عنوان

The impact of English language preparatory programmes in a Saudi Arabian university :

شماره

TLets698297

عنوان اصلي

The impact of English language preparatory programmes in a Saudi Arabian university :

نام عام مواد

[Thesis]

نام نخستين پديدآور

Gaffas, Zainab

عنوان اصلي به قلم نويسنده ديگر

an investigation of students' perceptions of their language difficulties, experiences and suggestions

نام ساير پديدآوران

Rosowsky, Andrey

نام ناشر، پخش کننده و غيره

University of Sheffield

تاریخ نشرو بخش و غیره

2016

جزئيات پايان نامه و نوع درجه آن

Thesis (Ph.D.)

امتياز متن

2016

متن يادداشت

This study reports on the findings of an investigation into the impact that English language preparatory programmes (ELPPs) had on students in the College of Pharmacy at Umm Al-Qura University in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. To better understand how these language programmes provided students with valuable preparation for the academic demands required in their pharmacy courses, I designed a questionnaire and administered it to 105 second-year pharmacy students. The aim of the questionnaire was to explore students' perceived difficulties with academic reading, speaking, writing, and listening. The findings of the questionnaire indicate that students' difficulties centre on their lack of a rich, general vocabulary, which results in poor performance in academic reading, speaking, writing, and listening. I also found that students' difficulties occur in academic reading (particularly in reading academic genres), academic speaking (particularly in expressing ideas accurately and fluently, answering lecturers' questions, and asking for more explanations), academic listening (particularly in inferring the meaning of implicit information, listening to long stretches of English speech, and identifying the main lecture topic), and academic writing (particularly in writing essay-question answers). The results also reveal that these language difficulties are attributed to students' previous English learning and teaching experiences, linguistic differences between English and Arabic, a lack of context for using English, and a lack of confidence in using English. To identify the English language preparatory programmes' (ELPPs) other areas of impact, I interviewed students. The results show that the ELPPs had both negative and positive impacts. The negative impact seemed to be associated with the poor quality of the learning experience, which results in limited English language development, particularly in vocabulary and in speaking, writing, and reading skills. The findings show that students' perceptions of how the language programmes contributed to their poor learning experiences were related to 5 factors: the length and intensity of the programmes, the lack of equal educational opportunities, the teachers and teaching practices, the assessment practices, and the poorly equipped classrooms. The positive impact, on the other hand, was mostly related to three areas: improved listening skills, adjustments for the heavy academic demands required in the subsequent field of study, and enhanced awareness of the importance of English. To identify areas of improvement, I held four group discussions with the students. The discussion findings reveal a wide variety of suggestions that must be considered when planning for future language programmes.

مستند نام اشخاص تاييد نشده

Gaffas, Zainab

مستند نام اشخاص تاييد نشده

Rosowsky, Andrey

مستند نام تنالگان تاييد نشده

University of Sheffield

نام الکترونيکي

فرمت انتشار

p

نوع ماده

[Thesis]

کد کاربرگه

276903

سطح دسترسي

a

تكميل شده

Y