BALEAP 2017 22 December 2017 Listening in Lectures: Are they transferring the skills and strategies from Pre-Sessional to PG Lectures They’ll listen how they want Christine Lee EAP Tutor University of Bristol Teacher view at PS Induction

Background – why ‘Listening’ as a topic? 22 December 2017 Overview Background – why ‘Listening’ as a topic? Pre-sessional Listening Programme 2015 Strategies taught Follow up interviews / results / implications What happened next – Pre-sessional Listening programme 2016 – collaborating with departments What now for 2017?

22 December 2017 Why ‘Listening’? “While we have learned more about the cognitive nature of listening and the role of listening in communication, L2 listening remains the least researched of all four language skills” (Vandergrift, 2006)

22 December 2017 Why ‘Listening’?

22 December 2017 Why ‘Listening’? “It is widely accepted that university lectures are much more than a way of neutrally conveying information; they are value-laden discourses in which lecturers certainly aim to inform, but also to evaluate and critique the source materials that they are bringing to students’ attention” (Lee, 2009)

Pre-sessional programme Strategies taught 22 December 2017 Pre-sessional programme Strategies taught Cognitive: decoding sound into meaning; marking relevance; making a note Metacognitive: applying background knowledge Socio-affective: seeking clarification Problem/solution strategies (see Field, 2008) Strategies applied in the lecture hall Less likely to focus on discourse clues Fewer notes than on pre-sessional Minimal prep No review/listen again

On the pre-sessional course: Student perceptions: On the pre-sessional course: “I just get distract, the distract for few minutes then I come back and I don’t know what he was talking about, yes, so I feel it’s very intense.” (SL1) On the Masters’ programme: “They just talking about the theory and ideas and, ok it’s very difficult. I try to write something down but sometimes I couldn’t remember everything.” (SF3) “Even when I came back home, even when I read it, I just can’t understand so I just manage myself”. (SL1) “I just, like very quick look through it, so I can get the basic idea of what teacher going to talk about.” (SL1)

Post-lecture “I might, like…um… reorganise my notes”, “Review is always done before exams”. (SK4)

Did they need more support with listening now? “I think more the writing because I think we also…uh…have assessment on writing but not… not for listening so everybody will think the writing skill is much more” (SF3) “More help now? I think it’s no. No. But other, like writing I think” (SS2) “the most I learn is when you doing research. It’s not from listening course for me.” (SF3) “you can’t not learn everything from lecture because it’s too general”. (SF3)

Perception from interviews with students 22 December 2017 Perception from interviews with students Lecture listening not as important as productive skill of writing It’s not assessed (like PS) (so not important) Use ppt slides – so read instead of listen Only listen again if there’s a clear purpose (exam/assignment) Fewer notes/annotations PS listening much easier

How important is the skill of Listening to PS students? 22 December 2017 How important is the skill of Listening to PS students? PS6 Pre-course Class Expectations

Continuation of in-class lectures as before 22 December 2017 What happened next? PS2016 Continuation of in-class lectures as before Plus: Collaboration with subject areas/departments - 2 x discipline-specific lectures

22 December 2017 PS6 class feedback Lecture 1 (EFM)

Feedback from first lecture 22 December 2017 Positives: Lecture experience Topic highly relevant to PG studies Powerpoint slides Structure Examples Negatives Accent Lack of interaction Lack of intonation Majority found it dull and difficult to understand

Feedback from First Lecture I cannot hear clearly because of the accent and pronunciation; in addition there are numerous professional words to understand difficultly It’s hard to keep full attention for 1h during speech For the perspective of myself I found it difficult to understand some professional phrases within the powerpoint, due to the lack of background knowledge of this discipline

22 December 2017

Feedback from second lecture 22 December 2017 Positives: Lecture experience Topic highly relevant to PG studies Powerpoint slides Structure Examples More interesting Negatives Accent Lack of interaction Lack of intonation Majority found it dull and difficult to understand 17

Feedback from Second Lecture Topic is the same, so I became familiar with the information about the lecture, and also the accent When it comes to some curve, I hope there can be graphs, as sometimes the description would be a little abstract I found that it is a little difficult to understand some academic phrases, because of the lack of economic and financial background

Accent will always be an issue – international university 22 December 2017 Main feedback and implications for this year’s PS A need to balance process and product Work with subject lecturers to get slides in advance and work with them as pre-lecture prep Monitor amount of writing on slide to encourage pre-lecture prep Do more with post lecture notes – set up activities to show value of notes (gapfills/quiz/summary with mistakes etc.) Write questions for lecturer Compare outcomes between lectures Raise awareness with tutors Accent will always be an issue – international university More bite-sized exposure

Next steps Collaborate with departments on lectures as well as academic language and literacy Raise awareness of importance of strategies with Pre-sessional tutors and students Manage student expectations

22 December 2017 References Deroey, K. L. B. (2015). Marking Importance in Lectures : Interactive and Textual Orientation, (October 2013), 51–72. http://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amt029 Field, J. (2008). Listening in the Language Classroom. Cambridge Lee, G. (2009) Speaking up: six Korean students’ oral participation in class discussions in US graduate seminars English for Specific Purposes, 28 (2009), pp. 142–156 Vandergrift, L. (2006). Second Language Listening : Listening Ability or Language Proficiency ? Modern Language Journal 90 (1), 6-18