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 number of 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 profound awareness of the undergraduate language course, FD10A, within the scope that a void exist in the preparedness of graduate level students to submit relevant and appropriate language to academic journals for publications. Initially, given the coverage of SY69C’s syllabus and an understanding that a particular need exists, at this level, the author along with a number of his classmates were immensely disappointed with the structure of the SY69C curriculum.
Today marks the sixth week of a seven-week series in language training for graduate students, and so it is an opportune time to re-assess the course. The author is reminiscing on the discipline given the course sketch, and the flaws therein, in order to objectively evaluate the impact of the course.
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 not 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 the environment, having had a better appreciation for the students’ needs having taught the course for a few weeks, still that input came up short at the end. For the distinguished Dr. Martin to have adjusted the course outline somewhat in the middle of the programme, this speaks to the man’s willingness to supply the expected demand of his students. Although the challenges were many, the course failed to deliver a level of appropriateness of the people involved, given that the readiness of students was at a different level.
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. He had intended on strengthen the resolved on the students in the language. The issues were simply not only on semantic structures of the language but equality had a focus of journal. 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 its 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.
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, [other social issues only ] worsened [the] problems”. Those words highlight the fundamental importance of the programme. The learner inadequacies cannot be solved simply by providing a quality teacher, if there are socio-political issues unresolved; they further 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 positive that were created by Dr. Martin, outside of the structures, given the particular readiness of the students, the presently designed programme 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 and those were the make the ineffective of the syllabus. This course could have been more appropriate for a different group of students in that the present cohort had mastered many of the objectives implied by the course content and so, it did not appropriately deliver with the needs of the students.