Introduction

Name: Piet S.

Age: 19

Native Language: Afrikaans

Nationality: South African

Piet is a young Afrikaner from a small rural town near Johannesburg. His first language is Afrikaans, and he is also fluent in Setswana. Piet’s family are landowners, and fell on hard times since he was young, until the expansion of the Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve. With the sale of the family lands to the province came revenue for the family as guides for tourists.

                Piet is the oldest of five children, and the only one with any level of proficiency in English. He was homeschooled by his mother until ten and worked the farm from the age of eight. Neither his mother nor father speaks much English. Upon the sale of the farm, Piet was sent to an English private school in Durban alongside his English-speaking cousin, Kevin. When they completed Secondary school, Piet and Kevin took a “gap-year” to visit America, staying with Kevin’s aunt and her American husband in Sarasota, before returning to South Africa to go to university.

                Piet is very motivated to develop his English proficiency. Working as a guide on the nature reserve requires good English as the majority of the tourism comes from English-speaking countries. For his family to survive Piet must improve his language skills and pass them on to his siblings. He had a rough start moving from a small rural school in which English was taught once per day to a school in which English was the only language spoken. If Piet goes to university when he returns in September, he will likely need to be very confident in his English to succeed.