Available empirical data relating to quality generally and the application of quality assurance principles to language education at tertiary-level are scanty. This study explores how higher education institutions in Ghana apply QA mechanisms to enhance the teaching and learning of English for Academic Purposes. It examines how institutional contexts and cultures of the four case study institutions impact their QA processes. First, the rhetorical tensions and the apparent lack of consensus on the definition of the term “quality” are acknowledged alongside the enviable status of English as a “global lingua franca”; the relevance and pervasiveness of the EAP discipline in tertiary educational circles within and without Ghana and the resultant need for quality assurance and enhancement in its teaching and learning. One particular component of quality in higher education: the need for ensuring that programmes and services are fit for the purpose for which they were designed, and that the “clients” (students) are getting value for their money serves as the focus of the empirical research. The QA dimension of the research attempts to answer the question of whether students provide written feedback on their teaching and whether this is acted upon by the case study institutions in order to improve the EAP course. A combination of qualitative, quantitative, mixed-method approaches and documentary research is adopted to provide the framework for exploring QA and quality issues at each of the institutions involved in this study. The study first considers the quality challenges of higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa and Ghana within the context of policy. Subsequently, the unique features of each case study institution are quantified. To enhance the depth of understanding so as to establish each case study institution’s QA mechanisms and processes for enhancing EAP teaching and learning, a comparative/multiple case study approach is adopted. The blend of methods facilitated exploring the issues and the drawing of conclusions as the strengths of each complements the other. The assessment of QA practices used in the teaching and learning of EAP in the case institutions revealed a number of interesting similarities and differences in terms of institutional context, quality culture, quality assurance mechanisms, pedagogy, and curriculum designs. Based on these findings, suggestions for EAP teaching quality enhancement in the case study institutions are subsequently made. Unique practices identified in the institutions are recommended for replication in other tertiary educational institutions. Suggestions for further and future research are also made followed by a brief account of the author’s professional and personal development during the DBA programme.

For many students, listening to academic lectures is one of the hardest listening skills (Lebauer, 1988). There are various possible reasons for this: the jargon and specialised words of the field that are used; also the language that is used is often at a more formal level; the lecture situation which is unidirectional with the listener having little role to play, and no control of the oral message; the expectations that the listener is assumed to have in listening to lectures which depends on many factors such as attitude, motivation, linguistic knowledge and world experience. Trying to find an answer to where difficulties lie is the purpose of this study, with the focus on the type of problems that post-graduate non-native students of English might have had during their study in a native English academic environment. Chapter one presents the purpose and significance of study, and deals with a few problems in the history of the teaching of listening in Vietnam. Chapter two looks at the different developments in understanding the listening processes in general and listening to lectures in particular. Chapter three studies difficulties that non-native speakers of English may face in lecture listening. Chapter four mentions some of the recommendations that the study implies.

English for Academic Purposes literature is often criticized for its very functional interpretation of language (e.g. Benesch, 2001) which ignores the intellectual, cultural, and social side of learning in an attempt to appear “neutral.” Furthermore, writing is the EAP skill area which seems to provide students with the most difficulty. Many EAP students express high levels of frustration toward their writing despite years and years of ESOL writing courses (e.g. Johannson, 2001). Thus, the purpose of this study was to invent and describe a curriculum which would approach the teaching and learning of EAP writing in a way that addressed student frustrations toward L2 writing, shifted the idea of EAP writing back toward the more authentic purpose of communication and, described students’ reaction to the curriculum. The resultant PBL2 curriculum evolved into a method, under the umbrellas of Communicative Language Teaching and the Process Approach, that “fleshed out” EAP curricula with regard to second language writing by recognizing students as intellectual, cultural, and social beings, promoting life-long learning, emphasizing the importance of discourse communities, and by shifting the focus of writing to communication. This dissertation is a teacher research-evaluative case study that took place in an exit-level EFL course at a small bilingual university in Mexico City. The students were all Mexican nationals, of an average age of 21, whose majors included psychology, business administration, international studies, and computer information systems. All were enrolled in the class in order to complete the mandatory English requirements of the university. The data collected included observations via a teacher-researcher journal/lesson report per Richards & Lockhart (1994), three audio taped semi-structured student interviews per Seidman (1998), and various course related documents such as student assignments and instructor evaluations. Three types of analyses were used: (1) emergent theme-constant comparative analysis, (2) cross case analysis, and (3) document analysis. During analysis, issues concerning the impact of the learners’ feelings toward the L2 emerged along with issues of culture, hegemony and power; moreover, classroom management and learning communities were highlighted in addition to the invaluable role of technology in facilitating the PBL2 inquiry process. / text

This thesis investigates factors influencing the reading difficulties of advanced learners of English as a foreign language. It proposes a new approach to reading research and pedagogy in which neuroscientific insights on human verbal and non-verbal cognition are incorporated into the theoretical conceptualisation. This thesis explores the neurosdentific literature for the purpose of identifying basic principles governing human perception, emotion and cognition. The mechanisms of learning and memory are also studied. It examines how the verbal systems of the brain interact with the non-verbal systems. Making use of neural perspectives, a critical review of historical and of current reading models is conducted. Attempts are made to provide alternative interpretations for the phenomena recognised in empirical studies based on observations of reading behaviours, on computer-based studies and on the introspective data of experts and of learners. This thesis reports two experiments which were designed to investigate the Ll and L2 reading processes through Think Aloud, Immediate Retrospection, Questionnaires and Interviews. The results indicate that advanced learners, despite their established reading ability in their native languages, often rely heavily on cognitive and studial styles of L2 reading which inhibit fluent and effective reading. Neural accounts are offered which suggest that the ineffective reading styles are due to weakness in the degree of neural developments. This thesis evaluates the reading sections of current and typical coursebooks according to neural-based criteria and concludes that learners are not being given the opportunities to develop the neural networks required in fluent and enjoyable reading. Finally suggestions are made for future reading research and pedagogy.

Using quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, the current study examines Saudi students’ perspectives, coupled with EAL instructors’ views, regarding Saudi students’ English language-learning needs. Two data collection tools were used, a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The study (N = 172) included samples of EAL learners (n = 127) and EAL instructors (n = 45) both in Saudi Arabia and Canada, Victoria. The mismatch between the skills identified as important and areas identified as needing support by the learners, in addition to the divergence between learners’ and instructors’ perceptions, underscores the necessity of triangulation when using needs analysis to discover language-learning needs. The study delineates oral communication (i.e., being able to interact by using the language appropriately and efficiently) as a language-learning need identified by both Saudi students and their language instructors. Quantitative (skill ratings) and qualitative (responses to open-ended questions and interviews) data suggest that both students and instructors view writing as a challenging area for Saudi English-language learners. The results also indicate issues that contribute to the challenges faced by Saudis in the process of learning English. Findings show the importance of educational background and cultural differences in the students’ language development. Responses report that reading is devalued in the Saudi educational system and Saudi culture in general. Hence, both Saudi students and instructors in Canada pinpointed reading as an area needing support. Based on the key findings, it is evident that the language-learning needs of Saudi students are shaped according to the requirements of their immediate study context and their prospective goals. The study contributes crucial findings about participants’ perceptions of the importance of skills and their assessment of skills status in Saudi Arabia and Canada. In addition to the implications for English language learning in Saudi Arabia, these findings can be informative for educational institutions and practitioners in the English-speaking world. Most importantly, the multi-level analysis confirms that language learning needs are context-specific. / Graduate

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Findings also indicate other drawbacks such as some teachers' transmission of errors due to their low proficiency in the English language, their lack of common and well-designed EAP curricula, their lack of cooperation with non-language teachers, their delayed starting of classes and allowing a kind of laissez-faire and laissez-aller approach in classrooms, their lack of promotion of students' learning autonomy and problem-solving skills, their lack of language support to students, to cite but a few. Findings also indicate that teachers over-used pre-established materials that they had been recommended to use, using a teaching methodology known as PPP (Present Practise Produce) according to which teachers present an item or a skill and students are required to practise it before they become conversant with it. Furthermore, findings indicate a severe shortage of teaching and learning facilities. Findings concerning the language of instruction (English) indicate that it challenged students with an educational background in French. However, the students' French background and the widespread use of Kinyarwanda were also seen as an impediment to the implementation of EAP courses, but findings show that the shift from English to Kinyarwanda would help students understand the difficult concepts used in their academic subjects and safeguard Rwandan culture. Findings with regard to students' needs and expectations indicate that no opportunities were created for classroom interaction to enable students to think critically and comprehend the world and the word. Furthermore, teachers would fail to adjust the teaching and learning materials to suit students' needs. These materials were neither discipline-nor culture-related. To address the above-mentioned shortcomings, findings indicate that teaching and learning materials which incorporate discipline-related terminologies, Rwandan cultural artifacts, and world Englishes bear meaningful input and can raise students' motivation. They also indicate that students communicate better in Kinyarwanda and that the use of code switching helps students acquire both Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language proficiency (CALP). Concerning the above findings, therefore, recommendations are made to help the CBE and other institutions of higher learning in Rwanda and tertiary education settings in non-native English-speaking countries around the world to use EAP courses as a solution to students' language- related problems. Such recommendations are, to cite a few, teachers' shift from a banking to a problem-solving model of education, their switch to modes of communication other than the language of instruction to facilitate the teaching and learning process, teacher and student autonomy, accommodating students' voice in the teaching and learning process, the revision of criteria relied on to select language teachers, and in-service training for novice teachers. Other recommendations are CBE's partnership with other institutions of higher learning nationwide and worldwide, provision of learning and teaching materials, the government's mass consultation before the promulgation and implementation of any language policy, and the consideration of student errors as part of the learning process.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The study aims to investigate academic writing at the University of Namibia and intends to explore whether a critical, meaningful and experiential pedagogy in EAP that enhances voice and agency in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) can be engendered in the Namibian EAP classroom. Moreover, it aims to investigate the experiences and perceptions of first year EAP students regarding the current EAP pedagogy at the University of Namibia. The study aspires to generate an understanding of the components students find difficult when they engage in academic essay writing. It provides a holistic and profound understanding of what critical, meaningful and experiential pedagogy is and wish to propose the process-genre writing approach as tool to a critical, meaningful and experiential pedagogy to teaching academic writing. The study draws it theoretical underpinning from critical pedagogy as postulated by Freire (1973) and Canagarajah (1999). This research supports the premise that the English language classroom is a cultural space where various agendas are negotiated and contested and explores the complexity of language pedagogy in the English classroom (Canagarajah, 1999). Moreover, this study is based on the premise that pedagogies are not received in their own terms but are rather appropriated on different levels in terms of the needs, interests and values of the local communities (Canagarajah, 1999, p.121-2). As research design, the study adopts an exploratory design using both qualitative and quantitative data. Besides, the study uses SPSS analysis and written error analysis methodologies. While the former provides an understanding of EAP students' perceptions and experiences regarding the current EAP pedagogy at the University of Namibia, the latter examines the components that EAP students find difficult when they engage in academic essay writing. As instruments, the study uses a semi-structured questionnaire and academic essay administered to 200 EAP first year student- participants. The findings indicate that the current EAP pedagogy at the University of Namibia does not promote experiential, meaningful and critical learning nor does it enhance voice and agency in the EAP classroom, thus a critical, meaningful and experiential EAP pedagogy that enhances voice and agency can be engendered in the Namibian EAP classroom. The findings also indicate that EAP students find the use of APA referencing skills and the use of discourse markers the most difficult when they engage in academic essay writing. Furthermore, the literature that I reviewed for this study critically exposed how practices in EAP and institutional policies stifle voice and agency in the EAP classroom. The entire process of this study has generated some insights that can advance our understanding of a critical, meaningful and experiential pedagogy in EAP and academic writing. These insights are: (1) A need to enhance EAP educator’s critical awareness, (2) We must minimize students' text-appropriation, (3)A need to re-conceptualize and decriminalize the concept of plagiarism in EAP, (4) A new approach to teaching APA referencing in EAP academic writing, (5) A need to renegotiate voice and agency in academic writing, (6) Writing is a process not an event, (7) We need to move towards an appropriate critical, meaningful and experiential pedagogy in EAP. The study proposes the process-genre academic writing approach as pedagogy towards a critical, meaningful and experiential EAP pedagogy in teaching academic writing. All in all, the study upholds the premise that a critical, meaningful and experiential EAP pedagogy that enhances voice and agency can be engendered in the Namibian EAP classroom.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Academic writing skills are vitally important for South African learners in both high school and tertiary contexts. The importance of such writing skills is even more pronounced for English Second Language (ESL) speakers, as such learners often attend low-performing schools (that inculcate poor levels of academic literacy), and also face the challenge of writing in a non-native language. This study is an attempt to understand how a specially designed English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course can improve the academic writing of bilingual, economically disadvantaged high-school South African learners. The study analysed the effects of the EAP course on Grade 11 learners from two 'nofees' high schools located in Khayeltisha and Delft. Over a seven-week period Grade 11 learners from these schools attended the EAP course twice a week (after school hours on their school premises) and submitted a total of fourteen written assignments (seven rough drafts, and seven final drafts). These assignments required the learners to formulate essay-like responses to literary and philosophical texts. The learners shaped their responses by making reference to structured classroom discussions (led by the EAP course instructor), as well as standardised notes and assignment instructions. The conceptual frameworks that guided this study were mapped using a variety of sources and materials. Whilst Hyland's (2005, 2006) influential writings on EAP helped the researcher situate the study's academic writing skill's course within an EAP paradigm, recent theoretical and empirical advancements in cognitive science (in particular by Tooby & Cosmides 1992; Gallistel 2000; Wagner &Wagner 2003) helped to justify the specifically 'modular' approach to academic writing skills that the course favoured. Finally, testimonies about the function of creative fiction (see Pessoa 2010; Kafka 2013; Barnes 2012; Pinker 2011) played an important part in shaping the EAP course's approach to text-orientated academic writing skills. Importantly, this study also aimed to describe and analyse various factors that threatened the implementation of the academic writing skills course. In relation to attrition – a phenomenon which clearly presented the single greatest threat to the intervention – Bandura's theoretical writings on the structure of agency (2006, 2005, 2004, 2001, 1998, 1997, 1994) provided a rich source of justification for many of the conclusions that the study derived about the underlying factors that drove the high dropout rate. Another key aim of this study was to transmit writing skills that would boost levels of learner preparedness for matric and first-year university. To establish a link between the course and the writing requirements of certain matric and university subjects, the researcher compared the contents of the writing skills course to the contents of these subjects. This comparative analysis relied heavily on matric and first-year university source material (i.e. exam papers, memorandums, marking rubrics, departmental handouts, etc.). In terms of its findings, the study discovered many striking parallels between the Grade 11 learners at Khayelitsha and Delft. Firstly, in both experimental groups, a preintervention writing task revealed that – prior to the EAP course's inception – the overwhelming majority of the learners were not in firm possession of virtually any of the writings skills the EAP course aimed to transmit. Secondly, in both groups, it was found that the EAP course significantly improved the learners' academic writing skills. Although this improvement was not especially visible in the learners' grade-based results for the EAP course (due, mainly, to absenteeism and resulting missed assignments), a thorough qualitative analysis of the learners' preintervention, early and late EAP assignments demonstrated that – by the end of the course – most of the learners had gained fairly high degrees of proficiency in a range of critically important academic writing skills. Thirdly, qualitative data – derived from observations and interviews – established that the high rates of attrition and absenteeism that plagued both experimental groups was chiefly due to a single cause: weak levels of agency. On the basis of this study's findings, a number of recommendations can be put forward. Firstly, the many parallels between the two experimental groups suggest that the EAP course designed by this study could achieve comparable results in other South African township schools. Secondly, due to the difficulties that this study encountered in relation to high absenteeism and attrition rates, it is recommended that future implementations of the EAP course adopt a number of measures to improve learners' perceptions of their self-efficacy. Finally, it is recommended that future versions of the EAP course could include a 'matric study skills module'. / Sasakawa Foundation

<div>Since the 1990s, grammatical complexity is a topic that has received considerable attention in various fields of applied linguistics, such as English for academic purposes, second language acquisition, language testing, and second language writing (Bulté & Housen, 2012). Many scholars in applied linguistics have recently argued that grammatical complexity has primarily been represented by clausal features (e.g., subordinate clauses), and it is important to study grammatical complexity as a multidimensional construct based on both clausal features and phrasal features (Biber, Gray & Poonpon, 2011; Norris & Ortega, 2009). Thus, this dissertation is a corpus-based investigation on how the use of noun phrases is influenced by two situational characteristics of a university context: academic level and first- and second-English language background.</div><div><br></div><div>I built my corpus by extracting 200 essays from British Academic Written English Corpus, which represents academic writing of (1) undergraduate and graduate students and (2) L1 and L2 students. Noun phrase complexity was then operationalized to the 11 noun modifiers proposed in the hypothesized developmental index of writing complexity features in Biber, Gray and Poonpon (2011). The 11 noun modifiers were extracted from the corpus and counted for statistical analysis via a set of Python programs. With a Chi-square test followed by a residual analysis, I found that both academic level and first- and second-English language background influenced noun phrase complexity but in distinct ways. The influence of academic level is primarily associated with three phrasal modifiers (i.e., attributive adjectives, premodifying nouns, and appositive NPs) and two clausal modifiers (i.e., relative clauses and noun complement clauses). The undergraduate corpus includes more of the two clausal modifiers, whereas the graduate corpus has more of the three phrasal modifiers. This suggests that, in these 200 essays, graduate students tend to build more compressed NPs than undergraduate students. However, the influence of first- and second-English language background derives from a much broader range of noun modifiers, including eight noun modifiers (e.g., attributive adjectives, relative clauses, infinitive clauses). More diverse NP patterns with different noun modifiers are in the L1 corpus than in the L2 corpus. Surprisingly, the L2 corpus has more phrasal noun modifiers (i.e., attributive adjectives, premodifying nouns), which has been argued to indicate advanced levels of academic writing. A qualitative analysis on selected essays reveals that some cases of attributive adjectives and premodifying nouns are repeatedly used by L2 students to help content development in their writing. Overall, this dissertation adds an additional piece of evidence on the importance of noun phrase complexity in writing research.</div><div><br></div>

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The study aims to investigate academic writing at the University of Namibia and intends to explore whether a critical, meaningful and experiential pedagogy in EAP that enhances voice and agency in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) can be engendered in the Namibian EAP classroom. Moreover, it aims to investigate the experiences and perceptions of first year EAP students regarding the current EAP pedagogy at the University of Namibia. The study aspires to generate an understanding of the components students find difficult when they engage in academic essay writing. It provides a holistic and profound understanding of what critical, meaningful and experiential pedagogy is and wish to propose the process-genre writing approach as tool to a critical, meaningful and experiential pedagogy to teaching academic writing. The study draws it theoretical underpinning from critical pedagogy as postulated by Freire (1973) and Canagarajah (1999). This research supports the premise that the English language classroom is a cultural space where various agendas are negotiated and contested and explores the complexity of language pedagogy in the English classroom (Canagarajah, 1999). Moreover, this study is based on the premise that pedagogies are not received in their own terms but are rather appropriated on different levels in terms of the needs, interests and values of the local communities (Canagarajah, 1999, p.121-2). As research design, the study adopts an exploratory design using both qualitative and quantitative data. Besides, the study uses SPSS analysis and written error analysis methodologies. While the former provides an understanding of EAP students’ perceptions and experiences regarding the current EAP pedagogy at the University of Namibia, the latter examines the components that EAP students find difficult when they engage in academic essay writing. As instruments, the study uses a semi-structured questionnaire and academic essay administered to 200 EAP first year student- participants. The findings indicate that the current EAP pedagogy at the University of Namibia does not promote experiential, meaningful and critical learning nor does it enhance voice and agency in the EAP classroom, thus a critical, meaningful and experiential EAP pedagogy that enhances voice and agency can be engendered in the Namibian EAP classroom. The findings also indicate that EAP students find the use of APA referencing skills and the use of discourse markers the most difficult when they engage in academic essay writing. Furthermore, the literature that I reviewed for this study critically exposed how practices in EAP and institutional policies stifle voice and agency in the EAP classroom. The entire process of this study has generated some insights that can advance our understanding of a critical, meaningful and experiential pedagogy in EAP and academic writing. These insights are: (1) A need to enhance EAP educator’s critical awareness, (2) We must minimize students’ text-appropriation, (3)A need to re-conceptualize and decriminalize the concept of plagiarism in EAP, (4) A new approach to teaching APA referencing in EAP academic writing, (5) A need to renegotiate voice and agency in academic writing, (6) Writing is a process not an event, (7) We need to move towards an appropriate critical, meaningful and experiential pedagogy in EAP. The study proposes the process-genre academic writing approach as a pedagogy towards a critical, meaningful and experiential EAP pedagogy in teaching academic writing. All in all, the study upholds the premise that a critical, meaningful and experiential EAP pedagogy that enhances voice and agency can be engendered in the Namibian EAP classroom.