About
Tessa Arendse
Born and bred in Cape Town, Tessa’s love of reading was ignited by her parents who were both avid readers. One of her fondest memories as a child is sitting on her dad’s lap and sharing the funny antics of characters in a story. After graduating BA Hons (Afrikaans) Cum Laude, Tessa completed an HDE and started her teaching career in 1992 at Sarepta Secondary in Kuils River in the Western Cape. Her teaching years and experience as a grade 12 external marker, raised the question as to why learners’ reading comprehension levels were declining? That in turn led to enthusiastic research on the subject and the attendance of many conferences and short courses to try and find solutions.
After a few years of being involved in teacher training, Tessa established her own company – B&T Auxilium: Books & Training Assistance. Training teachers is very close to Tessa’s heart and her sessions are energetic, interactive, highly motivational and unique.
B&T also develops learner and teacher support material and distributes textbooks to schools and tertiary institutions in the Western Cape. Tessa is currently doing her MA degree (part time) in Reading comprehension at the University of the Western Cape.
About B&T Auxillium
B&T Auxilium (Pty) Ltd is active in the field of literacy and literacy intervention by way of training across all phases, developing CAPS aligned resource materials and marketing, selling & distributing LTSM.
B&T’s vision is to transform lives through literacy and therefore support both learners and educators in all phases (across the curriculum) and equip them with the necessary values, knowledge, skills/ sub-skills, and strategies to read with understanding. Thereby enriching the lives of teachers to become outstanding reading teachers and for learners to become excellent readers! To create a love of reading and developing reading comprehension is of utmost importance and forms the basis of all our literacy interventions.
To contribute to South Africa’s endeavour to actively pursue the challenge of improving reading for meaning, B&T Auxilium (Pty) Ltd also provides quality learning and teaching (LTSM) resources by collaborating with outstanding publishers and printing companies.
B&T maintains the balance between theory and practice by staying involved in school-based projects and classroom support. This forms a fundamental part of our facilitators’ approach and preparation, made possible by the constant research and up to date literature that facilitators are encouraged to add to their personal libraries. Belonging to the International Reading Association ensures that the content of workshops is relevant and up to date with international reading and writing tendencies and research – always keeping the realities of a South-African context in mind
Formal training sessions are SACE accredited, both in-person and online courses.
