39 English Department Key Highlights Teaching: Undergraduate The English department had a successful year of undergraduate teaching. As in the 2020 academic year, our approach to teaching was entirely online, but the forms that the teaching took varied: (i) They included the conventional lectures, which were recorded for the benefit of those students who could not attend; (ii) There were pre-recorded videos and podcasts; (iii) We used Telegram, which involves voice notes by both lecturers and students and allowed for interaction; (iv) We used WhatsApp to communicate important messages and to allow students to post messages, questions and lecturers to respond; (v) There were one-on-one sessions with students who requested consultations with lecturers; (vii) Tutorials also took the form of Telegram, WhatsApp and one-on-one sessions, with tutors conducting two tutorials per week, as is customary in the English department; (viii) The result was a smooth progression in the teaching and learning process, whereby both lecturers and students had access to multiple teaching and learning platforms that are not always available in a normal contact teaching environment. Postgraduate Honours teaching followed the same forms and patterns of compulsory seminars as in the normal contact sessions, except that they were also entirely conducted online. As in our undergraduate teaching, we created a virtual classroom, using Collaborate Ultra, Microsoft Teams and Zoom, depending on which platform was convenient to both the lecturers and students. The seminars were also recorded and made available to the students as an additional source of reference. In the case of Honours teaching: (i) Seminars lasted for 3 hours each, as per our normal practice; (ii) Student interaction was encouraged, as it normally is at Honours level; (iii) Supervisors of research essays set up online consultations with their respective students. Consultations also took place via email and, on occasion, on campus with individual students Research (i) The department of English places great emphasis on staff research and we are continuously looking for ways to encourage each member of the department to publish in accredited journals. In 2021: (ii) Profs Ronit Frenkel and Mngadi co-edited a Special Issue of Research in African Literatures, a prestigious international journal that publishes research in African literature from Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone Africa; (iii) Prof Mngadi’s chapter for a book on Centenarians (some South writers born in 1919) will be published by the Wits University Press in 2022; (iv) Dr Thabo Tsehloane and Dr Lucy Graham submitted an article each for publication in the Research in African Literatures special issue; (v) Dr Zama Nsele is finalising an article to be published in the Research in African Literatures special issue; (vii) Prof Mngadi is co-editing a Special Issue of the journal Alternation, which is DHET accredited, on resistance literature in India and South Africa; (viii) Other colleagues are working on research projects for publication. Internationalisation (i) With regard to international collaborations, the English department has retained its relationship with Augsburg University. However, due to travel restrictions, there was no physical interaction in 2021, in the form of staff and students exchanges. The
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