Promoting Engagement with Sources in Genre-based Oral Academic Communication

1. Promoting Engagement with Sources in Genre-based Oral Academic Communication Megan M. Siczek (msiczek@gwu.edu) English for Academic Purposes The George Washington University Washington, DC USA March 9, 2019

2. Source use in oral academic contexts • Source use in academic writing is a frequent focus of scholarly research and pedagogical practice; however, how students engage with sources in oral academic communication contexts receives significantly less attention despite the fact that most academic speaking involves interaction with some type of source material.

3. Academic discourse socialization EAP goal to socialize students who speak English as a second or additional language into our academic discourse community • “dynamic, socially situated process … often multimodal, multilingual, and highly intertextual” (Duff, 2010, p. 169) • Clear differences between written and spoken discourse socialization, yet both modalities “draw on and interweave many other texts” (Duff, 2010, p. 177)

4. Context • 3-credit elective course in oral academic communication for international undergraduate students at the George Washington University • Fall 2018 • Course had been redesigned with new thematic content in anticipation of being proposed as a general curricular requirement • 13 students: • 6 China • 1 India • 2 Japanese • 1 Pakistan • 1 Panama • 1 Puerto Rico • 1 United Arab Emirates

5. Research questions • How was interaction with sources built into this genre-based course design? • To what extent did students meet expectations for source use in key assignments throughout the semester?

8. 3-module course organization

9. Genre-based pedagogy

12. To what extent did students meet …Data commentary Evaluation highlights • Opened with strong signaling of data and its source • Sometimes missed larger rhetorical context (who compiled data and for what purpose) • Very strong rhetorical arrangement (locating>highlighting>interpreting data) • Excellent use of language structures appropriate for genre

13. To what extent did students meet …Discussion leadership Evaluation highlights • Excellent selection of source material; solid introductions of source but sometimes neglected the “big picture” rhetorical context • Most students wrote some discussion questions that signaled the source material, but there was a tendency to focus on the general topic and/or participants’ experiences rather than the actual source content • Discussion sometimes veered toward personal experiences rather than maintaining a focus on the source material • Some students ended with an effective wrap-up takeaway linking back to source material or summed up key point of discussion well; about half did both well

14. To what extent did students meet …Individual persuasive presentation Evaluation highlights • Almost all students met the expectation to include data commentary and a conceptual definition • Excellent use of language structures to refer to others’ ideas • Students clearly signaled info from sources while speaking but were less successful indicating source use on slides • Almost all students met/exceeded source use expectations and used a nice variety of sources; 10/13 students had a final slide listing sources but rarely used APA format

15. To what extent did students meet …Summary-synthesis of three peers’ presentations Evaluation highlights • Strong rationale for selection of sources and treatment of peers’ presentations as “sources” • Generally well focused on main synthesis point; some focal points “deeper” than others • Occasionally summaries were overly long compared to synthesis • Excellent use of language structures for summary, synthesis, as well as comparing, contrasting, and evaluating.

16. Overarching findings • Students did well with more controlled source-based tasks; more mixed results when expectation for source use was less structured or they had to rely on their own research • Tendency to miss “big picture” and just seek what they needed from sources • Very strong use of language structures appropriate for signaling source use

17. Promoting engagement with sources in oral communication contexts • The skills we expect them to learn as writers, and more generally as critical thinkers and learners, can all be cultivated through speaking tasks that are designed with source use in mind • Expand understanding of what counts as a “source”: traditional research (academic and Internet-based) plus “other” texts as sources (data sets without commentary, TED Talks, students’ own presentations) • Sequence oral communication tasks to build a set of skills and “sources” they can draw from • Having a genre-based approach helps • Having a thematic orientation helps (and interdisciplinary global/cross-cultural content is a bonus and can bring flexibility once the course is designed; i.e., assignments can be easily modified to address different topics and sources)

19. Source use • Duff, P. A. (2010). Language socialization into academic discourse communities. Annual review of applied linguistics, 30, 169-192. • But….I engaged with many more • Course materials • My teaching input • Students’ submitted assignments • Evaluative feedback on assignments • Further evidence of how academic discourse “draws on and interweaves many other texts” (Duff, 2010, p. 177)