Students around the world are expected to read, comprehend and learn from growing numbers of English texts in higher educational contexts where the official medium of instruction is the local language. Despite this language shift, relatively little attention has been paid to the challenges academic texts in English present for students. The present paper provides insights into first-year university students’ perceptions of and attitudes towards academic reading in English in Sweden through a sequential explanatory design with questionnaires and follow-up interviews. Sweden is often seen as a model country in terms of second-language proficiency in English, but as this study shows, a majority of first-year university students expressed negative attitudes towards academic reading in English. Student responses suggested more than one third of first-year Swedish university students in social science subjects struggled to comprehend and keep up with their assigned reading, with vocabulary and reading speed cited as their biggest challenges. This paper further shows that a considerable number of students entered higher education unaware that they were going to be required to read academic texts in English, with some questioning this common practice. Finally, implications for teachers are discussed.
To prepare learners for the arduous tasks of simultaneously listening to and taking notes during (English medium instruction) EMI lectures, instructors have implemented explicit notetaking instruction with some degree of success. However, many such studies focus on improvements within the instructed group and do not compare results with those from control groups, leading to questions of generalizability. Thus, questions remain as to whether explicit notetaking instruction generates better results than uninstructed notetaking practice (e.g., when the teacher says “take notes").
The present study involved control and intervention groups at the intermediate and advanced proficiency levels. The control groups received no explicit notetaking instruction, while the intervention groups received a 10-week period of scaffolded notetaking instructional cycle. Both groups completed lecture listening and notetaking activities prior to the explicit instruction. Student notes were collected and analyzed for “information units”, which are defined as the smallest item of information that on its own can be determined as true or false (Anderson, 2014). Statistical analysis of information unit scores show the notetaking instructional cycle had a significant impact on notetaking performance for the intervention groups. Pedagogic implications stemming from the findings are discussed, which have resonance for EMI and English for academic purposes (EAP) courses.
The importance and presence of notetaking in L2 educational contexts has gradually increased to a point where many now recognize notetaking as an essential academic skill for EAP preparatory and EMI courses worldwide. In order to meet the increasing demand for notetaking, materials writers and commercial publishers have designed and produced a number of notetaking textbooks. Despite their availability on the market and frequent use in EAP and other L2 courses, the ability of the average teacher to discern the quality of materials for notetaking may be underdeveloped. This article presents a series of eight questions that can be used as a basis for evaluating and comparing the quality and content of notetaking textbooks with a view to better preparing teachers to understand what notetaking is, how it can be taught, and what materials can and do offer.
With the growth of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) in many contexts around the world, instructors of English for academic purposes (EAP) are tasked with preparing their learners to succeed in English-speaking academic environments. As the lecture continues to be a core component of academic learning, effective notetaking is critical to success. Although there is a growing body of research regarding notetaking skills in second language (L2) contexts, little of this research focuses on note quality. This situation is problematic for teachers, as there is no consensus on what constitutes “good” notes, making evaluation difficult. The purpose of the current study is to take a first step towards exploring this problem by examining the feasibility of using information units (IUs) as a measurement of note quality. Five teacher-researchers (TRs) rated IUs in two TED Talk transcripts using a three-point scale, based on perceived importance of information. The ratings were compared, and the TRs’ accounts of how they approached and completed the task were compiled. The results revealed a number of issues, in particular the lack of consistency in ratings among the TRs. Potential reasons for these inconsistencies are examined, and possible avenues for future research are outlined.