Yuko’s Story

1. Yuko’s Story • Spack studied the integration of ‘Yuko’ over 3 years as she adapted to the needs of an American university • Yuko had a TOEFL score of 640 (more than IELTS 7.0), which is higher than the entry requirements for virtually every UK university • She had also spent one year at an American high school as an exchange student • She was determined to succeed and was attracted by American educational methods

2. Yuko’s Story • In her first year she did not complete some courses and had several difficulties, for example: • she was not able to read quickly enough • was unused to writing long assignments • had little experience of independent learning • In discussion groups she was intimidated by native-speakers, took a long time to formulate her contributions • She partly attributed her difficulties to a lack of background knowledge in areas such as American history

3. Yuko’s Story • In the second year she developed better survival strategies: • faster ‘reading for gist’ techniques • skipping passages • She was still at times overwhelmed by both the amount and the complexity of readings – particularly when they were argumentative rather than factual • She felt less guilty when deciding not to study every section of every course • Criticised herself when her strategies avoided being critical – which she identified as the American way of learning

4. Yuko’s Story • In the third year her confidence developed • She collaborated better with other students • Was selective in her reading • Was more confident to be critical of readings • Noticed that the other students sometimes did not understand • ‘I used to open some reading and the printed words used to scare me and that doesn’t happen anymore’

5. Yuko’s Story According to Spack Yuko let go of four myths: •  Good students grasp meaning the first time they read •  Good students understand every word of every reading assignment •  Good students read everything assigned •  Good students read everything on schedule