Among the barriers facing refugee-background students (RBS) in accessing Higher Education (HE) in the UK is reaching the required academic English standard, and accessing courses to support them with this (Ashlee & Gladwell 2020: 13). In response to these barriers, the Universities of Leicester and Leeds (both in the UK) have developed the…

In this paper, we present and illustrate four principles used to develop discipline-specific academic language tutorials for students who enter university with low levels of academic language proficiency. The tutorials are part of a university-wide language support program following a post enrolment language assessment (PELA). The principles…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the major transition issues experienced by first-year students in Malaysia. In so doing, the authors compare the findings to those drawn from western contexts. Design/methodology/approach: This study applied a focus group method, conducting seven focus groups with a total of 35 business students.…

In 2008, I moved to the Republic of Ireland for 8 months to examine the independent learning of international students while they were simultaneously students and tourists. I was jointly supervised by a sociologist of education and an anthropologist of tourism, and throughout my doctoral project, I was pushed to account for my methodological…

This article describes the evaluation of a project designed to provide in-service training for teachers in rural schools in Outer Mongolia in techniques of independent and co-operative learning. Difficulties faced by Mongolian teachers in implementing a new national standards based curriculum were identified by the Mongolian State Education…

Teacher education in India, including that offered by the open distance learning (ODL) system to thousands every year, imparts mainly pedagogic knowledge, although the need for integrated teacher education programmes has been underscored. As the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), an ODL institution, will develop an integrated Bachelor…

One of the key recommendations of the Worton Review of Modern Foreign Languages provision in higher education in England (2009) is more effective collaboration between language centres and language departments. This paper presents a fully integrated model of such collaboration and develops recommendations for language centres and language…

In 1997 the British Columbia Open University (BCOU) adopted a virtualization strategy based primarily on twinning off-line independent study distance education courses (textbook-based with study guide and telephone and e-mail tutor support) with alternate online versions (textbook-based with integrated conferencing and communications provided…

Research on distance education in Mexico is still in the embryonic stage, in spite of its long history. One indication is that among the lines of research defined by the Mexican Council on Educational Research, the leading organization in the field in Mexico, distance education does not even appear. Only recently, in the last few years, has an…