Transcript Document
From school to university: what
do modern languages students
expect?
Angela Gallagher-Brett
Project rationale
Widespread perception that our students
don’t want to read
Survey of UG attitudes to reading
More negative attitudes among year 1
students
Lack of confidence among year 1 students
Project focus
Motivational orientations
Perceptions of linguistic competence
Reading experience in the foreign
language
A-levels studied
Expectations of HE
Participants
45 students of French/German
27 first year undergraduates
18 sixth formers (years 12/13)
3 teachers
2 A-level teachers
1 HE teacher
Methodology
Questionnaire (undergraduate and sixth form)
Focus Group interviews (sixth form)
Individual teacher interviews
Small pilot study
Questionnaire findings: Motivation
Enjoyment was the main reason for studying a
language
Employability was the main reason for going to
university
Questionnaire findings: Perceptions of
competence
Most students agreed they were good at the
language
Sixth formers were more confident that they were
good than undergraduates
Questionnaire findings: Perceptions of
competence
I have a good knowledge of vocabulary
6th Form
Undergraduate
67%
37%
Agree
5
%
28%
52%
Neither/Nor
11%
Disagree
Questionnaire findings: Perceptions of
ability to cope
Most students believed they were coping well
with their workload
Most students believed they could cope with a
degree
Most students were confident about their essaywriting ability in English (area of mismatch
between AL and degree)
Questionnaire findings: Perceptions of
ability to cope
I am confident about my ability to write essays in
English
English Lit
Students
Others
100%
57%
Agree
29%
Neither/Nor
14%
Disagree
Questionnaire findings: Reading
experience in the foreign language
Clear emphasis on reading shorter texts in both
sectors
Only sporadic experience of literary genres in
both sectors
Some undergraduates experienced in wider
reading
Questionnaire findings: reading
experience in the foreign language
Sixth formers were most confident reading
textbook articles
Undergraduates were most confident reading
newspaper, magazine and online articles
Sixth formers were reading slightly more in class
Undergraduates were reading slightly more
independently
Questionnaire findings: Expectations
of HE
Sixth formers did not underestimate HE
workloads
Sixth formers vastly overestimated contact time
in HE
Sixth formers expected increase in independent
learning to be the biggest change
Undergraduates stated that increase in
independent learning had been the biggest
change
Teacher Interviews
In both sectors – grammar seen as biggest
linguistic challenge
In both sectors – some students lack necessary
organisational and time management skills
In both sectors – students’ lack of knowledge of
vocabulary and structure make tackling longer
texts difficult
It would be useful to have more knowledge of the
other sector
Teacher Interviews
A-level teachers identified transition from GCSE
as problematic
A-level teachers said their students do not read
enough in English
A-level teachers highlighted difficulties in AL
focus on current affairs
Sixth Form Interviews: expectations of HE
Most students were planning to go to university
Students were most looking forward to the social
side of university and having more independence
“It’s that step that’s really exciting, being able to
meet new people as well and just doing
everything for yourself” (Year 13 French student)
And to studying subjects they were interested in..
“The idea that you can just learn the subjects that
you really enjoy and you’re really good at, I’m
really looking forward to” (Year 13 French student)
Sixth Form Interviews: expectations of HE
Students hoped to gain employability benefits
from degree study
“I think employers might be more likely to take an
interest in you if you’ve got university
qualifications rather than just GCSEs and Alevels” (year 12 French student)
Sixth Form Interviews: expectations of HE
Independent learning predicted to be the main
difference between school and HE
“You’ll work more independently so you won’t have
the teacher there the whole time to advise…”
(year 12 French student)
Sixth Form Interviews: expectations of HE
Some students were worried about greater
independence
“I don’t think I’ll like it, I think I need someone
there to kind of tell me, do this, don’t do that”
(year 13 German student)
“I think it’s probably going to be like a real
challenge, being completely independent and
being away from your family and, like, stepping
away from the security of sixth form” (Year 12
French student)
Sixth Form Interviews: expectations of HE
Students were mostly expecting larger class sizes
“It’s just the idea of massive lectures and stuff so you’re
obviously not going to have a one to one thing that much”
(year 13 French student)
Students were very worried about not having sufficient
opportunities to ask questions/obtain help in large classes
“you could get a bit intimidated by other people on your
course and lose a bit of confidence and then if you can’t
ask the lecturer easily, you know that might be quite
daunting, I think” (year 13 French student)
Sixth Form Interviews: expectations of HE
Some students were concerned that relationships
with teachers would not be as good
Prospective languages student believed that
some class sizes would be small and
relationships with teachers would still be good
“the course that I want to do, lots of stuff will be
like in small groups kind of, and conversational
classes and stuff, so I think I probably would, I
mean you’d still have a strong relationship kind
of with your lecturers and with your teachers”
(year 13 French student)
Issues: What’s generic?
• Students prefer smaller classes to formal lectures
– Business, Psychology, Medicine (Goldfinch, 1996, Sander et
al, 2000)
• Students over-estimate contact time in HE
– English (Smith and Hopkins, 2005)
• Students unprepared for amount/range of reading in HE
– English (Green, 2005)
• Increase in independent learning in HE
– English (Smith and Hopkins, 2005)
• No good match between A-level and degree
– English, History (Booth, 1997, 2001, Knights, 2004)
Issues: What’s specific to languages?
• Mismatch between A-level and degree – writing
about content in English (implications for
students with no Humanities A Levels?)
• A Level syllabus in languages - very functional
• Transition from GCSE to AS more difficult than in
other subjects? (Watts and Pickering, 2004,
Pachler, 2005, Klapper, 2006)
• Lack of confidence in vocabulary and grammar
knowledge