P13 Notetaking Performance: Accounting for Influential Factors in Teaching
Background and purpose
Listening to academic lectures can be a daunting task, as the listener faces various challenges related to processing the speech stream, prioritizing the importance of information, and deciding when, where and how to take notes (Ipek, 2018; Siegel, 2021). These near-simultaneous operations become even more challenging when the lecture is delivered in a second language (L2) or when the language of instruction is other than the student's native language. A host of factors can contribute to student comfort in and ability to take “good” notes during L2 lectures (e.g., Badger, et al., 2001). The purpose of this project is to understand and elucidate factors that influence notetaking ability and to offer pedagogic solutions to offset notetaking challenges during L2 lectures. The present study aimed to address the following research questions:
- To what extent do students feel personal, speaker and contextual factors affect their notetaking performance while listening to L2 academic English?
- What level of agreement does a cross-cultural comparison show related to factors affecting notetaking ability?
Finished work/ongoing work
This presentation reports on a survey study that explored student perspectives on three sets of factors that impact notetaking in L2 lecture settings. The three sets are
a) personal factors such as a person’s own notetaking ability and their interest in a given topic;
b) speaker factors including rate of speech, accent and volume,
c) contextual factors such as time of day. Participants (N = 711) studying on English for academic purposes (EAP) programs in five countries (Indonesia, Japan, Spain, Sweden, and the US) responded to an online survey.
Students completed an online survey that asked the following question:“What affects your ability to take ‘good’ notes while listening to academic English? Choose all that apply.” Respondents were presented with several options, which were developed in consultation with some of the teachers and piloted with a small group of students similar to those in the main data collection.
The options were:
a) the speaker’s accent
b) the rate/speed of speech
c) the difficulty of the topic
d) my interest in the topic
e) the time of day
f) the volume of the speech
g) the purpose for taking notes
h) my own notetaking skills
They were prompted to select “all that apply,” resulting in 2,444 total cases. Data were exported from an online survey website to Microsoft Excel. These data were then used to calculate and report total cases, percent of cases, and ranges. The quantitative data were analyzed using total cases and percent of cases to provide an overview of the most influential factors and to make comparisons between the respective contexts.
Results/observations/lessons learned
Analysis of the survey data show that rate of speech, topic interest, and one’s own notetaking ability were the most frequently reported factors. Based on these and other findings, the presenter shows how pedagogic awareness of such factors can be incorporated into lecturing, academic skills courses, and L2 education to help prepare students for academic listening and to support teachers in their delivery of content.
Take-home message
Practical implications, activities and considerations for students, lectures and teachers, specifically EAP teachers, and English medium instruction (EMI) lecturers are also discussed, all areas identified in the literature as needing attention (e.g., O’Dowd, 2018). This research and presentation use English as the medium of instruction; however, the findings are relevant regardless of the language of teaching and learning, including when the language of instruction is main language of the educational context.
References
Badger, R., White, G., Sutherland, P. & Haggis, T. (2001). Note perfect: an investigation of how students view taking notes in lectures, System 29, 405-417.
İpek, H. (2018) Perceptions of ELT students on their listening and note taking skills. InternationalOnline Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET), 5(1), 206-217.
O’Dowd, R. (2018). The training and accreditation of teachers for English medium instruction: An overview of practice in European universities. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 21(5), 553-563. DOI: 10.1080/13670050.2018.1491945
Siegel, J. (2021). Developing notetaking skills in a second language: Insights from classroom research. Routledge.
