Underpreparedness in South African higher education: A limited test of the English grammar awareness of first-year students

Moyo, Joseph

doi:10.20853/34-6-4236

Cited by 4 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 10 publications

(9 reference statements)

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“…To this end, acquisition is the incorporation of those new forms in long-term memory and the restructuring of the inter language systems which impacts on language production which is the use of stored forms in writing or speech (Long, 1991). However, Long (1991), and Moyo (2020) argue that exposing students to enough comprehensive input alone is inadequate; that students must also be given opportunities to produce new forms learnt from spoken or written exercises or both to develop their own input.…”

Section: Form-focused Instruction (Ffi)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In education systems, English language became not only the language of communication and instruction but was also considered a language of economic advancement globally. English as a global language was and still is considered an asset and is often associated with higher employability and thought to be more advantageous than other languages (Moyo, 2020). Thus, lack of competence in the English language may sometimes restrict some people from being employed where only the English language is the medium of communication (Ajani & Gamede, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Use of Modal Auxiliary Verbs among Selected Pre-Service Students at A South African Rural University

Luvuno¹,

Ajani

2021

IJHE

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This study was conducted at a university based in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The purpose of the study was to determine if the explicit instruction of selected grammar aspect, modal auxiliary verbs, improved students’ ability to write English. The study was qualitative in nature and a case study design was adopted. The focus was in relation to a sample of 80 student teachers who were randomly selected in 2016 in the Faculty of Education. 40 participants were randomly assigned into experimental and control groups. For the experimental group, training lasted six weeks. Both groups were made to write similar essays and those essays were marked focusing on the students’ ability to use modal auxiliary verbs. The study’s findings revealed that the experimental group performed better than those in the control group in the use of modal auxiliary verbs. Based on the findings, the study recommended explicit grammar instruction in all the students’ level of study in order to overcome the challenges they have in writing English. Thus, time should be created to ascertain that adequate explicit grammar lessons are offered to all pre-service teachers at the university.

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Section: Form-focused Instruction (Ffi)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Use of Modal Auxiliary Verbs among Selected Pre-Service Students at A South African Rural University

Luvuno¹,

Ajani

2021

IJHE

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“…There are many current grammar error correction design methods, but there are fewer such studies on how to go about judging the effectiveness of error correction methods in English writing tutoring, and the performance evaluation methods are all qualitative and lack quantitative analysis methods. Literature [15] extracts the types of grammar error correction and assessment features by analysing the English writing assistance and grammar error correction process; literature [16] focuses on the English writing grammar error correction strategy guidance, analyses the development trend of grammar error correction, and proposes the concept of multi-strategy grammar error correction assessment; literature [17] starts from the English writing tutoring and grammar error correction strategy, analyses the features of the assessment of the effect of English grammar error correction, and proposes a grammar error correction assessment method with the fusion of multiple machine learning algorithms. According to the analysis of the above literature, the existing grammar error correction performance assessment models are only analysed from a qualitative perspective, lacking quantitative methods and models, and the existing performance assessment methods are relatively simple, with low precision and lack of precision improvement strategies [18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance Evaluation and Improvement of Deep Echo State Network Models in English Writing Assistance and Grammar Error Correctionn

Chen

2024

ICST Transactions on Scalable Information Systems

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INTRODUCTION: The research on the performance evaluation model of English writing tutoring and grammar error correction is very necessary, which is not only conducive to the rational allocation of teachers' writing tutoring resources, but also more conducive to the timely and effective correction of students' grammatical errors.OBJCTIVES: Aiming at the problems of non-specific quantification, low precision, and low real-time performance evaluation methods for English writing grammar error correction in current methods.METHODS: This paper proposes a grammar error correction performance evaluation method based on deep echo state network with gold rush optimisation algorithm. Firstly, by analysing the process of English writing assistance and grammatical error correction, we extract the evaluation features of grammatical error correction type and construct the performance evaluation system; then, we improve the deep confidence network through the gold rush optimization algorithm and construct the grammatical error correction performance evaluation model; finally, we analyse it through simulation experiments.RESULTS: The results show that the proposed method improves the evaluation accuracy, robustness. The absolute value of the relative error of the evaluation value of the syntactic error correction performance of the method is controlled within the range of 0.02.CONCLUSION: The problems of non-specific quantification, low precision and low real-time performance of the application of English writing grammar error correction performance assessment methods are solved.

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“…However, equal access to education in South Africa has not been without challenges. In this regard, it is well documented that many first-year students entering higher education in South Africa are 'unprepared' and lack the English language proficiency to succeed at the tertiary level (Baijnath 2018;Boughey 2010;Moyo 2020;Singh 2004;Van Rooy & Coetzee-Van Rooy 2015). Various mechanisms have been implemented to address this language shortfall, including the Foundation Programme, Extended Programme and Bridging Programme.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Students’ perceptions of lecturers’ motivational strategies and their attitudes towards the English language and an academic English module

Mushaathoni

Cekiso

2022

Literator

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Motivation and students’ attitudes are generally cited as two of the most important factors influencing language-learning performance. Motivation and attitude not only enhance students’ understanding of learning and make them more open to learning, but also raise their expectations of the learning process and lower their anxiety. Therefore, the current study sought to establish the university students’ perceptions of their lecturers’ motivational strategies and their attitudes towards the English language, and the English Academic module. The study was quantitative in nature and a survey research design was followed. A questionnaire was used to solicit data from 150 first-year Foundation students who were conveniently selected. Likert items were used to measure the respondents’ perceptions of their lecturers’ motivational strategies and their attitudes toward the English Language and English Academic module. To analyse data, the most frequent responses are considered by working out percentages that agree, disagree, etc. The findings showed that the students perceived their lecturers as using a range of motivational strategies. These include, but are not limited to, allowing students to ask questions, providing feedback, motivating students to read more material, and praising students for good learning behaviour. The findings further revealed that the majority of students had a positive attitude towards the English language and English Academic module. Lecturers’ motivational strategies and students’ attitudes towards the English language and English Academic module could be perceived as significant considerations for lecturers when they tailor instruction and module design to the needs of the students. In addition, lecturers’ awareness of students’ attitudes can serve as vital information that could be used as a springboard to change the students’ attitudes for the better.

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Underpreparedness in South African higher education: A limited test of the English grammar awareness of first-year students

Cited by 4 publications

References 10 publications

The Use of Modal Auxiliary Verbs among Selected Pre-Service Students at A South African Rural University

The Use of Modal Auxiliary Verbs among Selected Pre-Service Students at A South African Rural University

Performance Evaluation and Improvement of Deep Echo State Network Models in English Writing Assistance and Grammar Error Correctionn

Students’ perceptions of lecturers’ motivational strategies and their attitudes towards the English language and an academic English module

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