Importance marking in lectures: confronting EAP coursebooks with real lectures

Abstract

Lecture listening is a common component of EAP training. In deciding which coursebook to adopt, a key consideration is arguably whether it prepares students for real lectures. Yet, lecture listening coursebooks have been criticised for their lack of realistic lecture models. Research on lecture corpora such as the British Academic Spoken English (BASE) corpus can provide useful insights to prepare students for the language they are likely to encounter in lectures.

I examine the correspondence between the treatment of importance markers (e.g. the point is; remember; I want to emphasize this) in listening coursebooks with their realisation in a lecture corpus (cf. Deroey 2015). As these markers reflect the lecturer’s stance towards the importance of points, students’ ability to spot these may facilitate lecture comprehension and note-taking.

Importance markers were retrieved from 160 BASE lectures and compared with phrases presenting key points in 25 coursebooks. These include the Cambridge and Oxford EAP series, Contemporary Topics (2017) Study Listening (Lynch, 2004), Lecture Ready (2013) and Unlock (2014).

The investigation revealed that while listening books typically point out the importance of identifying the lecturer’s main points, students are generally either not or inadequately trained to recognise importance markers. Where examples of such markers are included, they are few and prototypical (e.g. the important point is). However, in the lecture corpus less explicit, multifunctional markers such as ‘the thing is’ and ‘remember’ predominate. The findings raise questions about the extent to which training with such materials prepares our students to deal with real lecture discourse. I conclude with suggestions about the selection and development of lecture listening materials.

Deroey, K. L. B. (2015). Marking importance in lectures: interactive and textual orientation. Applied Linguistics, 36(1), 51-72.

Full text

Importance marking in lectures:
confronting EAP coursebooks with real lectures
Katrien Deroey
No innocent bystanders: stance and engagement in academic discourse
24 2 2018, St Andrews, UK

Is there a problem?
•For EAP practitioners, a key issue is how to provide as accurate as
possible amodel of lecture organisation and help their learners to
develop the skills to interpret organising signals.
(Thompson, 2003, p. 6)
•Listening material in an ELT classroom is rarely similar to academic
lectures.(Alexander, Argent &Spencer, 2008, p. 224)
•[...]most EAP listening programs are based upon commercial
textbooks. The downside of this is that these textbooks tend to present
the structure and language of the lectures as simply organized and
transparently coherent.Actual lectures, however, are amuch less tidy
form of discourse.(Rodgers &Webb, 2016, p. 171)
•Exposing students only to simplified lecture texts certainly does
students a disservice. (Salehzadeh,2013, p. xix)
2

What are we interested in?
Representativeness of language
Lecture authenticity
Research-informedness
3

Academic listening strategies (Salehzadeh)(US)
Cambridge academic English (all levels)
Contemporary topics (all levels) (2017)
EASE volume one: Listening to lectures (Kelly et al)
English for academic study (Campbell & Smith)
Four point (level 2) (Parrish) (US)
LEAP advanced (Beatty)
Lecture ready (all levels) (Sarosy & Sherak)
Lectures (Aish & Tomlinson)
Oxford EAP (all levels)
Study listening (Lynch)
Unlock (all levels) 4
25 coursebooks

160 lectures
British Academic Spoken English corpus
5

Language:
Importance markers
Deroey (2017; in press)
6

Defining importance markers
‘Lexicogrammatical devices that overtly mark the
importance […] of points that are presented verbally
or visually.’
(Deroey, 2015, p. 52)

Defining importance markers
Discourse organization: hierarchy of importance of
lecture points
+
Evaluation: ‘parameter of importance or relevance’
(Thompson & Hunston, 2000, p. 24)
•Of ‘discourse entities’ (Thetela, 1997, as cited in Hunston,
2000, p. 182)
•Lecturer as ‘text constructor’ (Hunston, 2000, p. 183)

Defining importance markers
the most important thing to b bear in mind
throughout the lecture really is pest is a human
definition
the first thing iwant to do today is to is to
formally er try and explain what the connection is
mass warfare which is obviously such an
important thing in the nineteenth century

Importance markers in BASE lectures
(N=782)
Type N %
Remember/notice/note
just remember this
264 33.7
The point/question is
the point is by chance these two structures are
similar
162 20.7
I want to emphasize/stress;
(as) I (have) pointed out
70 8.9
The important/key point/thing is 64 8.2
You have to remember 41 5.2
10
Deroey & Taverniers (2012), Deroey (2015)

Less explicit, multifunctional markers
predominate
Type N %
Remember/notice/note 264 33.7
The point/question is 162 20.7
I want to emphasize/stress;
(as) I (have) pointed out
70 8.9
The important/key point/thing is 64 8.2
You have to remember 41 5.2
11
Deroey & Taverniers (2012), Deroey (2015)

Which are importance markers?
1. the point is that people can't do that
2. the point is for you to develop your own scholarship
3. the thing you have to remember is there’s no such thing as
the heritability
4. if you forget everything else isay just remember that
kidney failure causes high blood pressure
5. there is a class switch remember
6. remember slavery had already been legally abolished
12

Importance marking in coursebooks (N=52)
Type N %
The important point is 11 21.2
I want to stress 713.5
Remember that 611.5
You have to remember 611.5
It’s important to note that 59.6
13
Deroey (in press)

Coursebooks versus lectures
Type (coursebooks) %
The important point is 21.2
I want to stress 13.5
Remember that 11.5
You have to remember 11.5
It’s important to note
that
9.6
Type (lectures) %
Remember/notice/note 33.7
The point/question is 20.7
I want to emphasize/stress;
(as) I (have) pointed out
8.9
The important/key point/thing is 8.2
You have to remember 5.2
14
Deroey (in press)

Lots of exercises on identifying main ideas;
little language to guide identification thereof
15
Contemporary topics (2)

Markers are few
16
Cambridge academic English (C1)

Markers seem random
17
Contemporary topics (1)

Explicit markers predominate
18
Study listening (p. 39)
Contemporary topics (2)

The language presented to students in textbooks is a poor
representation of the real thing. (Gilmore, 2007, p. 98)
The evidence suggests that textbook authors are not yet
habitually checking their materials against relevant corpus
data to ensure that the language models they provide are as
naturalistic and pedagogically useful as possible.
(Gilmore, 2015, p. 517)
2008, p. 224)
Corpus linguists now often point out how radically intuition
and use may converge. (Stubbs, 2001, p. 151)
19

Authenticity
Deroey (2017; in press)
20

Authentic lectures are rare
Authentic lectures
Academic listening strategies
Cambridge academic English
EASE
Lectures
21

Uninformative descriptions
Study listening (2004, p. 5)
22

Vague descriptions
‘For this course, avariety of lectures were recorded at
the University of Cambridge.’
‘The lectures […] are delivered by experienced lecturers
and researchers.’
Cambridge academic English (2012, p. 6)
23

Misleading descriptions
‘[T]he lectures […] feature engaging instructors in a
variety of settings including offices, lecture halls, and
classrooms, many with live student audiences.’
Contemporary topics (2017, p. vii)
24

Research-informedness
Deroey (2017; in press)
25

Research-informed
Academic listening strategies
Cambridge academic English
EASE
English for academic study
Study listening
26

So why?
Applied linguistics researchers often energetically pursue
their own narrow fields of interest with minimal concern for
the accessibility […] to other stakeholders […]; language
teachers are rarely encouraged (or able) to keep up to date
with theoretical advances [...]; materials writers seem to rely
more on replication of previous successful models, [...] and
their own creative muses than theory-driven, principled
design criteria […], and publishers appear to show more
concern for their bottom dollar than the provision of
innovative textbooks, in tune with contemporary theory […].
Gilmore (2015, p. 521)
27

So what?
We may be training students with unrepresentative language.
We may be failing to prepare students for the challenges of
their lectures.
28

So how?
Supplement
Recordings of discipline & institution specific lectures
Invited lectures
TED talks?
Compared to lecture discourse, TED talks […] are spoken at
afaster pace on average and have alower levels of
academic vocabulary on average […]. Essentially, some TED
talks are suitably similar to lecture discourse to be used as
semi-authentic academic listening materials but on
average they are not. (Wingrove, 2017, p. 93)
29

So how?
Working with authentic lectures
Pre-listening work (vocabulary, content)
Support (skeletal notes, transcript)
Simplify tasks
Increase length, speech rate
30

So how?
Do your own research.
Approach coursebooks critically.
31

katrien.deroey@uni.lu
Academia edu; ResearchGate
Lecture listening materials
Deroey, K. L. B. (2017). How representative are EAP listening books of real
lectures? . In J. Kemp (Ed.), Proceedings of the 2015 BALEAP Conference.
EAP in a rapidly changing landscape: Issues, challenges and solutions.
Reading: Garnet.
Deroey, K. L. B. (in press). The representativeness of lecture listening
coursebooks: language, lecture authenticity, research-informedness.
Journal of English for Academic Purposes
Importance marking
Deroey, K. L. B., & Taverniers, M. (2012). Just remember this:
Lexicogrammatical relevance markers in lectures. English for Specific
Purposes, 31(4), 221-233.
Deroey, K. L. B. (2015). Marking importance in lectures: interactive and
textual orientation. Applied Linguistics, 36(1), 51-72.
32

References
Alexander, O., Argent, S., & Spencer, J. (2008). EAP essentials: a
teacher’s guide to principles and practice.
Gilmore, A. (2007). Authentic materials and authenticity in foreign
language learning. Language Teaching, 40(02), 97-118.
Gilmore, A. (2015). Research into practice: The influence of discourse
studies on language descriptions and task design in published ELT
materials. Language Teaching, 48(04), 506-530.
Rodgers, M. P. H., & Webb, S. (2016). Listening to lectures. In K. Hyland
& P. Shaw (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of English for academic
purposes (pp. 165-176). London: Routledge.
33

References
Salehzadeh, J. (2013). Academic listening strategies: A guide to
understanding lectures. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Stubbs, M. (2001). Texts, corpora, and problems of interpretation: A
response to Widdowson. Applied Linguistics, 22(2), 149-172.
Thompson, S. E. (2003). Text-structuring metadiscourse, intonation and
the signalling of organisation in academic lectures. Journal of English
for Academic Purposes 2(1).
Wingrove, P. (2017). How suitable are TED talks for academic listening?
Journal of English for Academic Purposes 30.
34

Acknowledgement
The recordings and transcriptions used in this
study come from the British Academic Spoken
English (BASE) corpus.The corpus was developed
at the Universities of Warwick and Reading under
the directorship of Hilary Nesi and Paul Thompson.
Corpus development was assisted by funding from
BALEAP, EURALEX, the British Academy and the
Arts and Humanities Research Council.
35