Tobie van Dyk

A needs analysis for communication by pharmacists in a multilingual setting: First steps towards syllabus and materials design

Despite the efforts to manage South Africa’s language and culture diversity, in practice, the linguistic landscape has become increasingly English. This is problematic in contexts such as rural areas where people are not able to communicate in English, and communication on even a fairly proficient level is not a given. Medical contexts, in particular, may create critical situations of practical (life or death) importance, as healthcare professionals are not necessarily trained or equipped to communicate in an efficient and culturally sensitive manner. Moreover, healthcare communication challenges are manifold because of the diverse views on the nature of a medical encounter. This article reports on the first empirical steps taken to bridge the communication gap between patient and medical practitioner (specifically pharmacists). These steps include identifying an appropriate theoretical framework, developing and conducting a needs analysis (among 255 pharmacists who are experts-by-experience), and designing a syllabus and course materials. The findings show that most respondents experience communication in a foreign language to be significantly more problematic than communication in general. Additionally, the qualitative data suggest that support is needed especially for African languages. Language learning materials should cover a wide range of professional topics supplemented with a communication module focusing primarily on history taking and ensuring the correct use of medication. Most importantly, learning materials should be to-the-point and easy to apply, as most practitioners have limited time. These findings might, in turn, inform policy issues regarding responsible and efficient functioning in a multilingual professional environment, where clear and transparent communication can be a matter of life or death.

First-year university students' productive knowledge of collocations

The present study examines productive knowledge of collocations of tertiary-level second-language (L2) learners of English in an attempt to make estimates of the size of their knowledge. Participants involved first-year students at North-West University who sat a collocation test modelled on that developed by Laufer and Nation (1999), with words selected from the 2000-, 3000-, and 5000-word bands (Nation 2006) and the Academic Word List (Coxhead 2000). The achieved scores were analysed in light of Schmitt’s (2003, in Xing and Fulcher 2007) cut-off point for an acquired word-frequency band (80%), as well as Nation’s (1990) suggested threshold of productive knowledge at tertiary level (at least the 3,000 most frequently used words). Results indicate that the participants do not master the 3000-word band and therefore fall slightly short of expectations. Only the 2000-word band is mastered by most of these first-year student participants, with some of them not entirely mastering this band. On the basis of these results, pedagogical consequences are discussed in terms of how to help students reach the minimum threshold of productive knowledge that is needed to cope with the academic challenges at tertiary level.

Impact measurement: towards creating a flexible evaluation design for academic literacy interventions

Considering the vast array of academic literacy interventions that are presented both nationally and internationally, and the resources required to present these interventions, it is becoming increasingly important for those who are responsible for these interventions to provide evidence of their impact. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of instruments that are commonly used to assess impact, and to discuss guidelines regarding the use of these instruments, their strengths and their weaknesses. The instruments are divided into two broad categories, namely those that measure the observable improvement in students’ academic literacy abilities between the onset and the completion of an intervention, and those that measure the extent to which these abilities are necessary and applied in students’ content subjects. A conceptual evaluation design is then proposed that could be used in evaluating the impact of a range of academic literacy interventions. Avenues to explore in future include testing the design in the South African context.

Academic literacy of South African higher education level students: Does vocabulary size matter?

This study explores the extent to which vocabulary size matters in academic literacy. Participants (first-year students at North-West University) were administered the Vocabulary Levels Test (Schmitt, Schmitt and Clapham 2001). Scores from the test were used to estimate students’ vocabulary size and were subsequently mapped onto the levels distinguished by the Test of Academic Literacy Levels (TALL). Estimates show that, on average, the vocabulary size of first-year students at North-West University is approximately 4,500 word families, a size large enough to allow them to follow lectures in English. Furthermore, students with large vocabularies were found to have higher academic literacy proficiency, which establishes a strong relationship between vocabulary size and academic literacy. This relationship was also observed at the different word frequency bands the Vocabulary Levels Test consists of. These results support previous findings which established a relationship between vocabulary size and reading (cf. Nation 2006), and between vocabulary size and overall language proficiency (cf. Beglar 2010, Meara and Buxton 1987, Meara and Jones 1988, Nation and Beglar 2007), which could be extended to academic literacy. Furthermore, a stronger relationship between vocabulary size and academic literacy was found towards more infrequent word bands, indicating that infrequent word bands may best predict academic literacy. On the basis of these findings, we discuss possible strategies to adopt in order to assist some first-years with expanding their vocabularies.

Productive knowledge of collocations may predict academic literacy

The present study examines the relationship between productive knowledge of collocations and academic literacy among first year students at North-West University. Participants were administered a collocation test, the items of which were selected from Nation’s (2006) word frequency bands, i.e. the 2000-word, 3000-word, 5000-word bands; and the Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000). The scores from the collocation test were compared to those from the Test of Academic Literacy Levels (version administered in 2012). The results of this study indicate that, overall, knowledge of collocations is significantly correlated with academic literacy, which is also observed at each of the frequency bands from which the items were selected. These results support Nizonkiza’s (2014) findings that a significant correlation between mastery of collocations of words from the Academic Word List and academic literacy exists; which is extended here to words from other frequency bands. They also confirm previous findings that productive knowledge of collocations increases alongside overall proficiency (cf. Gitsaki, 1999; Bonk, 2001; Eyckmans et al., 2004; Boers et al., 2006; Nizonkiza, 2011; among others). This study therefore concludes that growth in productive knowledge of collocations may entail growth in academic literacy; suggesting that productive use of collocations is linked to academic literacy to a considerable extent. In light of these findings, teaching strategies aimed to assist first year students meet academic demands posed by higher education and avenues to explore for further research are discussed. Especially, we suggest adopting a productive oriented approach to teaching collocations, which we believe may prove useful.