Affiliation:
1. Independent Researcher, Singapore
Abstract
In many Asian countries, tertiary education remains a much desired but seemingly unattainable goal for high school graduates, due to rigorous unified national examinations. With that in mind, international students invest millions of dollars annually attempting to enter Australian higher education (HE). Students arrive with high expectations, but in the early stages of their study abroad experience, they face a range of transitional difficulties centered around ‘academic English'. An author-developed semi-structured questionnaire included the open-ended question: In your own words, how would you describe your English language ability in terms of (1) listening, (2) speaking, (3) reading, and (4) writing? The data set collected the ‘voice' of 209 pathway students attending the Eynesbury Institute of Business and Technology (EIBT). Their self-reported narratives share personal perceptions of their own English language proficiency across the four domains largely within the context of their enrolment at the institute.
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