Creating language awareness: Teaching and learning of remedial grammar and vocabulary for effective language use

Abstract

Remedial language teaching is widely significant in identifying language related problems of the students and in providing them sufficient guidance to overcome from their language learning difficulties in academia. In this pursuit, Remedial English Course (REC) is introduced to the lateral entry students who have newly enrolled in the second year of Computer Science Engineering course in a reputed engineering college in Tamil Nadu, India. A diagnostic test is administered to analyze the language skills of the students. It is found that the students are almost poor in the basic grammar and they are not able to use appropriate vocabulary to construct good sentences. In light to overcome their language difficulties, a remedial course is conducted for developing their language skills to communicate effectively in both academic and social contexts. Error analysis and remedial measures for learning adequate grammar and vocabulary is undertaken to help the students explicitly learn language components in both discrete sentences and paragraphs. With teacher guided and peer reviewed learning process, students are made familiar to apply and understand the literary and practical use of language components to efficiently communicate in any given contexts.