Developing Notetaking Skills in a Second Language

Insights from Classroom Research

Joseph Siegel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000318159
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Developing Notetaking Skills in a Second Language combines theoretical perspectives with an analysis of empirical classroom studies and offers a detailed discussion that increases pedagogical awareness of factors impacting second language (L2) notetaking performance and instruction.

Based on original research and including descriptions of classroom practices and samples of student work, the book provides insights on a range of topics relevant to L2 notetaking. The book emphasizes the challenges that many students from different international backgrounds face when taking notes in an L2 and outlines a five-stage pedagogic cycle for notetaking that can be applied to any listening text. It also explores the dialogic potential of notes for stimulating class discussion about notetaking strategies.

This book will be of great interest for teachers, academics, scholars, and postgraduate students in the fields of applied linguistics, L2 and foreign language education. It will also be a useful resource for those in charge of teacher education and postgraduate TESOL, L1, and L2 listening researchers and psycholinguists.

1 Notetaking

The gateway academic skill

Notetaking in everyday life

People have been recording information they want to remember or to be remembered for tens of thousands of years. From the earliest cave paintings that preserved important images to hieroglyphics written in ancient Egypt to shopping lists scribbled on scraps of paper to notes taken on computers in classrooms, all forms of notetaking have served to provide reminders and stimulate recall of events, tasks, and various other types of information. These days, notes play an often-underappreciated role in several aspects of daily life, in personal, professional, and academic spheres.

Once a person can accomplish basic drawing skills, they begin to communicate messages via “notes,” as even when a young child draws a squiggly picture and says it shows their mommy and daddy, they are in a sense creating a note: an item that they created to remind them of or to demonstrate something; in this case, their family. As children transition to the school years, they learn to write, and thus “notes” often become a combination of visual images and written words. Upon reaching junior high school, students are exposed to more written information, and their notes, at least for school, typically begin to contain more and more words.

In high school, class content and ideas become more sophisticated and students are often held accountable for information presented in class by the teacher; thus, their notes become more high stakes, as taking and keeping a good set of notes can lead to academic success. From there, students in many countries enter higher education (e.g., community college or university), where they often must rely on their notetaking abilities to cope with the increased information loads that their teachers expect them to learn. Other young people may enter the workforce, where taking notes also plays an important role in preserving information in order to accomplish tasks (i.e., a restaurant server taking orders or a carpenter building a bookshelf to certain specifications).

At home, notes are always useful ways of keeping family members informed (“Just ran to the store to buy milk. Home soon. XO, Mom”) and to remind others and/or yourself (“Charge phone before work!”). Generally speaking, people used to rely on these types of notes written on pieces of paper, but with email and text messaging, much information can be sent directly to individuals.

An introduction to second language (L2) notetaking

While notetaking is noticeable in several avenues of life, the high-stakes nature of higher education, the positive impact that quality notes can have on academic success, and the resonance that such success can have on a student’s future calls for specific and in-depth consideration of how notetaking skills develop and are utilized in second language (L2) academic situations. Therefore, this book focuses for the most part on notetaking in academic contexts, and higher education in particular, when the notetaker is listening to a lecture that is given in their L2. Attention to notetaking in English for academic purposes (EAP) and academic skills courses meant to assist students in developing skills needed to succeed in typical educational formats in higher education has increased in recent years. (e.g., listening to and learning from lectures, listening during and participating in seminars, and reading lengthy texts). Furthermore, as the number of university-aged students who attend courses in their L2 increases worldwide, having a book that focuses first and foremost on L2 notetaking (as opposed to having the notetaking be a secondary priority to, for instance, listening skills) and discussing research and various viewpoints related to this crucial ability opens up space for development on several fronts, among them, L2 teachers, English medium instruction (EMI) lecturers, applied linguistic researchers, and L2 students themselves.

This first chapter continues by defining notetaking and accounting for a number of related theoretical perspectives before moving on to consider the roles of different cognitive and language skills (e.g., listening, writing) in the notetaking process. It then details differences between first language (L1) and L2 notetaking before outlining the importance of notetaking with a special focus on EMI and English as a lingua franca (ELF) used worldwide. Most research, examples, and discussion throughout the book center on notetaking in either L1 or L2 English learning contexts, and thus EAP and EMI are often in focus. However, most if not all theoretical concepts and practical teaching techniques are applicable to notetaking in L2s other than English. Several other factors that impact the notetaking act, including cultural aspects, method of notetaking (i.e., traditional pen and paper and digital modes), and teacher options are also introduced. After this overview of notetaking, the book continues by narrowing the focus on research investigations of notetaking in both L1 and L2 educational contexts in Chapter Two. Chapter Three provides perspectives on notetaking generated from students themselves and covers individual aspects that affect notetaking.

The subsequent chapter addresses materials used to teach notetaking, including both commercial and authentic instructional and learning materials. Based on a number of observations that illustrate the drawbacks of some teaching materials, pedagogic perspectives and alternatives for notetaking instruction are introduced in Chapter Five. The potential for dialogic elements of notes is the topic of Chapter Six, which includes transcripts of students discussing their notes together, and analysis of those conversations to demonstrate what original analysis of collaborative discussion based on notes reveals. In Chapter Seven, the issue of note quality and how to determine what “good” notes are is debated, including a review of previous and current methods. The final chapter provides a brief summary and shares closing thoughts.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• List of Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: Notetaking: The gateway academic skill
• Chapter 2: Previous research on notetaking in L1 and L2 contexts
• Chapter 3: Notetaking from the L2 student perspective
• Chapter 4: Principles for evaluating L2 notetaking textbooks
• Chapter 5: Pedagogic approaches for L2 notetaking
• Chapter 6: Embracing dialogic potential of notes: A new line of sociocultural engagement
• Chapter 7: Assessing note quality
• Chapter 8: Key insights from classroom research and final thoughts
• Index