About This Site
Dr. Christopher John has over 25 years of experience in helping multilingual students achieve academic success. He is a Fulbright Scholar and Senior Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity. He has taught in Government and Private Higher Education in South Africa and in the United States of America.
Informal discussions with teachers suggest that strong writing skills can improve a learner's marks by 15% to 20%. Most of us, in South Africa, speak more than one language, and yet we study and obtain qualifications using English. These online courses focus on helping Grade 11 and 12 learners to develop skills and understanding about how to use Academic English to discipline and structure their thinking and achieve confident articulate Academic Writing in English.
Exam Tips:
Managing Nerves and Analyzing the Question
This short course will give you the confidence to manage any nervousness as you sit down to write your exams. I will give you some simple advice about how to manage your physical state and the ‘noise in your head’. Then I will show you how to analyze the exam questions. I will help you identify the content a question is asking for and how to identify the way you need to answer the question. Once you know how to start, you should be off and away.
Free Course
Duration: 15 minutes
Closes: 1 5 December 2021
The Essential Writing Guide for Multilingual Matric Learners:
How to improve your marks by writing well-structured assignments in Academic English
Informal discussions with teachers suggest that stronger writing skills can improve a learner's marks by 15% to 20%. Most of us, in South Africa, speak more than one language, and yet we study and obtain qualifications using English. Written English is not the same as spoken English. These online courses focus on helping Grade 11 and 12 learners to develop skills and understanding about how to use Academic English to discipline and structure their thinking and achieve confident articulate Academic Writing in English.
Not Open for Enrolment.
The Exam Rewrite Power Tool Kit for Multilingual Learners:
How to improve your marks with a study plan and well-structured writing in Academic English
Do you want to rewrite your final school exams? I will work with you to develop a study strategy in order to build your confidence in exam writing. I will also work with you to help you use Academic English to structure and discipline your thinking and help you to write well-structured Academic arguments in response to your exam questions.
Not Open for Enrolment
Reference
Ongezwa Mbele
University lecturer
"Dr. Christopher John encouraged me to read, write, reflect and think about the world around me; what it means to me? And to engage with where I come from. To come into the reading, writing with my positionality of who I am and question what the reading said to me. He also encouraged me to have an awareness of my cultural influences and bring to the center the Nguni way of thinking and writing the world."
Biography:
Dr. Christopher John.
I am a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity and was a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at California State University Polytechnic, Pomona. In 1997 I moved to South Africa to lecture at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in the Drama and Performance Studies Programme. I have worked in Private Higher Education since 2012 working at AFDA and as a part-time lecturer for Miplpark Education. I have a Masters Degree in English and a Doctoral Degree in Community Development from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
I have extensive experience working in Higher Education with a particular interest in Community Engagement. Before becoming an academic, I worked in management training for Anglo American Corporation's group companies in Zimbabwe. I worked as a consultant to large mining houses, heavy industry, private sector companies, government, parastatals, and NGOs. I ran community projects in Zimbabwe shortly after the Gukurahundi (genocide) in the Matabeleland provinces and with ZIPRA veterans in the cooperative movement. I worked as a consultant to Care Mozambique and Redd Barna in Mozambique after the civil war ended in 1993. I ran community engagement projects in KwaZulu-Natal towards the end of the political violence of the 1990s, and with incarcerated people in Westville Correctional Facility in Durban.
During my early working life, I was an actor, teacher, and director under the name Christopher Hurst. I studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London and worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company, in the West End, and on Broadway. Born in Zimbabwe, I returned to Africa and worked with Mbongeni Ngema’s Committed Artists and Cont Mhlanga’s Amakhosi Productions. In 2013 I directed Mbongeni Ngema in his return to the stage in The Zulu, which played at the Grahamstown Festival and Market Theatre. I also worked as the script editor on Ngema’s screenplay Asinimali. I directed Mbongeni Ngema and Percy Mtwa, the original cast of Woza Albert, in a revival that toured South Africa in 2018. The Tabex Encyclopedia Zimbabwe credits me with making an important contribution to the debates about decolonizing theatre in Zimbabwe in the 1980s.
Doctoral Degree Certificate
This is my Doctoral Degree Certificate from the University of KwaZulu-Natal issued in 2010. The discipline area I study was Community Development.
Dr. Christopher John
Qualifications
Master of Fine Arts Certificate (cum laude)
This is my Master of Fine Arts (cum laude) Certificate from the University of Natal issued in 2001. The discipline area of study was English.