“A Vicious Cycle: Did the Programme make Sense?”

By Paul Andrew Bourne, B.Sc. (Hons), U.W.I.; Dip. Edu.


According to Bourne (2005) in ?'A phenomenal Fallacy: The First Reflection' wrote, "Instead, the focus seems to be an advanced version of the undergraduate course FD10A with a dosage of research [writing] technique" which speaks to a series of demanding issues in the graduate language programme. The viewpoint expressed by Bourne arose from the author's critique of the graduate language, SY69A, course outline and a shrewd awareness of the undergraduate language course, FD10A, within the scope that a void exists in the preparedness of graduate level students to submit relevant and/or appropriate texts to academic journals for their publications. This is further complicated by the pupils' unreadiness to subscribe to the development of their thesis in another few weeks. Initially, given the coverage of SY69C's syllabus and an understanding that a particular need existed, at this level, the author along with a number of his classmates' pursued the intervention programme with the graduate levels candidates' need and were immensely disappointed with the structure of the current SY69C curriculum.

Today marks the end of the sixth week of a seven-week series in language training for graduate students, and so it is an opportune time for the course to be re-assessed. The author is reminiscing on the discipline given the course sketch, and the flaws therein, and so believes that in order for him to objectively evaluate the impact of the course, he has measure the intent with the students' needs.

Despite Dr. Martin's modification of the initial course agenda, the author believes that those changes are woefully inadequate as the pupils' needs were not effectively assessed prior to the designed of the programme and so the department designed an agenda without those prerequisite findings. Dr. Martin's scholastic depth in the language and his teaching experiences coupled with his willingness to adapt to his environment, having had a better appreciation for the students' needs having taught the course for a few weeks, still was inadequate as it came up short at the end. For the distinguished Dr. Martin to have adjusted the course outline somewhat in the middle of the programme speaks to the man's willingness to supply the expected demand. Although the challenges were many, the course failed to deliver a level of appropriateness for the people involved. The readiness of students was at one level and the intervention programme was at a different stage.

The witty educator guided the class through a journal text that was the most appropriate exercise in the entire process. He provided a journal text that was published by the Social Institute and Economic, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica, with a number of errors. The errors were all the input of the trainer and not within the original text. He had intended on strengthen the resolved on the students in the language, and he enlightened in the process. The issues were simply not only about semantic structures of the language but equality it had a journal requirement focus. The expected requirement for that journal publication was APA. The exercise was useful in two ways as it served to highlight areas of the APA style to which the class was unfamiliar and to enhance the learners proofreading skills. Compared with the problems of class size and the inappropriateness of lecturer-student ratio, the former concern was fairly addressed and the latter undoubtedly will never be addressed for this cohort of graduate students as the course group has one week before finality.

English language, on the other hand, is a technical discipline that requires thorough knowledge through practice and so the process can only be aided by first, the students having the information on appropriate techniques and second, the guidance of a competent language professional who continuously helps his students to grasp the intricacies of the subject matter. Dr. Martin's vast knowledge and competence as a teacher of language coupled with his care for the students provided an atmosphere for learning but this was significantly reduced by the topology of the classroom. The room's seating arrangement was without desk and this impeded learning process. Another drawback was the closeness of the chair. A number of the students said this was a preoccupation of theirs instead of the actual lesson.

According to Bourne (2005), he cited that "One can only hope that some effort is made to reconstruct this course as a lecturer can only help students to a limited extent; if the structure of a course is poor, then other social issues can only assist to worsened [the] problems". Those words highlight the fundamental importance of ensuring that all the necessary social factors aid the programme as they can only nullify the learning process. The learners' inadequacies cannot be solved simply by providing a quality teacher, if there are socio-political issues unresolved; they will erode the proficiency of a remarkable expert. Hence, Bourne's primary recommendation for policy makers is timely and appropriate. As the intent of this programme is superb, but the structure is highly flawed.

Despite the entire positives that were created by Dr. Martin, outside of the structures, given the particular readiness of the students, the presently designed intervention is inappropriate. The programme failed to significantly impact on graduate students inadequacies as their problems were different from the intervention offered by the department.

Overall, the course was not a waste of valuable resources but it was restricted by the structure alone with the infrastructural problems. The latter problem was not the primary reason for the ineffectiveness of the syllabus but the former, the structure. This course could have been more appropriate for a different group of students. The present cohort of students had mastered many of the objectives intended by the course content; and so, this intervention did not appropriately deliver to the needs of the students.