My Experience in University of Ghana

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My Experience to University of Ghana Lecturer

After our visit to the centre for abused children, we went off to the University of Ghana for lunch. We had a look at the food hall, and it looked like there was a separate table for lecturers, just like in Hogwarts. There’s an interesting relationship between lecturers and students here in Ghana; it’s quite distant compared to in the UK.

Everyone split up into their respective departments and went off to lectures. Unfortunately I can’t speak for the Law and PPR students, but I thought the style of the linguistics lecture was pretty fascinating. The linguistics students had a choice between a lecture on syntax or language development. We decided on the latter, although I wouldn’t have minded a syntax discussion.

The most striking feature was the lack of air conditioning – everyone was incredibly warm, and even the lecturer was wiping his forehead. Students sat on long wooden benches and make extensive notes – the lecturer spoke rather slowly so that everything could be copied down.

Interestingly, rather than just taking notes like at Lancaster, the lecturer invited students to engage in a five or ten minute discussion with each other. They were instructed to write a paragraph about a specific discussion point, and then some would stand up and read it aloud to the rest of the lecture theatre. It’s a really different style of teaching to what we are used to in the UK.

It’s rather difficult to compare classes between Lancaster University and the University of Ghana because we only attended one lecture. The module was about “language development,” and the specific discussion point was focused on how the mass media can aid national development.









I thought the lecture was quite sociological in a sense, rather than being strictly focused on language. For example, the lecturer discussed how information about the latest crop can be transmitted through the mass media, thereby leading to a more developed country and economy. He listed a series of other examples which highlight the importance of the mass media. I personally didn’t think it was all that focused on language, other than the fact that the very presence of a mass media constitutes as a form of language. It wasn’t really focused on the development of language itself.







Regardless, I did think it was really interesting to attend a lecture in Ghana. It was a good opportunity to get an insight into university life here, and therefore really understand how our two cultures differ.

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