1. 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

2. 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?

3. 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)

4. 22 December 2017
Why ‘Listening’?

5. 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)

6. 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

7. 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)

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

9. 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)

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 22 December 2017
PS6 class feedback Lecture 1 (EFM)

14. 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

15. 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

16. 22 December 2017

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

21. 22 December 2017
References
Deroey, K. L. B. (2015). Marking Importance in Lectures : Interactive and Textual Orientation, (October 2013), 51–72.
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