When the playing fields aren´t even: personalised attention in the multilingual, varied-ability classroom

This paper describes an English-language application developed within an educational system undergoing radical change. Since the mid-1990s, South African education has moved from a dual system favouring one privileged class, to one that embraces integration and equality. This move has been complex and fraught with the difficulties inherent in incorporating disadvantaged pupils from multilingual backgrounds into previously-´advantaged´ classrooms with English as the principle medium of tuition. In order to cope with widely-varying student needs, an interactive computer-based application has been created to enable students to diagnose their own specific weaknesses and to provide personalised assistance in overcoming them. Results demonstrate that the system is highly effective in improving students´ performance, establishing a closer sense of personal attention, and in alleviating the pedagogical stresses experienced by instructors in an extremely demanding educational environment.