Fundani proudly hosts the SAALT Conference

The annual conference which serves as a platform for information and networking on language teaching matters and development profession was co-hosted by CPUT and the South African Association for Language Teaching (SAALT) at Breakwater Lodge in Cape Town.

These include language teaching matters such as new trends and developments, syllabi, publications, and activities related to the language teaching and development profession. Opening the two-day conference, Dr Xena Cupido, Director: Fundani CHED, welcomed the delegates at SAALT, celebrating 60 years of excellence in language teaching and learning in diverse contexts. "I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate SAALT on its diamond anniversary, what a beautiful way to celebrate the work that has been done over the many years.

"As CPUT we are particularly proud to be able to celebrate this milestone with you and to be given the opportunity to co-host this year's gathering. It certainly underscores our shared commitment to academic and educational advancements in language teaching and developing indigenous languages as an academic and scientific language," said Cupido.

She said the conference embarked on various discussions, presentations, and workshops and that the topics "deeply" resonate with CPUT's Vision 2030 to ensure that the language of instruction supports student learning as well as to promote a multilingual environment that recognises CPUT's unique African identity and historic circumstances. "As an institution, our intent is to foster an inclusive and equitable environment that recognises the linguistic diversity of staff and students."

In her keynote address, Prof Cynthia Marivate, the first Chief Executive Officer of the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB), addressed: The relationship and Influence of Teaching, Curriculum, and Learning Environments, with special reference to African Languages.

Her paper calls for the empowerment of teachers through basic research skills. She said: "The paper is proposing that when teachers are equipped with quality and quantity research skills even basically, this will make their participation in discussions of curriculum reviews or policy implementation meaningful," said Marivate. Head of the Language Unit at Fundani CHED, Dr Kabelo Sebolai said the conference was very successful. Sebolai said for a few years before COVID-19, SAALT which used to be very strong previously, was starting to show signs of dwindling. "Its first face-to-face conference after COVID-19, held in Pretoria in 2023 was a great success by comparison to the one preceding it in 2019. If that conference (2019) brought SAALT back to life, this year's conference added significantly to this revitalisation. The latter exceeded its set goals..."

He continued: "It feels really good to us at CPUT, given the hard work we put into making this conference a reality. We started preparing for it in January and continued to work hard on this until the very last day of the conference. We are very proud of ourselves and Fundani, particularly. The support we received from the office of the Director (Fundani) was amazing. Also, we received very positive feedback from the participants in general."