perceptions of lecture comprehension in English-medium instruction (EMI). (Airey
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Perceived lecture comprehension: ELF students adapt to their lecturer’s English Diane Pilkinton-Pihko Aalto University & University of Helsinki BACKGROUND
RESULTS
While many studies have been conducted on L2 lecture comprehension in English from various points of view (e.g. Camiciottoli 2005, Flowerdew (ed) 1995, Huang 2004, Huckin and Olsen 1990, Lee 2009, Miller 2009, Mulligan and Kirkpatrick 2000), very few have been performed on students’ perceptions of lecture comprehension in English-medium instruction (EMI) (Airey 2009, Hellekjaer 2010, Suviniitty 2010, 2012). In addition, the concept of EMI students adapting to their lecturer’s English over time has been largely uninvestigated. Table 1. Master’s level engineering: Lecturers A-D and their students
A
B
C
D
Lecturer L1s & self-assessed professional English Arabic/French (good)
Finnish (good) Finnish (good)
Dutch (excellent)
Student L1s
Student self-assessed English
English (1) German (1) Italian (1) Korean (1) Lithuanian (3) Urdu (1) Estonian (2) French (3) German (1)
Good Good Good Good Good Excellent Good Good Good
Amharic (1) Chinese (1) Chinese (3) Czech (1) English (1) Finnish (3) Finnish (4) Nepalese (1) Swedish (1) Urdu (1)
Good Excellent Good Fair Excellent Excellent Good Excellent Good Excellent
Finnish (2) Finnish (1) Finnish (1) Finnish (1)
Excellent Good Fair Good
Table 2. Lecturer Language background
A L1: Bilingual Arabic/French L2 English L3 Finnish
Years of English at school Years working in English Years lecturing in English Age range Number of students
B L1 Finnish L2 English L3 Swedish
C L1 Finnish L2 German L3 Swedish L4 English
D L1 Dutch L2 French L3 English L4 Finnish
3
10
3
6
13
12
10
32
13
12
1½
8
41-50
41-50
51-60
51-60
8
6
17
5
Tables 1 and 2 present the language backgrounds and self-assessments of both the EMI lecturers and their students. As the tables show, the sample represents lectures where English is a true lingua franca with sixteen different L1s represented. Because the EMI lecturers are viewed as competent NNSs of professional English, the results from the four lectures were combined in the analysis to establish a general view.
OBJECTIVE To compare whether EMI students’ perceptions of their lecture comprehension change over the duration of a course, I analyzed the initialand post-questionnaire responses of 36 engineering students (representing 16 L1s). A hypothesis was generated based on the assumption that the human capacity to comprehend spoken language is highly flexible and that this capacity also applies to advanced SLUs (second language users, cf. Mauranen 2011:160) who regularly use ELF.
Hypothesis (H1): Students’ perceptions of their EMI-lecture comprehension will change over time as they adjust to their lecturer’s English.
MATERIALS AND METHODS The questionnaire consisted of 35 items: 32 Likert-items, 2 multiple-choice, and one open-ended. This poster presents results from the Likert items, which were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA, scatter plots, and correlations (performed in SPSS 20). With respect to the presentation of the findings, note the following: • The total sample size reported reflects the number of paired students for the initial and post questionnaire (N=36) for the four lectures. • The mean values were included, and calculated for each major theme. Given the nature of the rating scales (ordinal data), these mean values have one meaning: they are the way of indicating to what extent the students’ perceptions of lecture comprehension differs between two points in time. Comparing the scores on the Confidence in Students’ Perceived Lecture Comprehension at Time 1 (first lecture) and Time 2 (last lecture), I applied the mean score values to two-factorial repeated measures ANOVA with time (first, last) serving as within-subjects factor and theme (lecture comprehension, language use, and communicative ability) serving as between-subjects factor. RESEARCH POSTER PRESENTATION DESIGN © 2012
www.PosterPresentations.com
ANOVA results (Table 3) show no reliable statistical significance for lecture comprehension in relation to time or theme.
Table 3. ANOVA two-factorial repeated measures Lecturer (N = 36)
Time_of_questionnaire Time_of_questionnaire * theme
F(1, 105) = .742, p = .391 F(2, 105) = 1.41, p = .249
Scatter plots (Figure 1) show slight changes in students’ perceptions of their EMI lecture comprehension, based on the marginal differences of means for time. The slight decline in means lends partial support to H1, as it shows change over time but no indication of adjustment to English. Figure 1. In the figure, the x-axis shows time whereas the y-axis shows the mean score for the response values as measured on a 4-point Likert scale for each of three themes: lecture comprehension (LC), lecturer language (LL), and lecturer communicative ability (LCA).
Correlations (Figure 2) show a positive association between perceived lecture comprehension and lecturer English, indicating the lecturer’s English to be more important at Time 1 than at Time 2. This finding lends support to H1. Figure 2. A scatter plot showing mean values at Time 1 and Time 2 as measured on a 4point Likert scale, with students’ perceptions of lecture comprehension on the y-axis and their perceptions of lecturer English on the x-axis.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS Given the increased range of variability in spoken ELF (due to non-standard deviations), the ANOVA finding is contrary to common sense assumptions. The data were thus further explored with scatter plots and correlations. The positive correlation (in Figure 2) means that students’ perceived their lecture comprehension to be better when they perceived their lecturer’s English to be better. Moreover, this finding indicates EMI-lecturer English to be more important at Time 1 than at Time 2, which means that students adjusted to their lecturer’s English or that their comprehension became less entangled with their lecturer’s English. This finding, which supports the hypothesis, should be further examined in future investigations, utilizing more than two sample times.
REFERENCES Airey, John. 2009. Science, Language, and Literacy: Case Studies of Learning in Swedish University Physics. Doctor of Philosophy in Physics with Specialization in Physics Education, Uppsala University. Camiciottoli, Belinda Crowford 2005. Adjusting a business lecture for an international audience: a case study. English for Specific Purposes, 24, 183-199 Flowerdew, John (ed.) 1995. Academic Listening: Research Perspectives, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hellekjaer, Glenn Ole 2010. Language Matters: Assessing Lecture comprehension in Norwegian English-medium higher education. In: Dalton-Puffer, Christiane, Nikula, Tarja & Smit, Ute (eds.) Language Use and Language Learning in CLIL Classrooms. Amersterdam: John Benjamins. Huang, Jinyan 2004. Voices from Chinese students: Professor’s use of English affects academic listening. College Student Journal, 38, 212-223. Huckin, Thomas & Olsen, Leslie 1990. Point-driven Understanding in Engineering Lecture Comprehension. English for Specific Purposes, 9, 33-47. Lee, Joseph J 2009. Size matters: an exploratory comparison of small- and large-class university lecture introductions. English for Specific Purposes, 28, 42-57. Mauranen, Anna 2011. Learners and users – Who do we want corpus data from? In Meunier, Fanny, De Cock, Sylvie, Gilquin, Gaetanelle & Paquot, Magali (eds). A Taste for Corpora. In honor of Sylviane Granger. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Miller, Lindsay 2009. Engineering lectures in a second language: what factors facilitate students' listening comprehension? The Asian EFL Journal Quarterly, 11, 8-30. Mulligan, Denise & Kirkpatrick, Andy 2000. How much do they understand? Lectures, students, and comprehension. Higher Education Research and Development, 19, 311-335. Suviniitty, Jaana 2010. Lecturers' questions and student perception of lecture comprehension. Helsinki English Studies, 6, 44-57. Suviniitty, Jaana. 2012. Lectures in English as a Lingua Franca: Interactive Features. University of Helsinki.
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