AN INQUIRY INTO THE PERCEPTIONS, MOTIVATION, AND CHALLENGES OF REPEAT STUDENTS IN A UNIVERSITY ENGLISH LANGUAGE PREPARATORY
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Abstract
The English preparatory class is a requirement in many English-medium-instruction universities in Türkiye. Students must demonstrate sufficient language proficiency before proceeding to their majors. While some students meet this requirement through external exams, most attend the preparatory program. Alongside newcomers, each year a significant number of students repeat the program after failing the previous year. Although the case draws attention and some interventions have been implemented at some institutions and circulated informally across institutions, the reasons behind repeat students’ failure and their experiences as repeaters remains underexplored within the Turkish higher education context. Realizing this gap, therefore, this study investigates the phenomenon from the repeaters’ perspectives. A total of 163 repeaters completed an online questionnaire developed by the researcher. Following the questionnaire, five volunteer students were interviewed to get a deeper insight into their experiences. Findings revealed that although repeaters initially faced academic and emotional setbacks, many gained awareness, developed resilience, adopted more effective learning strategies and reconstructed their learner identity positively during their second attempts. It is hoped that the outcomes of this study might illuminate tertiary EFL institutions in deciding on the path to follow to increase the wellbeing and academic success of repeaters both in Türkiye and elsewhere it may be applicable.
