Tolk Taalskool

Ten weeks to a real conversation

Taalskool · Cradock, Eastern Cape

See the six courses

How a lesson actually runs

Tolk began in 2011 in a back room on Church Street, with one isiXhosa class of five adults who worked at the Cradock hospital and were tired of speaking to patients through somebody else. There are nine of us teaching now, across five provinces, but the table and the size of the class have not changed. Everything happens at a shared table, six people to a class and never more, so nobody sits out a turn. Every tutor teaches only their own first language, and every one is paid by the hour rather than by the head, so there is no reason to push a class past six. Courses run in ten-week blocks that follow the Eastern Cape school terms, and a lesson you miss is made up in any other class at your level at no charge. We do not teach out of a textbook. You bring the situations you actually deal with — a ward round, a site meeting, a farm gate, a funeral — and we build the language around them. Most people are holding a two-minute conversation by week four, and somewhere around week eight they stop translating in their head first.

The placement test is free and it takes twenty minutes

Nobody starts at zero. Twenty minutes on the phone, or at the office in Church Street, tells us which block you belong in and saves you a term of sitting in the wrong one. It costs nothing and books you into nothing.

Book the free test

What a course costs

Fees are per ten-week block and include the workbook and the recordings. Nothing is billed monthly, there is no registration fee, and the fee is the same whether you sit in Cradock or join on a video call.

Group course

R2 950 per ten-week block
  • Twenty hours of teaching
  • Six to a class, never more
  • Tuesday or Thursday evenings
  • Missed lessons made up free
Book a place

Two together

R2 200 each, per block
  • The same twenty hours, own pace
  • Colleagues, couples, siblings
  • Evenings or Saturday mornings
  • Both names on one invoice
Book a pair

One-to-one

R390 an hour
  • Booked five hours at a time
  • In Cradock or on a video call
  • Times built around your shifts
  • Cancel free with a day's notice
Book hours

At your premises

R14 500 per block, up to eight
  • We come to the plant or office
  • Built around your own work
  • Anywhere in the Eastern Cape
  • Register and report each block
Ask for a quote

Four things we would rather say up front

We cannot make you fluent in ten weeks and we will not sell you that. What a block buys is enough grammar to build your own sentences and enough vocabulary to get through the conversation you have been avoiding. Most people do two blocks, a few do four, and then they stop paying us and go and talk to people.

We do not teach Sepedi, Setswana, Xitsonga or Tshivenda yet. We would rather say so than put a class on with a tutor who is guessing at it. If you ask for one of them we will write your name down and phone you the day we can teach it properly.

There is no certificate at the end. There is a report saying what you covered and what you can do, which is what employers actually read, and we will send it to your HR office if you ask. The interpreting course is the one exception — that is preparation for the Department of Justice test, and the department sets that test, not us.

If a class does not fill, we run it anyway. Three people who have paid for a Tuesday evening will get their Tuesday evening. We have cancelled two classes in fifteen years and both times we refunded the whole block.

Book a placement call

17 Church Street, Cradock. The office is open weekdays 09:00 to 16:00 and Saturday mornings in term time. Call or WhatsApp 048 881 4417 — Rethabile answers, and she books the call herself.