Strategic support is needed for nonnative speakers of English to understand university lectures better. The application of the techniques of genre analysis to a corpus of lecture introductions is reported. Teaching implications are considered. (25 references) (Author/LB)

Demonstrates the difficulty that English-as-a-second-language students experience in comprehending academic lectures, explores the lexical phrases that occur in several representative academic lectures and categorizes them in terms of the discourse functions they perform, and suggests ways of teaching such lexical phrases and functional categories…

A qualitative study is described investigating the university graduate student seminar presentation as a speech event and its status as a genre. Findings support Swales' (1990) contention that the graduate seminar is an independent genre related to the experimental research article, not merely an oral replication. (20 references) (Author/LB)

Considers the role of interactive lecturing styles within the context of the Edinburgh University MBA program. Examples show a variety of ways of including student oral participation within the lecture framework. (Author/VWL)

Two types of main hall discussions at an ecology conference were studied: plenary lecture discussion as an accepted, established spoken research process genre with its own conventions; and poster session discussion as a fragile, embryonic research process genre struggling for definition. (14 references) (Author/LB)

A study compared American and international students' views about the usefulness of taking notes during English lecture presentations. Students differed in terms of their estimations of notetaking adequacy, time pressure experienced during listening and notetaking, and amount of notetaking. (Author/CB)

Reports findings of ethnographic research into second-language lectures conducted at a university in Hong Kong. Six sociocultural features of second-language lectures are discussed: purposes of lectures, roles of lecturers, styles of lecturing, simplification, listener behavior, and humor. (31 references) (Author/CK)

Reports on a study exploring patterns of discourse organization in seminar-type discussions. Analysis was made of patterns of sequential organization in discussions between English for academic purposes students in university seminars in the United Kingdom. Analysis revealed two patterns of organization: simple exchanges of pre-formed ideas and…

Presents a range of insights that can be gained for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) listening comprehension pedagogy from the analysis of an authentic lecture. Notes that the salient features identified in the lecture are absent from academic listening textbooks surveyed and argues that EAP listening instructors need to supplement their texts…

Interactive lectures play an important role in improving comprehension and in enhancing communicative competence in the English language for EFL university students taking content lecture courses. This article considers the interactive discourse in lectures of the English Studies Department at the University of Alicante, Spain. It describes an…

It is widely known that L2 audiences continue to experience comprehension difficulties when listening to content lectures in English, regardless of proficiency level. For this reason, NS lecturers should be aware of potential obstacles to comprehension and the need to make appropriate adjustments. In order to understand how such adjustments may be…

The dynamics of classroom behavior in a college lecture class were observed for five semesters. The questioning process analyzed question types and their effect on the development of discourse. Sample English-for-academic-purposes activities are given using the question typology. (LMO)