Mari-Leigh Pienaar is a lecturer in Academic Literacy, Language Practice and Afrikaans. Her principal research interest is academic literacy, in particular text linguistics, and the role and function of metadiscourse in academic contexts and texts (like study guides) that are made available to students, as well as the perceptions of students about concerns related to language. In recent times, her focus has expanded to aspects of multilingualism and curriculum design. She is enrolled for a PhD, where she investigates the perception of students about the compulsory academic literacy modules offered to students at the NWU, their reading and comprehension skills in Afrikaans and English texts, and the role that multilingualism can play in academic literacy classes, with the possibilities that multilingualism offers in this context.