Future studies and note-taking

Background

• Artificiality of listening practice in the classroom, teach strategies but not enough

• Students not generally doing a lot of additional listening practice

• Students unaware of how challenging mainstream lectures can be

• Students impatient to get on with their studies• Students with weak note-taking skills• Comfort zone of EL classroom• Motivation/fear

The assignment

For this assignment you will attend a Wintec course you are interested in. You will work in groups to gain experience and understanding of lectures and classroom situations.

1.Organise to attend lectures

2.Attend lectures

3.Keep a reflective journal

4.Participate in online and classroom discussion.

Learning outcomes

• Learn more about study in New Zealand• Communicate effectively with a Wintec course

tutor• Practise your listening and note-taking skills• Analyse and reflect on the whole experience in a

journal• Complete a summary of one lecture• Discuss your experience with other groups in class

and on line• Demonstrate time management skills.

Learning opportunities

David Crabbe (2007) discusses the idea that teachers need to develop ways of helping learners to turn their experience of tasks into something they can apply for themselves outside the classroom – to maximize learning opportunities.

Tony Lynch (2009) has set up a variety of projects to encourage learners to venture outside the classroom into what he calls ‘the world out there’ (WOT) to realise learning opportunities.

Autonomy

‘The concept of autonomy is grounded in the natural tendency for learners to take control over their learning ...autonomous learning is more effective than non-autonomous learning. In other words, the development of autonomy implies better language learning.’ (Benson, p. 2)

Listening comprehension

A model of second language listening comprehension

(Flowerdew & Miller, 2005)

The process

• Questionnaire set up on survey monkey for former students who are now studying in mainstream programmes.

• 5 questions relating to how they found the assignment at the time, and 5 on how they think it has helped them (or not) in their studies now.

• Permission given for me to use their reflective journals.

• Students were offered the opportunity to meet and discuss if that was preferred.

The participants

• Former students of the Diploma in English as an Additional Language (level 5)

• 7 students responded to the survey, 6 studying Nursing and 1 studying Business

• No student wished to be interviewed.

Survey outcomesQuestion Strongly

agreeagree disagree Strongly

disagreeHelped focus me on my listening skills

1 5 1 0

Useful for listening to lectures in my future field of study

1 6 0 0

Reflective journal help me focus on the skills I needed to improve on

2 4 0 0

Helped motivate me to study harder

2 5 0 0

More useful than traditional classroom listening activities

0 6 1 0

Part 2Question Strongly

agreeagree disagree Strongly

disagreeContact with mainstream tutors gave me more confidence

3 4 0 0

It helped improved my note-taking skills

2 4 1 0

It improved my confidence

3 3 0 0

It prepared me well for mainstream lectures

3 3 1 0

It was a good orientation to my future field of study

3 3 1 0

Reflections – main threads

Initial anxiety/excitement

“I felt very intensely and anxiously. I worried if I going to the lecture, can I understand it? What teaching style are those tutors use? Are the tutors in mainstream as patient as my tutors in English course? What is the classroom like? If I have a question I can ask? Those questions made me stressful.”

“How immature am I, that during that first day I felt nearly ready to give up. And now that it’s my last day I’m so keen …”

Reflections – main threads

Shock at others’ behaviour“I notice that many students are not seriously paying attention to the tutor. Some are talking to their seatmates, txting, cutting fingernails and reading magazines, while others are drawing. I can count on my fingers how many students are all ears to the tutor. It surprises me that when the teacher cracks a joke, almost everybody laughs when in fact I can see only a few are listening.”

Reflections – main threads

Differences in teaching styles between home country/NZ and CfL mainstream

“Hardest part for me is to study with more than 100 people … study with someone unfamiliar makes me stressed. Inversely, in my English class, all the students know each other very well … we feel quite close and happy, or English class like a family.”

“In China, making notes is totally different. Teachers always writing all the important points on the blackboard and students only need to copy these points.”

“[in the Philippines] our teachers had much tighter authority and control over the class … the class sizes are usually 28-30 not four times larger.”

“The lecture tutor and English class tutor’s teaching method are different. In the lecture, the tutor just tried to explain all the information as soon as possible… on the other hand, the teacher in English class they always explain everything slowly and detailedly, point out the key information many times until all the students understand it.”

Reflections – main threads

Vocabulary load“During the lecture I realised this [vocabulary] was the challenging part of nursing course, and I must attend every class for the purpose of knowing the vocabulary.”

“The lecture was very hard to understand, especially for the academic vocabulary. I was totally aware of what Mary had told us before (when you start learning nursing, you will be required to learn approximately 100 words a day).”

Reflections – main threads

Improvement in note-taking skills

“Note-taking proved to be another difficult task during the lecture. When I concentrated on what the tutor was talking about I couldn’t take notes well,…, I couldn’t finish these two tasks simultaneously.”

“I tried my best to understand what she said and I could not take notes at the same time.”

“After the [last] lecture, I arranged all notes I took these days and I thought I have obvious progress in my listening and taking notes.”

“Using some abbreviations and focusing on the main points, I made much progress in my note-taking.”

“Taking notes is not easy task, but I felt better than before.”

Reflections – main threads

Strategies for self-improvement“This time I took notes more efficiently because I attempted to write the main points down instead of recording details.”

“I found [the tutor] was good at using volume and tone in her speaking. If she increased her voice or talked in an impassioned tone, it showed you should pay attention to this part.”

“After the lecture, I tidied up my notes and use the dictionary to search the words which I wrote down without meaning. This help me to understand the subject and build up a useful vocabulary.”

“If I want to understand the lecture well, I should do some previews on model, after class I must review it again and again.”

“This morning I was a little bit late to the lecture. Coming late is not only a shame, but I also might lose many details of the lecture. I need to be a punctual person.”

“Before the lecture, I had studied some relevant vocabulary, so I could easily understand and caught up with the content. Do the preview is an easy and strong way to study.”

Summing up ...Growing confidence“Comparing the feelings I had at the first note-taking session with those at this last note-taking session, I realise how sensitive I am to the differences I find in the education system in NZ. However, … it is expected of me to be adaptable and to go with the flow. I did not know that sooner or later, these challenges, such as the larger classroom size, the noisy classroom setting and the tutor’s seeming lack of control in her teaching style would soon become acceptable to me.”

What have we learnt?

• That we should keep the assessment• That putting students in real world situations

forces independent learning• That a massive amount of culture shock is

going on in the first weeks in lectures• That we should explore further opportunities

to remove students from the comfort of the English language classroom (WOT).

What do we need to think about?

• How can we use the learnings from these students to better prepare our students for mainstream study?

• Is there a way that we can mitigate some of the elements of culture shock, for example by teaching classes together in a lecture style format once per week?

• How can we further improve the teaching of listening and note-taking in the EAP classroom?

With heartfelt thanks to Mary Fisher, who permitted me to insert this assignment into her programme and was then forced to teach it, and to the Wintec mainstream tutors who see the value of this assignment bridging the gap. And of course, thanks to all our students.

References

Benson, P. (2001). Teaching and researching autonomy in language learning. Harlow, Essex, UK: Pearson Education Ltd

Crabbe, D. (2007). Learning opportunities: adding learning value to tasks. ELT Journal 61/2 pp.117-125

Field, J. (2008). Listening in the language classroom. Cambridge: CUP

Flowerdew, J. & Miller, L. (1992). Student perceptions, problems and strategies in second language lecture comprehension. RELC Journal, 23, pp. 60-80

Flowerdew, J. & Miller, L. (2005). Second Language listening: theory and practice. Cambridge: CUP.

Lynch, T. (2009). Teaching second language listening. Oxford: OUP