I have a BA degree with the following majors: isiXhosa III, French III, English III, Afrikaans III, with a PGCE. I have vast experience of teaching all 4 subjects from Gr 4-12 as well as in-house.

Teacher Renée engaged well with the class. I felt that she gave each student the attention they needed to do well in this isiXhosa class.

She didn't just teach us the language, but also about the people and how they interact with the world, and why.

The workload was well balanced between written and spoken exercises, and made me feel like I was making progress each lesson.

Great course: clearly explained, using basic building blocks to understand the "rules" and grammar, then gradually building up from there. Practical exercises to reinforce learning and start using the language.

I've known Renee since my early high school days at Paul Roos, where she was one of several teachers who truly made an impression. What set her apart was her remarkable ability to stabilise the classroom and make French lessons genuinely enjoyable. What I find most unique about Renee is her gift for weaving stories into her teaching, going beyond just the language to bring real meaning and context to every lesson. On a personal level, she is a wonderfully warm individual with a natural ability to connect with people wherever she goes.

Learning isiXhosa felt daunting at first, but Renee teacher, made the entire experience enjoyable and approachable. Her explanations were always clear, and she never made me feel rushed — her patience truly made a difference when working through the clicks and tones that make the language so unique.

What set her apart was how she wove cultural context into every lesson. Learning isiXhosa through her felt like gaining a window into a whole way of life, not just picking up vocabulary and grammar.

She also has a wonderful way of keeping classes lively and engaging — lessons flew by. I always left feeling motivated and eager to learn more. I highly recommend learning with Renee!

Renee was recommended to me by other students who were satisfied with her Xhosa course. Based on the recommendations received, I decided to attend the course. Renee has the ability to present her courses in a way which makes it easy to understand and apply. Rather than just "teaching you standard phrases", she breaks down the basics of the language so that you are able to set a foundation upon which you are able to build. I would highly recommend her as a capable and passionate teacher.

Reneé was my French as a Third Language subject teacher in high school, from grades 8 to 9. In my experience, most foreign language courses, including the one I am currently taking, use "chunking" as their main pedagogy. This means the student is reliant on learning massive amounts of phrases with no grammatical insight into the construction of the language at the level of the sentence. In other words, I am sure many people can recite phrases such as "je voudrais un cafe au lait, s'il vous plait" off the cuff, and know that it means they would like a cup of coffee with milk, but have no knowledge of the tense they are using, why this specific tense, why the masculine pronoun, not the feminine, etc. Renée's pedagogy begets an understanding of the language's syntax, grammar, spelling, situational uses, jargon, which means that once I, as a student, understand the simple basics of something like subject-verb conjugation, I am able to fashion an endless amount of sentences, on my own, if I do the due diligence and learn the vocabulary. In my opinion, as an English professor, this provides the student with a sense of mastery over the language from the get-go, which inspires confidence and encourages an eagerness to speak it, knowing you might not always be one hundred per cent accurate. Lastly, this means that if someone offers you a correction of an error, you are able to understand the grammatical context yourself and continue learning. I cannot recommend Renée enough. Her classes inspire and foster a desire to learn and speak another language, which is daunting for anyone, of any age.