Dr Turnoi

It is really a misnomer to describe the English Language departmet as a 'university' faculty or department. It is simplly a language school akin to any private language school around the world which happens to be on the university campus. There are no university level course offered in the school - it is a place where students are meant to be offered the opportunity to improve their English language skills to an IELTS band 6.0. At 500 USD a semester (IELTS 6.0 is a requirement for graduation).

The business faculty is the only faculty offering (somewhat) academic courses in English. Due to the extremely poor standards of English offered by the students after the previous head of the English department was forced out, some dedicated lecturers fought to have IELTS 6.0 as a requirement for entry into the business faculty (rather than merely before graduating). While this was a positive result in some ways by those lecturers, the result is that the English department is now run as a cram school for IELTS. Students are taught to the test and drilled repeatedly in IELTS style tests to attempt them to achieve the requisite score but without any true understanding of the language itself. The result of this is falling standards as business lecturers are forced by circumstance (and the vice dean) to dumb down content and assessment to ensure students have some shot at actually passing their courses.

Many students are discovering that it is better for them to study English outside the university, master the levels properly and then return to their undergraduate studies. It is sad but true that a 'degree' from EIU will soon have no value to the wonderful students, except perhaps as a feeder to the company that bulit the university.