Written English

David McPhail, Francesca Ortona, Julie Hartill, Andrea Walker

© Imperial College London

Value Added

ImperialMaterials Degree

Core knowledgeTransferable Skills

Context

gra

du

atio

n

adm

issi

on

s

emp

loym

ent

The HE process

Maths & Physics ‘B’

English required

31% overseas SE Asia /China

Industry

PG Research

Other (finance/ etc)

Research led university (rewards)

Many overseas staff and visiting staff

Writing Skills

Key points

Our students find writing the most difficult of the communication skills.

BUT over 95% of the marks in our degree course are associated with the assessment of written work by academic staff (so what are we assessing?).

Outcome = Knowledge*Skills*Writing ability

AND Employers (and most parents) expect our graduates to be able to write well after 17 years in the education system!

Writing Skills

Potential Problems are:

Underachievement

Plagiarism

Failure

Damage to institutions reputation

Strategies for Improving Writing Skills

Objective:

To put in place a sustainable support system to demonstrate to each student the need for high quality written work, to identify weaknesses, and to provide the appropriate assistance.

The Challenge

Students are:

• not aware of the importance of writing skills to their degree and to their subsequent career;

• convinced that the technical and numerical content in their work is all-important;

• tend not to allow time to read through their work and correct it.

The Challenge

Academic Staff:

• Many do not consider the teaching of written English to be part of their job

• Some are not suitably skilled to teach English

• Apply different policies and penalties in their marking schemes

Assessment and Clinic

1st Year students (66) were assessed on the basis of a report they wrote on their first lab “Introduction to Materials”. Common faults:

50

45

1534

34

15

14

34

short sentences

repetition ofwords

mixed tenses

vocab misused

numbers

first person

info repeated

colloquial

Categories a Good overall, only very minor points need attention.

b Good but needs more attention to detail

c Quite good but too informal/clumsy needs more care and thought

d Careless - sometimes lacking in coherence, logic. Sometimes repetitive. Disruptions to the flow.

e Needs some help with English although not too bad. Sometimes misunderstands.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

a b c d e f

f Needs a lot of help with the English language both in

expressing and in understanding

Categories

Comment on Admissions Criteria

IELTS and TOEFL scores did not map precisely onto the test results

HOWEVER… Most of the students in the lowest ability groups did have low IELTS and TOEFL scores

Raising the IELTS and TOEFL bar will ameliorate the problem

Questionnaire

Students’ suggestions for improving:

• reading more

• writing more

• greater

vocabulary

• attending

English classes

0

20

40

60

verygood

fair verypoor

Students' description of own writing ability

c

Rating

Recommendations - targeted

Extra assistance for students that have problems through:

• small-group tutorials given by specialists from English language Support Programme;

• one-to-one advice from a member of staff or another departmental champion

• peer tutoring

Recommendations - general

Marking and feedback

Enhances student’s motivation

Challenges:- staff inclination

- staff ability

- must be consistent

- can be a negative experience

Recommendations - general

• workshops to increase awareness

• 1st Year: no marks allocation but good feedback

• 2nd Year: Up to 25% may be deducted

Alternative:

• return any reports without marking if English is not adequate

• student required to correct and resubmit work

Workshops

1st Year Workshop: half-day

Introduction including video clip:

Exercise 1 (Write a letter of Application)

Exercise 2 (Précis – summarise 400 words in 100)

Exercise 1

• Write letter• Groups of eight• Look at each letter in pairs• Make written changes and comments• Group chooses a representative• Representative records good and bad points• Representative presents points to rest of class

Overall Conclusions on Written English

• Raise student and staff awareness of the issue• Assistance embedded in the course through assessment• Explicit assistance through workshops, ELSP and departmental champion• Consistent staff approach• Departmental champion• Raise entrance requirements (cannot learn English and Engineering in

parallel)• Useful Books before entry ?

– Eats, Shoots and Leaves – Lynne Truss– Ten Steps to Perfect Punctuation – Jenny Haddon – September 2006

Support for current work

Imperial College London:

Research Grant

UK Centre for Materials Education:

Teaching Development Grant