Afrikaans is one of the youngest languages in the world, and was (like Hindi, Modern Hebrew, and Indonesian) established as a fully standardised language during the 20th century. Afrikaans can be taken as a university subject in, amongst others, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland and USA. Afrikaans is one of the 11 official languages of South Africa and is the mother tongue of the majority of the students studying on the Potchefstroom campus of North-West University.

Knowledge of as many languages as possible is a great asset for teachers in a multi-lingual country such as South Africa, and in an increasingly globalised world, therefore it is expected of education students to be able to teach through the medium of more than one language. There is also a good deal of research done about teaching through the medium of a second or third language, as well as the actual teaching of second and third languages –the former especially in the subject English, and the latter especially in the subject group Afrikaans and Tswana.

The lecturing reponsibilities this subject group entails the presentation of:

1. mother tongue or non-mother tongue communication for all B.Ed. students
2. Afrikaans as academic subject to students majoring in Afrikaans or who have chosen Afrikaans as a component of the learning area Languages
3. subject methodology to all students majoring in Afrikaans

Because the focus is on the education of teachers, the curriculum is constructed in such a way that students receive an academic foundation and teaching skills of a high level, relevant to school programmes. All teachers, but especially language teachers, should have exceptional communication skills to be able to guide their learners in the process of learning, as well as being role models of correct language usage. Therefore modules for the development of high-function communication skills of mother tongue speakers and for low-function communication skills for non-mother tongue speakers are included in the Afrikaans curriculum.

The research focuses of the subject group’s staff members can be found in their individual CV’s. The members of this subject group originally confined their reseach to aspects of language and literature (within the research focus area of the School of Languages), but have also, since 2009, participated in the research niche of the School of Curriculum Studies.