Chapter 11 - Visual and verbal messages in the engineering lecture: notetaking by postgraduate L2 students

Summary

Abstract

This chapter presents a brief review of previous work on lectures and notetaking, including work which investigated LI students. It then goes on to report research carried out by the author into notetaking by overseas postgraduate students on Transportation and Highway Engineering courses at the University of Birmingham. This research has a dual focus: the relationship between the visual and verbal aspects of the lecture; and the notes made by overseas students with reference to the visual-verbal distinction. The lecture event is described and analysed. It was found that there is regularly a complementary relationship between the visuals and the accompanying speech: evaluation is frequent in the spoken lecture (and is regarded as important by the lecturers), but is not often provided visually. Student notes all capture at least some of the lecturer's comments, in addition to most of the visuals. There is some indication that better students capture more of the verbal message, and categorisation of the ways in which they do this may give a basis for a quality of notes measure. These findings are related to other research and implications for EAP teaching are discussed.

Previous research: a brief review

As various contributors to this volume point out, empirical research on academic lectures and notetaking has been characterised by its relative paucity. This is in marked contrast to the central part such activities play in the lives of students. What research there has been has approached notetaking and lectures from three angles: educational psychology, academic staff training, and linguistics (sociolinguistics and discourse analysis), and these areas will be reviewed briefly in turn.