Abstract

Although participation in academic speaking events is a key to developing disciplinary understanding, students for whom English is a second language may have limited access to these learning events due to an increasingly dialogic and active higher education pedagogy which places considerable demands on their oracy skills. Drawing on the Oracy Skills Framework we explore disciplinary tutors’ and students’ expectations of oracy skills required for disciplinary study. An analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data found that disciplinary tutors placed importance on the cognitive dimension of oracy skills such as argumentation and asking questions, whilst students placed importance on linguistic accuracy. The findings also suggest that tutors and students lack a shared metalanguage to talk about oracy skills. We argue that a divergence of expectations and lack of shared terminology can result in compromising students’ access to valuable classroom dialogue. The paper concludes with a number of practical suggestions through which both tutors and students can increase their understanding of oracy skills.

摘要

尽管参加学术演讲活动是培养学科理解的关键，但由于越来越多的对话和积极的高等教育教学法对他们的演讲技能提出了相当高的要求，因此英语为第二语言的学生可能无法参加这些学习活动。借鉴口语技能框架，我们探索学科导师和学生对学科学习所需的口语技能的期望。对定量和定性数据的分析发现，学科导师重视辩论和提问等口语技能的认知维度，而学生则重视语言的准确性。研究结果还表明，导师和学生缺乏共同的元语言来谈论口语技能。我们认为，期望的分歧和缺乏共享术语可能会影响学生获得宝贵的课堂对话的机会。论文最后提出了一些实用的建议，通过这些建议，导师和学生都可以提高对口语技能的理解。