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proficiency incorrect?

      • Does/should taking a pre-sessional automatically mean that a student is able to cope with the language load of any TPG programme?

      The surprise at Mai’s language level also suggests that there is little awareness of what IELTS 6.5 or equivalent means in reality or of what difference can be made to this on a pre-sessional programme. This is a problem faced in many HE contexts (Ginther & Elder, 2014 for parallels within the United States and Australian contexts) It is clear then that the difficulties that Mai was facing were far more complex than simply not having good enough language that should already have been fixed by some extra EAP focused classes.

      As well as agreeing to meet both Mai and her teacher to establish where help and support could be provided, I looked again at the assessments and grades Mai had been awarded by the EAP unit, and asked a number of colleagues, some of whom were also IELTS examiners, to provide second opinions of the writing she had produced. There was general consensus that the assessment she had received from the presessional programmes was accurate. Comments on her writing were as follows:

       • The student has issues with linking ideas. She frequently uses commas to link ideas when it isn’t appropriate and has issues with basic linking of ideas … It is littered with basic grammatical mistakes … I’m not sure these made the piece of work incomprehensible. (LC15)

      This second statement, from an EAP teacher, focuses fully on the language of the piece of student writing. Problematically here, though, the language is taken out of the context of the discourse being built. The EAP teacher is confident in commenting on basic grammatical errors but lacks confidence in connecting these to the comprehensibility or not of the piece of writing. The comment suggests, as might be expected, a strong focus on the mechanics of language used to create a low-level coherent utterance – language that is used to connect ideas within and across sentences to build a paragraph. What is missing is any suggestion that these words work to demonstrate any clear disciplinary knowledge and understanding. In fact, the EAP teacher finishes with this very comment – that she is unclear as to whether it makes sense here or not. There is then, a disconnect between what is valued in terms of language learning and accuracy and the clear demonstration of how to communicate disciplinary knowledge.

      In both of these statements, therefore, language is viewed as separate from content but from opposite perspectives – the first viewing language deficiency as the cause of written incomprehensibility, the second viewing it as problematic but not necessarily creating incomprehension – the suggestion being that this may be as a result of lack of content understanding. Mai herself needed to move between and navigate through these two different approaches to the work she produced and the way she communicated.

       • I think in the Language Centre I learned something about reading skills, writing skills, something like that but actually I think in my postgraduate study requires more your academic knowledge.

       • The language that I need is about my project, yeah. So maybe I know in the Language Centre the final, the, yes, the final language course is about your subject but I think I need more specific like how some study plan to let you know how to study the academic word, yeah. Maybe also give some website about your course maybe.

      In fact, Mai’s School did provide online information to all its TPG students over the summer to help them to prepare for their programme

       • over the summer before the course started we were given some guidelines and we were given some suggested reading and also there was an online quiz that you could take multiple times and that was really helpful because that explained basically the background that they wanted you to be familiar with. (FS4)

      Mai should have received this, but when asked about it had no memory of receiving the information and had definitely not looked at it. While it is possible that she did not receive the information, what seems more likely is that she did not register its importance and was already fully focused on developing her language on the pre-sessional programme. This is what she had been informed should be her priority before beginning her TPG studies. By not engaging with this preparatory work, Mai was already less well informed than others from day one of her academic programme.

      This bi-directional pull between developing content knowledge and language learning is a continued theme in Mai’s story. Following on from the email of concern from Mai’s tutor, a support package was put in place for her. This involved her being allocated a Post-graduate researcher ‘buddy’ who was part of an ‘accelerated learning scheme’ to help her review subject content, as well as being told to attend extra language development classes and 1:1 meetings with me to discuss her work. This was decided in a relatively formal, and minuted meeting:

       • ‘It was agreed that [Mai] would rewrite her XXXX3M literature review and submit on Monday 21st November. This would not be reassessed but [Mai] would be able to work with MA and BB to write at a higher standard. This will be a useful exercise and allow [Mai] to learn how to write an assessment at the expected standard. BB will also be able to help [Mai] learn associate skills and strategies to help her write future assessments. It was agreed that BB, MA and [Mai] would meet together in BB’s office on 7th November. MA will meet with [Mai] regularly (ideally twice a week, for the next 2–3 weeks).

       As previously discussed, [Mai] should continue to attend teaching sessions but would be allowed to miss recorded lectures to attend Language Centre sessions, and other meetings with MA and/or BB. She should use lecture capture to catch up on missed lectures. She will also receive an extension for XXX2M data analysis I (15th December), which will give her two weeks following submission of XXX2M data analysis to focus on the XXX assessment.

      Mai was, then, given extra time and support to allow her to develop her understanding of the necessary skills and content, but was also told to prioritise language classes (in isolation to her subject content) over lectures that she could catch up on later by watching recordings. In fact, the message that Mai took from this meeting was that she should attend these language classes as a priority over all other sessions. She then went on to miss a number of sessions that were not recorded because they clashed with the language insessional classes, despite her conclusion that:

       • actually I think the language course just help you with the writing skills is very useful and other just to learn, like let you know how to live in UK ,yeah. Some, I think just some life, some were life, some skills about how to live.

      Furthermore, in conversation with me, Mai was able to identify that what she actually felt she needed help with was technical, subject specific vocabulary development. Mai tried to express how this was one of her greatest barriers to learning in multiple ways:

       • maybe sometimes I can’t understand the words. Okay, I am still thinking what they mean about the word. And what the teacher said later, I don’t know, yeah. I maybe not care.

       • The most difficult I think is the academic word, yeah, because in some about science project maybe have some more academic word, yeah, you need know and you don’t understand … academic biology word.

       • when you reading the word you need record it and know the translation and then if someone like teacher maybe said this word so you know the word mean.

      However, Mai barely engaged in the support she was offered that did move towards connecting language work with her academic communication needs. Whilst she was happy to meet me to chat and be recorded talking about how she felt about her studies and language development, the academic work that we were supposed to discuss together never materialised. She had always forgotten to bring it or had not managed to write the paragraph we had asked her to re-work. We did have one meeting that included Mai, myself and the ‘buddy’ (MA) but follow up meeting requests went unanswered.

      So, in spite of being offered the support she identified as needing, and had been told to access by her programme leader, Mai chose to take up the more surface level opportunities for engagement rather than ones that might have enabled her to extend and deepen her understanding.

      There

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