Improving Summarizing Skills with TED Talks: An Account of a Teaching Lesson Using Explicit Instruction

This paper reports on a study which investigated the effectiveness of an explicit instruction approach in a Japanese university setting with third-year science and technology students in an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course. The two aims of this study were: 1) to explore changes in students...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inResearch-publishing.net
Main Authors Hashimoto, Shin'ichi, Fukuda, Eri, Okazaki, Hironobu
Format Report
LanguageEnglish
Published Research-publishing 01.08.2015
Subjects
College Students
Documentation
English for Special Purposes
Foreign Countries
Homework
Japan
Lecture Method
Science Education
Teaching Methods
Technology Education
Writing Assignments
Writing Attitudes
Writing Improvement
Writing Instruction
Writing Skills
Japan
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:This paper reports on a study which investigated the effectiveness of an explicit instruction approach in a Japanese university setting with third-year science and technology students in an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course. The two aims of this study were: 1) to explore changes in students' attitudes and understanding of summary writing, and 2) to observe changes in the ability of students to incorporate specific ideas of summary writing. First, students were given a short questionnaire about their current knowledge and background related to summary writing to provide a base measure. Next, the instructor presented information about specific features of summary writing. Then, students were introduced to a short TED Talk on a technical topic as the content material. Using this content, students were put into groups to discuss and identify the main points of the talk. For homework, they were assigned to write individual summaries. In the next class, students shared their individual summaries with their group members and produced a second draft to be evaluated. Finally, a post-questionnaire about summary writing was given to students. In the future, the researchers aim to make lessons like the above part of an on-line Learning Management System (LMS) that they are currently developing. [For full proceedings, see ED564162.]