This article discusses the academic writing challenges of undergraduate students at Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), South Africa. It examines challenges such as lack of a mastery of academic writing conventions, analysis of writing topics, using writing to construct social identities; ability to research and apply knowledge across different context and poor sentence skills. It also focuses on the implications of these challenges for students’ academic development and possible strategies to address these challenges. The article draws on sustained interviews with twenty 2^nd year students, 1^st year student reflections and discussions with four Communication lecturers. The data revealed that academic writing challenges of students in universities of technology are consequences of students’ linguistic and general literacy backgrounds, their attitudes toward academic writing and the privileging of middle-class literacy practices in South African higher education.  To mitigate these challenges, this article proposes the following strategies: the integration of academic literacies in disciplinary curricula, the promotion of multimodalities of the teaching and assessment as well as collaboration between language lecturers and core course specialists. It also recommends intensive academic reading and writing workshops, and increased formative feedback.  

Using virtual interactions to enhance the teaching of communication skills to information technology students_ 1193 85..96 Ernest A. Pineteh Ernest Angu Pineteh is a communication lecturer in AbstractThis paper examines the use of virtual interactions in a Communication class at Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT)-South Africa. It demonstrates how synthesising virtual and other computer-assisted exercises as well as traditional classroombased activities can enhance the teaching and learning of communication concepts. The paper is based on the experiences of 1 st -year Information Technology students at CPUT, and the data was gleaned from observations, questionnaires and course reflections during one semester of an academic year. The findings of the investigation revealed that despite the burgeoning interest in computer-centered teaching and learning at CPUT, traditional methods of teaching are still valuable given the differences in the learning styles and technological experiences of students. In this light, this paper subscribes to "complementarity" as the most expedient teaching approach because it can cater for the student diversity in this learning space as well as promote quality peer interactions and collaborative learning. It can also transform the process of learning into an invigorating experience especially because these students are dispassionate about communication. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic • Technology in education • Virtual teaching and learning • Collaborative teaching and learning • Traditional versus computer-mediated teaching approaches What this paper adds • Student diversity and teaching dynamics in South Africa • The challenges of university of technology students in South Africa and the value of computer-mediated teaching and learning • The role of communication in developing cognitive skills of South African students. • The technological challenges at Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT)-South Africa and the implications for teaching and learning

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This article discusses how violence between South Africans and Somali migrants plays out in different forms of spatial contestation, victimization and resistance during xenophobic attacks. It analyses Somalis’ entrepreneurial strategies and the implications for access and appropriation of social and economic spaces around Cape Town. The article attempts to connect Somali perceptions of xenophobia and South Africans’ claims of spatial entitlement to issues of spatial control, belonging and social inclusion in South Africa. It argues that by establishing businesses in urban spaces and townships, Somali migrants have managed to establish stronger bonds and a collective identity, which give them better control over these spaces. Although their business tactics have propelled spatial contestations in which they have become easy targets during xenophobic incursions, the clustering of businesses has also created Somali‐dominated localities around Cape Town, which facilitates rapid mobilization to respond to or to resist different forms of crime and violence.

This article examines the memories of a group of Cameroonian asylum-seekers in South Africa, analyzing personal accounts of memories of fear, suffering, and pain as well as resilience and heroism during their forced migration. The article argues that the legitimacy of applications for asylum often depends on accurate and consistent memories of specific life-threatening episodes at home and during migration. Drawing on theoretical conceptions such as construction of memory, autobiographical memory, and politics of storytelling, this article teases out how personal memories of asylum-seekers provide a discursive space to access and understand the asymmetries of seeking political asylum in post-apartheid South Africa.