Taking effective notes in academic settings is difficult, particularly for first-year students (van der Meer, 2012). However, taking notes improves academic achievement and recall after the lecture, making it a crucial academic skill. L2 note-taking, for example in the worldwide expanding English Medium Instruction (EMI) contexts, is even more challenging, but universities do usually not provide academic language support to help students to take notes in an L2 context (Siegel, 2022). Research on L2 note-taking strategies remains limited, particularly for languages other than English (LOTE), making Dutch Medium Instruction (DMI) contexts particularly interesting to analyse. This contribution focuses on the under-researched skill of note-taking in academic lectures given in a foreign language, focussing on a DMI context in French-speaking Belgium. The specific objective of the study was to analyse how diverse the language use in note-taking in a DMI context is according to the students' language profile and their previous educational background. We selected one DMI course taken by 85 first- and second-year students enrolled at the French-speaking university UCLouvain (campus Saint-Louis, Brussels, Belgium). A paper questionnaire was administered to the undergraduate students in order to determine their study background, language profile and educational background. Next, the handwritten and electronic notes that students took during two 2-hour class sessions were collected on a voluntary basis (n = 27). Finally, semi-structured interviews were conducted with students to discuss their language use and note-taking strategies in an L2 context in detail (n = 8). These 8 participants have been selected to ensure diversity in linguistic secondary school backgrounds: 2 students attended a French-speaking school, 2 students a French-speaking school with CLIL in Dutch, 1 student went to a French-speaking school with CLIL in Dutch for the first 3 years before switching to a French-speaking school without CLIL in Dutch for another 3 years, and 3 students attended a Dutch-speaking school. In this presentation, we focus on the questionnaire data, notes and parts of the interview data of the 8 students who have been interviewed. The data analysis of the eight interviewees, their questionnaires and background reveal that the diversity of language use in note-taking in a DMI context depends on students’ language profile and educational background. Overall, all students mainly use the target language when taking notes. Students who have Dutch as mother tongue, who attended a French-speaking secondary school with CLIL in Dutch or a Dutch-speaking secondary school feel more comfortable with note-taking in Dutch. But all students who do not have Dutch as mother tongue, regardless of previous secondary school background, use other languages as soon as the pace of the course is too intense. Furthermore, diversity of language use in note-taking also depends on the lecturer’s language use during class. This study offers novel insights in the under-researched context of L2 note-taking at university level in a DMI context. In addition, the findings offer pertinent suggestions on how to enhance students’ note-taking skills within the setting of DMI courses. The suggestions are also applicable to university courses in other foreign languages.
Louis et al. (Wed,) studied this question.