LIFTEd: Language, Identity and Future-Focused Teacher Education in Communities
Subarea Leader: Prof Elma Marais
Email Address: elma.marais@nwu.ac.za
Website Contact Person: Nthabiseng Mohobe
Subarea Members
| Name | Position | Institution |
| Prof Carolina Botha | Associate Professor | North-West University |
| Dr Charl Nel | Academic Advisor | North-West University |
| Dr Corne van der Vyver | Senior Lecturer | North-West University |
| Dr Dolly Dlavane | Senior Lecturer | North-West University |
| Dr Florence Coertzen | Lecturer | North-West University |
| Mr Hopolang Khaney | Junior Lecturer | North-West University |
| Dr Jenifer Sheokarah | Lecturer | North-West University |
| Prof Maryna Reyneke | Extraordinary Professor | North-West University |
| Ms Mathai Monyakane | Lecturer | North-West University |
| Dr Matome Mabiletja | Lecturer | North-West University |
| Dr Matthys Uys | Senior Lecturer | North-West University |
| Dr Rochelle Marais-Botha | Senior Lecturer | North-West University |
| Prof Salomé Romylos | Associate Professor | North-West University |
| Mr Sandiso Ncube | Junior Lecturer | North-West University |
| Dr Sibongile Dlamini | Lecturer | North-West University |
| Dr Sifiso Sibanda | Lecturer | North-West University |
| Ms Sonica Swart | Lecturer | North-West University |
| Prof Lisa Dieker | Extraordinary Professor | North-West University |
About the Subarea
LIFTEd is structured around three interconnected conceptual pillars: language, identity and future-focused teacher education. These pillars function together, with each shaping and strengthening the others.
Language is understood broadly as a means of teaching, learning, communication, literacy development, multilingual engagement, storytelling and meaning-making. In South African education, language influences access, participation, confidence and the extent to which learners and teachers experience belonging. LIFTEd therefore examines how language, literature and creative expression can promote inclusion, affirm diverse identities and strengthen connections between classrooms and communities.
Identity focuses on the continuing professional development of learners, pre-service teachers, in-service teachers and lecturers. Professional identity is viewed as dynamic rather than fixed, developing through experience, reflection, emotion, agency and professional knowledge. LIFTEd explores identity through reflective practice, community-based learning, storytelling, identity portraits, portfolios, mentoring and engagement with diverse educational realities. The aim is to support grounded, adaptable and ethically responsive professional identities of teachers and early career academics.
Future-focused teacher education prepares teachers for multilingual, digitally mediated, socially diverse and pedagogically complex classrooms. It extends beyond technology use and emphasises adaptability, creativity and sound professional judgement. Technology is treated as one pedagogical resource among many. The pillar also values play-based and guided play pedagogies for supporting language development, collaboration, creativity and learner engagement. Through these approaches, LIFTEd equips pre-service teachers with practical strategies for designing active, embodied and socially meaningful learning experiences, while remaining attentive to the challenges of implementation in rural and under-resourced contexts. Together, these pillars position teacher education as relational, context-sensitive and responsive to emerging educational needs.
Research Focus Areas
Language education and community responsiveness
This focus area examines how pre-service teachers learn to use language and literature as tools for inclusion and meaning-making in multilingual, community-based contexts. Research in this area will engage with questions of literacy, multilingual communication, creative expression and the role of oral traditions and storytelling in language classrooms.
Professional identity development
This focus area investigates how pre-service teachers, in-service teachers and lecturers develop their professional identities through community-based teaching experiences, reflective practice and engagement with real classroom challenges. It aims to look at how teaching is approached in this time and place and why teachers might struggle. We examine how teachers and early career academics develop their careers. Research methods may include narrative inquiry, identity portraits, portfolio analysis, mentoring studies and longitudinal case studies of teacher development.
Technology integration and play pedagogies
This focus area explores how pre-service teachers learn to make responsible, context-sensitive decisions about technology use. It also investigates how play-based pedagogies can be designed and implemented to support learning in diverse South African school settings. Research in this area will pay close attention to questions of access, equity and contextual appropriateness.
Current Research Projects
| Project Title | Project Leader | Brief Description | Funding | Status |
| A collaborative endeavour to explore the belief-practice gap in beginner teachers | Prof Carolina Botha Prof Maryna Reyneke Prof D Laubscher Prof V Karaiskou (Open University of Cyprus | The research project, titled A collaborative endeavour to explore the belief-practice gap in beginner teachers, investigates the disconnect that often exists between what pre-service teachers learn during their university training and the realities they encounter when entering the teaching profession. Building on existing research on “reality shock” and the theory-practice divide in teacher education, the project seeks to better understand how beginner teachers experience the transition from student to professional educator. Particular attention is given to the emotional, professional, and contextual challenges that arise during the early years of teaching and how these influence teachers’ confidence, identity development, and classroom practice. The study adopts a collaborative and reflective approach to generate deeper insights into the experiences of beginner teachers and the factors contributing to the belief-practice gap. Through engagement with participants and the exploration of authentic teaching experiences, the project aims to identify strategies that can strengthen teacher preparation programmes and better support novice teachers entering the profession. Ultimately, the research contributes to ongoing conversations about improving teacher education, enhancing professional readiness, and narrowing the divide between educational theory and classroom practice within the South African context.
| Ongoing | |
| Collaborating with African languages pre-service teachers at the North-West University to enhance teaching practice through OER integration | Me Matome Mabiletja | The research project titled: Collaborating with African languages pre-service teachers at the North-West University to enhance teaching practice through OER integration aims to explore the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) to improve the teaching and learning of African languages in teacher education. The study is based on a collaborative engagement with African languages pre-service teachers and lecturers at the North-West University. This study will employ a participatory action learning and action research (PALAR) research design which involves multiple action learning sets organised according to five African languages involved in this study, namely, isiZulu, isiXhosa, Sepedi, Sesotho and Setswana. The main aim of this research project is to determine ways in which the integration of OER can increase access to African languages learning materials, promoting a more effective learning experience for African languages students. This research will inform practice in African languages classrooms.
| Ongoing | |
Enhancing Pedagogical Approaches to Address Affective Factors in English for Second Language Learners: A PALAR Study with Pre-Service Teachers
| Dr Jennifer Sheokarah Dr Janet Kruger | The PALAR project involves 3rd year intermediate phase pre-service teachers. The project aims to explore how Intermediate Phase pre-service teachers can enhance second language learners’ motivation, confidence, and engagement in English Home Language classrooms through reflective practice, and by collaboratively designing interventions to address affective factors. It also seeks to investigate how participation in PALAR contributes to pre-service teachers’ transformative learning and professional growth.
Expected outcomes:
| Ongoing | |
| The “I” in academia: a community of practice for the development of beginner academics in Education | Dr Rochelle Marais-Botha and prof Elma Marais (project leader) Prof Kotie Kaiser Dr Elize Kung Mr Eddie Kok | The Young Academics in Language Teaching (YALT) project is a four-year research initiative within the Faculty of Education at the North-West University that explores how a community of practice can support the professional and personal development of early-career academics in higher education. Grounded in Wenger’s Communities of Practice framework and informed by Guskey’s model of professional development evaluation, the project responds to challenges such as academic isolation, workload pressures, limited mentorship, and the struggle to balance teaching, research, and institutional responsibilities. YALT creates a structured support environment where emerging academics in the School of Language Education collaborate through mentorship, reflective practice, collaborative discussions, creative methodologies such as LEGO® Voices and Photovoice, and shared professional learning experiences. The project aims to strengthen academic identity, leadership, research capacity, and institutional support structures while also developing a replicable model for supporting beginner academics across the Faculty of Education. | Ongoing | |
| AI in the South African education community | Prof Elma Marais | The project From awareness to action: Developing AI literacy in Education communities is a four-year participatory action research project within COMBER that investigates how artificial intelligence can be meaningfully and ethically integrated into South African education across schools, teacher education, and higher education. The project responds to growing interest in AI as a tool for enhancing teaching, learning, assessment, and educational support, while also recognising major South African challenges such as unequal access to technology, limited infrastructure, multilingual contexts, and ethical concerns around privacy, bias, and equity. Grounded in Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory and supported by frameworks such as Communities of Practice, TPACK, UTAUT2, and AI ethics, the project focuses on developing AI literacy among lecturers, pre-service teachers, and in-service teachers through collaborative exploration, reflection, and experimentation with AI tools. Using a proactive action research approach, participants act as co-researchers who engage in cycles of planning, implementing, observing, and reflecting on AI integration in real educational contexts. Innovative methodologies such as LEGO®-voices, reflective discussions, document analysis, and collaborative inquiry are used to explore participants’ experiences and perceptions of AI. The project aims to strengthen professional agency, improve teaching and learning practices, develop sustainable communities of practice around AI integration, and contribute practical and ethical guidelines for AI use in South African education. | Ongoing | |
| Building the future one brick at a time: Using LEGO® Six Bricks® and LEGO® Play Boxes to enhance pedagogy | Prof Elma Marais (leader) Prof Carolina Botha Prof Carisma Nel Dr Rochelle Marais-Botha Dr Florence Coertzen Dr Jeanette Brits | The LEGO® project, Building the future one brick at a time, explores how LEGO® Six Bricks® and LEGO® Play Boxes can be used to enhance pedagogy and develop 21st-century teaching skills among both pre-service and in-service teachers in South Africa. The project responds to concerns that traditional teacher-centred approaches and rote learning do not adequately prepare learners and teachers for contemporary educational demands. Grounded in Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and using a participatory action research approach, the project creates collaborative learning communities where teachers explore play-based pedagogies, lesson planning, reflective practice, and teaching innovation through LEGO® resources. Through activities, reflective “LEGO®-voice” discussions, teaching practice integration, and community engagement, the project aims to bridge the theory-practice gap in teacher education while fostering collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, communication, and problem-solving skills across all educational phases. | Ongoing | |
Service Learning project: Narrowing the theory-practice gap in English teaching in secondary schools through critical service learning.
| Prof Salome Romylos (leader) Dr Janet Kruger (co-leader) | Ongoing project – since 2023. This service-learning project involves 15 -18 Senior and FET Phase in–service teachers every year and 140 – 300 fourth-year students of the North-West University, that studies English for Education. Participants collaborated in PLCs (Professional Learning Communities) to narrow the theory-practice gap in English teaching in secondary schools, and combine their different skill sets to address the barriers to effective teaching of English as experienced by both in-service and novice teachers.
Since 2025 we started incorporating camps - The camps were a huge success, and all participants enjoyed the collaboration and the opportunity to learn from one another to improve their respective practices.
Outputs: 2 Conferences were attended ( one international, on national) 1 Conference proceeding was published 1 Article was published.
Students from 2023 and 2024 has now joined the service-learning project as teachers, completing the circle where once they were part of the student cohort and now the are part of the community cohort. | Ongoing |
Research Outputs
Conferences
| Staff member | Conference | Title | Where |
| Dr Charl Nel | Regional Student Success Forum (RSSF) - Siyaphumelela (Central Network Region) | NWU Supplemental Instruction (SI) Programme - Using Data to Drive Student Success | Potchefstroom, South Africa |
| Prof Carolina Botha | NWU Best Practice Conference | Playing with Purpose: Embodied Reflection for Teacher Identity Development in Higher Education
| Vanderbijlpark, South Africa |
| Dr Jennifer Sheokarah | The 12th International Conference on Education 2026
| Critical Reflection On Practices: Pre-service Teachers’ Experiences With Learners’ Affective Challenges in English Home Language Classrooms
| Bali, Indonesia |
| Prof Elma Marais | VIKO International Teaching week | Integrating play education across the BEd programme with LEGO Six Brick at a South African University. | Vilniaus, Lituania |
| Prof Elma Marais, Dr Rochelle Marais-Botha and Prof Carisma Nel | NWU Best Practice Conference | Enhancing Teacher Preparation through Mixed Reality Simulation: A team teaching approach | Vanderbijlpark, South Africa |
| Van der Vyver, C. | Storytelling strengthens informal learning in the absence of parental structures, CARN | Child & Adolescent Research Network | Klagenfurt, Austria |
| Staff member | Title | Journal |
Mbuyazi, S Dr Kruger, J Dr Sheokarah, J | Towards teaching anew: Teaching critical literacy with intermediate phase pre-service teachers
| DOAJ indexed |
| Coertzen, F., Marais, E. & Marais-Botha, R. | Die integrasie van film in Afrikaansonderrig: Praktyke van van intermediêrefaseonderwysers. | Tydskrif vir Geestewetenskappe. 66(2), Junie 2026. https://doi.org/10.17159/TGW.2026.66.2.4010 |
| Staff member | Title | Publisher |
| Dr Sheokarah, J | Road to PhD: Tales from the PhD Odyssey: Support structures as anchors for success
| Brill Publishers, Netherlands
|
| Uys, M. | Inclusive strategies for the teaching and learning of queer-themed curricula in the language classroom - A narrative review. | Education Applications & Developments XI: Part 1 (Advances in Education and Educational Trends Series). inSciencePress; Lisboa, Portugal |
Community Engagement Activities
Prof Salome Romylos (leader) Dr Janet Kruger (co-leader) | Service Learning project: Narrowing the theory-practice gap in English teaching in secondary schools through critical service learning.
| Ongoing project – since 2023. This service-learning project involves 15 -18 Senior and FET Phase in–service teachers every year and 140 – 300 fourth-year students of the North-West University, that studies English for Education. Participants collaborated in PLCs (Professional Learning Communities) to narrow the theory-practice gap in English teaching in secondary schools, and combine their different skill sets to address the barriers to effective teaching of English as experienced by both in-service and novice teachers.
Since 2025 we started incorporating camps - The camps were a huge success, and all participants enjoyed the collaboration and the opportunity to learn from one another to improve their respective practices.
Outputs: 2 Conferences were attended ( one international, on national) 1 Conference proceeding was published 1 Article was published.
Students from 2023 and 2024 has now joined the service-learning project as teachers, completing the circle where once they were part of the student cohort and now the are part of the community cohort.
|
Funding and Grants
Yearly support from the LEGO foundation with up to 4400 sets of LEGO Six Bricks
Research Impact
LIFTEd’s research impact lies in its ability to connect scholarly knowledge production with teacher development, curriculum improvement and meaningful engagement in educational communities. Through its integrated focus on language, identity and future-focused teacher education, the strand produces contextually relevant knowledge for multilingual, socially diverse and resource-constrained South African education settings.
The strand has contributed to knowledge dissemination through national and international conference presentations in South Africa, Lithuania, Indonesia and Austria. These presentations have addressed student success, teacher identity, mixed-reality simulation, play-based pedagogy, storytelling and the affective experiences of pre-service teachers. Peer-reviewed articles and book chapters have further extended the strand’s contribution to critical literacy, Afrikaans language education, doctoral support and inclusive language curricula.
LIFTEd also contributes to postgraduate research capacity. The completion of master’s and doctoral studies within the strand demonstrates its role in developing researchers and generating knowledge on reading for meaning, academic language development and teacher capacity-building.
A central dimension of the strand’s impact is its influence on teacher education practice. Current research projects investigate the belief-practice gap among beginner teachers, Open Educational Resources in African language education, affective factors in English language classrooms, the development of beginner academics, artificial intelligence literacy, LEGO®-based pedagogies and critical service learning. These projects inform module design, lesson-planning assignments, teaching-practice preparation, mentoring, professional learning communities and reflective approaches to teacher development.
The strand’s impact extends beyond the university through collaboration with schools, teachers, students and communities. Service-learning projects create sustained partnerships between pre-service and in-service teachers, while former students increasingly return as participating teachers. Research on play, technology and multilingual teaching produces practical strategies and resources that respond to questions of access, equity and contextual appropriateness. LIFTEd support pre-service teachers and in-service teachers with several collaborations with schools and international scholars where beginner teachers find their feet, explore their identity and develop communities of practice.
LIFTEd therefore demonstrates academic, educational, professional and community impact. It strengthens teacher preparation, develops research capacity, supports professional identity formation and generates evidence-informed approaches that can influence teaching practice, curriculum development, institutional decision-making and community-engaged education within NWU and the broader South African context.
Future Research Directions
The future direction of LIFTEd will focus on strengthening its integrated research agenda across language, identity and future-focused teacher education. The strand will deepen research on how teachers develop, adapt and sustain their professional identities across different stages of their careers, with particular attention to the transition from pre-service teacher to beginner teacher.
A key priority will be longitudinal research that follows pre-service teachers into their first years of professional practice. This research will investigate how beginner teachers negotiate the theory-practice gap, classroom realities, institutional expectations, multilingual teaching environments, workload pressures and relationships with mentors, colleagues and school communities. It will also examine how these experiences influence their confidence, professional agency, emotional well-being, pedagogical decision-making and developing teacher identities. The findings can inform stronger induction, mentoring and professional learning programmes for beginner teachers.
LIFTEd will continue to expand research on multilingual language education, literacy, literature, storytelling and community-responsive teaching. Particular attention will be given to the development and use of accessible resources for African languages and to pedagogical practices that affirm learners’ linguistic and cultural identities.
Future-focused research will also explore the responsible and context-sensitive integration of artificial intelligence, Open Educational Resources, mixed-reality simulation and play-based pedagogies. Research will examine not only whether these approaches improve teaching and learning, but also how they influence teacher identity, professional judgement, access, inclusion and equity.
The strand will strengthen collaboration among researchers, students, schools, teachers and community partners through participatory research, service learning and communities of practice. It will also prioritise postgraduate supervision, collaborative publications, externally funded projects and the development of practical frameworks, resources and professional development programmes.
Through this direction, LIFTEd aims to establish a sustained body of evidence on how language, identity, community engagement and pedagogical innovation can contribute to the development of capable, reflective and adaptable teachers throughout their professional journeys.