An inquiry into the English proficiency of foreign postgraduate students at the University of Cape Town and their academic literacy needs in English

Abstract

The aims of this dissertation are to examine the situation of foreign, non-English speaking postgraduate students coming to UCT for their studies and to enquire if they have any difficulties in coping with English as the medium of instruction. Postgraduate students from any country, apart from South Africa, for whom English is a foreign language (EFL) have been my targets. I aimed to identify some of the problems if any faced by those students to determine the possible causes and to propose ways to deal with the problems identified. I used an ethnographic approach to gather my data.