The present study is designed to analyze international students' needs for listening and speaking tasks in their academic contexts. For this end, this study identified the necessity of academic aural and oral skills in lectures, students' difficulties...
The present study is designed to analyze international students' needs for listening and speaking tasks in their academic contexts. For this end, this study identified the necessity of academic aural and oral skills in lectures, students' difficulties in meeting required tasks and their perceived importance of those tasks. It also examined how Korean language teachers perceive teaching listening and speaking skills as well as designing aural/oral materials for academic purposes.
A number of studies on Korean for academic purposes had been conducted and mainly focused on academic literacy skills such as reading and writing, however, studies on academic listening and speaking skills had been investigated insufficiently until recently. In this regard, it explained the necessity of the study on listening and speaking needs for academic purposes and then presented research questions reviewing the prior needs analyses in chapter 1.
Chapter 2 dealt with task-based analysis as an alternative approach over the previous second language acquisition and language methodology, and thus explained why ‘task’ should be chosen as a unit of the needs analysis. It also presented the theoretical backgrounds of methodological issues on a needs analysis as well as characteristics and study skills for listening and speaking skills in academic settings.
In chapter 3, the unstructured interviews were carried out as one of the methods in this study to identify the authentic listening and speaking tasks to be included in the main questionnaires for both foreign students and Korean teachers. After that, it explained how to design the survey instruments and also added the procedures of data collection and analyses.
In chapter 4, the statistical software package SPSS for Windows (Version 12.0) was used for all data analysis. The statistical procedures employed included descriptive statistics, a chi-square test, t-tests, One-way ANOVA and LSD for the various items on the survey to examine overall requirements, difficulties and importance.
The findings are as follows:
First, students felt that 'strong note taking skills' was the most frequently required task and 'answering instructors' questions' was the second most required. ‘Participation in class discussions’ and ‘giving oral presentations in front of the whole class’ were also ed as commonly-required tasks. However, the least required task was 'spontaneous oral presentations and class discussions without preparation notice', followed by 'talking to professors in their offices about questions students have about the class'. Students' requirement of perceptions on each aural/oral task showed significant differences by first language, academic major, academic level, class size and the percentage of international students in the class.
Second, students ed that 'giving an oral presentation' was the most difficult among listening and speaking academic tasks, followed by 'understanding lectures'. They were concerned about 'answering questions from the audience after their own presentation' as their third most difficult task. On the other hand, students felt 'communication with other students in doing team projects' was the least difficult task. Students' views on the difficulty of listening and speaking skills also showed significant differences by first language, academic major, academic level and class size.
Third, for the importance of academic aural/oral tasks, students ed 'understanding lectures' as their most important task, followed by 'pronunciation' and 'taking notes'. The relatively most unimportant task for students was 'talking to professors in their offices about questions they have about the class'. 'Raising questions after class' was the second least important task. There were significant differences by major, academic level and class size in students' perception on importance.
Fourth, findings for Korean instructors' expectations of teaching pedagogical tasks showed that teachers felt 'preparation for skills to answer an audience's questions after an oral presentation' was the most required activity, followed by 'participating in discussions'. They ed that 'preparation for a formal presentation using its materials’ also needed as the third. Interestingly, in contrast to international students' needs, Korean instructors felt 'taking notes' was the least required task to teach.
Chapter 5 concluded with the study's significance and limitation and also pointed out the pedagogical implications for academic aural and oral skills instruction, suggestions for further studies on materials development, teaching methodology for academic listening/speaking skills and a needs analysis for subject-matter instructors in universities.
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