Creating and Enhancing Effective Information Literacy Programs in EFL/ESL classrooms Dr Nicole Johnston University College London

Today’s session How do your students find, read, understand, evaluate and use information? Ideas for developing student centred information literacy curriculum based on students’ experiences and learning strategies.

The Research Process EFL/ESL students approach to learning is often systematic or to follow a process, therefore developing some sequential based activities would also be beneficial in EFL environments. The research process is often a new learning experience for them.

The Research Process Curriculum ideas Explain the steps of the research process to students. Show a step by step example of a search strategy.

Accessing Information Barriers EFL/ESL students experience difficulties accessing information about local topics and issues and in their own language. This creates a major barrier for EFL students as research suggests that EFL students learn more effectively when given sources to read on issues that are relevant to them. Students face linguistic challenges such as: specialist terminology and bibliographic jargon and experience difficulty in selecting search terms and synonyms because of a limited English vocabulary.

Accessing Information Curriculum ideas Create library guides or subject guides about local sources of information. Activity looking at alternative sources of information, i.e. grey literature, government reports, conference papers. Pre-prepare keyword sheets and synonyms. If there are varied topics assist the students identify keywords. Discuss any terminology related to search tools that may create a barrier to students searching for information.

Accessing Information Curriculum ideas Students themselves have strategies in order to deal with this barrier. They find general information on their topic or information written in other countries and then relate this to a local context. Curriculum could be developed that shows students how to relate general information to a more specific context when no information is available on a topic. Encourage teachers and academics to set topics that are relevant to the students and topics where there are available resources.

Evaluating Information Students perceive English sources to be of higher quality than Arabic sources. E.g the author is more authoritative or there is more access to information in English. Students evaluate sources based on authority and accuracy but often do not evaluate information based on other criteria such as bias. Students often see information collected from people as authoritative sources of information.

Evaluating Information Curriculum Ideas Activities that evaluate information using all evaluation criteria, for example Relevance/Coverage Currency (how up-to-date, frequency of publication) Accuracy (reliability, quality, factual, evidence provided) Authority (Authority of the author, credentials) Accessibility (layout, design, navigability, means of access, indexes) Bias (Is the information unbiased) Activities that emphasise how information can be biased. Activities that look at the authority of people – i.e their qualifications and experience but that also emphasise that people are not always accurate sources of information. Activity evaluating both an English and Arabic piece of information. Discussion surrounding students’ views of the quality of information in various languages.

Reading and Understanding information EFL/ESL students often do not read beyond the abstract or scan information in articles as a reading strategy. Students also indicate that they prefer to read shorter articles as it takes too much time to read longer articles and that they choose sources based on whether they understand the English in the articles. If students do not understand the language in them, they often choose alternative sources.

Reading and Understanding information EFL students have difficulties translating from Arabic to English. These difficulties include the time it takes to translate from Arabic to English, and the view students have that if they translate from Arabic to English they will make mistakes regarding the context and meaning of words. Students use translators in order to understand meaning but acknowledge that these translators are not always accurate.

Reading and Understanding information Curriculum Ideas Activities on how to effectively scan and identify important information in articles or other sources of information. Curriculum that emphasizes content and relevance of information rather than length. Peer or group activity where the meaning of words and phrases in English are discussed with each other.

Reading and Understanding information Curriculum Ideas Librarians can pre prepare keyword lists on topics that students will be researching or lists of synonyms, definitions or translations of more difficult vocabulary, especially when words can have different meaning in different contexts. For example common terms in biology and their meaning in both English and Arabic. Discuss different reading strategies commonly employed, e.g highlighting, colour coding. Activities on how to effectively quote and paraphrase.

Reading and Taking Notes What is the research question? What is the argument or theory? What methods were used What were the main findings? What were the conclusions? Any gaps

Using Information Students see the value of information when they can see a link between the theoretical and practical use of information. Curriculum ideas Show examples of the practical application of information. For example, case study scenarios where students need to find information for a work related project or report or to solve a work related issue. For example, writing a human resources policy or diagnosing a difficult medical case.

Some other considerations Cultural factors Learning Styles Academic Integrity

Information literacy professional development ILN PD network threshold concepts and IL IL education short course – 4 day UCL Qatar