ADOPTING INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES IN TEACHING COMMUNICATION AND ENGINEERING EDUCATION IN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS: LESSONS FROM SOUTH AFRICAN UNIVERSITIES

This study sought to determine the potential place of Afrikaans and IsiXhosa as indigenous languages to promote communication education in South African Universities. This study examined the approaches and curriculum development of the use of Afrikaans and IsiXhosa to teach journalism trainees in Rhodes and North-West Universities. For the purpose of this study, uses and gratification theory was employed to examine how communication and engineering instructors have adopted Afrikaans and IsiXhosa to teach and train students in the field of engineering and journalism. The method adopted for this study was a mixed method approach combining qualitative content analysis, observation and interviews. Furthermore, a review of previous studies on the adoption of Afrikaans and IsiXhosa for communication and engineering education was examined.