Prof Lenake was recognised at the recent joint conference of the Linguistics Society of Southern Africa, the Southern African Applied Linguistics Association and SAALT at the University of Cape Town.
Prof Lenake taught Southern Sotho for a period of 43 years, starting out as a language teacher at schools in Theunissen and Frankfort.
He also worked as a school principal in Fouriesburg for four years and became a language assistant at UNISA in 1963.
He held this position for 16 years.
He was promoted to senior lecturer at the same university in 1979 and became associate professor six years later.
In 1987 he became a full professor and served in this position until his retirement in 1993.
This was when his career took him to the Vaal Triangle Campus of the North-West University where he still teaches Communication Southern Sotho and serves on the Committee for Advanced Degrees for African languages at the age of 87 years.
During his working career, Prof Lenake developed 16 school- and 14 academic textbooks for use in Southern Sotho teaching and learning.
As a language practitioner, he published five translations of works into Southern Sotho and a host of Afrikaans and English language teaching material that is still used in schools to this day.
* The South African Association of Language Teaching (SAALT) focuses on serving language practitioners at all levels and in all spheres with an information and networking forum concerning issues in language teaching e.g. new trends and developments, syllabi, publications and activities related to the profession.
The association is not restricted to any specific language and emphasis is placed on both the theoretical and applied/practical issues of language teaching.
