This is a presentation given at the Second Conference of the Asia-Pacific Association of LSP and Professional Communication, held in Kuala Lumpur, July 15-17, 2010.
Code switching between peers in a project-based English for science course at...
APacLSP: Disciplinary perspectives on English for Science
1. Disciplinary perspectives in English for Science: An evaluation of student digital video projects Christoph Hafner, Lindsay Miller, Richard Kong, Connie Ng http://www1.english.cityu.edu.hk/acadlit Asia-Pacific LSP and Professional Communication Conference, July, 2010
14. Student perceptions: Relevance and usefulness AVG SD D N A SA Q10. The skills I learned by doing the video project are useful for my studies 3.49 0% 10% 41% 39% 10% Q11. The skills I learned by doing the video project are useful to my career 3.36 0% 14% 44% 36% 7% Q12. The skills I learned by doing the video project are useful to me personally 3.78 0% 5% 20% 66% 8% Q13. The skills I learned by doing the video project are relevant to my major subject 2.88 3% 25% 51% 20% 0%
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18. Students’ perceptions: Skills learned AVG SD D N A SA Q18. As a result of doing the video project I have improved my English language skills 3.34 0% 10% 47% 41% 2% Q19. As a result of doing the video project I have improved my English research skills 3.66 0% 8% 19% 71% 2% Q20. As a result of doing the video project I have improved my English reading skills 3.31 2% 10% 44% 44% 0% Q21. As a result of doing the video project I have improved my English writing skills 3.41 0% 7% 49% 41% 3% Q22. As a result of doing the video project I have improved my English presentation skills 3.81 0% 2% 25% 63% 10% Q23. As a result of doing the video project I have improved my English listening skills 3.44 0% 14% 36% 44% 7%
CH This aim of this project was to engage science students in the making of scientific documentaries as part of a digital video project.
LM The course we focused on is an English language course for BCH and maths students, which focuses on disciplinary English in scientific contexts - e.g. how to present (both orally and in writing) a scientific report with a typical IMRD structure and what lexical and grammatical resources to draw on for different parts of such a report.
CH To serve these aims, the course was structured around an English for Science project, which engaged students in conducting a simple, quasi-scientific investigation, involving the formulation of a hypothesis, carrying out of an experimental procedure, recording of data, presentation and discussion of findings. Students worked in groups to carry out the experiment and orally present their findings, and then worked individually to write up the same experiment as a kind of scientific report.
LM In their private lives, students' experience of reading and writing is increasingly moving away from traditional conceptions of literacy, towards new literacy practices which emphasize multimedia and participation in globalized online communities. As teachers of English literacy, how do we prepare students for this multimodal and participatory world? Academic faculty in the BCH department point out that students need assistance with their spoken English, especially when giving presentations, but at the same time, the development of spoken language competence requires sustained effort. How can we motivate students to reflect on and improve their spoken language abilities? In order to respond to these questions, we extended the existing project-based learning methodology used on the course. This was done by changing the oral presentation in the course from a typical classroom oral presentation (i.e. with PPT etc) to a more innovative, and some would say, more current form: a multimedia scientific documentary, which used video to document the English for Science project and its experiment.
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CH This was supported by a number of technological tools: [Insert Figure 1 from Fostering Autonomy paper about here] For different stages of the project, students used different technological tools to carry out the project, e.g. the Internet for gathering and evaluating information, DV cameras and editing tools for shooting and editing, YouTube channel and blog for sharing their videos with the rest of the class. All of these different stages were also scaffolded by in-class activities, and we closely monitored students' progress on what was a very complex project. Thus students were given deadlines to meet (week 4 data collection done, week 5 script done), and were encouraged to think about their collaboration in terms of the different specialist roles that they could adopt (e.g. researcher, script-writer, director, editor). Importantly, all students were required to perform the role of a presenter in the video, meaning that all students were forced to practice presentation skills, the main aim of the assignment.
LM I am just going to focus on a few key findings here, from questionnaire and from focus group
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CH 74% of students agree that the skills learned on the project are useful to them personally. 49% agree that the skills learned are useful to their studies. 43% agree that the skills learned are useful to their career. Only 20% agree that the skills learned are relevant to their major subject. When students are asked about this they say that the skills are not relevant to their major subject because they do not do video projects. However, one student does note that the skills used can be applied to presentations.
CH Although most of the student did not see an obvious link to their major area of study, some of them did.
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LM 73% say that they have improved their English presentation skills 73% say that they have improved their research skills in English Surprisingly, over 40% also believe that they have improved reading listening and writing. The scope of the project is much bigger than we thought.
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LM We believe that this is one of the things that motivates students because it helps them to see the relevance and the usefulness of the English course to the skills that they need to develop in order to be an effective scientist and researcher.
CH Note that a number of students also commented on the topic, that they felt it would be either nice to choose their own, or that the topic was too simple, too easy for a science student and not sufficiently challenging.
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LM Lecturers talked about their being more style than substance in some of the videos. It underlines their concern for the content. They wanted to see more science.
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