Avasha Rambiritch

Name:

Dr. Avasha Rambiritch

Position:         Lecturer, UAL


 

Office:             HSB 17-11

Telephone:        (012) 420 4834

E-mail: [email protected]      

Qualifications: B. Paed (Arts), Hons, M.A. PhD (UFS).

 

Abridged  CV:

 Avasha Rambiritch is a lecturer in the Unit for Academic Literacy, University of Pretoria. She obtained the degrees B. Paed (Arts), majoring in English and Drama, Honours (English Literary and Cultural Studies) and M.A. (English Literary and Cultural Studies) from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal. Her PhD. supervised by Prof. Albert Weideman focused on the design and development of a postgraduate test of academic literacy (TALPS). Dr. Rambiritch has a total of 20 years teaching experience. Nine of these were spent in a secondary school, two at a technikon and the last nine years as lecturer in the Unit for Academic Literacy at the University of Pretoria.

As part of her responsibilities she teaches on and co-ordinates a number of different academic literacy modules. Duties here include designing/preparing material, teaching, marking, setting of examination papers (normal and supplementary), overseeing all arrangements with regard to the examination (venues, invigilators, printing of papers), entering of students marks and submitting these to Student Administration, dealing with student queries regarding examination marks and uploading of student marks onto clickUP.

Dr. Rambiritch was the tutor co-ordinator for a number of years. As part of her responsibilities she oversaw the short listing and interviewing of applicants for tutor positions, training of tutors, convening weekly meetings and all other related administration (timetables, venues, budgets). She is currently in the process of establishing a writing centre in the Faculty of Humanities. In 2014 she was responsible for the establishment of the Humanities Writing Centre (HWC), focused on helping develop the academic writing of undergraduate students in the Faculty of Humanities. The HWC is now a fully-fledged writing centre that provides a much needed service to the Faculty.

She was part of the team of test designers responsible for the design and development of the Test of Academic Literacy for Postgraduate Students (TALPS) – the first of the kind in the country. She is an associate of the Inter-Institutional Centre for Language Development and Assessment (ICELDA), a partnership of four multilingual South African universities (Pretoria, North-West, Stellenbosch and Free State), and an ex-member of the Executive of the South African Association of Language Teachers (SAALT), and the South African Applied Linguistics Association (SAALA).

She has completed work on, and published from a research project initiated by her entitled: The effectiveness of a tutorial programme in improving the academic writing ability of first-year university students shown to ‘at risk’ by a compulsory academic literacy test.  Funding for the project was secure from the institutions RDP initiative.

Dr Rambiritch is currently working on a research project entitled: The role of the Humanities Writing Centre (HWC) in providing effective academic writing support to undergraduate students in the Faculty of Humanities.

 

Responsibilities:


She is currently involved in the teaching and co-ordination of the compulsory Academic Literacy modules All 110 and ALL 125 (Humanities),  ELH 121 and 122 (Health Science), ALL 710 and TTS 751. She is also the co-ordinator of the Humanities Writing Centre. Previous to this she taught on the EOT 110/120 modules and co-ordinated the Academic Writing (EOT 162) module and the Legal Discourse (EOT 163) module. Dr. Rambiritch is the departmental representative on the faculties Teaching and Learning Committee. In addition to the above, she is also solely responsible for the administration of the Test of Academic Literacy for Postgraduate Students (TALPS). This includes the invigilation, marking and liaising with supervisors regarding the results of their students and possible interventions for ‘at risk’ students. 

Research highlights:

  • Research project on the effectiveness of the tutorial programme for which funding was received from the Research Development Fund;
  • Part of the team responsible for the design and development of TALPS.

Publications:

Rambiritch A, Carstens A (2022). Good Feedback Practices Related to Asynchronous Online Writing Support in a Writing Center. International Journal of Literacies, 29 (1), pp. 27 - 42.

Rambiritch A (2022). Humour in writing centre consultations. Journal for Language Teaching / Ijenali Yekufundzisa Lulwini / Tydskrif vir Taalonderrig , 56 (2), pp. 1 - 21.

Rambiritch A, Carstens A (2021). Positive Politeness in Writing-Centre Consultations with an Emphasis on Praise. Language Matters, 52 (2), pp. 72 - 95.

Carstens A, Rambiritch A (2021). Directiveness in tutor talk. Perspectives in Education, 39 (3), September: pp. 151 - 168.

Carstens A, Rambiritch A (2020). Theoretical grounding of writing centre practices: a foundation for tutor training. Journal for Language Teaching / Ijenali Yekufundzisa Lulwini / Tydskrif vir Taalonderrig, 54 (1), pp. 235 - 251.

Rambiritch, A. 2018. A Social Justice Approach to Providing Academic Writing Support. Educational Research for Social Change, 7 (1): 46-60.

Rambiritch, A. & Weideman, A.J. Telling the story of a test: The Test of Academic Literacy for Postgraduate Students (TALPS). In Read, J (Ed), Post-admission language assessment of university students, Forthcoming.

Rambiritch, A. 2016. Evaluating the effectiveness of a writing intervention for first-year, ‘at-risk’ students. Language Matters, Forthcoming.

Rambiritch, A. 2015. Accountability issues in testing academic literacy: The case of the Test of Academic Literacy for Postgraduate Students. Perspectives in Education, Forthcoming.

Rambiritch, A. 2015. Student perceptions on writing support. Journal for Language Teaching, 49 (2): 83-107.

Rambiritch, A. 2014. The accessibility of the Test of academic Literacy for Postgraduate Students: Student Perceptions. Per Linguam, 30 (1): 18-37

Rambiritch, A. 2014. Towards transparency and accountability: The story of the Test of Academic Literacy for Postgraduate Students. Journal for Language Teaching, 48 (1): 71-87

Rambiritch, A. 2013. Validating the Test of Academic Literacy for Postgraduate Students (TALPS. Journal for Language Teaching. Forthcoming.

Rambiritch. A. 2012.  Challenging Messick: Proposing a theoretical framework for understanding fundamental concepts in language testing.  Journal for Language Teaching, 46 (2): 108-121.

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