ELI welcomes largest group in 10 years
Some 90-100 students arrived today at the English Language Institute for the Fall I study term. They represent the largest ELI group in a decade.
“We’re very happy to have this large enrollment,” says ELI Director Jim Hamrick. “I am especially excited that we have 19 students who are here for broader UT programs.
“Plus, there are at least 20 new Chinese and Arabic students who intend to enroll in undergraduate programs at UT when they complete ELI.”
It is the largest ELI group since fall 1997, Hamrick says.
ELI staff members were busy today registering the students and developing a split study schedule to accommodate them.
Countries with the largest number of students this fall are China, South Korea and Japan, including seven from Kansai Gaidai University.
Kansai Gaidai is known for its large Asian studies program for international exchange students as well as for its Intensive English Studies program for Japanese students planning to study abroad.
The Kansai Gaidai students will improve their oral and written English skills at ELI this fall before enrolling in UT undergraduate courses in the spring.
September 25, 2008 at 9:26 pm
You’re happy, but most of students are unhappy, to be honest.
According the information when student applied, it supposed to have 11 students in average in a class. Now, there are almost 20 students, maybe more than 20, in a class. Is it possible that students still feel happy?
Furthermore, it supposed to have 25hours per week. However, there are 22hours only in fact.
Could you please change the position to the students and think about how students feel when the students found the truth after come to ELI is different to the orignal information.
I just wanna say something it is true. sorry for the above.
September 29, 2008 at 4:27 am
Quote:
“including seven from Kansai Gaidai University.”
Comment:
I think, they are eight students from that University.
Thanks.
October 3, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Dear Blogger:
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the ELI blog.
I am sorry that your experience at ELI is not what you expected. The ELI faculty and staff will be glad to talk with you personally about your situation. But let me share another viewpoint on the concerns that you raised about class sizes and scheduled hours at ELI:
Class size:
Our class sizes have traditionally had an AVERAGE of 11 students per class. That means in some cases there are 5, 6, or 7 students, and in some classes there are 14, 15, or 16 students. The average class size for our Fall I term is 16.3. If you had been here in the summer, our average class size was just over 13 students per class.
Of course average class size is not important if YOUR class is large. At ELI, if a class is larger than 18 students, we make special efforts to split the class into two sections. For the Fall I term we split two large classes– Reading 106 and Writing 105.
Unfortunately, we were unable to split other classes because we could not hire qualified teachers for those classes. In these cases I have worked carefully with instructors to insure that students are getting adequate attention. We have also hired classroom assistants to work with the teacher in the class. At ELI, we believe it is better to have a large class with a qualified instructor than to have smaller classes with instructors who do not meet our qualifications.
As for the future, we have made arrangements to have new instructors for our Fall II term.
Class hours:
Our very high enrollments at ELI required that we modify our typical class schedule, which is 9AM-3PM Monday through Friday. Due to our high enrollments, we do not have sufficient classroom to allow all students to have the typical class schedule this term. As a result, we modified our schedule so that some classes are held on MWF mornings and T/Th afternoons; other classes are on MWF afternoons and T/Th mornings.
As for hours per week of instruction, we have reduced our core curriculum instruction as follows:
TYPICAL SCHEDULE
COURSE/HOURS
Grammar/ 5
Reading/5
Writing/5
Listening/Speaking/6
Electives/2
TOEFL/1
TOTAL: 24 hours
FALL I 2008 SCHEDULE
COURSE/HOURS
Grammar/5
Reading/5
Writing/5
Listening/Speaking/5
Elective/1
TOEFL/1
TOTAL: 22 hours
I think the biggest difference in the above schedule is the loss of one hour of Listening/Speaking in the new Fall I schedule. However, in the old schedule, most instructors would give students a 10-15 minute break (3 days per week) during listening/speaking class, thereby reducing the actual class time by 30 minutes or more per week. As a result, the six hours per week was in fact closer to 5 ½ hours., which is not so different from the 5 hours currently offered.
I hope that you can see from the above that our primary goal at ELI is offering the best English instruction possible. We regret that our high enrollments have resulted in changes that may not always be desirable. However, our goal is to help each student with his/her goal of learning as efficiently as possible. We believe that the changes we have made are our best effort at serving all of our students effectively.
Again, I would encourage you to meet with me or one of the ELI instructors if you would like to discuss your concerns further.
Jim Hamrick, Ph.D.
Director