The first of its kind at UCT, the Faculty of Health Sciences Language Festival provided an opportunity to raise awareness about the language diversity within the Faculty and to celebrate this diversity as a resource. The month-long festival in May was opened by Vice-Chancellor Dr Max Price who lauded the Faculty for the initiative.

Amazing Race builds teams and awareness through fun

Natashia Muna, coordinator of the Faculty’s Writing Lab and project coordinator of three of the festival’s events - the launch of the Writing Lab (reported on previously), the Amazing Race and a Language Seminar – shared some of the highlights of Amazing Race.

“The Amazing Race event was planned as fun activity (with a competitive edge) to bring people together for a team-building experience that would also facilitate engagement with language, communication and relevant social issues at the university.” she explains.

The event, emulating the global television series, pitted teams against each other on a race across UCT chasing clues and participating in challenges. It kicked off amidst loud music in the student plaza at Health Sciences on Friday 27 during lunchtime. Six excited teams competed for an all-expenses-paid dinner for the winning team, sponsored by GOLD restaurant- The Dean’s Dream Team, The 4 Bases, Team SM, The Masters, ESXS and The Motley Crew.

With the first clue in hand, the teams enthusiastically raced off in different directions to identify an artwork on campus highlighting the HIV/Aids struggle.

Once they had successfully translated a phrase on the artwork it was off to the Library to get back in touch with the roots of medicine. From here, teams headed to upper campus, with team ‘4 Bases’ managing to catch a Jammie Shuttle just as it was leaving, giving them a significant lead on the other five teams.

On upper campus, teams reported to the Beattie building for another translation activity – this time the words of our county’s icon, Nelson Mandela, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”

Once complete, the teams had to take a selfie in front of a road sign on campus baring the author’s name with the hash tag #FHSLanguageFest. Next, teams had to engage with the renaming process by proposing a new name for the Beattie building and submitting it to the renaming committee (who knows, maybe one of the teams may end up being credited with renaming the Beattie building!).

Following this, teams were sent to All Africa House, where they had to brainstorm strategies that staff and students could use to overcome language barriers in the classroom. Next, it was time to shake a leg at the School of Dance, where teams had to learn and then perform a short piece of choreography. The final activity was a team quiz on the lawn of the Graca Machel residence. Teams were warmly welcomed back to Health Science at the MAC Club. Team 4 Bases (Tarryn Shaw, Amber Ross, Malebo Malope & Kalinka Popel) maintained their early lead and came in with a strong win, followed by the Motley Crew in second place.

A snap survey of the exhausted but elated participants showed them to be full of praise for the level of challenges (some more frustrating than others), and the way this connected people in the Faculty; Many expressed the view that it should become an annual event.

Language seminar – self-reflection and solution-orientated engagement

  

Natashia Muna, coordinator of the Faculty’s Writing Lab, coordinated the final event of the Language festival, a seminar aimed at critically engaging on language issues in the Faculty.

“The Language Seminar provided a more serious opportunity to engage with some of the language issues pertinent to the Health Sciences, with a focus on critical self-reflection and solution-orientated thinking.” she explains.

The seminar, which was attended by Deputy Dean Professor Perez as well as several Heads of Departments, kicked off with a thought-provoking proposal presentation by isiXhosa lecturer, Thabisa Xhalisa, and was followed by a lively panel discussion. The panel consisted of Prof. Raj Mesthrie, Dr Busayo Ige, Dr Bongi Bangeni, Thabisa Xhalisa, PhD student Emmanuel Nwosu and undergraduate students Zahraa Mohamed and Stephnie Roche, with Prof Harsha Kathard acting as chair.

“One of the clear messages from the debate was that for too long tertiary education has been prioritising English over other languages,” says Natashia. This prioritisation has filtered through to parents, who are now encouraging their children to focus on English ahead of African languages, and schools, many of which make subject selection with African languages tricky for scholars wanting to pursue the sciences.

Universities need to send a clear message to schools that multilingualism is valued, and the suggestion was raised from the audience that in the future an African language could be stipulated as an entrance requirement for medicine. If first year students already had basic isiXhosa in place, as most do for Afrikaans, then the additional tuition at the tertiary level could meaningfully extend student’s language proficiency beyond basic communication.

“Another strong theme was that our focus should not be exclusively on what students need to do, but on staff as well,” explains Natashia. Multilingualism needs to break out of the confines of language lectures and become part of the disciplinary discourse. However, while many staff members have done the Basic Communication in isiXhosa courses offered by the university, this is clearly not sufficient to enable disciplinary proficiency and further provision should be offered. In time, the dual approach of both staff and students could lead not only to better facilitation, teaching and transformation, but also to providing the opportunity for African languages to develop within an academic setting – something for which not much affordance has been made, particularly within the sciences.

“This seminar appropriately raised several of the issues currently under consideration and the Faculty was urged to respond to the Universities Language Policy and its strategic implementation with Health Sciences,” says, Natashia.