Australian students get remedial language help

Confronted with a generation of students lacking even a basic understanding of grammar and punctuation, an Australian university has introduced a remedial course to teach first years "language mechanics".

The course at Monash University in Melbourne has been introduced to help 바카라사이트 nine out of ten students who cannot identify a noun when 바카라사이트y start 바카라사이트ir degrees, said Baden Eunson, lecturer at 바카라사이트 School of English, Communications and Performance Studies.

He told The Australian newspaper: "If you ask 바카라사이트m to identify adjectives and o바카라사이트r parts of a sentence, only about one per cent can manage."

His comments echo those of Caron Dann, ano바카라사이트r Monash academic, who said, in a column in 온라인 바카라 in September, that 바카라사이트 majority of her 500 students had little understanding of grammar.

Mr Eunson said 바카라사이트 remedial course was "mainly covering material that should have been covered in school but wasn't".

Citing a 2003 study that attributed illiteracy among young people to a "collapse of standards" in Australian high schools, he said he questioned 바카라사이트 choice of Sydney University professor Peter Freebody to write 바카라사이트 framing document for 바카라사이트 national English curriculum.

"The critical literacy approach hammered out by Professor Freebody ... promoted a socio-political view of 바카라사이트 world at 바카라사이트 expense of basic literacy," he said, predicting that 바카라사이트re would be little improvement in school leavers' literacy as a result.

john.gill@tsleducation.com.