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УДК 81
O. A. Glushenko, S. Murray
ACADEMIC LANGUAGE SKILLS AS PART OF MASTERING ENGLISH
The article deals with academic language skills as part of mastering Englsh. It often happens that international students studying abroad lack basic academic English knowledge and are unable to participate in the classroom activities and in the campus life in general. It seems vital to master academic language for students who are planning their studies overseas. And it is clear for teachers that some special way of training should be applied in this case. Being advanced in all four language domains makes the learning process much easier. However, we consider academic Reading and Writing skills to be the most challenging but yet crucial for the academic success.
Key words: academic communication, communicative skills, academic language, academic reading, academic writing.
Language is an instrument to implement communication. The purpose of every language is to satisfy people's needs in social communication. Children need communication to make friends, to play games together, to take part in different entertainments. Students at college or university have more complex needs: to interact within the classroom, be able to be involved in professional discourse: participate in group discussions, have quick reactions to what is said by his/her co-students, understand the teacher's tasks and questions, understand and make the most effective use of study materials, develop the specialized language and vocabulary relevant to a certain subject, read and get information from different sources, moreover observe, interpret, analyze and process contents, build new knowledge. These skills are different from those used in social contexts such as reading, retelling, describing, narrating, and expressing personal attitude.
The language that students use for conversation will not match academic purposes. Academic language is a specific language register, and it is very important to realize the difference between social language of interaction and academic language. Currently the experts use such general terms as academic language and ordinary language (Scarcella, 2003), social or conversational language (Fitts & Bowers, 2013). Academic language is the specific register characteristic of spoken and written language (Gottlieb & Ernst-Slavit, 2014: 1-2). Jim Cummins demonstrates his approach to learning a foreign language through two language continua — Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP). (Cummins, 1984) He considers that instruction advances linguistically from basic, everyday language toward more academic, conceptual, academic language (Cummisn, 2008, Cimmins & Man, 2007). In mastering English, the mastery of academic language seems to be an essential part of general academic proficiency.
The term academic language may be used to refer to formal English rules, structure, and content for academic dialogue and text, and the communicative conventions that allow students to meet the demands of school/college environments. A concise definition refers to academic language as "the specialized language, both oral and written, of academic settings, that facilitates communication and thinking about disciplinary content" (Nagy & Townsend, 2012). For instructional purposes, these specialized language skills include
advanced vocabulary and syntax that help students unlock key elements of both oral and written language. These skills support the listener or reader in gaining a rich understanding of the message being delivered. Zwiers (2008) believes that academic language serves three interrelated and broad roles:
1. To describe complexity (to describe complex concepts in clear and concise ways).
2. To describe high order thinking (to comprehend, to solve problems, to express ideas).
3. To describe abstraction (to describe ideas or relationships that can't easily be acted out, pointed to or illustrated with images, like values and beliefs etc).
Academic language is characterized by the specific linguistic features associated with academic disciplines, including discourse features, grammatical constructions, and vocabulary across different language domains (listening, speaking, reading, writing) and content areas (language arts, mathematics, science, and history, among others). Along with its important linguistic knowledge necessary for students' academic achievements, academic language implies knowledge about "ways of being in the world, ways of acting, thinking, interacting, valuing, believing, speaking, and sometimes writing and reading, connected to particular identities and social roles" (Gee, 1992). In accordance to Dalton-Puffer (2007) academic language serves certain functions, the purposes of which are to learn skills and new knowledge. The major functions to be able to act in educational environment are: analyzing, classifying, comparing, defining, describing, drawing conclusions, evaluating and assessing, explaining, hypothesizing, informing, narrating, persuading, requesting/ giving information.
It often happens that international students studying abroad lack basic academic English knowledge and are unable to participate in the classroom activities and in the campus life in general. It seems vital to master academic language for students who are planning their studies overseas. And it is clear for teachers that some special way of training in this case should be applied. Being advanced in all four language domains makes the learning process much easier. However, we consider academic Reading and Writing skills to be the most challenging but yet crucial for the academic success.
Academic reading is different from other forms of reading. It's usually complex and discipline-specific. It involves a measured, challenging, and multifaceted process in which students are dynamically engaged with a range of reading strategies. Academic texts are challenging as they have ideas expressed in complex language, may include challenging words and sentence structures. Students have to come across reading material which is much advanced. They should have the skills to grasp the main thoughts, philosophies, themes, and opinions from the academic text. Levine, Ferenz, and Reves (2000) believe that the skill to read academic texts is regarded most crucial, which the university students need to undertake. Academic reading success is possible if the readers use certain categories of analyses, some of which are specific to each academic discipline. Thus, working with a text and recreating its meaning entail both non-discipline specific and specific strategies. Reading strategies benefit learners to monitor their own reading, help them to decide whether comprehension is taking place and decide if they need to take further action for the lack of their comprehension. Critical reading skills are extremely important for the overall academic success. Reading critically means to read with a skeptical attitude and thinking of more than one angle on the issue. There are four divisions within it, that is, comprehension, interpretation, analysis and evaluation (Xue, 2013). To analyze and comprehend the text holistically, the student has to develop personal reading strategies (Nasrollahi, Krishnasamy
& Noor, 2015), which may include (a) pre-reading: preview the text, pay attention to print features and text structures; (b) while-reading: mark sections in the text, make connections between the text and reader's personal experience and knowledge, monitor comprehension of the text, summarize the key points after reading; (c) post-reading: relate the text to real life situations based on general discussion in the classroom. To encourage and develop critical reading ability, the following strategies can be used by the instructor:
1. Previewing: learning about the text before reading it.
2. Contextualizing: placing the text in its historical, biographical and cultural contexts.
3. Questioning to understand and remember: asking questions about the content.
4. Reflecting on challenges to the reader's beliefs and values: examining one's personal responses.
5. Outlining and summarizing: identifying the main ideas and restating them in one's own words.
6. Evaluating an argument: testing the logic of a text as well as its credibility and emotional impact.
7. Comparing and contrasting related readings.
Critical evaluation is the core of academic work, as the aim of academic work is to create generalizations: principles, theories, models, get a skill of testing the truth if each statement, and also develop a questioning attitude to check the given information through brainstorming.
Much of academic English is about expressing the relationship between ideas. Although the language may be more complex than in everyday English, good academic writers aim to be as clear, precise and simple as possible. They think about what their readers know already, and aim to guide them towards less familiar areas and topics. The ability to write in an academic style is something students should develop as part of their university study. It is difficult to give general 'rules' on 'how to' write for a university course, as academic subjects vary in:
- their vocabulary;
- the types of text used (essays, reports, research articles or summaries);
- how these texts are structured and organized.
Academic writers use formal tone of writing; avoid slang, jargon, colloquialisms, abbreviations, making 'I statements', use the third-person rather than the first-person perspective. While writing a certain academic paper, the following features of academic English should always be considered:
- formal in tone and impersonal in style;
- uses precise terminology;
- avoids contractions or shortened forms of verbs, such as 'won't', 'doesn't' or 'it's';
- avoids using a linking words such as 'and' or 'but' at the beginning of a sentence;
- avoids personal pronouns such as I, me, you, your;
- tends to employ a cautious way of explaining findings, using expressions such as 'may', 'it is possible that...', 'could';
- may use specialized vocabulary;
- focused on precise word choice;
- clear focus on the issue or topic rather than the author's opinion.
Academic writing implies some contribution to what you are writing about. The author
should support his/her opinion with particular thoughts, stated ideas, and facts. A person is expected to examine the problem thoroughly, reflect on all ideas, and come up with his/her own ones. The author should organize the material, give arguments and present them in a clear way to the reader. The thesis statement organizes the whole essay, informs the reader about the author's opinion and what he is going to write about, and it must be given in the introduction.
As far as academic writing, time management is a useful skill to control your work. Managing time makes possible to part your job, to spend more or less time on this or that aspect doing your assignment, to think over the tasks you need to consider, and to complete the assignment on time. One needs to break down the process into the following stages before doing the actual writing task:
1) analyzing the topic;
2) finding and evaluating useful sources of literature;
3) reading and taking notes;
4) working out one's own thesis statement and argument;
5) planning one's essay and writing a draft;
6) rewriting;
7) proof reading;
8) editing.
Moreover, students seeking to improve their academic writing skills should concentrate on the following areas to encompass strong composition, excellent grammar, and a consistent stylistic approach:
1) solid planning before creating their work;
2) seeking detailed feedback before writing;
3) perfecting grammar skills, studying troublesome points of grammar, rules of proper punctuation;
4) clearing out consistent stylistic approach (MLA, APA, Chicago Manual of Style), use one style and stick to it in writing out numbers, references, citations, etc. The MLA is commonly used in English classes.
Today, many students are willing to pursue their business, engineering, computer science, math, and other majors at U. S. and other schools abroad. Having successfully completed English courses at their home colleges and universities, they find themselves in a predicament when arriving on campus and sitting in a classroom. Most of them find it hard to communicate with professors and classmates. They might need extra effort to improve their academic English skills.
Here are some recommendations that can help students succeed and expand their English proficiency:
1. Expand academic vocabulary:
Knowing the vocabulary of one's major is extremely important. Extensive reading and making one's own glossaries appears to be very helpful. Studying the course's outlines and publications of the staff and other students is a real depository of useful information.
2. Practice academic listening and speaking:
In order to be engaged in the classroom, students should be able to communicate effectively with faculty members and classmates. This often requires language skills beyond daily conversation. Today, students are exposed to all kinds of information and can take advantage of modern technology to better prepare for their classes. Extensive podcasts or radio listening familiarize one with specific vocabulary and topics. Reading academic articles
aloud is a useful way to better understand the subject and to enhance one's speaking skills.
3. Improve reading and writing skills:
The amount of reading students must do can range from tens to hundreds of pages per week, depending on the requirements of their courses. Students can start practicing English by reading newspapers, magazines and/or online posts etc.
In addition to reading aloud, it is important to learn how to study and retain useful information in a short period of time. Practicing reading for specific information, or major arguments, or topic sentences is an essential component in overall academic success.
Learning how to take notes while listening to a lecture is also an important skill to learn. Dwelling on the precision of one sentence can be counterproductive. Thus, grasping the main idea and taking brief notes is a very significant skill to master. Consistent writing practice, e.g. personal journal entries, reports, publications can help one sharpen one's academic writing skills.
The importance of mastering academic language skills is crucial in the academic environment. Academic language functions as linguistic glue that holds the tasks, texts, and other elements of the educational process together. If students fail to use it properly, the chances are that their academic results will suffer.
References
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About the Аuthors
Olga Glushenko — Candidate of Science in Pedagogy, Associate Professor at the Department of Foreign Languages for Non-linguistic Faculties, Pskov State University, Russia.
E-mail: [email protected]
Svetlana Murray — certified translator, ESL/EFL instructor, Master's Equivalence of Science, Linguistics and Language Education, Columbia, South Carolina, USA,
E-mail: [email protected]
О. А. Глущенко, С. Мюррей
АКАДЕМИЧЕСКИЕ ЯЗЫКОВЫЕ НАВЫКИ КАК СОСТАВЛЯЮЩАЯ ОБУЧЕНИЯ АНГЛИЙСКОМУ ЯЗЫКУ
В статье рассматриваются академические языковые навыки как составляющая обучения английскому языку. Зачастую иностранные студенты, обучающиеся за границей, не владеют академической составляющей английского языка и не готовы участвовать в занятиях и жизни кампуса в целом. Овладение академическим языком для студентов, планирующих обучение за границей, представляется жизненно необходимым. Преподаватели осознают, что следует применять особый способ обучения для овладения навыками академического общения. Совершенствование языковых навыков во всех четырех видах речевой деятельности значительно облегчает процесс обучения. Однако мы считаем, что академические навыки в области чтения и письма являются наиболее сложными и в какой-то степени определяющими для успешной академической деятельности.
Ключевые слова: академическая коммуникация, коммуникативные навыки, академический язык, академическое чтение, академическое письмо.
Об авторах
Ольга Глущенко — кандидат педагогических наук, доцент кафедры иностранных языков для нелингвистических направлений, Псковский государственный университет, Россия.
E-mail: [email protected]
Светлана Мюррей — сертифицированный переводчик, преподаватель английского как иностранного / второго языка, магистр лингвистики и языкознания, Колумбия, Южная Каролина, США.
E-mail: [email protected]
