bringing it all together: strategies students apply when synthesizing information ilse...
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Bringing it all together:Strategies students apply
when synthesizing informationIlse Born-Lechleitner
Centre for Business Languages and Intercultural Communication
Johannes-Kepler-University, Linz
Background to teaching
• Johannes Kepler university (JKU)
• Business, law, science and medical faculties
• 20,000 students
• Languages mainly taught to business and economics students
Information 3Information 2
Report MemoEmail Editorial
Recommen-dation
Analysis of
trends
Relevancefor company
Information 1
Task
• Integrated
• 3 skills (video, audio) - speaking about it in class
• Reflection - what can I do with information
• Actual product might not reveal time spent on it
Sample• 22 students, 18 - 30,
• 10 male, 12 female
• 1 Erasmus
• "Business English I", B2+
• Business, Social Economics, Cultural studies, Business and Education
1 2 3 4 50
2
4
6
8
10
Data set
• 21 student interviews
• 21 self-evaluations
Interviews - results• Difficult to find article (14)
• Liked free topic choice (18) and enjoyed doing it (18)
• Creative (19)
• Openness of talks ("we could do whatever we wanted")
• Finding a role
• Vocabulary (14)
I think the vocabulary tests helped me more because there I had to learn the vocabulary. And
for the research package is just ... search for the German translation and maybe some synonyms. But I never learned them to remember
them in the future. (17f)
Roles• Same role, different companies (9)
• "All my texts are memos", "all my writings are emails"
• Different roles and companies in all 5 "entries" (8)
• "I tried to write all [text] types..."
• No roles (3)
I tried to ... act in different roles. Once I was a research manager,
then a sales manager and ... human resource manager and once I was an assistant ... and
wrote to a shareholder. I tried to mix it up. (10m)
What is a good Learner?
• Gets good grades from start?
• Struggles at beginning and succeeds in passing course?
• Look at both ends of spectrum
Focus on
• 2 learners who finished with "Sehr gut"
• 2 learners who struggled and passed with "Genügend"
• Strongly expressed need to get better
Self-evaluation • I could practice and
further improve
• I trained especially my speaking and writing skills
• I am convinced that my vocabulary actually improved quite a lot. (1m)
• Every beginning is difficult
• At the beginning of this semester it was really hard to speak the language
• My skills slowly improved step by step
• My pronunciation and my English skills in general are improvable (5m)
Self-evaluation 2• I had the feeling that this
course would be a lot of work
• The longer the semester lasted, the more I enjoyed the course
• The work we had to do ... was very enriching
• [it] was really helpful to stay organized during the semester
• At the beginning of this course my mind searched desperately for words..
• After the first homework I realized that I would have to study a lot.
• It took me hours to catch the content and the key facts of the A&F article.
Strategies
• Metacognitive
• Stay organized
• Evaluate activities
• Social
• Good teamwork motivated
• Social
• Talk English with friend
• Get help from student union
• Attend summer course
• Self-study
• Listen to CD, watch TV, read books
Teachers• Organization
• Deadlines, finding texts
• Feedback and encouragement
• Immediate, oral and written
• Point out possibilities around course
• Tandem learning, AISEC/IAESTE, self-access centre
Finally, I have to say that I'm proud of myself that I finished
the course. I didn't give up although I sometimes was close to it. I definitely developed my
English skills. (22f)