Academic lectures in an EFL context: An exploration of student and lecturer perceptions

ABSTRACT: The university teaching context is extremely broad and complex. However, among all the instructional methods available, lecturing is still the most used one in the 21st century. Given that lecturing is predominant in higher education, it is of vital importance to investigate what really goes on in those contexts from a pedagogical point of view. Owing to the scarcity of the research into lecture comprehension in a context where the language of lecture is English as a foreign language, the purpose of the present study is primarily to explore the perceived problems and difficulties of non-native English-speaking students in comprehending their course lectures, along with the possible sources of these difficulties. In addition, this study aims at investigating the ways that teachers organize lectures for their students in their classes. The study, then, addresses the following research questions: (1) What are the difficulties and their related sources in comprehending freshman year course lectures delivered in English from the perspective of (a) non-native English speaking students? (b) their course lecturers? (2) How do course lecturers pedagogically organize their lectures? (3) What kind of techniques assist better lecture comprehension according to (a) the students? (b) the course lecturers? This is a case study which is qualitative in nature, employing observation and audio recording of lectures, student questionnaires, and semi-structured lecturer-and-student interviews, based on actual lectures delivered in social science disciplines, namely Psychology, Business Administration, and International Relations. The study involved 149 students and seven lecturers from the above-mentioned departments. The findings of the current study point to the differences between the students’ and lecturers’ perceptions of the sources of difficulties and related problems in students’ comprehension of the content lectures in English. Further, the analysis of the audio-recorded and transcribed content lectures reveals that the participating lecturers differed in their lecturing styles and lecture organization, but were mostly similar in the ways of using discourse markers and visual aids. Furthermore, the research also displays that the techniques reportedly used by the lecturers to ensure lecture comprehension differ from those preferred by the students. In conclusion, this study provides some implications for more effective pedagogy in lecture comprehension in EFL contexts, as well as suggestions for prospective research. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………