University Students' Attitudes Towards and Experiences of Bilingual Classrooms

To improve throughput rates in higher education it is important to investigate ways in which instruction can be made more effective when students have to use language(s) that are not their home or primary language. At the University of Stellenbosch, as is the case elsewhere in South Africa, a language policy and implementation plan was formulated in 2002 to manage language in education issues. One of the options for language use in the class is bilingual teaching which is seen as one way of dealing with language diversity without complete duplication of classes and materials. Most students seem to get by with this kind of support but in this project the question is whether existing bilingual teaching practices at a South African university are efficient from the students' perspective. This project describes specific stipulations in the language policy and evaluates some of the common practices and the insights they offer into the ways in which students deal with bilingual classes and use bilingual study techniques.