Section 3

Teacher: Before we start in, spiros and hiroko, thanks for coming today
to talk about recent study experiences and congratulations to both you in doing
so well in your first semester exam. I’d like to talk with you the value of english
academic purpose course you did here last year before starting your university
course . Sprios, if i could start with you, what parts of the programe have now
proved to be particularlt value to you?

Boy: I think that having to do … presentaition really helped me. For

example, a couple of weeks ago in our mrketing subject, when when it was my
turn to give presentation, i felt quiet confident. Of course, i still felt nervous but
because i haddone before, i knew what to expect. Also, i knew i was well
prepared and i had practised my timing. In fact i think in relation to some of the
other people in my group, i did a quiet good job because my overall style was
queit professional. What about you, hiroko.

Girl: that’s interesting. In my group, i wasreally surprise by the way students

did their presentations, they just read notes aloud. Can you believe that? The
didn’t worrry about their presentations style or keeping eye contact with their
audience and i remember that these things were rally stressed to us in the course
here.

Teacher: so, how did you approach your presentation, hiroko?

Girl: well to speak frankly, i read my notes too, at the time i was the releif to
do this way, but actually when i had finished, i didn’t fell any sense of
stisfaction. I didn’t feel positive about the experience at all.

Boy: that’s a pitty. Youknow, although i was pleased with my presentation,

i was not pleased with my actual performance right now in tutorials, during the
whloe semeter, i have not said anything in our tutorial disscusion. Not a word.
Girl: really, sprios. Why that? Do students talk too much?

Boy: it’s partly that, but it’s mostly because i have had no confidence to
speak out. Their style of speaking is so different. It’s not the style we were used
to during the course. They used many …, they’re not very polite and sometimes
there seems to be no order in the discussion. Also, there are very familiar with
each other so they know each others’habit , they can let each other into the
discussion.

Girl: you’re right, sprios, i experienced that too . for most of semester, i’ve
said absolutely nothing in tutorials. But recently, i’ve been trying to speak up
and i jusst jump in, and i’ve noticed that if they though my point was interesting
or new, then the time thay actually asked forr my opinon, and then it was much
easier for me to be a part of discussion.

Boy: that’s great, horiko.I hope that it happens to me in the next semester.I ‘ll
have to work hard to find some interesting points. What helped you to find the
idea?

Girl: i think that one of thing that helped me with reading. I’ve had to do so
much reading this semester just to help me make the sense of the lecture. At
first, i could’t understand what the lectures were talkng about, so i had to turn
to books and journals. Everynight i read for hours, using the list of reference
that was given, and made the page of note. At breakfast, i read and read my
notes again. That habits have helped me to follow the ideas in lectures, and it
also gives me some ideals to usein the tutorials.

Boy: But i did so much reading anyway. I don’t think there is no time left
over for anything extra. My reading speech is still so slow, though i much
better dealing with vocabulary than i used to be.
Teacher: what else do you think we could add to the programe course to
help with reading problems.

Boy: there is not really anything because it’s my problem. I remember we

were givin a long article to read. We didn’t like that but now i realize that
reading those long articals was good preparation for the things i need to read
now. Also, we regularly had speech reading task to do and we kept record of
our reading speed, so teachers so the teacher were encouraging us to work on
that.

Girl: that’s true, sprios. But what we read have been different. Sometimes in
the English class, I felt… when i read the articles about the environment or
health or education because i wanted to … on my own field but we didm’t read
anything about engineering. So i think i wasted time to learn vocabulary i didn’t
need.

Teacher: but surely the … you were taught about dealing with that
voabulary were useful.

Girl: yes, psychologically speaking, i would have felt much better working
on reading from my own field. What do you think sprios?

Boy: i agree that would have helped my confidence too and i would have
been motivated . it was thought that we could work on own topics when we
wrote the research assigments.

Teacher: now we move on writing.