Towards a Needs Analysis of why Students in a Ghanaian University Fail the Academic Writing Course

Abstract

In the last two and half decades, academic literacy has received considerable attention in tertiary education in several English-medium universities. Consequently, English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and analogous writing programs have constantly been revised in the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Australia, especially with the objective of meeting the needs of students. Contrarily, EAP programs in most countries in sub-saharan Africa, including Ghana have received very little innovation and change. In this paper, we moot the idea that the principal reason for which a vast majority of students fail an EAP program (Academic Writing) in an English-medium university in Ghana stems from the lack of correlation between the course curriculum/classroom pedagogy and the course examination. To this end, we propose key changes to the curriculum, and conclude with a discussion of some implications worth considering for both curriculum designers and implementers of EAP in university education.

DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2014.v4n6p167