published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

D. Tech. Language Practice / Additional language learning in South Africa is a challenge, partly as a result of the country's past history which promoted certain languages in official domains, while others that were spoken by the majority of the citizens remained underdeveloped, and marginalised. As English is a language of learning and teaching at most universities in South Africa, students with a very poor command of English find it severely challenging when they enroll at university. This study assessed the possible, significant effectiveness of the English Word Power (EWP) program, which is used as a form of intervention on the poor English proficiency skills of ICT Foundation students at a University of Technology in Gauteng.

The purpose of this study is to determine the type, possible source and gravity of errors found in the Test of Written English and Placement Tests compositions written by native speakers of Arabic at college level. The first part of the study is an error analysis designed to reveal the types of errors that are most frequently made by Arab students at college level. The sources of these errors are explained according to Richards' classification of errors as inter- and intralingual (1971). Seven types of errors are identified under interlingual category: articles, prepositions, the copula, embedded questions, pronoun retention, semantic and stylistic errors. Intralingual errors included errors in overgeneralization and ignorance of rule restriction.

D. Tech. Language Practice / The focus of this study was to determine how best to develop EOP curricula. This was accomplished by doing an EOP wants and needs analyses, including all stakeholders. A case study was conducted at a University of Technology, and a Pragmatist approach was used, utilising both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. The wants and needs, which would form the basis of an EOP curriculum, emerged as themes from the analysis. There was a particular focus on: the students, because EOP is learner-centred; authenticity of learning materials per field of specialisation; and, collaboration among departments rendering language services and service-requesting departments in the university. The conclusion drawn was that English proficiency plays a central role in the success of learning EOP. Direct feedback from industry, regarding student wants and needs, emerged as essential in planning a curriculum.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

D.Phil. / Reading constitutes a major part of academic activities especially at tertiary level where acquisition of knowledge depends on written texts. For university students in particular, key sources of new knowledge in domains of science, for example, are often textbooks, reference books, journal articles and laboratory manuals. In reading the texts, students are expected either to develop or to review information on their own. Unfortunately many first-year university students have difficulties understanding and acquiring knowledge from texts effectively and efficiently. This problem is often more pronounced among students who have to read through English second language (ESL). This study was prompted by complaints from the University of the North first-year physics lecturers that their first-year students were experiencing serious problems with accessing information from their prescribed texts. A provisional assumption made is that lack of reading strategies combined with lack of cognitive skills made worse by poor English language proficiency are to a great extent responsible for this failure. The aim of this study, therefore, is to explore the reading behaviour of the University of the North first-year students in as far as the learning of physics is concerned. Results show that these students do indeed lack cognitive and metacognitive strategies and that their English proficiency level is below what is expected of them at first year. They are therefore ill-prepared to deal with their prescribed text (physics) through this medium. This study recommends that students should be given explicit instruction in strategy selection and use but that these should be sufficiently flexible to be utilized in a variety of contexts and must eventually be owned by the students themselves for later use. The ultimate goal is for students to use the strategy without guidance from their lecturer

Study conducted with 63 rural school children, as measured by the Revised Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale. Since size of vocabulary is considered to be a relatively valid measure of intelligence and correlates to a high degree with the mental age obtained on the Biney scale, it is concluded in accordance with the results of this study, that the test as a whole may be considered a valid measure of the mental ages of rural school children. However, since the cases used in this study were taken from a limited population, the results are not to be considered conclusive, but due to the high correlation obtained, a need for further study is indicated. / "A Paper." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science." / "February, 1951." / Typescript. / Advisor: Marcus B. Caldwell, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references.

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Continuous change and competition in the working environment necessitate increased efficiency and productivity which require different and enhanced skills and abilities. It is therefore important that the right people with the right skills are selected and employees are developed to enable them to meet the organisational and national demands of the future. This dissertation investigates the relationship between learning potential, English language proficiency and work-related training test results to establish why some production employees perform better on work-related training test results than others. The results indicate that there is no significant relationship between the work-related training test results and either learning potential or English language proficiency. There is, however, a significant correlation between learning potential and English language proficiency. It might be worthwhile exploring the availability and adequacy of assessors as well as the motivational level of the production employees as factors that influence the progress made with work-related training test results. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / MCOM (Industrial Psychology)

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education