Reasons for University Students to Enrol in Optional English Preparatory Programmes

Programme planning and syllabus design in foreign language teaching are often constrained when learners’ specific purposes to learn the target language are not clearly defined. In spite of its tertiary education context, optional preparatory programmes at universities face distinct challenges as it may not be clear whether learners attend those programmes to pursue academic, occupational or social purposes. Besides, programme makers often have to consider the learners’ low proficiency entry levels and varying interests because preparatory programmes are open to students of all faculties. Therefore, programme makers often select general English coursebook series as the material to be used throughout the course. As a result, learners may experience dissatisfaction when their reasons to enrol in optional preparatory programmes are not sufficiently addressed. To deal with this issue, this study seeks to explore the incentives of students who selected an optional English preparatory programme at a public university in Türkiye. Using surveys with open-ended questions delivered at the beginning and the end of the academic year, the participants were asked about their incentives to spend one year in the preparatory programme and their intentions to use English in the future. Additionally, it was examined if the preparatory programme experience changed their intentions to use the language and to what extent they believed the programme matched their expectations. 175 students attended the survey at the beginning of the year, and 134 students at the end. Using qualitative content analysis, the results will help understand learners’ intentions to select optional English preparatory programmes and provide programme makers and teachers with valuable information to decide on important aspects such as the selection of materials, the decision of whether or not to run skills-based courses within the programme and the implementation of tasks that are tailored to meet the learners’ specific needs.