Early-career academics (ECAs) experience challenges with their integration into higher education institutions due to what is considered inadequate (or lack of) provision for effective professional development. In this article, we present our journey through a collective arts-based self-study project as ECAs guided by three seasoned academics: Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan, Daisy Pillay, and Inbanathan Naicker. We share our personal experiences and challenges faced as ECAs at the University of KwaZulu-Natal; to achieve this, we used a social constructivist lens to collectively engage in conversations as we constructed new understandings of ourselves and experiences as ECAs. We show how, through the research, we learned to form and position our learning and growth within the changing university setting. We adopted a collective arts-based, self-study approach to explore our experiences and what we felt needed to happen to provide meaningful development for the newly appointed as we journey through the unclear grounds of university life. We make visible how we as ECAs feel overwhelmed when entering higher education institutions because of the need to balance research, teaching, and other demands of academic life. We find a strong need for collaborative engagement between ECAs and experienced academics. In addition, establishment of a healthy working environment and policy specific to addressing the needs of ECAs would assist in providing clear support as ECAs transition into experienced academics. Finally, we demonstrate how we took our findings forward, and describe both the resistance and support we experienced.

The language of learning and teaching (LoLT) poses a threat to the quality of teaching and learning of most learners who speak African languages in Africa and particularly in South Africa. In this study, I explore language attitudes and the lived experiences of 400 Grade Four teachers in Pinetown and UMgungundlovu districts teaching African learners using English as LoLT. The study challenges Anglonormative language ideologies (Mckinney, Carrim, Layton, & Marshall, 2015) and the coloniality of dominant discourses about LoLT in South Africa. Calling on the voices of the teachers, I argue for the use of African languages to teach African learners as a powerful measure to regain African identity and to delink education from Eurocentric knowledge and cultures. I compared results from quantitative and qualitative data to arrive at the overall finding that most Grade Four teacher participants prefer the use of African languages to teach African learners and that these teachers are experiencing difficulty in using English as LoLT to teach most of them. Drawing from teachers' responses, I conclude that the use of African languages in education connects learners' worldviews and ways of knowing to the curriculum and provides access to knowledge.

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