Last week’s Language Excursion theme was Media & Expression.

The first Excursion was to the Cape Talk radio station. There we met Africa and Molane, who told us all about Cape Talk and also just what talk radio was about, how talk radio differs from music radio, what people would like to hear from the Cape Talk and how their news differs from the their sister station, in Johannesburg. This was all very interesting, especially the fact that radio is probably the fastest medium to broadcast the news. All anyone needs is a telephone, and they can broadcast live on air. The news is aired immediately in this way.

The second Excursion was to Cherry Flava, where Jonathan and Heinrich divided us up two groups and gave us an assignment to “write a letter back home“. But the trick was not to use words but rather images to express what we wanted to say to the people back home. Each group had about 30 minutes in the shopping centre to take photos. When we got back the photos were put in the right order, and the other team had to guess what we wanted to tell to our loved ones back home. A great way to express yourself creatively.

The last Excursion was amazing. We were invited to take a look inside the studios of ETV. We started with a discussion about what makes news and what not. Then Ali took us through the office, and he showed us the different workplaces, from editing, to writing, to producing, to actually making the news. Ali asked us if we wanted to stay to watch the news live from the sound studio. Of course we were more than willing to do that. It was great to see behind the scenes and to see the amount of work that has to be put in, and all for a 15 minute news reading.

Thanks go out to all the Excursion hosts of last week. It was a great!