A case study of two non-native speakers listening to lectures

Abstract

This study investigated difficulties in understanding lectures as perceived by non-native speakers. A case-study format was adopted to identify the difficulties as they occurred while the lectures were being watched on video tape. The lectures were from a two week segment of the 1988 diploma course in Teaching English as a Second Language at Victoria University of Wellington, dealing with topics in written discourse analysis and spoken English discourse. The two subjects who participated in this study were non-native speakers on the course. The procedure used in the case study was as follows. A selected series of lectures was videotaped and later the participants individually watched the tapes in the company of the researcher. When the participants made any comments, the video tape was stopped and the participants' comments were recorded on audio tape. This method of data gathering is called pause protocols. The audio tapes were then analysed and the difficulties the students reported were classified. Not only were current difficulties analysed but also the accumulative effect of difficulties and any repair that took place. The analysis of the participants' verbal reports not only revealed the most commonly reported difficulties identified in other studies, such as difficulty in discriminating words, recognising parts of speech etc, but also difficulties in the area of discourse, mainly the importance of being able to maintain an overall conceptual framework of the message. The results have a direct relation to the listening section of an English for Academic Purposes course. However, as the analysis of the data progressed, features of lecture presentation and how it can aid or impair lecture comprehension became evident. The implications drawn from these would serve as useful guidelines for lecturer presentation training.