Your first language:

Your second language:

Number of years of studying English:

Did you begin learning English at primary or secondary school, at tertiary level, through private education/tuition or at home? Select option: Primary Secondary Tertiary Private instruction At home

Was English the medium of instruction in the school or was it taught as a foreign language? Select option: English as the medium of instruction English as a foreign language

Is English spoken in your family home? Select option: Yes No About half the time Only sometimes

What is your field of study?

How long have you been in Australia?

The following questions are about difficulties relating to the use of language (types of discourse and writing) that students meet at university.

1. Have you found that the type of discourse used by lecturers and other students difficult to understand, ie:
   • Do they use a lot of colloquial (everyday) expressions that you don't understand?
     Always Often Sometimes Never

   • Do you find their accents difficult to understand?
     Always Often Sometimes Never

   • Do you find them uncommunicative and unhelpful?
     Always Often Sometimes Never

   • Are there particular mannerisms, habits or customs that you don't understand?
     Always Often Sometimes Never

2. Have you found the type of texts that you are required to read difficult to understand? Can you identify any difficulties:
   • discipline specific words or academic terminology,
     Always Often Sometimes Never

   • the academic phraseology,
     Always Often Sometimes Never

   • the sentence structure,
     Always Often Sometimes Never

   • the theories and theoretical perspectives,
     Always Often Sometimes Never

   • the new concepts and models.
     Always Often Sometimes Never

3. Have you found that the ways of learning which are accepted in your home country are not accepted here?
   Always Often Sometimes Never

   What sort of ways of learning are these?
   

   What have you done to get over the problem?
   

4. Have you found that the demands of academic writing are different from those in your home country. What are the differences?
   

5. Have you had difficulty researching and acknowledging the required range of different authors/previous research?
   Always Often Sometimes Never

   
   

6. Have you been able to restructure what you have read in new ways in your own writing without copying from the texts or using words predominantly from the texts?
   Always Often Sometimes Never

7. Do you have difficulty in expressing you own ideas in the light of so much information available from experts in your area of study, ie did you lack confidence in your own knowledge after reading in your field and talking to your supervisors?
   Always Often Sometimes Never

8. Have your written assignments and reports achieved the levels/marks/grades that you hoped for?
   Always Often Sometimes Never

9. Have you received sufficient feedback from your lecturers and/or supervisors to help you improve your writing?
   Always Often Sometimes Never

10. Have you found it difficult to understand the way knowledge should structured/organised in your writing?
    Always Often Sometimes Never

11. Have you found it difficult to understand what is actually required of you in carrying out your research or assignments?
    Always Often Sometimes Never

12. Have you found the degree of independence you are expected to show in designing and carrying out your research or assignments to be a difficulty?
    Always Often Sometimes Never

13. Have you been able to adequately envisage and plan your research or study habits?
    Yes No Only with difficulty

14. Have you been able to express the aims and outcomes of your research in your writing?
    Always Often Sometimes Never

15. Have you had difficulty in writing a literature review?
    Always Often Sometimes Never

16. Have you had difficulty with understanding the texts/readings in your area of study?
    Always Often Sometimes Never

17. Have you had difficulty in understanding the idea of theories, perspectives, points of view and their importance in your field of study?
    Always Often Sometimes Never

18. Have you felt that you have had adequate opportunity to tell your own story/background and how it relates to what you are studying?
    Always Often Sometimes Never

19. Do you feel that the prior knowledge that you have in your field is sufficiently recognised?
    Always Often Sometimes Never

20. Do you feel that need to adopt particularly 'western' academic ways of understanding the world has been imposed on you?
    Always Often Sometimes Never

21. Did you feel that you need to adopt particularly 'western' learning styles to pass your course?
    Always Often Sometimes Never

22. Did you feel that you need to adopt particularly 'western' perspectives, points of view or idealogies to pass your course?
    Always Often Sometimes Never

23. What in particular have you enjoyed about studying in Australia?

24. What do you think has been your major difficulty in adjusting to study in Australia?
    • English speaking and listening skills
      Always Often Sometimes Never

    • Reading skills in English
      Always Often Sometimes Never

    • Writing skills in English
      Always Often Sometimes Never

    • Understanding the demands of the course of study
      Always Often Sometimes Never

    • Coping with the amount of reading
      Always Often Sometimes Never

    • Coping with the number of assignment or writing demands
      Always Often Sometimes Never

    • Communicating with your lecturer/supervisor
      Always Often Sometimes Never

    • Adjusting to the new environment (inside and outside the university)?
      Always Often Sometimes Never

    Would you like to add anything further about your experiences of studying at an Australian university?

    Thank you for your participation.

    Submit this form?

    Start again?

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Copyright Dr Judith Rochecouste.
Last revised: 12.8.2000