Audrey Mbeje
Title: Lecturer in Foreign Languages
Courses:
- AFST 150-680 Elementary Zulu I & II
- AFST 250-680 Intermediate Zulu I & II
- AFST 350-680 Advanced Zulu I & II
Personal Information
Audrey Mbeje is from Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. She is the Director of the African Language Program at Penn. She also teaches courses in Zulu and another course called, "African Language and Culture."
Education
- Ph.D., Applied Linguistics, Ball State University
Experience
- Currently Director of the African Language Program at Penn
- Visiting scholar at UC-Berkeley from 1998 to 1999 where she served as African Language Coordinator and the instructor of Zulu
- Instructor of Zulu at the Summer Cooperative African Language Institute at Yale (1999) and UW-Madison (1998, 2000-2001)
- Directed a multi-lingual online vocabulary tool for African languages taught at Penn
- Co-authored an online Zulu course IsiZulu Sanamuhla with Professor Sandra Sanneh at Yale
- Director of the federally-funded Fulbright-Hays Group Project Abroad (Zulu GPA) for immersive intensive advanced Zulu in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: 2005-2007 (first cycle), 2008-2011 (second cycle). The Zulu GPA is a national project drawing participants (undergrads, grads, and faculty) from institutions across the nation. Host institution: University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Research interest and Publications
Research interests include discourse analysis and second/foreign language pedagogy, foreign language curriculum design and assessment, online and text-based material development, anaphora, passivization, and tense/aspect in the Nguni languages of South Africa
- Zulu Learners' Reference Grammar, National African Language Resource Center (NALRC) 2005
- Discourse Analysis and Foreign Language Pedagogy: A Case of Zulu Demonstratives, Journal of African Language Teachers Association (JALTA) 2005
- The Function of Demonstratives in Zulu and English: A Contrastive Study with Pedagogical Implications. Dissertation. Michigan: UMI Publishing Company 2002
Affiliations
- Vice President, African Language Teachers Association (ALTA)
- Member, National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLCTL)
- Member, Annual Conference in African Linguistics (ACAL)
- Member, World Congress in African Linguistics (WOCAL)