4.2.4. Obstacles of learning English and some suggested
solutions
4.2.4.1. Obstacles of learning English
Various obstacles were mentioned in the responses that students
felt prevent them from learning English. From the data collected, it could be
inferred that the
«availability of French» (40%) is the primary
obstacle facing students' learning of English. Therefore, because French is the
second language in Tunisia, Tunisian university science students face some
problems in learning English. However, the obstacles are mostly of
administrative order as 60% of them relate to the administration and the system
of education in the visited institutions. This is interesting as it could
reflect that those administrations are not considering students competence in
English among the needed priorities that necessitate special care and
management.
4.2.4.2. Some proposed solutions
The most proposed solution among the five suggested in the
questionnaire is «increasing the coefficient of English» (31%). This
reflects awareness on their parts that students are instrumentally motivated.
Therefore increasing the coefficient of English would be a relevant and
practical solution if the policy makers were really interested in raising the
level of science students' competence in English.
Needless to mention also students' claimed need to be more
exposed to English in order to promote learning it. This fact could be deduced
from their argument that «establishing English clubs» (21%) and
«increasing the time allocated to English» (18%) is the best solution
to promote learning it. Therefore, the suggestions of students evolve around
the idea of improving proficiency level, through increasing the coefficient of
English, and changing the pedagogy of teaching it, through adopting new ways of
teaching. Students also emphasise the idea of implementing new and more
creative ways of teaching English (44%), which could be inferred from their
choice of the two alternatives «obliging teachers to use tape recorders
and multimedia in teaching English» (23%) and «establishing English
clubs in every university» (21%). It seems that there is a feeling of
discontent among the students from the pedagogy used
to teach English to them as they are suggesting innovative
pedagogy of teaching that consists of extra curricular activities and using
technological devices instead of the traditional methods based on transactional
routines.
4.3. The use of English among Tunisian university
students
In general, it could be said that 89% of the students were
obliged in some situations to use English while the number of those who claimed
they have «never» been in such situations is 11%. Such a figure
reflects students' real need for English that is not met by the institutions as
revealed in the proposed solutions.
Data collected from the section dealing with the use of
English indicates also that French dominates students' use of language in their
mobile phones (81%) but indicating at the same time that English is the second
choice (15%) before any «other» language (4%). Clearly, as far as
French is concerned, this is proof that it has over the decades secured a
prominent position in the daily lives of Tunisians especially among the
educated. The fact that students were not using Arabic is striking. This could
be interpreted as reflecting an attitude that Arabic is not the language of
technology (such is the case of mobile phones in this question.)
Nearly half of the students (47%) claimed that they have sent
e-mails written in English, which is an interesting rate especially when
putting into consideration the availability of French and the difficulties they
reported they faced when expressing themselves in English. Concerning this
issue, English seems to be rivalling French even though we can doubt the level
of English used.
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