audit report (Van Dyk et al., 2023), which identified eight key challenges to implementing the LANGUAGE POLICY FRAMEWORK FOR PUBLIC HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS DETERMINED IN TERMS OF SECTION 27(2) OF THE HIGHER EDUCATION ACT 101 OF 1997
South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR), as a multi-partner initiative, is the only humanities programme of its kind in South Africa and is a national research infrastructure. SADiLaR consists of a network of linked nodes consisting of a number of South African universities and agencies such as Unisa, the University of Pretoria, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the Inter-institutional Centre for Language Development and Assessment (ICELDA) and North-West University’s CTexT® unit.
More about the ICELDA/SADiLAR node in the following video:
SADiLAR projects
Higher Education Support Programme
Date: 2024–
Role: Project leader
This programme to advance multilingualism in South Africa’s universities, was launched to address challenges highlighted in the 2023 National Language Resources Audit report.…
National Language Resources Audit
Date: 2022–2023
Role: Project leader
Commissioned by Universities South Africa, I lead a team of experts analysing language resources in public higher education institutions. Our goal was to identify gaps and propose strategies for improvement.…
Fair and diagnostic language testing
Date: 2017–
Role: Project leader
This project is aimed at providing fair and diagnostic language tests for academic purposes in the South African context at secondary and higher education levels…
Learner corpus of academic writing
Date: 2017–
Role: Project leader
Collecting samples of academic writing of undergraduate students from all fields of study to inform the refinement of an online writing tool.…
Multilingual Academic Wordlist
Date: 2019–
Role: Project leader
Creating and delivering academic wordlists that will serve as a resource to students to assist them in understanding those words which frequently appear in academic texts.…
NWU projects
Academic writing support for postgraduate students
Date: 2021–
Role: Project leader, content designer and content developer
With a University Capacity Development
Grant, a complete workshop series with educational videos, readers, exercises and summary sheets have been developed. …
Multilingualism challenge
Date: 2019–
Role: Project leader and content design
In support of the multilingual policy adopted by the North-West University, I took co-responsibility for the design of a challenge for current and prospective students to expose them to a multilingual environment in a fun-filled manner. …
Referella
Date: 2019–
Role: Project leader and content developer
Referella gives students the opportunity to develop their referencing skills in four different referencing styles. This project is a collaborative effort between the NWU’s School of Languages and the NWU Libraries. The video series is extremely popular and accessible to anyone, see: https://library.nwu.ac.za/referella.…
National projects
Write it
Date: 2019–current
Role: Project leader
Supporting students with academic writing in a multimodal fashion. Educational videos (in all official South African languages as well as sign language), worksheets and exercises are available on seventeen topics associated with academic writing. …
WIRED
Date: 2016–
Role: Project leader
Writing, Information literacy, Reading (WIRED) is aimed at the development of a complete academic literacy course offered online for open and distance learning (ODL) students, or in a blended fashion for residential students.…
International projects
Academic writing support
Date: 2017–current
Role: Project leader in South Africa
Skryfhulp Afrikaans on the “Schrijfhulp Portaal”, initiated by the Katholiek Universitiet Leuven (KU-Leuven) offers students online support with academic writing.…
Medics on the Move
Date: 2012–2015
Role: Project partner
‘Communication for Professionals: Medics on the Move’, involved seven international partners. Its focus was on the development and implementation of a range of innovative tools for e-learning and on-the-job communication specifically developed for trained medical professionals. …
Nursing on the Move
Date: 2015–2017
Role: Project partner
‘Communication for Professionals: Nursing on the the Move’, involved eight international partners with backgrounds in medicine, academia, and education and training. Its focus was on the development of e-learning and on-the-job communication tools for nurses.…
Tobie van Dyk 