What do learners expect to find in their first year at university? Reading their diaries

Abstract

Using students’ diaries as a frame of reference, this research project set out to learn more about how they experience foreign language classes in their first university year, over two semester periods (from September to June of the academic year 2007/08). The diaries were produced by 35 students of English Studies at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain. The data gathered from these diaries were classified into three sections: Section 1 provides a qualitative study of the students’ opinions of the lessons (subdivided into three different areas of interest: what learners expected, what they valued and what they criticised); Section 2 covers comments on feeling expressed about their first experience at university; finally, in Section 3, the data are reconsidered to shed light on the students’ learning strategies.