Letter from South Africa – by Sibusiso Clifford Ndlangamandla

Invitation to participate in the first Winter School of the University of Education Karlsruhe’s DAAD project “Get ready for Global Teaching!” (2025-2029)

This letter captures my preparations for my first visit to a German university – the University of Education Karlsruhe (PHKA) – and my first impressions of guest lecturing in the English Department of the University of Education Karlsruhe in December 2025 and participating in the DAAD “Get ready for Global Teaching!” project of PHKA.

Preparations for the guest lectureship 

I am Sibusiso (Cliff) Ndlangamandla, an Associate Professor from the Department of English Studies at the University of South Africa (Unisa). Unisa is a Comprehensive Open Distance eLearning (CODEL) University in South Africa.

Landmark picture of the University of South Africa over a ridge overlooking Pretoria, the capital city of South Africa

When I learned about the “Get Ready for Global Teaching!” project from Professor Martin, I was captivated by the keywords “global”, “English Language”, and “teaching”. And when she mentioned “decoloniality”, I longed to be part of it. I started looking forward to the experience.

Prof Martin briefly mentioned her university’s funding opportunity for “Global English language teaching” visiting lecturers during one of our regular “Unbooking” Saturday meetings, which have been going on for the last three years. (“Unbooking” is a group of ca. 40 academics from across the world who have been exploring southern epistemologies and decoloniality in language education, Applied Linguistics, and Sociolinguistics together since Prof. Sinfree Makoni‘s workshop “(Un)doing Applied Linguistics Through Southern Epistemologies: Affordances and Challenges” at the 2023 AAAL conference in Portland. Our Unbooking “book” is forthcoming).

I was intrigued by the opportunity. However, I became preoccupied with other tasks the following week, and it must have been after one week that I contacted Prof Martin. She quickly arranged an online meeting, and I joined her where she gave details of the programme. She mentioned that there were seven fixed partners with University Cooperation Agreements in the project, but that she just heard from one partner that she was unable to come to the Winter School. Therefore, she asked me if I would be willing to apply and come to Germany for a few weeks in the partner’s place: the funding could be transferred, but time was limited. It was in fact a day before the closing date for the applications. I immediately told her that my passport had expired at the beginning of January 2025 and that I had only noticed this after seven months and had not yet approached my Home Affairs Department to renew the passport and that after this, I would then apply for a Schengen visa to come to Europe but I had no clue how long these processes would take. Nevertheless, I committed to doing preparations, including applying for the project. I counted backwards and predicted that I would possibly be eligible to travel out of South Africa during the last week of November or the first week of December.

After a successful application and prompt offer to come to Germany, I immediately began the processes of getting the visa.

Travelling to Karlsruhe, Germany 

The International Office was very helpful in coordinating the preparation for my coming to Germany. Ms Mirjam Hitzelberger offered information about the TLS contact centre in South Africa, which is responsible for handling visa applications on behalf of the German Embassy. The visa staff were friendly and gave clear instructions on the requirements, including offering to complete the visa application forms at a fee for me.

I told a few close colleagues at Unisa about my prospects of going to Germany. They were delighted about my opportunity; at least two of them said I should find better opportunities in Germany and not come back to South Africa.

One of the colleagues connected me to a professor from the Department of Health Studies at Unisa who had been on a Visiting Professorship opportunity in Germany. This professor briefed me about the official requirements for the visa from Unisa, the Unisa leave approvals and official letter to support the visa application, the necessary visa documentation that was required, and the likely support that would come from the German university partner.

Eventually, everything fell into place. The whole application was seamless and the trip was smooth. I arrived on a Saturday in late November 2025 in Karlsruhe. I met Prof Martin at the Karlsruhe main station (“Hauptbahnhof”), and she kindly ushered me into her car. While driving through town told me about the history of Karlsruhe, that it was 25% destroyed during the years 1940-1045 in World War II, and that therefore many buildings were newer. As she knew about my running activities, she also told me something about orientation in the city, having to do with never getting lost because it was always possible to locate the centre through the castle in the centre, from which streets went in all directions like the rays of a sun and the other streets being circular around the centre, and that the university was close to the Gothic Church. I did not quite understand this geography; it took me a few days of my own self-discovery whilst running to confirm what she meant. Karlsruhe is a “Fächerstadt” (with the city centre structured around the castle and cathedral, and streets arranged radially).

Settling in the city and orientation into the university 

Upon arrival at the hotel, Prof Martin introduced me to the other two colleagues from Africa, also DAAD guest lecturers, who had already spent a week in Karlsruhe: Mr Donald Beteyeh Nchofua (University of Yaoundé, Cameroon) and Dr. Gifty Edna Anani (University of Cape Coast, Ghana).

The three guest lecturers with our host Prof Martin

Prof Martin assisted me with check-in and showed me my hotel apartment. She was also kind to guide me through the likely expenses, buying food to cook, and also settling in.

For the day after my arrival, she had arranged an International Lunch that was meant to welcome the DAAD guest lecturers and meet the academics and partners. We had a large group consisting of lecturers, doctoral students, and teachers from China, India, Ukraine, Germany, Ghana, Cameroon, Uganda, and South Africa, and there was a hearty, bountiful table full of a variety of dishes.

A variety of  international dishes from by the attendees

Stimulating academic conversations during the International Lunch

There were robust conversations on different academic and teaching systems. We talked about the trends in colonial and postcolonial Englishes, Global Englishes, and the dominance of Kachru’s model of the “concentric circles”. I commented on the Imperial English that we all share as a common history of British conquest, and how, in the present, the spread of English was driven by contextual factors in each country, and individual sociolinguistic factors that required new methods to engage the students. The colleagues from Germany quickly re-assured me that students at PHKA were taught diverse approaches and were free to apply decolonial vs. dominant theories to their own contexts and individual lives.

It was fascinating to hear from somebody like Ms Samira El Bakezzi-Lang, one of the senior participants who has wide experience of the German education system. She is a part-time teacher of English and French at a secondary school and also responsible for Diversity Awareness in teacher education both in the Teacher Preparation Seminar Karlsruhe and NiKLAS project (Network for Intercultural Learning at Schools) of the federal Ministry of Education in Baden-Wuerttemberg. She described the unique scenario of professional teaching education of teachers in Germany, such as the minimum qualifications and standards, the requirements for a Master’s degree, followed by another almost two years of training that is administered and monitored by the federal Education Departments in each state. This process mandates that immigrant teachers or foreign-trained teachers undergo “retraining” before they can be recognised as teachers in Germany. This made it possible for me as a newcomer to understand the nature of PHKA, as a unique university within the federal state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.

Some  guests talk to each other at the lunch

The International Lunch was a resplendence of diverse dishes brought by the guests, e.g. doctoral student Ms Miaoxing Ye and her German husband Markus (also a doctoral student), Ms Rhythm Chauhan, who is lecturer and a PhD student, and Dr Valentyna Guseva, an adjunct lecturer from the Ukraine. This comprised a diverse community of practice that is united around decolonization of English language teaching, making a difference internally at the PHKA in Germany, but also globally by their Global South and Global North networks, connections, and international experiences.

Getting inducted into the actual teaching and orientation of  lectures 

Then came the opportunity to get to know the PKHA campus and get involved in teaching. Prof Martin had been sending regular emails about the activities, the timetable, and what my obligations were going to be during the guest lectureship period. I got a tour of the university and was guided to the library, the food and amenities and the lecture halls, including the International Office. Prof Martin gave us clear guidelines through topics that we were expected to facilitate or provide seminars, and workshops. She gave us fairly broad themes and left it to us to decide on specific topics to handle under each area, for example, aspects of grammar, postcolonial theories and literatures, and Global Englishes.

I was also invited to come along to her cooperation primary school to observe one of her students in the Integrated Teaching Practicum, who was teaching grade 3 learners at the Albert-Schweitzer-Schule Muggensturm.

I observe the teacher and learners busy during the lesson

The class was lively and full of activities by the learners and an apprentice teacher who led them through various chants, actions, drills, recitals, and repeats. Being a first time for me to visit a Grade 3 classroom as a guest lecturer felt like I was witnessing an organized orchestra without sufficient knowledge of classical music. (I remember I once was given a choice to conduct ethnography at a Primary school but I chose to go to two Secondary Schools). However, towards the end, I was able to get the direction of the lesson plan, and the feedback conference session was very useful.

I love reading a lot, especially short stories, and so I took a lot of the first week reading all the copies Prof Martin gave me as part of her courses and her teaching files. And so, intense teaching lay ahead for the duration of the visit.

In the first week, I also got to attend a lecture on Global Citizenship Education in Prof Martin’s seminar on “Global Citizenship Education, Global Englishes, and Teaching International English”. The lecture-workshop on Global Citizenship Education by Ms Hitzelberger was inspiring and it brought into light my own reflections on Global Citizenship Education. Global Citizenship Education entails helping learners understand the world around them and work together to fix the big problems that affect everyone, no matter where they are from. She covered the latest trends and leading scholars in the field. Her workshop style delivery invited us to imagine and engage with the lecture.

In another session of the same seminar, Prof Martin arranged a panel discussion on “Global Englishes”, which Ms Hitzelberger chaired. Rhythm, Miaoxing and us guest lecturers were invited as panel speakers.

Concluding reflections 

And so proceeded what was to be an intense three weeks of daily classroom adventures, seminars, presentations, and meetings. I had to learn fast, to quickly unlearn old habits (teaching a new group of students where everything is unfamiliar demands unlearning, and relearning), navigate teaching technologies, and keep appointments. Alongside all this, I had to keep up with any unavoidable requests from Unisa, fulfill indispensable family responsibilities, and also enjoy my normal rhythm of running and getting to see places. 

This was a jampacked moment to engage and challenge myself with regards to teaching, understanding humanity broadly and specifically in the German and European context. I enjoyed seeing the enthusiasm each day from students and lecturers. I am currently working on a formal Cooperation Agreement between UNISA and PHKA. If successful, the agreement will enable more opportunities for meetings, exchanges, visits, collaborations and attending the upcoming big conference in 2027. 

Text by Sibusiso Ndlangamandla

Photos by Sibusiso Ndlangamandla, Isabel Martin, Caesar Mbotana, PH press photographer c/o Regina Thelen

Editor’s note: If I may (?)… happy birthday, Cliff! See you at PHKA again hopefully in 2027.