‘The thing that kill us’: student perspectives on language support in a South African university

Abstract

South African higher education institutions, in line with international practice and as a result of the ‘social turn’, are progressing towards mainstream academic literacy support for students. This shift has a political dimension in South Africa where, historically, disadvantage has had racial dimensions, in its departure from ‘deficit’ models of academic development and support. On the other hand, there are practical factors to be considered in the kinds of support we offer students. This article describes a survey of students studying in Engineering and the Built Environment at an English-medium university in South Africa to uncover language issues in their university careers. Students identify difficulties relating to a broad range of academic literacies, yet the research suggests that the process of mainstreaming academic literacy may have to be accompanied by targeted support for English as an Additional Language students.

Keywords:

• academic literacy
• EAL
• English medium
• South Africa
• higher education

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the Academic Development Lecturers in EBE at UCT, who assisted with the distribution of the research questionnaire, as well as two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the first draft of this article.

Notes

1. The term ‘black’ is used here inclusive of the post-apartheid population group categories ‘black’ and ‘coloured’.

2. The data considered here have elsewhere been analysed against first language/additional language categories, to examine perceptual differences arising from school and language background (Hurst 2010a).