A cross-cultural investigation of L2 notetaking: student habits and perspectives

Abstract

ABSTRACT The importance of notetaking for English for academic purposes (EAP) students and teachers is growing due to a rapid increase in the number of universities offering English as a medium of instruction (EMI) courses around the world (e.g. [Teng, H. C. 2011. “Exploring Note-taking Strategies of EFL Listenerst.” Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 15: 480–484.]). While there have been several studies on second language (L2) notetaking that focus on the types and styles of notes students take (e.g. [Siegel, J. 2016. “A pedagogic cycle for EFL note-taking.” ELT Journal 70 (3): 275–286]; [Crawford, M. 2015. “A Study on Note Taking in EFL Listening Instruction.” JALT2014 Conference Proceedings, Tokyo, JALT, 416–424]; Tsai and Wu 2010), student perspectives regarding their stated beliefs about and reported habits related to notetaking remain in need of further exploration. This paper reports on an investigation of notetaking from EAP students’ perspectives. It presents the results of a cross-cultural survey on the views and habits expressed by Japanese (n = 256) and Swedish (n = 272) students. Findings from the study demonstrate the similarities and differences between students in the two countries in relation to notetaking in EAP courses.