The materials use an interactive approach, and their key feature is an integrated experience-based and reflective approach to language teaching. Leading up to the assignments, there is a very clear interconnectedness, which enables one to cope with the assignments. There are residential sessions of four or five days in each vacation, and they assist us to understand concepts and processes described in the materials. They also provide an opportunity for the modelling of methods suggested in the course materials. In contrast to this, the Wits FDE programme tries to encourage teachers to have a sense of collegiality.
Students work with study partners to complete assignments and even examinations.
Evidence of pupils' work is often required, together with the teacher's reflection and comments on pupils' work. Nearly every assignment requires adaptation of a lesson, justification of approach, teaching of the lesson, and reflection on the success or lack of success. Let me state that I am a product of the authoritarian era of apartheid. I received my teacher training during the height of the apartheid hegemony. An ideal classroom situation, according to the school of thought prevailing then, was a classroom which was characterized by 'passivity', whereby a teacher expected total silence from the learners and they could only speak or respond when spoken to.