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7 Tips for Teaching Speaking for Academic Purposes at Graduate Level – Part 3

Three graduate students smilingIn the final post in this guest series, Li-Shih Huang, Associate Professor at the University of Victoria, Canada, gives us the final three of her seven tips for teaching academic speaking to graduate EAL students. If you missed the first four, catch up on tips 1 and 2 and tips 3 and 4.

This final post wraps up my top seven tips for teaching academic speaking to graduate EAL students.

Tip 5: Expand learners’ linguistic and strategic repertoires

Graduate EAL students need to participate in academic conversations at advanced levels, and, as such, confidence-building tasks that build on, experiment with, and expand their linguistic and strategic repertoires in class provide them with a glimpse of what they can try when participating in a range of predictable academic interactions, such as the ones listed in Tip 3. The first step is to encourage students to focus on getting their ideas or meaning across and feeling comfortable in using whatever language they already know. Their well-intended high expectations about achieving accuracy and their fear of being negatively evaluated naturally make many graduate EAL learners hesitant about expressing their thoughts and prone to undervaluing or overlooking the richness of their ideas and contributions to the dialogue.

Take dealing with questions and answers, which I discussed in my previous post as an example. After exploring the hidden assumptions regarding one’s approach to answering questions and facing the challenging situations associated with handling Q & A (e.g., multi questions, long-winded questions, off-the-subject questions, “don’t know” questions, hostile questions), request that students consider both strategies and language that they can employ when handling such situations. For handling “don’t know” questions, for example, not only will this exploration help learners become more comfortable saying “I don’t know” or more confident about sharing what they do know that is relevant to the question at hand; learners will also generate strategies and language that they can use to confidently deal with those questions. For example:

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7 Tips for Teaching Speaking for Academic Purposes at Graduate Level – Part 2

Two female students in graduation robesFollowing on from her first post, which explored the importance of conducting a needs analysis and building a supportive learning environment, Li-Shih Huang, Associate Professor at the University of Victoria, Canada, shares her next two top tips for teaching conversation skills to EAL learners.

In my previous post, I shared the first two tips, which serve as the foundation for teaching academic conversation skills to graduate EAL students. Many instructors wonder how to promote the transferability of skills that students use in class to outside-the-classroom, real-life contexts. In this post, I will move on to my list’s next two tips, which help promote the transfer of learning and skill development.

Tip 3: Link tasks to real-world activities

One key way to make learning meaningful and relevant in the classroom is to link pedagogical tasks to what learners will be doing outside the classroom. For graduate EAL students, participation in academic dialogues typically involves or will involve the following settings:

  • interpersonal one-on-one communications;
  • small group interactions;
  • seminars or class discussions;
  • departmental presentations;
  • teaching in the classroom; and
  • conference presentations and beyond (e.g., job talks, teaching demonstrations, and interviews).

Linking tasks that learners need to perform in those typical settings to class activities not only motivates learning because of the tasks’ perceived relevance and practicality; it also promotes the transfer of the language and strategies learned in the classroom to post-class, real-life contexts. For example, a task that involves meeting with a student during office hours to discuss a grade provides an opportunity for learners to experiment with ways to deal with this common scenario. Another example is involving learners when clarifying a key concept, something that graduate EAL students often must do in their roles as teaching assistants, as participants in departmental meetings, or as speakers at conferences. Such a task first of all provides the speaker an opportunity to practice providing explanations through the use of techniques such as the following:

  • stating a definition in formal and lay person’s terms;
  • using practical examples that listeners can relate to;
  • linking a concept to the speaker’s personal experience;
  • using an analogy with some concept that the listeners already know;
  • providing comparison and contrast;
  • referencing a word’s origin; and
  • offering visual illustrations of a term.

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7 Tips for Teaching Speaking for Academic Purposes at Graduate Level – Part 1

Four college students wearing graduation robesIn this series of three posts, Li-Shih Huang, Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and Learning and Teaching Centre Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Victoria, Canada, shares her top tips for the teaching of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) to English-as-an-additional-language students at the graduate level.

Anyone who follows news, feature stories, or research related to higher education in English-speaking countries will have noticed the increasing number of items related to recruitment efforts or enrolment trends of international students who speak English as an additional language (EAL). Even if you are not following the latest trends and research related to graduate EAL students, you are likely witnessing the ever-growing presence of international EAL students first-hand in your institution.

Since I first taught EAP in 1997, which led me to pursue advanced degrees in this field, I have had the good fortune to continue working with graduate EAL students at various academic institutions. Over a decade later, my passion for EAP only grows. Today, I wear my regular hat, as I carry out research related to language teaching and learning and train ELT professionals and researchers. At the same time, I still design and run courses and workshops for graduate EAL students and consider it a great privilege to work with these usually highly motivated learners. These students are eager and determined to improve their academic conversation skills, because every day, they encounter many opportunities to speak English on topics about which they have sophisticated knowledge. They also know very well that their academic conversation skills and confidence will impact their future career options.

The idea for this post series came from my recent sharing at a local conference for ELT students and professionals. The tips presented here are inter-related, and they are not meant to be rules or a be-all-and-end-all guide; they are derived from my own teaching experience and research. My hope is that this post series will prompt you to reflect on and share what has worked well for you in your own teaching/learning contexts, so that together we can continue to enrich our students’ learning journeys.

Tip 1: Conduct a needs analysis

As instructors, we often ask, “What should our learners learn?” but a quick show of hands at a recent presentation I was giving reaffirmed the fact that not many of us regularly ask what our students’ needs are from their own perspectives. In addition to the mismatch highlighted by research between learners’ and instructors’ views about areas where learners need help, my recent research further suggests that what instructors or learners consider important skills to possess may not necessarily be the ones that learners perceive that they need to develop. Whether learners’ perceptions represent their realities or not, few of us would argue with the idea that learners’ needs are sound starting points for instruction, because learners may be most receptive to guidance in areas where they perceive a need for support and development. Furthermore, because learners’ needs are context-specific, it is important for us to conduct our own needs analysis to help us prioritize and inform our teaching.

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