The shift to Emergency Remote Teaching and Learning (ERTL) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated online learning at home for South African (and other) students. Using a critical paradigm, qualitative approach and case study design, this study, underpinned by critical theory, used interviews, voice notes and text messages to generate data to explore how South African university students’ home contexts shape their experiences of ERTL. Using thematic analysis, the findings indicated that student learning at home was negatively impacted by poor internet connectivity, home responsibilities, cramped living conditions, lack of safety, and financial and psycho-social stresses. The findings exposed the lived realities of students’ home contexts, made more difficult through the pandemic. This study adds to the literature on student adaptation to learning in the pandemic within home contexts characterised by resource poverty and challenging psycho-social conditions.

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There is a genuine need to ascertain Saudi Arabian university entrants’ English language abilities upon admission. In order to accurately determine the English language levels of students, this study evaluates the Q-Skills Placement Test (QSPT) designed by Oxford University through the most recent evaluative model in English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL); the Cambridge VRIPQ (2013) model. The data used to evaluate the efficacy and predictive power of the QSPT is obtained through both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Quantitatively, the QSPT results are statistically analyzed, whilst from a qualitative approach, interviews, and focus group discussions with teachers and students provide depth and insight. The strengths and weaknesses of the placement test are discussed here from a critical perspective with a view towards the improvement of the test. Although the test proved to be valid, it lacked the acknowledgement of the students’ context and was not able to discriminate accurately for students who scored less than 30% on the test.

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