An Evaluation Of An Academic Literacy Programme Among First-Year Education Students Specialising In Languages At A University Of Technology

Abstract

South Africa, as a developing country, needs well-qualified professionals to help with the socio-economic development of the country. The importance of quality education to eradicate poverty and develop our human capacity to become a leading country in Africa is widely recognised. It is a well-known fact that our students do not perform as expected at tertiary institutions and they are not adequately prepared to cope academically. Although there may be several other factors influencing under-preparedness, the under-prepared student in literacy, mainly in English language and communication, creates a challenge that universities have to address. A number of studies about the standard of academic literacy of students depict a perturbing picture which raise questions about students’ ability to meet the linguistic demands of tertiary study. The primary aim of this research study was to investigate the success or not of the Academic Literacy Programme that was introduced as an intervention strategy for all first-year students to eliminate the problem of “under-preparedness” of students at a university of technology. This programme was introduced as a strategy to bridge the gap between secondary school literacy and the demands needed at tertiary level. The target group was a selected group of second year students registered for a B Ed Languages degree at a South African university of technology. All participants were registered for English, a compulsory subject for the language specialization. In order to determine the success of an Academic Literacy Programme, a questionnaire with a Likert scale approach was completed by the student sample, and qualitative interviews were done with the lecturers of the Academic Literacy Programme regarding their perception on the programme used by the CUT, Welkom campus. Results indicate that the Academic Literacy Programme appears to be successful in bridging the gap between secondary school communication skills and the academic literacy requirements of second year B.Ed. students specialising in English although the analysis indicates that there is a difference between what the lecturers and the students perceive as a successful Academic Literacy Programme. It appears the students feel they have the adequate skills required but in reality, the lecturers are of a different opinion.