STUDENT PROFILES IN ENGLISH

Student Profiles in English: Issues and Implications

RYHANA RAHEEM

HEMAMALA V. RATWATTE

At the Open University of Sri Lanka, one aspect of academic success is proficiency in English, and the university strives to provide equal oppportunities for learning English to all students in all faculties. However although English is considered vital for academic programmes, since the inception of OUSL, no attempt has been made to postulate linguistic profiles of students vis-a-vis proficiency in English. This paper therefore addresses this issue and attempts to establish certain parameters of proficiency in selected student populations. The paper is based on student performance at the Grading Test in English, a test which is administered on entry to all faculties and departments that mandate English as a compulsory requirement. This paper focuses on student competence in English and presents a comparison of the abilities of students in different faculties and academic departments. Our initial survey appears to reveal that there are significant differences in the abilities of students, faculty wise as well as department wise. These findings seem to support a need for further investigation into the social and educational background of students as determinants of academic progress within OUSL.

INTRODUCTION

Commenting on Open Education, Gough (1988) states that institutions that profess to offer open modes of learning need to ensure equality of access to educational resources. These educational resources may include print material, audio-visual material, laboratory practicals, workshop sessions, discursive day–school sessions and perhaps even on-the-job training. Whatever resource or resources an institution may choose to use needs to be available in equal measure to all students at that institution.

Availability of material, however, is not the single measure of success. What is more crucial is to ensure that these resources have a direct impact on student learning. In fact, in open institutions, educational resources are meant to encourage learner independence, to create self-directed and autonomous learners. As Morgan points out

"the experience of learning should equip the learner to handle problems or issues that could not have been predicted in advance" (Morgan. 1994. p. 114)

The effectiveness of educational resources therefore underpins the experience of open learning. Thus it is of paramount importance that the institution ensures that these resources actively assist students to orient themselves towards learning. Providing this assurance is in itself a daunting task; and the task is made more daunting when the resources have to be provided in a language that is not the students' mother tongue. In countries such as Sri Lanka, the language of higher education in certain fields happens to be English. Thus universities such as the Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) necessarily have to create educational resources in English; and competence in the English language is vital for academic progress at university level.

ENGLISH AT OUSL

Proficiency in English

As mentioned above, proficiency in English is a necessary adjunct to learning in Sri Lankan universities, and OUSL is no exception. Each of the three faculties at OUSL, viz. the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS), the Faculty of Natural Sciences (NS) and the Faculty of Engineering Technology (End. Tech.) have in fact posited English as a mandatory requirement for all Bachelor's degree programmes as well as for certain other certificate programmes such as Diplomas.

Though all faculties have adopted a common attitude towards the importance of English in their academic programmes, the level of proficiency required varies within and among faculties. In HSS, for example, the requirement for the BA in Social Sciences is higher than that for the BA in Legal Policy or the Bachelor of Laws programme. Table l below indicates the various degree / diploma programmes of OUSL that mandate compulsory English proficiency, and the level of proficiency required for each of these programme.

As Table 2 demonstrates, in HSS, Social Sciences students have to complete (or demonstrate competence in) four levels of English, ranging from Beginner to Advanced. Law students, on the other hand, have to complete three levels, a requirement which is also reflected in the B.Sc. for Eng. Tech. The Diploma in Technology however requires only two levels of proficiency.

Both HSS and Eng. Tech. have made provisions for students with minimal proficiency by mandating that such students should complete the Beginner course in English. In NS, however, students with minimal competence have to follow the lower intermediate level course.

At the upper end of the scale, the BA in Social Sciences demands a high level of competence as all students have to complete the Advanced Course in English prior to registration for the final level (Level 5) of the BA programme.

All other Bachelor's programmes require only a higher intermediate level of competence in English. Students in such programmes receive their Bachelor's certificates only if they have completed the English course at level 2, ie. Part 2.

The Grading Test in English

All English language courses at OUSL are conducted by the Department of Language Studies (LSD) and placement in the courses is decided on the basis of performance at the Grading Tests (GT) conducted by LSD at various times of the year. The GTs are conducted on entry to the programmes, and all students are required to sit the GT relevant to their discipline.

Placement for the different levels is set out in Table 2.

The GTs used for the three faculties are based on a common format and consist of two sections: Section A which deals with Grammatical competence and Writing, Section B which deals with Fluency and Reading comprehension. The linguistic skills tested in the the GTs reflect the views of the academic staff at OUSL. Surveys conducted by LSD had established that what staff recognised as vital were the skills of Reading (for all levels of study) and Writing (at higher academic levels). It is relevant to note that at OUSL, print material is the most widely used educational resource - hence the primacy of the skill of Reading. At higher levels, (Levels 5 and 6) course material and day-schools are offered only in English while written work at these levels (ie. project work, assignments and final examinations) is carried out in English.

In testing these skills, LSD uses a variety of question forms. In Section A, Grammatical competence is checked through MCQ items; and Writing through two questions, one that tests the mechanics of Writing (capitalisation, punctuation etc.) and the other a holistic test of competence. This consists of an essay that is scored for linguistic coherence, ability to write expository prose, command of vocabulary and general competence. Section B consists of a cloze passage which tests linguistic fluency, and a passage which tests aspects of Reading such as comprehension, use of deictic and coherence devices, vocabulary etc.

Although all GTs share a common format, details of the questions vary from faculty to faculty and discipline to discipline. The Tests in fact are based on subject specialisms and thus reflect an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) rationale. For example, in NS, the Reading passage for B.Sc. (Nursing) is adapted from medical or nursing literature while the passage for the B.Sc. (NS) reflects general science. This ESP bias is incorporated also into Section A where, for instance, the essay topics include at least one of specific interest to the relevant faculty or discipline.

While the GTs do cater to specialist interest, the basic objective is of course to check linguistic proficiency. To this end the test format has been so devised that each section indicates particular levels of proficiency. Section A which contains the easier areas of MCQ items and basic writing tasks helps to indicate proficiency at Beginner and Lower Intermediate levels. Section B on the other hand contains linguistically complex items which incorporate sophisticated vocabulary. Hence only those with a high level of proficiency are expected to score in Section B which thus helps to define the more competent student.
The distribution of linguistic skills through the two sections also helps to ensure that student placement is appropriately established. Thus for example the Beginner student who can hardly cope with the complexities of Section B is placed in a group where his/her Writing and Reading skills are built up. The differing levels of competence at higher levels too can be sorted out as the student with near-native fluency copes with all aspects of Section B, scoring the required mark of 70+. The student who still needs some assistance at higher levels finds some of the items difficult and hence his / her score falls in the 50 - 69 mark range. It is perhaps relevant to mention that the present format was arrived at after experimenting with different GT formats over the years. The appropriacy of the format was strengthened in 1993 when the GT was validated against an international test of proficiency, the Anglo-world and University of Edinburgh proficiency test (Hill and Fenn. 1989) which is one of the tests used by the University of Edinburgh to ascertain proficiency in English of international students. The Pearsons product - moment correlation between the variables was R =.892 indicating a high level of acceptability (Ratwatte. 1995). The results of the 1996/97 GTs analysed in this paper further support the reliability of the testing mechanism used by LSD.
This then forms the academic background to the issues discussed in this paper. We also need to be aware of the complex sociolinguistic position of English in Sri Lanka. For though English has been widely used in the island for more than a century, and though students are aware of the need for proficiency in English for academic studies, large numbers of Sri Lankans are denied access to functional English. The reality that LSD grapples with is the University's demand for proficiency set against the widely differing levels of competence of OUSL students. Since 1990, LSD has attempted to provide students with a variety of courses that cater to the needs of different groups of students. Having begun with a unitary course in 1990, LSD then established courses at two levels in 1992. In 1994, a zero-level Beginner Course was introduced to help students with minimal English; and in 1995 with the establishment of a Diploma in English, an Advanced Course in Academic Reading and Writing was made available. These courses reflect the major patterns of linguistic ability of student groups at OUSL. However the finer details of student competence particularly within and across faculties had not been delineated. These are the details that are discussed below.

THE LINGUISTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF OUSL STUDENTS

Overall University Profile

A total of 3477 students sat for the Grading Tests in 1996/97. Figure 1 below indicates the overall levels of proficiency of OUSL students.

As demonstrated by the chart, the majority, 50.68%, are those with Lower-Intermediate level proficiency (Part 1), and the next largest majority, 33.02%, were graded as Beginners. Only 13.11% could be considered as being of Higher-Intermediate level (Part 2) while a small minority (3.19%) were exempted from following English courses

Looking more closely at student performance, we discovered that at lower levels (Beginner and Lower-Intermediate), proficiency was indeed very weak.

Table 3 which indicates the average mark for each level demonstrates that the average Beginner level student is only capable of scoring 12.7% in the Grading Test. The fact that the Lower-Intermediate students too are weak is indicated by the average score which is 35.7%, ie. lower than the 40% conventionally accepted as the 'pass mark' for all examinations

Another revealing feature is the gap between the average Beginner student and the average Lower-Intermediate student - a difference of 23 percentile marks.

At the higher level, however, average student proficiency is acceptable as the mean scores are 58.5% for the Higher-Intermediate and 73.6% for those exempted. Here the average score is higher than the cut-off mark for that level indicating that the average student at each of these levels is able to cope linguistically with the tasks set for that level.

The performance of the average students also validates the GT and justifies the manner in which students are assigned to the different levels. The average mark obtained by the students in each of the levels demonstrate that they are well within the range specified for that level. For example, the range for Part 1 is 20 - 49 and the average mark is 35.7% which is approximately the mid-point. Since, as mentioned above, the GT distinguishes between levels of proficiency in a variety of linguistic skills, it would be useful to examine the facts set out above in terms of linguistic skills. Table 4 below sets out the average performance of OUSL students in the different language areas. Table 4 indicates that OUSL students, on entry, demonstrate an acceptable grasp of the grammatical rules of the English language. This competence however is not reflected in practical demonstrations of their ability to read and write in English. The score for Writing and Reading is low (33.7% and 32.6% respectively), a fact that has particular implications in terms of academic success. We investigated this issue more closely in terms of the different groups of students, ie. Beginner, Part l, Part 2 etc. Table 5 sets out these details. The linguistic differences between each group is clearly demonstrated in Table 5. At Beginner level, students are weak in all aspects of language. Competence in Reading and Fluency are very weak and Writing is almost non-existent. It should be noted here that 33% of all OUSL students fall into this category, ie Beginner. At Part 1 level, grammatical competence is acceptable but here too Writing and Reading are weak. At the higher levels, on the other hand, students' skills certainly show improvement - but it is relevant to note that students of the Part 2 group have merely passable levels in the skills of Writing and Reading (ie. 43.2% and 46.6% respectively). This therefore indicates that Part 2 students too need enhancement of such skills. In contrast, the exempted / Advanced group perform well above average in all areas, demonstrating a very high level of grammatical competence and Fluency and good scores in Writing and Reading. (66.22 and 61.53 respectively) These statistics help us to create a linguistic profile of the OUSL student. * On entry, the average OUSL student is one with a grasp of the grammatical rules of English, but whose Writing skills and Reading skills are below par. Such a student would therefore find it difficult to read complex academic prose and produce coherent and well - written assignments or papers. * The Beginner as the name implies, has some grasp of the structure of the language but cannot read or write. * The Part 1 student is one whose knowledge of grammar is acceptable but needs to pay a great deal of attention to enhancing his / her Reading and Writing Skills. * The Part 2 student has a good knowledge of the rules and structure of English, and demonstrates an acceptable level in the skills of Reading and Writing. However this level needs to be enhanced if the student is to perform well at higher academic levels. (Level 5 and 6)* The student who has been exempted or considered an Advanced student is one with an excellent command of the structure of the language, and can cope with Reading and Writing in English.
