Director: Professor Pineteh Angu

Welcome to the Unit for Academic Literacy (UAL) in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Pretoria. In the UAL, our philosophy is to provide academic language and literacy interventions that can contribute to transform students into critical and analytical thinkers, readers and writers. Therefore, we approach academic literacy as a cognitive process or a mode of reasoning, and we strive to equip our students with intellectually empowering academic and professional competencies. We help our students to master the different ways knowledge is constructed, shared and contested in their respective disciplines and at university level.

Through our customised academic literacy modules and workshops, offered at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in seven faculties, we focus on developing higher order thinking skills required for  academic success and intellectual growth. Some of these modules/workshops also cover a medley of workplace literacies (teamwork, technical report writing, digital literacies, oral presentations, global awareness and intercultural competence and so on).  These skills are essential for navigating a challenging higher education landscape and a complex world shaped by social, political, economic and digital disruptions. Since our student body reflect the rich cultural, epistemic and linguistic diversity in our society, we are equally very committed to promoting multilingualism and curriculum transformation/decolonisation.

We are gradually embedding ways of being, knowing and doing from the African continent in our curricula and classroom practices. As academic literacy practitioners, we ensure that our curriculum, teaching and assessment practices are based on sound empirically led and contextually relevant research. We share these practices in our own research projects and we draw consistently on current research and scholarship from South Africa, Africa and beyond. This is the key to our success!  It is not surprising that UAL is now one of the leading academic literacy entities in South Africa. 

Please take a moment to navigate our website for more information about the UAL, our modules, teaching and learning activities as well as our research projects and staff profiles.