RESPECT University Launches New Course

Amongst many other initiatives, RESPECT University has recently started providing a course for students of three affiliated refugee schools in Africa entitled "English for Academic Purposes."

The course has been set up for students from Agoro Community Development Association (ACDA) in Uganda and the Mohomou Refugee School in Guinea. It is also hoped that the course program will soon be operating in Nigeria.

Initially, course administration was carried out by email between RESPECT International coordinator, Marc Schaeffer, the local RESPECT coordinators, Tom Fred Obonyo, Samuel Boateng and Francis Abayomi, and RESPECT University tutor from the UK, Iona Lister. The local coordinators were asked to select some students from their area who were interested in doing the course.

Iona Lister worked to prepare the design of the course, and wrote initial assignments, liaising with Marc Schaeffer and other tutors. The program is intended to serve the needs and interests of the individual learners; therefore, students are given personalized teaching support for their English needs and aspirations. As this involves distance learning, the course is confined to writing and reading rather than speaking and listening skills.

Students receive tuition via the post. RESPECT is hopeful that soon, the course work may be extended for on-line participation of the students in some areas where this may be possible.

Everyone involved is enthusiastic about the course. Despite being challenging and requiring a large amount of time and commitment from the students, it aims to be enjoyable too.