Coping with Learning through a Foreign Language in Higher Education in Rwanda

Abstract

The overarching aims of this thesis are to investigate how students in higher education in Rwanda experience learning through the medium of a foreign language, mainly English, and the strategies they employ in order to successfully complete their university studies during a period of both language and educational change. Taking a sociocultural perspective, the thesis subscribes to a qualitative research design. Interviews were used in order to gain in-depth understanding of how higher education students reflect on, handle and cope with learning through a foreign language. Video and audio recorded interactions of students’ formal and informal group discussions were used to capture some of the seen but unnoticed linguistic and communicative details that might be of interest in shedding light on aspects related to learning in a foreign language. Four empirical studies show that students face different challenges in using the newly adopted language of learning and teaching. They are, however, aware of the fact that the globalisation process and dissolution of national boundaries may create new opportunities and are therefore willing to upgrade their English in order to cope with the new academic situation. Findings show that active use of multiple languages, although time consuming, has great potential to facilitate learning, thus emphasizing the complementarities rather than the exclusion of languages used in Rwanda. Also, teacher and student initiated group discussions have the potential to promote knowledge construction in content subjects as students afford a context for confident participation. Although the mother tongue is not officially recognised as language of instruction in higher education, it plays a mediating role for the negotiation of meaning of domain specific content through responsible code switching and translanguaging.