Admissions of failure
In this copy of the article, general academic words, from the Academic
Word List, are highlighted in bold. It is important that you understand
these words and can use them. Study the words in bold carefully.
Learn them.
British universities must give more language support to their foreign students, argues
Rebecca Hughes
Thursday January 22, 2004
The Guardian
The number of international students in British Higher Education (HE) has risen
dramatically over the past 20 years, and has accelerated sharply since 1997 - up by
around a third, with more than 30,000 more students being accepted into the system
by 2002. Because of this, seismic changes have been taking place in some areas of
HE. On certain courses (computer science and IT, business, masters in ELT, some
law and politics courses, and foundation courses) international students regularly
outnumber "home" students.
Some of the consequences of this massive shift are obvious - a sometimes
refreshingly hard-working set of students and much needed hard cash for underfunded institutions.
However, there are some unintended consequences, and institutions need to think
about them at an early stage when they are building a strategy for international
recruitment. First, the injection of perhaps a 100 different nationalities into an
institution presents quite a radical challenge to assumptions about "the student" what they know, believe, and can do.
Until quite recently preconceptions about HE applicants (certainly in the "old"
universities) were based on a traditionally envisaged UK student body - think
middle-class kids who have had a similar educational experience, who are practised
at producing well-argued essays, and whose first language is, naturally, English. In a
leading university the assumption has been that high-calibre, well-qualified students
will not have difficulty in adjusting to the demands of their chosen degree.
For the international student it can't be assumed that this adjustment will "just
happen". You need to think who, when, where and how it's going to happen - a
professional English for Academic Purposes (EAP) unit? Academic staff? Before
registration? As part of on-going "in-sessional" support?
Second, admissions policy is based on the assumption that you only admit a student
if you think that they have a realistic chance of passing the course. Admissions tutors
are mainly concerned with transcripts, grades, references - the academic "profile" of
the applicant in terms of the course requirements.The system is not geared up to deal
adapted with permission: Sandra Haywood, University of Nottingham
with the applicant who is an able scholar, but who doesn't have the communicative
ability to succeed on the course.
Generally language level and academic calibre are seen as inextricably linked, and in
a mono-lingual context that isn't a bad assumption. But it tends to make academics
overly optimistic about the ability to cope of a "high-calibre", but linguistically weak,
applicant.(I would argue that if you are serious about increasing international
numbers, English ability becomes one of the defining characteristics of a high-calibre
applicant, rather than something incidental.) And it's not only communication:
students from different academic cultures can have very different perceptions of
core academic concepts such as plagiarism, criticism of authorities, and argument
structure. In short, almost the entire academic toolbox.
It's particularly on something like a taught masters course, that, if the student isn't at
the right level on day one, they'll be at a significant disadvantage throughout the
course.
And much more debate is also needed about what the "right" level for different
degree courses is. The regulatory minimum English level in many British
institutions is band 6.0 on the Ielts test, with no less than 5.0 in any element (Ielts
scores range from zero to nine). Those involved in English language teaching will
know how very weak, say, a 5.0 in writing can be. Some degree courses assess oral
tasks (many MBAs for instance), but some of the alternatives to Ielts don't test
speaking.Both these issues raise the question of how an equitable decision is made to
admit a student.
This brings us back to the assumption that if an applicant is accepted they have a
good chance of passing the course. For this to happen effectively for the international
student you need to move the English question from the margin to the centre of your
planning.
If you don't, the risks are that an international student will have both language
weaknesses and a very different set of assumptions about academic conventions.
The effects of having one or two students in this position may be manageable uncomfortable for the student, and expensive in terms of additional teaching/support,
but not damaging to the institution. When you reach a critical mass in the student
body, the real costs of not thinking seriously about the impact of high numbers of
international students is far reaching.
You either lower standards to get students through; or you live with unacceptably
high failure rates; or you throw resources (extra teaching) at the problem to get the
students through at the right level.
Not having students with full "academic toolboxes" and the ability to cope with the
language demands of their courses is a hidden risk to the whole university. If the
challenge is not met, then this means more than the failure of the individual course in time it undermines the university as a whole, by diminishing standards or
destroying its brand.
adapted with permission: Sandra Haywood, University of Nottingham
The HE sector is dealing with this in a variety of ways. Many of the "new"
institutions have a tradition of taking students with a range of learning styles and
with greater need of support. The majority of the "old" universities have been (slowly
at times) catching up with the issues of quality assurance and admission policy since
the first big foreign student expansion in the 1970s. It would be extremely useful to
have a forum for interested academics and administrators to exchange, dare I say it,
best practice. The Association of Lecturers in English for Academic Purposes
(Baleap), provides this for EAP professionals, but wider institutional engagement
can be lacking.
So the successful expansion of a university from serving a culturally and
economically homogeneous elite, to admitting a wider student body involves not only
salivating over the benefits, but also meeting the costs. At the University of
Nottingham we've come to think of this more mature strategy in terms of
"internationalisation" in contradistinction to straight "international recruitment".
It's a process with deep repercussions for the whole institution if undertaken. What
you can't hope to do is ignore the demands of the international student, take their fees,
and expect to carry on just as before.
If the cost is met, then the university gains the essential international dimension.
Hence the cost of English provision is an investment, not an expense. For the 21stcentury institution, EAP needs to be very prominent in the business plan.
An alternative, reactive, model is inefficient and potentially unethical. It's rooted in
an era when the presumption was that student, tutor, course administrators and
external examiners all "spoke the same language", both literally and metaphorically.
That given is being challenged on a daily basis, and will continue to be.
Dr Rebecca Hughes is director of the University of Nottingham's Centre for English
Language Education
EducationGuardian.co.uk Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
adapted with permission: Sandra Haywood, University of Nottingham