Leading Up To Research

Monday, was all the professors first day back from break or the very extended holiday.  The campus has been busier in the last three days than it has in the last three weeks.  Yesterday, I had a meeting with Professor K, who heads up the English for Education program.  Over the past 6 months, I had emailed back and forth with her but had not up until yesterday met her in person.  She was just as lovely in person as she was over email.

A little background on the Baccalaureus Educationis (BEd) in English for Education and the program.  The English education department is small with only three professors and two lecturers (all women).  They are in charge of over 300 students who are part of the program.  Recently, they have changed the program to include an integrated model of English and education.  What that means is that these students are taught novels as part of their education classes and there are no outside or extra English classes that students attend.  One of the reasons for this, is that at NWU the medium of instruction is Afrikaans.  That means that almost all classes are taught in Afrikaans so there are no English literature classes to take.  Therefore, since these students will be English teachers their classes are not only taught in English but are taught cooperatively with the Education department.  I have my opinions on this but don't want to make any assumptions or judgements until I am fully aware of the program.

My meeting with Professor K went well.  I explained what my goals were and why I was interested in pre-service teachers and their professors/instructors. She sent me a schedule of classes for next week and told me to choose the ones I want to go into but she also suggested the ones that she thought best because the students in them have already have some exposure to literature..  She suggested (as others had as well) that I get a couple of students from each phase (there are three, Foundation, Intermediate & Senior) and interview them so I can sort of have an overview of the program.  In addition, she also offered me the chance to interview and survey the entire English for Education department as well. Interesting, but not surprising, Professor K mentioned that most of the 3rd phase of students are pretty homogeneous (white, Afrikaans, female) because of where we are situated in the country as well as NWU (mostly Afrikaans speaking); however, she said in the 2nd phase is not as homogenous because there are several Muslim and black students (mostly female in both cases), which might make for some interesting conversations.

There is an English meeting on Thursday about the semester but Professor K said she would make sure to set it all up for me.  So, there is a chance that by early next week I will be in the classrooms speaking to students about my research and getting consent forms from them as well as the professors and instructors (fingers crossed).  Nonetheless, I am both nervous and excited about starting my research next week.  As is the case most of the time, I am nervous that my research won't show or offer any new or interesting material for education research.  However, I think at the same time this makes for some interesting research as well.  Also, since I am not in my environment, I want to make sure I follow the correct protocol and don't make anyone feel uncomfortable.  Lastly, since I am not using my students (and don't have any relationship with them) I am unsure of how the interviews will go.  But I guess you can say this is all part of the research experience!



Interesting fact: One of the 1st semester Intermediate phase courses has a 50% fail rate.  It is on of the hardest classes because of the readings (literature mostly) as well as the workload.  I was so shocked because I am pretty sure there are no classes like that in a majority of the undergraduate education programs in the United States.  Professor K told me they begin Foundation phase with 100 students and by the time they get through the above class they are down to 50-60.  However,  some of the students choose to retake the exam to see if they pass and that brings the numbers back up a bit (if they pass).  I swear if we has something like that in undergraduate education, there would be numerous students who would chose not to be a teacher!