Machine translation (MT) of academic texts is a trending phenomenon in the higher education context. Globalisation and internationalisation have seen a massive number of foreign students being admitted into higher education in countries where they study in the second or target language. Some of these students find it challenging to write a good academic text in the second language (i.e., English in the case of the United Kingdom). As a remedy, they resort to translating their work from the source text (ST) to the target text (TT) using MT like Google or Bing translation. Although some research has shown that these devices can be beneficial, others have found that these devices are far from being perfect and can produce texts that distort the intended meaning. In addition, research into MT in educational contexts have overlooked the views of lecturers who are the ones that read and assess students’ texts. This study aimed to contribute to the literature on MT by sampling the views of four academics from four different universities in the North West of England, United Kingdom. The findings of this research revealed that lecturers were very critical of students’ usage of MT of academic texts. Among the reasons advanced for this rejection were that students were ‘lost in translation’ using MT, and that MT did not help non-English speaking students learn the language. Consequently, students can produce texts that could negatively affect their grades when assessed. This paper has made some policy recommendations to universities regarding the problems of MT and submitted suggestions for further research in this area.
Underpinned by frameworks of intercultural interaction, representation and discourse analysis, this research aimed to explore ambiguities and examine salient factors in intercultural interaction in UK universities, from the perspectives of four BAME lecturers and a lecturer from mainstream British culture. Informed by interpretive qualitative methodology and convenient sampling, data was collected through individual semi-structured interviews and the Nvivo software was used for analysis. Findings revealed that the experiences of academics in intercultural interaction with students were homogeneous across the board irrespective of their racial backgrounds. Despite a high level of intercultural awareness, some students and academics were unable to deconstruct stereotypes in cultural representation. It seems that universities do little to help academics and students develop and sustain intercultural awareness. There is hardly any systemic, structural, and coordinated approach in addressing cultural issues that may emerge in the classroom, as academics are left to figure it out by themselves. Some implications for policy in the higher education contexts were identified and recommendations made.
This article analyses the phenomenological experiences of four UK lecturers with contract cheating involving students. It aimed to investigate the reasons why some students use contract cheating services and what can be done to expunge the practice. This paper further documents how to recognise some of the cheating patterns and clues observed in essay and report submissions. Participants were recruited using purposive and convenient sampling methods. NVivo software was used to analyse the transcribed data. Findings revealed that contract cheating, especially students’ use of ‘essay mills’ is still entrenched into the UK higher education fabric. Despite being able to identify cheaters using various tools at their disposal, lecturers were left frustrated as too often culprits went unpunished due to universities’ lenient policies. Cheating ‘red flags’ include refusal to meet the lecturer for verbal feedback on assignments; essays having uncommon features from what lecturers normally expect; unusual citations and references which are often outside the module’s specification, and the use of strange figures, and diagrams. Evidence from this study suggest that universities’ leniency in dealing with suspects is largely due to the commodification of education that puts profit before quality. Recommendations to properly address this practice have been suggested in this paper. The limitations of this study and future directions for similar research are submitted herein.
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