Education and Business students recently banded together to work on a literacy project aimed at primary school children.
Learners from the Belhar Pentech Community Care organisation travelled to CPUT’s Wellington Campus for a day of workshops geared around language and literacy.
The five students from the Faculty of Education joined three Business Management students plus a visiting student from Belgium to explore creative ways to engage the 26 learners who ranged from Grade 3 to 6.
Once the students had shown the learners around the Wellington campus they started with icebreakers and then divided the children into groups, rotating them around various stations.
Third year Education student Johan Pienaar was responsible for the debating and critical thinking station where learners were taught how to argue a point and critically question what is being said. He initially thought they would be dealing with older children so quickly had to adjust his methods: “The learners got distracted easily so in future I would look to incorporate more visual and practical resources to retain their attention,” said Pienaar.
Senior lecturer in the Department of English in the Faculty of Education Dr Hanlie Dippenaar said the purpose of the workshop was to give the students a chance to work with learners in an informal setting and to work across disciplines.
“This was a pilot project which might be developed into a longitudinal project. It could be done as a weekend camp in future,” said Dippenaar.
NGO Help2Read, which often partners with the Wellington Campus on Community Projects and Service-Learning, donated a book to each of the learners, who also received stationery from the Community Engagement Unit, which helped to plan the project.
“We would like to thank the CE Unit for the opportunity and we would be interested in doing similar projects that could include more students,” said Dippenaar.
Written by Theresa Smith
