Versión Participante

What follows is my attempt to share my observations and reflections on the EFL programme at Stellenbosch University using an academic setting as framework. I chose an academic setting as framework because the participants were all in a foreign country (South Africa) to improve their academic skills, and also because this is my version of the EFL situation at Stellenbosch University and thus my reality and I needed to provide some structure to ‘my story’. Furthermore, people function in a certain social environment in which many factors are at play at any given stage (e.g. various interpersonal relationships, educational background, culture, social values and beliefs). This is not an attempt to provide an objective description of my observations or the situation in the EFL programme at Stellenbosch University: this is my perception. This account of my observations is divided into different themes that emanated from the data generated and will be set out in section 4.4.

4.3.1 Background: the EFL programme

In 2000 the EFL programme was developed to consist of courses based on six levels of proficiency: Beginner, Elementary, Pre-intermediate, Intermediate, Upper-intermediate, and Advanced. All international students who were not English mother-tongue speakers participated in a non-standardised English language proficiency test upon their arrival at Stellenbosch University as was mentioned in Chapter 2. Based on these test results students were strongly advised and sometimes compelled to participate in one of (or a series of) the EFL courses above – in line with their level of English proficiency. Each EFL course (based on a certain level of proficiency) ran for 6 weeks, with 24 contact/class hours per week. The Headway series of EFL books (http://www.oup.com/elt/global/products/headway) formed the basis of the EFL syllabus. Other EFL text books (e.g. English File, with levels ranging from Beginner, through Pre-Intermediate, Intermediate, and Upper-Intermediate) (http://www.oup.com/elt/catalogue/isbn/3010?cc=gb) were however used at times to provide some variety for teachers as well as for students who had to repeat EFL courses.

In 2003 the EFL course coordinators became aware of the fact that students who had successfully completed the Advanced level of the EFL programme had not attained the level of proficiency in English needed to succeed academically at Stellenbosch University. Post- advanced courses were introduced in an attempt to equip students with academic English. I taught one such a 6-week course to prepare students (8 Gabonese students) who were seeking admission to the MBA programme at Stellenbosch University. Although these students had successfully passed the EFL Advanced course, in my view only one student had the English skills necessary to succeed in an MBA programme at Stellenbosch University. The English skills of the other seven students were inadequate to pursue main stream postgraduate studies at Stellenbosch University. My opinion was confirmed when the eight students took the SHL (http://www.shl.com/SHL/za/) admission test required by the Stellenbosch University Business School. Only the student I had identified as having adequate English skills was admitted to the MBA programme. He also subsequently successfully completed his MBA. After intensive intervention by staff in the International Office, the Business Economics department at Stellenbosch University was prepared to admit six of the remaining seven students to an extended Honours programme (one-year programme spread over two years). Four of these students successfully completed the honours programme. I am convinced that their underpreparedness was not so much a matter of academic background as inadequate English communication skills when they initially applied for admission to postgraduate studies at Stellenbosch University. I believe that it is possible that they could have progressed at a faster rate if the EFL course (prior to postgraduate studies) had encouraged and promoted the optimal application of language

learning strategies. During the informal discussions with them, the other EFL teachers felt there was merit in this view.

EFL teachers in the EFL programme at Stellenbosch University came from a variety of backgrounds and although they met regularly for staff meetings on Tuesdays from 12:00- 14:00 and shared their experiences with each other, very little further opportunity for development was provided to them. Of particular significance to this study, these EFL teachers were never explicitly made aware of the importance of language learning strategies or given training in the integration of these into the EFL syllabus. EFL students were therefore not trained to learn language learning strategies more effectively, except for the attempt made by the teacher I interviewed. She held afternoon tutorial sessions firstly to make students aware of language learning strategies and to secondly help them develop language learning strategies to suit their individual preferences and needs. These language learning strategy sessions, which started in June and finished at the end of July (two two- hour sessions per week for six weeks), were not integrated into the normal EFL course, but were offered separately in the afternoons. All the participants in this study attended these afternoon sessions. These sessions had just been completed by the time the participants sat for the TOEFL test for the first time at the end of July. These afternoon sessions took the form of small group discussions and often questionnaires were completed and then discussed. Students were also regularly requested to write down their objectives – long term and short term – with reference to their language studies, but also with reference to their lives in general. Sometimes these class activities were difficult because the concepts were abstract and unknown to the students and the teacher found that she had to simplify and explain language used in some of the questionnaires. In these sessions, the teacher made extensive use of the book by Brown, Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to

Language Pedagogy (Brown, 1994). From this book the teacher used the Oxford SILL

(Oxford, 1990) in her sessions with the students. I asked her whether she felt that the students had understood the questions and she said that most of them had understood the questions. Where students did not understand, there were other students in the class who could provide clarity to them in their mother-tongue (this happened mostly with the French- speaking Gabonese students).

Students in EFL classes at Stellenbosch University were very diverse: they were all non- South African citizens and were either already studying at Stellenbosch University (mostly for non-degree purposes) or were preparing for studies (degree-seeking studies) at Stellenbosch University or CPUT. International semester students registered for subjects with the University for a semester only, and for non-degree purposes, and often wanted to improve their English at the same time. They were thus allowed to register for EFL courses

according to their level of English proficiency on the English proficiency test that all international students took upon their arrival at Stellenbosch University. The majority of the other international students in the EFL classes were compelled to successfully complete the EFL programme in order to be considered for admission to mainstream postgraduate studies at Stellenbosch University or CPUT. Many of them were sponsored by their governments (e.g. Gabonese students in Science and Lexicography, Rwandan students in a variety of disciplines, Libyan students in Science and Eritrean students in all disciplines). These government sponsored students participated in the EFL programme in large numbers and very often they constituted the majority of students in an EFL class. This sometimes skewed the class dynamics a little and teachers had to work hard at facilitating the class situation to accommodate minority groups of EFL students in the classes. Students well-represented in the EFL class also often conversed in their mother-tongue in EFL classes, which is not always desirable when learning a new language – especially when the new language has to be learnt in a short period of time.

4.4 THEMES FROM THE DATA