This presentation introduces the aims and methodology of the researcher’s on-going PhD, which explores some international students’ perceptions of the English language learning ecology in an Irish Higher Education context in order to reflect on their implications for the EAP curriculum, and for the delivery of overall successful higher education experience.
Over the past five years the number of international students in Ireland has seen a significant increase calculated in 45% (Groarke and Durst, 2019). Consequently, issues around academic skills, English language proficiency, culture, and learning environment, among others, become highly significant for these students in their process of adaptation to a new academic and cultural learning environment (Bang and Montgomery, 2013). Previous research in this area has mainly explored international students’ perceptions towards these factors independently, and generally within a controlled classroom environment (van Lier, 2016). Nonetheless, the development of new models/theories on the development of language competences increasingly point at it as a ‘non-linear, emergent phenomena’ embedded within the current socio-historical context (Kramsch, 2008: 390) that could be better captured within a dynamic multilingual and multicultural language education framework (Meier, 2017). Therefore, taking a holistic and integrated view of the multi-layered dimension of the English language ecology in the Higher Education context may provide new insights into the affordances of the English language learning environment as perceived by the students themselves (van Lier 2016). Within this context this presentation introduces the aims and methodology of my on-going PhD research, which explores some international students’ perceptions of the English language learning ecology in an Irish Higher Education context in order to reflect on their implications for the EAP curriculum, and for the delivery of overall successful higher education experience. The study employs Q methodology, a unique method and technique for data collection and analysis. Through both quantitative and qualitative tools, the method is able to deliver first-person accounts and commonly shared viewpoints with regard to a specific topic through a systematic and holistic exploration of the participants’ subjectivity (Watts and Stenner, 2011).
