IELTS Research Reports

Gaynor Lloyd-Jones, Charles Neame and Simon Medaney8.1.2 Large student groups with a shared language other than EnglishCourse Directors considered that social and cultural integration of NNES students were importantfactors for academic and linguistic progress. Almost all Directors cited the challenge that a largeminority group of monolingual students could present because of the attendant risk of delayedintegration. The tendency to form social cliques diminishes opportunities to improve English languageand discourages enculturation.Extract 6“About a third of our students are French and most of our European partner universitieshave a limit of four or five maximum on the MSc and, within an option, they’re not happyif there’s more than two because experience occasionally has shown that they form a clique,just speak in their native language and their English really does not improve at all.”SAS1A Course DirectorThe resulting deleterious effects on learning and academic progress can affect the experiences ofnative English speakers as well as NNES students and are particularly evident in group projects. Allsave one Course Director paid considerable attention to the balanced allocation of students to groupsfor group work with regard to nationality and English language proficiency as well as academic ability.The courses selected to highlight this issue, SAS1 and SOE3, demonstrated how careful matching ofselection decisions to course design and delivery can help to diminish any barriers arising from thepresence of large minority groups of this nature within a cohort. In the SOE3 programme, for instance,every student gives a weekly oral presentation about their individual work to the group for the first sixmonths of the course. In SAS1, the sharing of group projects between students on different Optionspermits contact with a wider and varying group of students. The same considerations extended to theselection of students on the smaller Options and some programmes with small classes.8.1.3 Class sizeThere was no evidence that class size affected selection decisions independent of demand or due to thepresence of a majority NNES student group with a shared language other than English.8.2 Course Directors’ use of English test scores in the selection process8.2.1 General selection criteriaIn selecting suitable students, Course Directors are primarily concerned with the assessment ofacademic ability and potential to undertake study at Masters level (see Extracts 2 and 3). Directorsrepeatedly emphasised the difference between undergraduate and postgraduate study, referring to the‘intensity’ of Masters study such that study time was jealously protected as described in Extract 7:Extract 7“It’s a case of the cost of time and how we can schedule it into what is already a nine to fiveprogramme, five days a week. There are lots of things that people say well can you introducethis or that on the course and I say we can do but something else has got to give. We can’tkeep on adding more things in. If we add something in we have to take something out.”SOE3 Course DirectorCourse Directors were looking for motivated, confident students capable of expressing themselveswell and conveying arguments within their field (see Extract 3). These are important capabilities given154 www.ielts.org