Achievement Grouping and Students’ Progress in Freshman English Classes at Feng Chia University

Abstract

Achievement grouping has been introduced in Freshman English classes in order to better cope with the wide disparities of students’ proficiency in English and, thereby, improve English instruction in higher education. This study evaluated the actual progress students in grouped classes showed after one year of English_x000D_ instruction at Feng Chia University, Taiwan. At the beginning of the first semester, all first year students had to take a pre-test and were assigned to a class according to their scores. The classes were grouped into three levels—basic, intermediate, and advanced._x000D_ At the end of the second semester the students had to take a post-test. The results of both tests were evaluated in this study and revealed significant differences in the proficiency of students. The study further showed that students in the basic level improved most, while students of the advanced level didn’t make any substantial_x000D_ progress or scored even lower than in the pre-test. The differences in the progress of_x000D_ students of different colleges were not significant. Implications of these results for_x000D_ further improvement of the Freshman English program are discussed.