4.2 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
4.2.9. Theme: 9 Accessibility
Lecturers’ responses touched only on physical and cultural accessibility.
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P1: “The majority is obviously African … I try to draw examples from the students, so the students try to talk about something and use that as an example… I stay not very far from the campus, I use my personal car to be here on time every day.”
P2: “I use my personal vehicle to come to campus whenever I feel like, even at night because my place is about 15 minutes’ drive from here … The majority are African and then Indian and coloured, there are no whites… I try to draw examples from the students, so the students try to talk about something and use that as an example.”
P3: “Well I don’t stay on campus, however, any time I want to be on campus I just drive… if there are 70% Africans and 30% Indian I would certainly use examples that are coming from their backgrounds.”
P4: “Most of the students do not come from a stable financial background … The majority are black Africans … sometimes on weekends and if I need to be accessed I may drive to campus.”
P5: “… almost 95% of them they use NSFAS to fund their studies… they are like its payday today, you have to accommodate such situations …”
Regarding the students, P1 stated that “The majority is obviously African and we have a bigger percentage of Indian as compared to coloureds and whites”. P3 added “if there are 70%
Africans and 30% Indian I would certainly use examples that are coming from their backgrounds”. P4 added that “the majority are black Africans”. P2 said “I try to draw examples from the students, so the students try to talk about something and use that as an example” (cultural accessibility). In addition, P1 noted “I stay not very far from the campus, I use my personal car to be here on time every day”, while P2 indicated that “I use my personal vehicle to come to campus whenever I feel like, even at night because my place is about 15 minutes’ drive from here”. P3 asserted that “well I don’t stay on campus, however, any time I want to be on campus I just drive”, and P4 that “sometimes on weekends and if I need to be accessed I may drive to campus”. Only P5 was silent on physical accessibility (physical accessibility).
Studies indicate that the lecturers’ understanding of whom they teach and their availability play a major role in effective teaching (Bozarth, 2012; Del Carpio & Del Carpio, 2015; Erasmus, 2013; Frey et al., 2017; Sosibo & Katiya, 2015a). Moreover, studies revealed that accessibility has three components: financial, physical and cultural. Horsthemke, Siyakwazi, Walton, and
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Wolhuter (2013) affirmed that cultural accessibility was defined as the cultural backgrounds of the students, which may influence lecturers’ teaching strategies. Cultural accessibility causes English lecturers to be driven by verbal strategy, because the lecturer might use students’
different cultures and languages to explain the incidents in a play or novel with the aim of connecting the content with the context of the students. (For instance, asking students to explain the process of bride-taking from Zulu culture to make students relate to the Shakespearean play Romeo and Juliet.) Physical accessibility refers to the contact time lecturers spend with students in a teaching and learning environment and the availability of lecturers to the students for consultation (Erasmus, 2013; Perrault & Clark, 2017; Sosibo & Katiya, 2015a). Physical accessibility causes English lecturers to be influenced by habitual strategies, because for them to be accessed or available to students they use different means of transportation. Moreover, in physical contact with the students English lecturers may use the different physical environments to allow for different methods to convey the content to the student. For instance, after getting to the lecture venue the lecturer may use some physical gestures to teach a certain text. In addition, Hill-Zuganelli et al. (2017) concur with Perrault and Clark (2017) that financial accessibility is referred to students’ financial state in terms of financial aid schemes, bursaries, scholarships and so on. Financial accessibilitywas not a major focus for lecturers as they are not directly involved with students’ funding.
The findings revealed that participants responded on physical accessibility as well as cultural accessibility. P1, P2, P3 and P4 revealed various issues on the basis of cultural accessibility, such as that the majority of their students are black Africans compared to Indians, coloureds and whites. This suggests that decolonisation of the English curriculum causes lecturers to be aware of students’ religion, race, language and culture, so that they teach using relevant examples that students can relate to. By so doing lecturers used verbal strategies and indicated that students’ experiences drove the lessons as the lecturers’ examples came from these.
Moreover, P1, P2, P3 and P4 responded on physical accessibility, indicating that they avail themselves to students using their own personal transportation. This suggests that lecturers also used habitual strategies to decolonise the curriculum by listening to individual students’ issues to improve their teaching. However, the findings showed that cultural and physical accessibility were used equally, which suggests that most lecturers use habitual and verbal strategies to decolonise the curriculum. The English Major 420 course outline (2018) was silent on accessibility.
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