Drawbacks of the modular system

The modular system continued to emerge from the interviews as problematic. Firstly, it does not follow the university’s academic calendar, which adopts a semester system, resulting in

conflict with other courses across the university. Secondly, the English language

programme offers four levels of competence instead of the six levels drawn from the CEFR used in the OOPT. Drawbacks of the modular system were identified also with regards to

contact hours as teachers reported that students felt the courses were too short to enable

them to make adequate progress in the language. A further drawback concerns the teacher- student rapport. Some teachers felt that the constant change in lecturers did not allow teachers enough time to get to know the students’ weaknesses and help them develop their language skills accordingly. Participant 5 argued that the full semester of learning gives more confidence to students, as they are not moved on to new classes and new teachers all the time. This helps students’ development as time is not wasted in adjusting to new teaching approaches and different peer groups. According to P.5, the decision to adopt a modular system was one man’s decision and he wanted the whole university to use a modular system in the foundation year. Only the English language department agreed to this, and it has now gone through an evaluation and accreditation process; if anything were to be changed now, it would require a major change and become an immense procedure. Nevertheless, there are concerns that the modules do not provide enough time for students to make adequate progress. Participant 2’s suggestion was to keep students with the same teacher for three months, so they could build a rapport and chart progress. In the current system, teaching takes place just for six weeks and then students are assessed and move on to the next course. In this regard, Participant 2 commented that this approach ‘causes confusion’ as the students ‘have too many teachers’. It seems that this lack of continuity is a problem for teachers as well as students, as they do not get to know their students and cannot teach them according to their needs. According to Participant 3, this means they do have time to consolidate their learning. They want to finish the course as quickly as possible in order to progress to the next level, but they miss a lot of information. The amount of learning that goes on in five or six weeks is limited.

Participant 7 commented the students who have passed all the required modules to reach Level 3 ‘haven’t actually achieved level 3 in the language’. She added that ‘if they took it again, the OOPT, they will not be placed in level 3, because they are still stuck in level 1. They are only on level 3 because they passed level 1 and level 2’. As Participant 7 argues, they are estimated to be at Level 3 simply because they passed the lower level modules, not because their language ability has significantly improved. It is therefore an area of concern, as the English programme becomes ‘a race to the finish’, according to P.7. It becomes a measure of quantity, not quality.

If it continues like this, it will be a complete failure as it is not facilitating at all. They have to do one of two things: either change the quarterly system to just one semester and give teachers time to finish the book and practise; or keep the quarterly system and teach just half a book. This would give students a chance to absorb everything and have enough time to practise. It may take two years but why not? If you are looking at competences and want them to be really good, then in two years they will have time to practise writing and speaking and perhaps write an essay. (P.7)

The OOPT may also have a greater chance of being perceived as successful, if the students are not being forced through a system that expects so much from both teachers and students. As P.7 suggests, students need time to consolidate their learning and rushing through the books, with the mere aim of completing them within a short period of time, does not actively support learning.

Participant 8, however, argued that there is an inherent issue with teachers’ own attitude towards the profession. She argued that they do not support their students in gaining proficiency. She felt that there were many teachers who have no sense of vocation; they simply see teaching as a job. These teachers come to class without preparing any materials and no proper lesson planning as they just use the book.

For example, in each class you have multi-level students who need different attention. After a week of observing my students I get an idea about their levels and my main concern will be designing tasks for each group of students. But these teachers are not a guide for their students, they simply spoon-feed them and do not give the students the opportunity to think or be creative. On the other hand, there are some teachers who deliver the information in very interesting ways with worksheets that they work through with their students and you can definitely see better results. (P8)

Participant 8 makes reference to the more student-centred approach to teaching, more commonly observed in Western education, where the student actively participates in the learning experience. The teacher provides students with tasks and resources to engage them

and thus the student becomes more motivated and willing to participate. From the interviews, however, it appears that the majority of teachers lean heavily on the textbook and adopt primarily a teacher-centred approach. This is an important finding and will be further discussed in the following chapter.

Summary

The chapter provides an overview of the key issues as they emerged from the questionnaire and interview analysis in relation to teachers’ beliefs about the OOPT, the modular system and students in the ELI. The initial interviews (Stage 1) provided a broader perspective on teacher’s views on the OOPT and also served to inform the questionnaire design, while the second set of interviews (Stage 3) took place after the questionnaire and therefore the participants had a better view and understanding of the research aims. Stage 3 participants were also given some sample OOPT questions to look at so, even if there were not familiar with the OOPT, they could at least provide some comments about the extract.

The initial interviews exposed the lack of familiarity with the OOPT among many of the participants. This information was invaluable as it informed the analysis of the questionnaire and the writing up of the interview schedule employed in Stage 3. For instance, there were items on the questionnaire, which referred specifically to the OOPT, such as question 1 (the OOPT as an effective tool) and question 2 (the OOPT reflects students’ language ability). When looking at the results obtained from all participants, the mean scores indicated that the average response was “I don’t know”. However, based upon the responses provided in the initial interviews, I decided to carry out a Mann-Whitney test to explore whether responses would be different if I separated the participants who were familiar with the OOPT from those who were unfamiliar. The Mann-Whitney test exposed the difference in responses for items one and two between the two groups, thus confirming that it was the unfamiliar group which could not comment on these two items.

Furthermore, the stage 3 interviews served to better illustrate the findings of the previous two data collection stages, for instance by illustrating reasons why many teachers were unsatisfied with the modular system. The qualitative and quantitative data similarly highlighted the fact that the majority of teachers were not familiar with the OOPT, so there was little they could say about it. Among those who were familiar with the test, some saw it as an effective tool,

while others felt that the OOPT results often led to misplacement issues with students being placed in levels too low or too high for their ability. Some teachers, therefore, believed that the OOPT results did not always reflect students’ actual proficiency in the language. Both the questionnaire and interview data also portray the perceived difference in ability between Science and Arts students as well as pointing out issues with the modular system. The following chapter explores some of the findings in greater depth making cross-reference with the literature, in order to frame and contextualise teachers’ beliefs on the OOPT and the students at KAU.