The present study is conducted at the University of Sindh, which is the second oldest university of Pakistan, as it came into being in the same year (1947) the country was created. It was first established in Karachi as an examining body, later on, in 1951 with its relocation to Hyderabad it got the status of a teaching university. The first few departments established were: the department of Education and Basic Science. At present, the university’s main campus is situated in the Jamshoro city at a distance of fifteen kilometres from Hyderabad on the right bank of the River Indus.
The main campus of the University of Sindh is named after one of its Vice- Chancellors Allam I.I. Kazi. There are, presently, eight faculties in the university’s main campus with forty-three teaching institutes, departments and centres. The number of students in each of the faculties in the main campus of the University of Sindh, where the study is situated, in the year 2013 is given in Table 1.1.
Table 1.1: Number of students in the University of Sindh in 2013
S# Name of the faculty M F Total
1 Faculty of Arts 974 572 1546
2 Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration 2679 535 3214
3 Faculty of Education 2222 1940 4162
4 Faculty of Islamic Studies 230 75 305
5 Faculty of Law 290 70 360
6 Faculty of Natural Sciences 6182 2376 8558
7 Faculty of Pharmacy 492 462 954
8 Faculty of Social Sciences 2868 492 3360
9 Grand Total 15937 6522 22459
Table 1.1 shows the number of students in each of the eight faculties and the total number of male and female students in all the faculties the University. It clearly indicates that the number of male students (n=15937) is little more than double the number of female students (n=6522) in the main campus of the University. The table also exhibits that 38.1% of the total enrolled students in the main campus of the
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university belong to the Faculty of Natural Sciences. The reason for this may be that this faculty consists of the highest number of the science departments and also the job market in science is considered to be very high in the country. The next highest number of students is available in the Faculty of Education that also attracts many students for acquiring teaching jobs. The Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration also admits a large number of students because of a high demand of a business degree in the job market.
The faculty of Arts also attracts many students; this attraction is mainly because the Institute of English Language and Literature enrols more than 50% of students of the faculty. This is because a degree in English may help students earn a better job. In contrast, the Faculty of Islamic Studies and the Faculty of Law do not have many students owing to weaker demand in the job market. The Institute of English Language and Literature (IELL) is responsible for teaching English as a Remedial and Compulsory subject in all forty-three departments/institutes. There are around thirty permanent teachers in the institute and a few teachers are hired on contract to teach Remedial English.
Moreover, there are around four Law colleges and seventy-four degree and postgraduate colleges affiliated to the University of Sindh. Five new campuses of the University have also been established recently in various towns of the province, namely: Badin, Mirpurkhas, Dadu, Thatta, Larkana and Bhitshah to promote higher education in the province.
Having presented the site of this study, its various faculties, other affiliated institutes and campuses, I will now briefly describe the ethnicity and background of the students at the University of Sindh followed by a brief discussion on how English has been taught as a remedial and compulsory subject at the University in the past and at present to support the need of my study.
1.6.1 Students’ Ethnicity and Background
The University of Sindh has a diverse range of student population. Differences can be found in social, ethnic, religious and more importantly their backgrounds in
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education. Some students come from privileged areas and families with fairly good educational orientation, whereas others come from the countryside with fewer privileges and less educational orientation. As far as religion is concerned, many students are Muslims, whereas an adequate number of Hindu students also attend the university. These Hindu students are those whose families, at the time of partition of India and Pakistan, preferred to stay in Pakistan’s Sindh province, which is liberal as compared to the other provinces. Urdu speaking people also migrated from India at the time of the partition (See Section 1.3.2).
There are also quite a few Punjabi and Pashto students in the University. The Punjabi and Pashto speaking communities settled down in Sindh because they were given free lands in Sindh for their services in the defence forces. Also, some others purchased the agricultural lands in the province at very cheap rates. The Sindhis are the natives of Sindh, whereas the other communities migrated to Sindh either from India or other provinces of the country. However, one thing in common among Urdu, Punjabi and Pashto communities, in relation to the present study, is that they all read in Urdu as their first language of reading.
Thus, all these groups will be referred to as ‘Urdu group’ referring to their first language of reading and the term ‘L1’ will mean first language of reading in this study. Additionally, the division between Sindhi and Urdu as two groups will also mean Sindhi and Urdu reading groups. In line with the above mentioned facts, the present study will investigate the relationship between Sindhi and Urdu students’ reading habits and English reading performance at the University of Sindh, Jamshoro, Pakistan. This will suggest how far the diversity of population may be the cause of the development of reading habits, and performance in English reading.
1.6.2 Admission Procedure at the University of Sindh
The admission process at the University of Sindh requires the students to pass a pre- entry written test along with their higher secondary qualification or the transcripts and the degree of Bachelors to be admitted to undergraduate and post-graduate programs respectively. The test used for admission to the university consists of 30% questions on the English language to assure whether the students have necessary
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English language skills to cope up with the teaching as the medium of instruction at the University is English. In addition, to get admission into more demanding departments of the University like Pharmacy, IT, Computer Science, Business Administration, English, the students usually need to achieve good scores in the English section of the pre-admission test. The departments are allocated to the students based on their merit in the test, previous qualification and their preference of the field of study.
1.6.3 English Language Teaching at the University of Sindh
Like many other universities in Pakistan, English has been taught as a compulsory subject at the University of Sindh for a long time. However, in the past, the syllabus for teaching English was either grammar or literature oriented, which did not produce the desired results. In 2003, the vice chancellor and other university officials felt the need to replace the old, literature based syllabus with more language oriented materials. The need was felt owing to the poor English language proficiency of students that made them struggle to compete in the job market. After a two year struggle, finally, they were successful in revising the syllabus in 2005 with the approval of the academic council. Also, the course title was changed from ‘English Compulsory’ to ‘Remedial English’ for the first year English classes.
Presently, the university has adopted an English Language programme at the undergraduate level. This program is offered in addition to students’ field of specialisation in order to help them with the English language. The program is divided into four courses: 300, 301, 400, and 401. The first two courses are taught in the first year (in two semesters) and the remaining two courses are taken by the students in the second year (in two semesters) of undergraduate study, with three classes (each of fifty minute) a week. Approximately 30 English classes are conducted in one semester. There are two books on the syllabus for English teaching:
1. Eastwood, John, (2005) Oxford Practice Grammar, Oxford University Press, Karachi
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2. Howe, D.H, Kirkpatrick, T.A. and Kirkpatrick, D.L. (2006) English for Undergraduates, Oxford University Press, Karachi.
The Oxford Practice Grammar follows both the theoretical and practical approaches to teaching grammar. The units in this book are very short, interesting and also, they are described with some context. In ‘English for Undergraduates’ many units consist of English reading exercises that are deemed to have positive effects on students’ English reading proficiency. These include pre-reading activities and pictorial contexts, background information and previewing contents, and culture specific, interesting, and motivating texts which are supported in the literature on reading in general and L2 reading in particular. Some examples of culture specific texts in the course are the English translations of regionally famous stories and poems of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai and Shaikh Ayaz; two famous Sindhi poets. Additionally, the book includes various teaching materials for improving students’ writing, listening and speaking skills.
Overall, the programme focuses on all aspects of the English language, namely listening, speaking, reading, writing and grammar. The specific objectives of the programme are as follows:
1. To develop students’ English reading ability in order to be independent readers
2. To develop students’ ability to understand and express ideas and opinions related to their real life experiences both in written and spoken English
3. To enable students to extract information and make notes from lectures 4. To ask and answer relevant questions to seek information, and clarification.
In order to meet these objectives teachers employ a variety of techniques and methods, including guided silent reading and communication tasks generally recommended in the literature. By adopting the new program and teaching methodology it was hoped that the programme would benefit the university with its interactive courses and it would improve English language and reading skills of the students at the University of Sindh.
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However, despite the use of a more language oriented and culture specific syllabus, which incorporates all useful exercises to teach English language, reading in particular, there appears to be little improvement in the reading achievement of the learners at the University of Sindh. A large majority of the students appears to get less than expected marks in English subject in general and in reading comprehension items in particular as it has been found in the students’ exam scores.
This situation indicates that there might be some other causes for students’ poor English reading. It also draws our attention towards the gravity of the matter by raising a serious question as to why, despite the changes made to the syllabus of English classes, there has been a little or no change in the English reading proficiency of the learners. Therefore, it is essential to take this matter seriously and investigate the causes of students’ poor English reading proficiency at the University of Sindh to find a solution to this problem.