Dissemination Activities

Prof. Bassey Antia presented the BAQONDE project in a keynote address on 26 October 2022 at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology

Dissemination event organised by Prof. Bassey Antia (UWC) with students and academics in Cape Town.

Two members of the BAQONDE team form the University of Salamanca have been formally invited by the Consul of Spain (Jesús Silva Fernández) during their stay in Cape Town due to the BAQONDE workshop organized by the University of the Western Cape. In our search for future collaborations that secure the legacy of BAQONDE, it was also a pleasure to be accompanied by Álvaro de la Cruz-Dombriz, President of The Society of Spanish Researchers in Southern Africa (ACE del Sur de Africa)

In this second online seminar to colleagues at the University of Mpumalanga, Prof. Rosemary Wildsmith (NWU) placed a special focus on setting up their Language Policy for their institution. BAQONDE goals and examples of inter-institutional collaboration were shared. The local committee has expressed their intention to continue their collaboration with our project members /goals.

Under the auspices of BAQONDE, the newly constituted Language Policy committee of the University of Mpumalanga invited Prof Rosemary Wildsmith-Cromarty (NWU) to give two workshops on Language Policy and Implementation in order to help them clarify their goals and the processes to follow in creating the institution’s official language policy. In this first session, it became clear that they would essentially need to create an ALDU or equivalent. They are keen to sustain a connection with us which is one of the aims of BAQONDE,i.e. inter-institutional collaboration.

Presentation of the BAQONDE Project at the University of Salamanca in the presence of the South African Ambassador in Spain, the Vice Chancellor of Research and Knowledge Transfer and the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities during the Exchange programme in Salamanca.

Prof. Bassey Antia, University of the Western Cape, presents the aims and outputs of the BAQONDE project to Prof. James Hadley (Director) and colleagues at the Trinity Centre for Cultural and Literary Translation in its headquarters in the historic centre of Dublin. The Centre’s mission is to develop, promote and support literary translation in Ireland, to bring the best of Irish literature to the world and the best of world literature to readers in Ireland. The information session focused on topics including translation of literature, technology in translation and events such as translation slams. The Centre is keen to forge links with African partners in the area of literary and cultural translation. Translation and translation technologies play a central role in the multilingual language practices within the BAQONDE project.

Presentation of the BAQONDE Project at the 9th ABS Forum on “The rescue and valorization of indigenous languages (Center of Brasilian Studies). Prof. Racquel Valério (researcher at GEFOHPE/UFC and the Ibero-American Institute) has underlined the need of exploring potential partnerships and developing similar strategies/projects in the context of Brasil.

The Chair of the Universities South Africa (USAf)’s Community of Practice for African Language Teaching and Learning (CoPAL), Prof. Langa Khumalo, invited Prof. Pedro Álvarez-Mosquera to share the vision of the BAQONDE Project in a virtual colloquium with representatives on behalf of the 26 South African public universities.

University of the Western Cape – Conference of the International Association of Colonial and Postcolonial Linguistics 2021: “BAQONDE: Boosting the use of African Languages in Education”

University of Athens – International Language Testing Association: BAQONDE as an example of a quest for multilingual pedagogies in Prof. Antia’s presentation in (multilingual) assessment.