We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2010
When students go to a lecture, they may already have some background knowledge of the subject and be able to predict a little of the content of the lecture, not least from its title. However, it is at this point that problems may develop. James (1977) summarises the main problems, within three broad areas:
decoding, i.e. recognising what has been said;
comprehending, i.e. understanding the main and subsidiary points;
taking notes, i.e. writing down quickly, briefly and clearly the important points for future use.
Expanding a little on these areas, we may see that the act of decoding involves not only recognising unit boundaries phonologically, but also the recognition of ‘irregular pausing, false starts, hesitations, stress and intonation patterns’ (Flowerdew 1994). The problem will be exacerbated for NNS who lack familiarity with spoken discourse structure, various styles of delivery and the accent and speed of speaking of the lecturer. Students may be inexperienced in listening to fluent, native-speaker spoken English together with its colloquialisms and idiomatic expressions, apart from probable difficulties caused by the use of weak forms and contractions. Comprehension difficulties may be compounded by insufficient knowledge of the specialist subject.
The lecture genre itself (discussed in Benson 1994) brings its own particular and potential areas of difficulty. Especially problematic is:
the requirement to be able to concentrate on and understand long stretches of talk without the opportunity of engaging in the facilitating functions of interactive discourse, such as asking for a repetition, negotiating meaning.
(Flowerdew 1994)To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
