Many L2 students in Namibia are not adequately prepared for the academic demands of university courses, mainly because of poor reading skills in the L2. University students reading below their maturational levels, can mainly be attributed to their print-impoverished backgrounds, as reading is a skill that develops mainly through reading. Without any assistance, poor readers at university will continue to read poorly and as a result perform weaker in their academic courses compared to their peers who are better readers. The overall aim of this study is to explore the effects of a reading intervention program on a group of university students in Namibia. A quasiexperimental method with a control and an intervention group was employed. The effect of reading ability on academic performance was also investigated. In addition, through a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, the pre-literacy experiences of students, the differences between good and poor readers at university, their views about the reading intervention program as well as the attitudes and practices of university lecturers towards reading instruction at tertiary level were examined. / Linguistics / M.A. (with specialisation in Applied Linguistics)

Text in English / This study examined the vocabulary and academic literacy levels of undergraduate students at the University of Namibia, as well as the effects of an explicit and an implicit vocabulary programme on vocabulary development and academic literacy. The study also sought to determine the effects of the programmes on students’ attitudes about vocabulary and explicit vocabulary strategies. The relationship between students’ vocabulary size, academic literacy levels, and their self-assessment of their vocabulary knowledge was examined. Many students had not reached the desired word mastery and did not have adequate academic literacy skills to cope with the demands of university. Students in the explicit group modestly improved receptive vocabulary knowledge at the end of the intervention but there was no significant improvement in academic literacy skills. Overall, students showed an increase in positive responses regarding their attitudes to vocabulary. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Applied Linguistics)

Many L2 students in Namibia are not adequately prepared for the academic demands of university courses, mainly because of poor reading skills in the L2. University students reading below their maturational levels, can mainly be attributed to their print-impoverished backgrounds, as reading is a skill that develops mainly through reading. Without any assistance, poor readers at university will continue to read poorly and as a result perform weaker in their academic courses compared to their peers who are better readers. The overall aim of this study is to explore the effects of a reading intervention program on a group of university students in Namibia. A quasiexperimental method with a control and an intervention group was employed. The effect of reading ability on academic performance was also investigated. In addition, through a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, the pre-literacy experiences of students, the differences between good and poor readers at university, their views about the reading intervention program as well as the attitudes and practices of university lecturers towards reading instruction at tertiary level were examined. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (with specialisation in Applied Linguistics)

Text in English / This study examined the vocabulary and academic literacy levels of undergraduate students at the University of Namibia, as well as the effects of an explicit and an implicit vocabulary programme on vocabulary development and academic literacy. The study also sought to determine the effects of the programmes on students’ attitudes about vocabulary and explicit vocabulary strategies. The relationship between students’ vocabulary size, academic literacy levels, and their self-assessment of their vocabulary knowledge was examined. Many students had not reached the desired word mastery and did not have adequate academic literacy skills to cope with the demands of university. Students in the explicit group modestly improved receptive vocabulary knowledge at the end of the intervention but there was no significant improvement in academic literacy skills. Overall, students showed an increase in positive responses regarding their attitudes to vocabulary. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Applied Linguistics)