Undergraduates Expectations from the English Foundation Courses at Private Universities of Bangladesh

Abstract

Universities play an important role in ensuring that undergraduates are equipped with language skills relevant to the workplace requirements (Singh, 2014). Every university offer English courses which are supposed to meet the language needs of the students (Chowdhury & Haider, 2012). The private universities offer basic or fundamental courses of English language to enhance the language proficiency of students, and it is important to identify to what extent the courses are fulfilling the needs of students. The study attempted to investigate the current nature of the English foundation courses that are offered in Bangladeshi private universities. The present study aimed to focus on how much the courses are meeting the students’ needs for language competency. The present study explored students’ expectations from the English foundation courses and the usefulness of the foundation courses. The main methodologies employed in this study were questionnaire survey and interview. Data was collected from 3 private universities located in Dhaka city. For the investigation both close and open-ended questionnaire was provided to 150 students and 6 teachers were interviewed. Theoretical framework was based on relevant researches by Khan (2000), Chowdhury (2009), Chowdhury & Haider (2012), Singh (2014) and De Silva & Devendra (2014). The main findings of the study shows positive feedback from the respondents. The study provided some insights through the undergraduates’ feedback. From the findings of the study it was identified that the existing condition of English foundation courses in the private universities are regenerating to cope up with the students’ needs for personal improvement, academic success and for job purposes.