Breaking the Culture of Silence: Teaching Writing and Oral Presentation Skills to Botswana University Students

Abstract

Collaborative learning (CL) methods were evaluated by a group of 101 university students in a first-year ESL course on Communication and Study Skills. The principal objective of the new approach was to encourage students to work together, to express their ideas more freely and to learn from each other. Student opinions on a course project (applying for a job) were recorded by interview and questionnaire. The results show that students enjoyed the new approach and found it helpful, with only minor reservations. The paper discusses the results in the light of current thinking on cultural influences on teaching and learning, and points to the implications they have for third-level language pedagogy and course design.