Nur Hooton

Case study: Nur Hooton, Languages and Social Sciences

"The development of appropriate study skills" is an area where the following information would be useful:

On our post graduate programmes we find that despite being university graduates the students do not show the required academic skills for writing and do not know how to study individually to address this issue. We have therefore done the following on our TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and Applied Linguistics programmes this academic year:

During the Orientation Week we taught our students a particular academic framework that works well in TESOL writing.  We got them to identify this framework in a piece of writing.  We then got them to write a short piece (1,000 words) on a particular TESOL issue that interested them, ensuring they used the framework they were given. This "initial writing task" was for formative feedback and helped us identify students' strengths and weaknesses in academic writing, and gave the students the opportunity to see areas they may need help with. As a result of the marking of these pieces (formative not summative) the students were referred to individual language support with CELCA in LSS and / or the Learning Skills Centre in the Library.

During the last academic year (in TP2) the Library had offered a seminar / workshop on academic writing skills to teach students how to write beyond descriptive pieces, ensuring how evaluative writing may be used, etc. The feedback on this session was very positive but hinted at the need for such input much earlier on. As a result similar seminar / workshop was timetabled for the students in TP1. (Unfortunately I found out last week that only a third of the group made use of this facility....).

All PG students have a Research Methods module which runs throughout the academic year. The syllabus for this module has been designed in line with the students'needs - both in terms of academic writing and research methods and now encompasses the following:

Teaching period 1

• Week 1 What is research? (Pierre Larrivée)

• Week 2 Library and Information  (TS + AL) (Caroline Long)

• Week 3 Library and Information (TESOL) (Caroline Long)

• Week 4 Referencing skills and avoiding plagiarism (Claire Richardson)

• Week 5 Research Ethics (Sue Garton)

• Week 6 Writing Research (TS + AL) (John Murray)

• Week 6 SPSS and NVIVO (TESOL) (Sarah Hayes)

• Week 7 Writing Research (TESOL) (John Murray)

• Week 7 SPSS and NVIVO (TS + AL) (Sarah Hayes)

• Week 8 The Literature Review (Urszula Clark)

• Week 9 Corpora for Translation Studies (TS) (Beverly Adab)

• Week 10 Corpora for Translation Studies (TS) (Ramesh Krishnamurthy)

• Week 11 Analyzing Spoken Data (TESOL + AL) (Muna Morris-Adams)

Teaching period 2

• Week 14/1 Linguistic Methods (TS) (Beverly Adab)

• Week 15/2 Text Linguistic Methods (TS) (Christina Schaeffner)

• Week 16/3 Case Study and Fieldwork (TESOL + AL) (Nur Hooton)

• Week 17/4 Descriptive Translation Studies Methods (TS) (Christina Schaeffner)

• Week 17/4 Follow-up session on SPSS and NVIVO (TESOL + AL) (Sarah Hayes (by appointment)

• Week 18/5 Questionnaires and Interviews (TESOL + AL) (Sue Garto)

• Week 18 / 5 Follow-up session on SPSS and NVIVO (TS)(Sarah Hayes (by appointment)

• Week 19/6 Administrative week (no seminar)

• Week 20/7 Thinking Aloud Protocols (TS)(Christina Schaeffner)

• Week 20/7 Follow-up session on Writing Research (TESOL + AL)(John Murray (by appointment)

• Week 21/8 Corpora for TESOL/AL (TESOL + AL) (Ramesh Krishnamurthy)

• Week 21/8 Follow-up session on Writing Research (TS) (John Murray (by appointment)

• Week 22/9 Sociological Methods (TS + AL)   tbc

• Week 23/10 Linguistic Ethnography (TESOL + AL)(Fiona Copland)

• Week 24/11 Subtitling (TS) (Itzok Kossem)