Page 39 - BLENDED LEARNING

The courses
The two EAP courses take place in the two semesters of the freshman year.
Both courses are credit bearing and students need a pass grade in each one to
graduate. Students come from various disciplines, including biological and physical
sciences, and engineering. Class sizes range between 200 and 400 for each teacher,
with each student receiving two contact hours a week. A course runs for about
13 weeks of a semester. In the first semester, course GNS 101 has the objective of
equipping students with information literacy and study skills. Topics taught include:
time management; study skills; scientific word formation; parts of speech; listening
and lecture comprehension and note-taking/note-making. GNS 102 follows as an
‘integrated reading and writing’ course designed ‘to equip students with skills in
reading and writing in academic contexts and research skills.’ The course covers
topics such as introduction to reading for academic purposes, investigation and
negotiation of meaning, critical thinking and teamwork skills development. The course
culminates in writing a term paper after investigating a topical issue. At the end of the
course students are expected to be able to read critically in academic contexts, raise
questions, reflect on their learning processes and use basic research and internet skills.

The challenge
For the enrolled population, language teaching in the large classes remained a
Herculean task. LoCastro (2001), among others, suggests that when a language
class exceeds 15 in number problems arise, such as those of pedagogy,
management and of the affective type, especially in a low resourced environment.
In the last decade, the majority of students who enrol for university courses come
with low English language proficiency on account of declining standards in pre-
university education and the rising profile of Nigerian pidgin among young people.
Observations and analysis of students’ oral and written interactions show widespread
use of pidgin and its interference in formal writing. An increasing number of youths,
especially from the Niger Delta, have pidgin as their first language (Ihemere, 2006;
Marchese and Shnukal, 1983).

For a language course, interaction is crucial. Therefore, the main driver of change
to incorporating technology in our practice is pedagogic – the large class situation
that made interaction in English, the target language (student–student, student–
teacher), difficult, if not impossible. In class most students with difficulty in using
English hardly spoke out but would communicate with peers in pidgin or their first
language. With online discussions they would take time to compose whatever had to
be said and struggle to construct their ideas in English, even if in poor English with
traces of pidgin or mother tongue. Teachers were dissatisfied and frustrated with
their practice in the face-to-face teaching-learning mode and felt a need for change,
especially as students and core discipline colleagues ridiculed the programme for
having little impact on students’ English language proficiency.

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