A Study On English Majors' Lecture Note-taking In An Intensive Reading Course

At present, the efficacy of note taking is taken for granted and acknowledged by educators, and quite a number of specific areas within this branch have been suggested. The study of the note-taking characteristics of college students in class is one of the important areas of the research. However, empirical studies on students' note-taking behaviors in Chinese EFL are still insufficient.The aims of the current study were to investigate the English majors' lecture note-taking patterns and the characteristics of their note-taking behaviors in an intensive reading course at Dalian Maritime University. The students' note taking approaches, review strategies, difficulties encountered, their attitudes towards note taking and the reasons for their choices were collected through a survey of questionnaire and interviews. With the help of Excel, a clear and accurate description of the statistics was provided. The SPSS software was used in statistical analysis to probe the issue of whether the complexity of review strategies correlates with learning result or not. Some copies of students' notes were also collected to get further information about the characteristics of students' lecture notes. Results indicate that the learners prefer to use simple approaches to take notes and simple strategies to review their notes, because these approaches are time saving, convenient, most suitable to their test preparation and easy to be followed. With the advancement in years of study, the learners paid more and more attention on making their notes exact, concise and easy to be used. Good learners and poor learners are different in the use of repetition, selection and simple elaborations. As to the difficulties encountered by the learners, writing fast enough and paying attention are on the top of the list. Results also indicate that the learners' attitudes towards note-taking are quite positive, but their insufficient use of the lecture notes and lack of strategies to improve their lecture notes are also noticeable.Meanwhile, the research shows that the current state of students' note-taking is not satisfying. Note taking, as a core academic skill in the learning process, is essential for language learners in improving the understanding of the subject and capturing the essential points of a topic. So students should be encouraged to improve their note taking efficiency and teachers are responsible for developing their skills in note taking.