ELC lecturer presents “Enhancing Learners’ Academic Achievement”
English Language Center (ELC) lecturer and Foundation Program Level 1 Coordinator Ms. Amal Said Khamis Al-Jahwari presented ‘Enhancing Learners’ Academic Achievement’ on November 8, 2018, at F-023, ELC Building.
Said presentation was the result of an action research with the same title conducted on the 3rd Semester of Academic Year (AY) 2017- 2018 with Level 1 students as respondents.
The action research conducted aimed to find out the reasons behind students’ failure in Level 1, the techniques which can be used to motivate Level 1 students and what could be done to help students pass Level 1 Level Exit Examination (LEE) based from the teachers’ perspective.
In order to conduct the study, students writing reflection, students’ questionnaire, analysis of LEE scripts (Semester 2, AY 2017- 2018) and teachers’ questionnaire were used as means to gather data.
It was found out that limited self-study was one of the top reasons why students fail the level, and studying hard is their top solution to the problem. In the analysis of the LEE scripts for Writing, grammar mistakes top the reasons for students’ mistakes, while poor spelling and lack of comprehension was found out to be the reason for failing in Listening, and lack of reading skills was cited as the reason for failing the Reading part.
As a result, 43 out of 84 students passed the level, while 33 failed, and 8 were either debarred or absent.
The team who conducted the research was headed by the presenter herself, together with the other Level 1 teachers Ms. Safiya Al Ajmi, Mr. Salim Al Badi, Ms. Liza Mathew, Ms. Catherine Manansala, with the help of Head of Section (HoS) - Curriculum and Teaching Methodologies Mr. Nasser Abdullah Al- Hindasi.
At the end of the presentation, ELC Head Mr. Ali Abdullah Al- Balushi encouraged the teachers to share the results of the action research conducted to their respective classes to raise awareness among students and to lessen the percentage of failures in each level.
A certificate of appreciation was awarded to Ms. Amal by Mr. Ali as a token of gratitude.
