Ye.V. Yemelyanova1, A.S. Sarsenbayeva2
1,2 KAZGUU University named after M.S. Narikbayev, Astana, Kazakhsran, ye_yemelyanova@kazguu.kz, a_sarsenbayeva@kazguu.kz
PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE OF TEACHING ACADEMIC READING FOR
THE FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AT KAZGUU UNIVERSITY
The article presents the difference between the superficial and in-depth approach to academic reading. An attempt was made to talk about existing practice, which allowed solving problems with the reading of academic texts among first-year students in the framework of the discipline English for academic purposes. The techniques and activities presented in the article are aimed at stimulating and developing students’ academic reading skills.
Keywords: academic reading, first-year students, English for academic purposes.
INTRODUCTION
Modern requirements for teaching English for Academic Purposes universities include the development of academic skills. Kazakhstan’s participation in the Bologna process, the adaptation of the European education system contributes to the fact that a foreign language is becoming not only a mandatory component of education but also a tool for acquiring knowledge. Thus, the development of academic skills allows students to master the language of the specialty, freely navigate the academic environment and, as a result, successfully implement further professional communication in English.
Mastering the skill of academic reading is one of the goals of teaching students at KAZGUU University named after M.S. Narikbayev. On the one hand, in modern society, reading is one of the most important means of obtaining information, a channel for adequate inclusion in the global information field. On the other hand, the course «English for Academic Purposes» (further EAP) involves the study of a vast array of original texts (informative and scientific), the study of highly specialized and scientific vocabulary characteristic of research in the field of the chosen specialty, writing final qualification work in English. The solution of these problems requires the formation and enhancing further reading strategies and students’ academic reading skills. The purpose of this teaching practice paper is to discuss popular in external EAP researchers’ practices, and KAZGUU resources aimed at motivating students to read more academic texts instead of general ones. The central principle of this article is that if teachers involve the first-year students in the how to implement existing reading strategies in reading academic papers in the frames of theirs significant courses, students will not only enhance their reading skill but the vocabulary of a future professional sphere.
1. Variety of academic reading approaches
Learning EAP involves students in a world of academic terminology, specialty-specific vocabulary, developing his critical thinking, writing and analysis making skills developing a familiarity with how to be, think, write, and see the world of these experts in the discipline. Thus, Erickson, B. L., Peters, C. B. and Strommer, D. W. (2006) suppose “Reading academic texts published by these experts in the discipline allows students to immerse themselves in the culture of the discipline and facilitates the study of its conventions, discourse, skills, and knowledge” [1]. However, this is only possible if students are genuinely suited to the reading process.
In European practice, a surface approach to reading academic texts is one of those approaches of bold acceptance of the academic information in a text. Students who use this kind approach sometimes stuck with the information, concluding it as isolated and unreal to the facts. As a result, it leads to the superficial understanding of the information and deprivation of the main idea of the text information during the class or exam. In contrast, an in-depth reading approach is an associated approach where the reader analyzes, synthesizes, solves problems and thinks in meta-cognitive ways, agrees on what the author means and builds his new judgments based on the main idea of the text. In this approach, according to Bowden, J, and Marton, F. (2000), the student focuses on the message of the author, on the main idea and the arguments he attempts to present, therefore, on the structure of the argument. The reader establishes a connection with the ideas and principles he has already known and uses this understanding to preserve the inverse problem in new contexts. It is evident that superficial readers focus only on the text information, while deep readers prefer to look through the main idea and author’s stance [2].
The current plethora of studies shows that most first-year students use a superficial approach as a strategic one in reading academic texts further learning their specific purposes disciple [3]. This phenomenon may occur because some teachers use teacher-centered methods of teaching, presenting their lectures in different texts, inducing students to accept the facts and numbers as were set by them, excepting students’ judgments [4].
Reading an academic text does not suppose just searching for the information in the given text, but also working with the details of this information in the text itself, as this process involves the reader to think simultaneously with the author and be ready to discuss the central value and given knowledge [5].
Although this process can be used when the reader uses the categorical analysis, specifically to the academic subject, overall, we can say that working with the academic text together with its meaning analysis involves as non-disciplinary as particular strategies.
Experienced readers can easily use and apply both mentioned categories intuitively, despite the first-year students who ignore these categories of analysis. It means that professors should teach not only common analytical tools but specific to their discipline values and strategies that assist reading and further learning in the frames of the discipline [6].
2. Categories analysis
Standard categories analysis involves an understanding of the purpose of academic text; context, author’s thesis; deconstruct assumptions, evaluation of the author’s stance, and the consequences of the author’s thoughts.
Gibbs, G. (1999) mentions that an experienced reader’s approaches to the academic reading texts are entirely different and require to understand ideas about actions, analyze them and use in their further research. Being just the beginners in EAP, the first-year students should be explained the purpose and cause they read such specific texts. At this stage, it is beneficial to involve detailed guidelines with true and false questions to any reading assignment in the course. Such reading guides help students to look through the text quickly, navigate and focus their attention on specific details of each assignment. Revision of such tasks at the end of the class is also crucial. The practice shows that if the instructors omit the explanation of the reading assignments, the students lose the sense of reading as they do not understand why they should do it, what for they need it and what they should further do with the received information from the text
Understanding the tasks helps students to be involved in the context and realize the background that is presented by the author. To understand and make a more in-depth analysis of any given text, students should know more about the author, as they should know the authors’ paradigms and philosophy in the fields of the discipline.
Students also need to be taught to identify the author’s theses, the important statements, and arguments concerning the issues that interest him. To do this, students should try to realize the author’s intentions and think of whether the author tries to present his concept or he used an existing theoretical background. Students should be taught how to determine the positions of the author according to the vocabulary he uses. As there is a vocabulary that means a strong or weak position, or in contrast, demonstrate the author’s hesitation on a different point of views. Thus the exercise on determining the purpose of each paragraph, underlining the author’s conclusion in it, helps the first-year students to understand the idea[7].
Finally, it is of importance to manage students to ratiocinate about the arguments and conclusion suggested by the author. It would be a good idea to suggest students look through the links in paragraphs, determine counter-arguments, link them to the other topics discussed in a class, and correlate them with their own experience. If you read the article about fishing in a bank sphere, where the author describes various measures how to prevent it, you may lead the student to the idea how not only prevent it but also how to punish for such an activity. However, each disciple has its specific strategies that should be taught along with the general ones.
3. Constructive alignment
John Biggs (1999) in his article “What a student does: learning for in-depth learning” offers coherent teaching to promote an in-depth approach to reading and learning. He intends that there is maximum consistency throughout the system. Moreover, the scientist conceptualizes constructive alignment as “a fully criteria-based system, where goals determine what we should teach, how we should teach it; and how we could know how well students learned this.» The world practice presents two basics for the constructive alignment, where the teacher uses the parallel between outcomes and learning activities in reading assignments; and students build their meaning from what they are doing [8]. Thus, in planning such a course, teachers should unite the goals and outcomes to encourage students to manage students into the deeper academic reading and learning by the use of higher-order cognitive and metacognitive skills to realize not only the context but also present the values [9].
Both teaching and learning activities in the frames of EAP should promote a broad approach to managing a reading process. Thus, for example, if the instructor offers the ready information and does not offer an additional one, students will read about another philosophy and rely only on the teacher’s explanations and notes given from the lectures.
Despite the importance of objectives, teaching, and learning, the assessment also plays an essential and functional role and influence student’s opinion and decision making [9,10]. The first year students are like clay that can be easily directed and stimulated by the teacher for learning through extra curriculum activities, clues, and assignments. These activities should measure how to enhance and use students’ high-order cognitive skills in reading academic texts and understands the academic language of specific disciples in the frames of their major [11].
4. KAZGUU practice in teaching academic reading
Since 2016 KAZGUU University included EAP (6 KZ credits) as an elective course in addition to the core Foreign language (6 KZ credits). During the first year, students are developed with academic skills including reading skills (see Table 1).
Table 1 – The program of ESL teaching during the 1st year
Course name KZ credits Type Semester
Foreign language 6 Core 1
English for Academic
Purposes 6 Elective 2
Total 12 One year
Thus in the frames of English for Academic course, the teachers of English language
Department appealed to the set of student-oriented activities and events to help the first-year students know more about the reading strategies and implement them in their further deep academic reading.
One of the examples is an activity «Academic Rush,» where students are divided into the teams; get a task that involves the running to the library, then to the classroom, then to the computer lab and back to the classroom. Each stop suggests a task or a problem involve the academic reading of the texts and giving the answers that serve as further clues. For example, each group has to find a book connected to the topic of the task, summarize the introduction of the first page and explain it. The other group should summarize and explain the quotation of the author, find it in a book and suggest their view based on the author’s arguments to that quotation.
In the computer lab, they need to text a report and explain their paradigm with their own words. The team that comes to the first, reports and pass all the tasks successfully, is the winner while those who were the last should explain the difficulties and participate in a discussion.
One more game that is actively used, for example for “International Law” students is «We are the smart» game, where teams should read some articles and books in order to understand a given topic. In tours, the teacher presents different author’s ideas and asks students to present their vision on the presented background. While presenting their opinion for the rest of the class, students evaluate, compare and summarize the information from the books.
More traditional activities include the use of two-journal journals, concept maps and reading magazines.
A journal with two entries is a task in which students take notes in a column. In another column, they write about their reaction or attitude. These records usually include questions, comments, and arguments that are discussed in a class later. Thus, Mills in his practice suggests using double journals because they help the teacher to start a discussion, evaluate arguments in the classroom in groups [12].
“Concept mapping” is the method that is actively used among the students of “Economics” students. While reading the academic text students realize their understanding in graphs and underline the parallel among the concepts and ideas.
Through «Concept mapping,» they develop a correlation, share the experience of the author and their own. The concept mapping helps students understand their learning and contribute “learn how to learn” approach.
Students are also offered to organize reading vlogs where they share their comments on a particular topic and give values. In these interactive charts, they can comfortably discuss questions, argue and find together additional examples on the topic. Some teachers of the department prefer to use more academic magazines, where they ask problem/solution questions, make students work in details on the information [13].
All of these actions encourage students to use higher-order cognitive skills for processing academic texts, while at the same time they motivate students to read texts.
CONCLUSIONS
The experience in teaching undergraduates on academic reading presented in this paper concludes that most undergraduate students actively use a surface approach in reading academic texts. In general, KAZGUU experience approves this phenomenon by focusing on students’ attitudes, activities, and skills. The experience shows that if the teacher designs and involves active academic reading in his course, that encourages students to use their higher-order cognitive skills to determine the judgment from the text, the result is that students tend to take an in-depth approach to read and to learn.
REFERENCE
1. Erickson, B. L., Peters, C. B. & Strommer, D. W. (2006). Teaching First-Year College Students. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
2. Bowden, J & Marton, F. (2000). The University of Learning. London: Kogan Page.
3. Biggs, John (1999). What the Student Does: teaching for enhanced learning. Higher Education Research & Development, 18 (1).
4. Wendling, B. (2008). Why is there Always Time for Their Facebook but not my Textbook? Oklahoma Higher Education Teaching and Learning Conference, April 9-11.
5. Marton, F. & Saljo, R. (1976). On Qualitative Differences in Learning I and II –Outcome and Process. British Journal of Educational Psychology.
6. Bain, K. (2004). What the Best College Teachers Do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
7. Gibbs, G. (1999), Using Assessment Change the Way Students Learn, chapter 4 in S. Brown and A. Glasner (eds) (1999), Assessment Matters in Higher Education, Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press, Buckingham, UK.
8. Biggs, John (1999). What the Student Does: teaching for enhanced learning. Higher Education Research & Development, 18(1).
9. Herteis, E. (2007). Content Conundrums. PAIDEIA: Teaching and Learning at Mount Allison University, 3(1).
10. Forsaith, D. (2001). Introducing Assessment-Based Learning to a Commerce Topic. Flinders University, Research Papers Series.
11. Knapper, C. (1995).Understanding student learning: Implications for instructional practice. Teaching Improvement Practices. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing.
12. Millis, B.J. (2008). Using Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) to Promote Student Learning. Oklahoma Higher Education Teaching and Learning Conference, April 9-11.
13. Erickson, B. L., Peters, C. B. & Strummer, D. W. (2006). Teaching First-Year College Students. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Мақалада академиялық мәтіндерді үстіртін және тереңдеп оқудың айырмашылығы көрсетілген. Мақала авторы бірінші курс студенттері арасындағы Академиялық мақсаттағы ағылшын тілі пәні бойынша мәтіндерді оқудағы қиындықтарды шешуге жол ашқан тәжірибемен бөлісуге тырысқан. Мақалада ұсынылған әлістемелер мен шаралар студенттердің академиялық оқу қабілетін шыңдауға және шабыттандыруға бағытталған.
В статье представлена разница между поверхностным и глубоким подходом к академическому чтению. Была предпринята попытка рассказать об имеющейся практике, которая позволила решить проблемы с чтением академических текстов среди студентов первого курса в рамках дисциплины Английский для академических целей. Методики и мероприятия, представленные в статье, направлены на стимулирование и развитие у студентов навыков академического чтения.