Abstract:

In most academic reading and writing courses, instructors are faced with the challenging task of teaching their students how to write a concise academic summary of a given text. The expectations of both instructors and students are to achieve their departmental learning outcomes. However, recent research has shown that there often exists a mismatch between teachers’ expectations and students’ performance on summary writing tasks (Nunan, 1995, Tragant, 1997). Therefore, it is the purpose of this qualitative research paper to examine any such mismatches and to suggest ways of bridging the gap, if shown to exist, between teachers’ expectations and learners’ actual performance and to discuss ways of maximizing the performance of both teachers and students alike (Kirkland and Saunders, 1991, Kumaravadivelu, 1991).
A 5 point likert scale questionnaire is completed by two groups of participants in this study. The first group consists of eight full - time professional university instructors in an intensive, freshman, academic reading and writing program who are asked to respond to how well they feel their students have achieved the departmental learning outcomes with respect to writing a summary. The second group of participants is their learners who are asked to respond to the same instrument with a similar set of learning outcomes which reflect how they actually regard their own performance regarding summary writing. Both results are compared and mismatches are discussed. The outcome of this study shows that both groups believed that the learning otcomes have been met, yet the actual exam results showed a 57% failure rate. Therefore, there is a gap between what both learners and educators feel regarding the achievement of this specific task , and the actual results of the timed summary writing. Because summary writing is a challenging skill to be mastered, and because it is a necessary skill for learners to understand and implement, this study is relevant to both teachers of academic writing and reading, as well as to the learners of English who are often required to write precise and concise summaries of any text they read. Therefore, the presenter will attempt to explain the reasons for having such a gap, and suggest ways of bridging it by examining variables such as instructors’ teaching styles or students’ learning styles. The floor will be open to further suggestions and responses.

Keywords:

Summary writing, academic writing, teacher expectations, student performance, mismatches.