PERCEPTIONS ABOUT LITERACY BY STUDENTS AT UWC AND CPUT:
TOWARDS A NEEDS ANALYSIS
VLIR-UOS: TRAINING THE TEACHERS OF THE FUTURE
Lien Dewulf, Yesim Dumont, Candice Livingston, Zannie Bock & Ellen Simon

INTRODUCTION
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Two (female) Master students (UGent, Master in Multilingual Communication) were selected (in
March 2018) to write their theses on the perception of literacy practices and needs by students
at UWC and CPUT
UWC:
Ma student: Lien Dewulf
Supervisors: Ellen Simon & Zannie Bock
CPUT:
Ma student: Yesim Dumont
Supervisors: Ellen Simon & Candice Livingston
VLIR-UOS Team Project: ‘Training the Teachers of the Future:
Language Policy and Literacy at Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT)’
First step: needs analysis
- data collection July-Sept. 2018
- submission of final thesis: May or August 2019

PERCEPTIONS OF LITERACY PRACTICES AND NEEDS
BY STUDENTS AT UWC
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RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Main RQ: What are the literacy practices and needs of students at the University of Western Cape, Cape
Town?
Subquestions:
RQ 1: What are students’ literacy practices?
- In which languages do they typically read and write?
- When do they read and write and why (not)?
- Do they enjoy reading and writing and why (not)?
- Do the students differ from previous and younger generations and why (not)?, etc.
RQ 2: Do students encounter difficulties during their university studies which can be related to literacy
practices or beliefs?
RQ 3: What could be the cause(s) of these potential struggles? What do students feel they need?
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METHOD
̶ Mixed-method approach by using three (quantitative and qualitative) data collection tools:
1) Language and literacy questionnaire
2) Focus group interview on literacy practices and beliefs
3) Literacy diaries by UWC students
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METHOD
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(1) Language and literacy questionnaire
Participants:
 Number: 112 students completed the questionnaire
 Age: range: 17-45, but majority: 20-21
 Gender: 78 female, 31 male, 1 X, 2 undisclosed
 Degree: various
Design:
 Google form, completed online on smartphone
 28 questions: X on personal background information and X on reading and writing
Procedure:
 30-40 students recruited through announcements on the digital UWC platform Ikamva; the
remaining 80-90 students were personally recruited on campus by the researchers
Analysis
 quantitative analysis performed by google

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(2) Focus group interview
Participants:
 Number: 5
 Gender: 2 m, 3 f
 Age: 21-24
 Degrees: various: Ba in Industrial Linguistics (2), Ba in Industrial Psychology & Ethics, Ba in Industrial
Psychology & Sociology, Honours in Linguistics
Design:
 16 open questions, divided over 6 themes:
(1) home language histories
(2) reading habits
(3) literacy & social media
(4) writing habits
(5) struggles with (academic) literacy

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Procedure:
 Students were interviewed by two researchers
 Interview was recorded
 Duration: 1h7min
Analysis
 Transcriptions in Word
 Data were coded in NVIVO, creating ‘nodes’

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(3) Language diaries
Participants:
 Number: 8 randomly selected
 Degree: all attending the literacy course by Prof.
Zannie Bock
Instructions:
Procedure
 Oral and written instructions provided in class
 Keeping the diary was part of a compulsory course
assignment
Analysis
 tba

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RESULTS: FOCUS GROUP INTERVIEW
• Attitude towards (multi)literacy
• Technology
• Attitude towards reading
• Childhood reading habits
• Comparison with previous
generation
• Comparison with younger
generation
• Attitude towards writing
• Studies
• Struggles
• Suggestions

RESULTS (1): ATTITUDES TOWARDS READING
 Some inter-student variability
 Majority do not enjoy reading in their free time, unless it is informative or religiously inspired
P2: […] I don’t read more than what I need to, because I don’t enjoy reading. I like reading non-fiction books, like Dr. Phil books,
almost like self-help, or to understand your brain or parenting books, random stuff like that. But when it comes to fiction, I don’t read stuff
like that. For university, I will do my readings if I feel like doing my readings. (…) I just read what I’m supposed to read.
P2: Yes, but it can’t be fiction. Don’t give me some story about love. It must be…
R2: You want to use the knowledge.
P2: I want to be able to use the knowledge and learn something. Not just reading.
 Reading social media posts are not considered as ‘actual reading’, because there are visuals or hashtags attached to the posts,
which makes it easy to skip the text
R1: But when you’re reading on your phone, it’s also reading so… Don’t you read a lot on your phone? Like on social media, something
like that.
P5: There’s visuals attached to it.
P2: There’s visuals attached to it. It’s much easier.
P1: You don’t necessarily have to read the text, you can see what’s going on in the picture. Pictures provide more information.
So what we tend to do is – we live in such a fast pace life – we just go through the images, we don’t bother reading the text. And if we
do read the text, […].
P5: Yes, and now there’s these hashtags, which summarise the whole thing.
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RESULTS (2): LITERACY IN OLDER GENERATION
 One of the interviewees thinks that she reads more now than her (grand)parents did and do, because it was more important for past
generations to provide for their family.
P1: Yes, definitely, because if you think about it, our parents and our grandparents grew up in an age where literacy in school wasn’t as
important as going out and providing for their family. Today, having a working knowledge of languages, that’s very important. So, we do
read much more than our parents do and the fact of being a university student means that you are required to read much more. On
a daily basis, I would probably read ten times more than my family would read.
 The other five interviewees believe that they read less now than that their (grand)parents did and do, because information is more
accessible and visual now.
P4: [about his grandfather who came from India to SA:] During the day, he would open the shop and in the evening, he would go to Saint
James to go learn the English language. They told him to buy books and whatever. The books that we have now, which are fifty or
sixty years old, are his from back then. After he went to the reading and writing courses, he took books and started making notes in
them and the language that they used. […] But for me, I read a lot less than they did, both of them, in both generations. […]. I’m not
a big reader actually.
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RESULTS (3): ATTITUDES TOWARDS WRITING
 2/5 participants write in their free time
 Purpose: rationalising thoughts, coping with emotions
̶ P5: If I am emotional about someone or something, instead of me going to the person, I write about it. Like: ‘This was actually
really stupid, come on. Why did I get angry over such a thing?’
̶ P2: It helps you rationalise your thoughts. Sometimes, I struggle with prayers. To pray in front of people, to pray out loud, I find it
difficult to do that. I don’t know why.
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 None of the students enjoy reading assignments at university, but they all agree these are an essential part of their courses.
̶ R1: Do you think those are essential to get or would a course be fine without all the assignments?
̶ P5: They are essential to get, because they give you the knowledge on the course.
 Students notice the gap between language at home and language at university / the language that they now use.
̶ P1: When I speak to my family now, my cousins are all at university, or when I’m working on my thesis, I make sure there are words in there. I don’t
come with ‘but’ and ‘so’. We’re going to use some words.
̶ P5: But it does can get… Like: ‘Om my gosh, you’re so nonchalant.’ What is that? How do you explain ‘nonchalant’ to a twelve-year-old? They
become you and you expect the next person to know and understand, because it’s now who you are.
̶ P2: I take it home. When I speak, like in church meetings and when I’m writing out speeches and stuff for use and for church, it looks like
academic writing. It’s scary, because I can’t relate to people who are younger than me. The way that I have to write academically, is like I write
academically for younger people. They also can’t relate. I sent the speech to someone and they had to simplify it, because it was too much like
‘therefore’… There were so many discourse markers in there. I didn’t know how to simplify it. (…)
 Also: reading for fun is seen as  analytic reading
P1: The thing I’ve noticed with my reading is that before university, I read for fun. There was a site shift in our reading. Before, I read the words and
there was a story behind the words and that was it. Now, I read the words, the story behind the words, and I analyse what’s being said in the novels.
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RESULTS (4): (STRUGGLES WITH) ACADEMIC LITERACY

RESULTS LITERACY DIARIES
̶ Not analysed yet.
̶ An example:
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PERCEPTIONS OF LITERACY PRACTICES AND NEEDS
BY STUDENTS AT CPUT
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CPUT:
Ma student: Yesim Dumont
Supervisors: Ellen Simon & Candice Livingston

AIMS & RESEARCH QUESTIONS
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RESEARCH QUESTIONS:
RQ1. What are the literacy needs of students at CPUT?
RQ2. What do students struggle with in their daily lives at CPUT?
RQ3. Do we observe differences between literacy needs and practices between CPUT Tourism students and
Education students?
BROADER AIMS:
 Gain insight into the multilingual / multimodal language practices of students at CPUT
 Gain insight into the perceptions of students on their literacy and language practices
 Work towards an analyis of CPUT students’ literacy needs (in two different disciplines)

METHOD
Mixed-method approach by using two (quantitative and qualitative) data collection tools:
1) Language and literacy questionnaire
2) Focus group interviews on literacy practices and beliefs
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METHOD
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(1) Language and literacy questionnaire
Participants:
 Number: 79 students at CPUT completed the questionnaire
 Age: 20-29 (majority: 21)
 Gender: 11 male, 68 female
 Degree: 60 study Education, 19 study Tourism
Design:
 same questionnaire as in Lien Dewulf’s research
Procedure:
 Participants recruited through
• online CPUT platform (Blackboard)
• 3 presentations with link to google form
• social network of buddies
Analysis
 quantitative analysis performed by google and manually corrected by the researcher

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(2) Two focus group interviews
Focus group interview 1 Focus group interview 2
Participants:
N = 6
Gender: 6 f
Age: 20-23
Degree: Education (3rd year)
Duration: 1h3min
Participants:
N = 4
Gender: 2 f, 2 m
Age: 20-29
Degree: Tourism (3rd year)
Duration: 0h45 min
Design: same as in De Wulf’s study
Procedure: recruited with the help of CPUT buddies
Analysis: same as in De Wulf’s study
 Transcriptions in Word
 Data were coded in NVIVO

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RESULTS QUESTIONNAIRE: MULTILINGUALISM

RESULTS QUESTIONNAIRE: READING
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“I don’t read books” + one or less than one a year = 49%
2 or 3 books = 31%
4 or more = 20%

RESULTS QUESTIONNAIRE: WRITING
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RESULTS FOCUS GROUP INTERVIEWS
• Literacy perceptions
• Attitude literacy / reading / writing
• Comparison generations
• Studies
• Needs
• Struggles
• Time management
• Literacy practices
• Childhood reading habits
• Current reading habits
• Writing habits
• Education students: teaching in the future

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 Education students: positive attitude towards reading (‘I like reading’, ‘I love reading’)
 Some students: instrumental motivation: reading is seen as a way to get knowledge into your brain
RESULTS (1): ATTITUDES TOWARDS READING
- Male2 I want to learn. And reading is the best thing. Reading is magic, [because… (laughs)]
- YD [(laughs) That’s nice.]
- Male2 [Seriously], it’s, it’s and it’s, it’s basically time travel as well, because someone could have written
a book a hundred years ago and if I read it today, the ideas and concepts of..are, immediately, when I
read it, transmitted to my, to my brain and then I gain that knowledge as well.

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RESULTS (2): STRUGGLING WITH LITERACY AT UNIVERSITY
 Perceived gap between students’ expectations and lecturers’ expectations viz. academic texts
- YD Umm, do you recall having ever, having ever, ever having struggles with a text that you had to
read for one of your courses at university?
[…]
- FemM In our very, very first honors class this year, we received an article from X, um,
he said nothing, he just gave it to us and said prepare this for our next lesson, and everyone came back and
they were like “what is this? (laughing) Because the language was at such a high level (…)
- FemM So, that was a very big, and I thought my English (school) was quite I (dunno), (laughing) but I had, like
a real big reality check, yeah even [at this level.]
- FemL I think the teacher, [she expects…] I think she expects more of us than we actually know, or than we
actually can give her. Em, and then she gives us these highly intellectual things that are for like doctors to use and
that’s, that’s what she expects from us.

 Perceived causes of the struggles: medium of instruction / vocabulary
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YD {22:01} [And was it then] just the vocabulary, [or was…]
FemM [Vocabulary, yeah.]
YD [it] like the sentence structure [that was]
FemM [The sentence structure] was fine, I think, I could manage that. That was okay. Um, but, some
of the vocabulary was way above my head, so...
FemL Em: we experienced the same (.) problem with math.
YD Mhm.
FemL Not knowing the, what they ask. We struggle with the, we struggle with the words and
vocabulary in English [in math.]
YD [In Math?]
FemL In Math, yes.
YD At the university?
FemL Yes.
YD Okay.

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RESULTS (3): PERCEIVED NEEDS
 Glossaries?
YD [Yeah, but like for the reading assignments], for example, would you like to see that changed?
Like, would you like them to provide you with glossary lists? Or?
FemL Yes. [Definitely]
FemT [Yeah!]
Male2 [Yes!]
YD Like, easier in the beginning…
FemL Yeah!
FemT Definitely.
YD Okay.
FemL But, um, yeah, I don’t think it’s, I think it’s time consuming for them to then translate it
because she gets her notes from a [book.] She just copies it from a book and then hands it out, so it’s
not…
YD [Okay,] Yes.
FemT But a glossary would be very nice.
FemE But I also think a glossary would also help when you (work) with an article now, then you don’t have to
go do the, if you’re not, don’t want to go have to do the effort or you don’t have the time then they give
you a glossary so you can still try and understand it better. [Spoon feeding.]

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 Clear expectations / planning & deadlines
FemT So I like it when someone says to me from the beginning “okay, this and this and this is gonna
happen. This is what I’m gonna expect from you in this, in this time.”
FemL They do have like a, a book or a leaflet that they give us at the start of every year when they say okay
“This week we’re gonna do this and this and this” and with the specific dates, but they never follow it. And we get
a rooster, and a, um…
FemT Project rooster.
FemL Yes, but it’s also subject [to change.]
 tutors
LD And did you get any help from a tutor, some, or a friend or?
FemL Friend.
LD Friend, yeah?
FemL Google, Google is my best friend. (laughs)
LD So you don’t have any tutors?
FemL Not in Math.

FINGINGS TO BE DISCUSSED…
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 Some students perceive their own literacy to be limited (‘I’m not a big reader’, ‘we don’t bother reading the
posts’, ‘I don’t enjoy reading’,…), but there are differences between students (‘I love reading’)
 Reading: instrumental motivation: transfer of knowlege
(‘Don’t give me a love story.’ ‘The ideas are transmitted to my brain.’)
 Writing: rationalize their thoughts and emotions
 ~Stuart’s intervention: DEBATING (= reading and writing to gain knowledge, find evidence, structure
arguments,…)

 Perceived gap between language used inside and outside university is big and unsettling (‘It’s scary.’)
 Perceived gap between lecturers’ expectations and students perceived abilities / knowledge (‘she
expects more of us than we actually know’)
 Students have the feeling they have a lot on their minds and they are always pressed for time (time
management issue?).
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We wish to thank:
 All staff members and lecturers at UWC and CPUT and especially Dr. Candice Livingston, Dr. Hannlie
Dippenaar, Dr. Johan Anker, Dr. Zannie Bock and Mr. Stuart Strauss for help with the students’ projects (finding
buddies, getting ethical clearance, helping with the recruitment, etc.)
 All students at UWC and CPUT who completed the questionnaire
 All students at UWC and CPUT who took part in the focus group interviews
 The students’ buddies at UWC and CPUT, Melanie Muller, Corné Conradie and Rushaad White, for help with
the data collection and the integration of Lien en Yesim in the university community.
 Dr. Annelies Verdoolaege for help with the selection of the Ma students
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