Association for Academic Language and Learning

A few weeks ago I pointed out Manchester University’s academic phrasebank to students in a lecture. If you don’t know about it (you should!) it introduces lots of different ‘academic language chunks’ that you can use in essays such as In the last few years there has been increasing interest in ….. At the end of the lecture one of the students asked me if they should reference the phrases they used from the academic phrasebank. This worried me! It showed me that the student had no real idea of the concept of referencing and the sort of things we reference and the things we don’t. Most of all the experience reminded me that students (in fact all of us) generally learn things slowly over a long period with lots of exposure to the same ideas repeated again and again in different ways. So here’s a page of interesting resources from the Association for Academic Language and Learning in Australia. I particularly like the second link: A visual guide to essay writing. The ideas are not necessarily new for me, but are presented in an original way which made me think about essay writing all over again.

Your language skills are better than ours!

Today I am showing you another study skills link. Do read it carefully. What I’ve noticed about students who are successful at university is that they have good habits. Let me give you an example of this. The other day in one of my classes we discussed the arguments for and against capital punishment. I encouraged each student to give his or her opinion and to justify it. I noticed that one student in particular was listening really carefully and making notes of what the other students were saying. This student was collecting ideas all the time! Language teachers often rephrase things that students have said, putting them into words that native speakers would use. I noticed that this student was making notes when I did this too, but some students were simply listening, while another couple were looking out the window! Who do I think will write the best essay?! My point is that getting good marks is not a matter of chance, but a result of good study habits which anyone can adopt. Check out the study skills self-help pages at Virginia Tech.

International Student Help

I’m very interested in what students from overseas find difficult when they study in English, but the truth is that students (like everyone else!) don’t like to admit it when things are very hard. For this reason many overseas students worry a lot on their own, or end up in a group of students from their own country complaining and worrying together! There are some things that you can do to try and make things easier for yourselves and one of them is to read this study skills site set up by Palgrave (who will try to sell you a book!). I don’t think that this site will save your life, but I think it may introduce you to some ideas that you can make use of. Even just the reading in English will improve your reading skills. Realising that you are not the only one with difficulties is often a great help and these sorts of sites often make students feel better just because of that. The skills4study site is here.

I have also put a new link in my permanent list of Links I enjoy on the right-hand side of the page. The link is to The Purdue Online Writing Lab which is a really impressive collection of materials and exercises to improve your writing and grammar. I’ll be choosing some specific exercises from here very shortly but meanwhile you can start to have a look around it.

Happy New Year!

I came across this great quote recently: “In order to succeed your desire for success must be greater than your fear of failure”. I think this says a lot – how often is it that we don’t do things because we think we might fail? Let me share a personal development technique which has helped me to achieve some of my personal aims. I find a quiet room where I can think on my own for a few minutes without being disturbed. (You can do this in the university library!) Close your eyes and visualise yourself. The person you visualise is the perfect you. What is this person like? What habits does this person have? What does this person own? What is their job? What personal relationships do they have? When you have built up this picture you can start to make sentences to describe this person. The sentences must begin with the phrase: I want to be someone who ….. for example: I want to be someone who doesn’t smoke. Or I want to be someone who is rich. When I do this I come up with many sentences, new ones each time! You then have to work out how you become this person you imagined. This is the essential step: what do you have to do in order to become the person you want to be? I have found this a powerful technique for making me realise that there are things that I should be doing. (Like a masters course!) This technique helps me get through tough times. I once had a difficult job that I didn’t enjoy. What kept me going was the knowledge that the job would finish some time, and that by doing the job I was going to get a better job later on, and I would be able to become the person who I wanted to be.
Good luck with achieving your personal goals!