Year: 2001
Type: article
Abstract: For success at university, students need to develop academic literacy, which means\nlearning a set of behaviours appropriate to academe. One of the most important of\nthese is mastery of academic language.\nChanges in the South African socio-political context have brought about much\nneeded changes in education and with the demand for equity and redress, students\nare now entering university from a wide variety of educational and language\nbackgrounds. This is not a unique phenomenon in universities around the world but,\nas we have eleven official languages in South Africa, English, the medium of\ninstruction and assessment, is often not only the second but the third language for\nvery many students.\nA very high percentage of academic words have their roots in words of Latin or\nGreek origin, languages to which few students have had exposure and they find\nthemselves underprepared to cope with this highly specialized academic discourse.\nIn order to enhance students’ academic vocabulary, which in turn provides a solid\nfoundation for competence in reading and writing academic discourse, I present a\ncourse called Word Power. By its very nature this course requires rote learning of\nroots of words, constant practice and reinforcement.\nUsing the computer programme, Question Mark Designer for Windows, I have\ndeveloped material for use as tutorials and for revision exercises. This CAA method\nis used as a support for the lectures and is intended to take the boring element out of\nthe drill sessions, which are at the core of any vocabulary building course. Students\ncan use the revision exercises to work at their own pace and receive instant\nfeedback and assessment of their progress. In addition it removes the necessity of\nhaving several tutors and alleviates the burden of marking. Although this computer\nmaterial was only available to the students this semester, I have had positive results\nfrom its use and positive feedback from the students and I feel confident that it will\ncontinue to be an enormous benefit to my students in helping them to master\nacademic language. Accessing the word is a step to accessing the academic world.
Author: Gail Solomans
Institution: University of Cape Town
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2107540289