Abstract/Summary

This study aims to explore the reading behaviour of L2 students on a Law Master’s (LL.M) programme at a medium-sized UK Higher Education (HE) Institution. Their reading-to-learn journey requires engagement with the cultural code of English academic legal texts. This is challenging, particularly if one is new to the UK HE Community of Practice within the School of Law. Thirty-four new entrants to a ten-week LL.M International Commercial Law module volunteered to provide biodata and participate in vocabulary tests, with fourteen of these then progressing to the interview stage. They were invited to attend two or three interviews each, bringing their reading record with them to promote discussion concerning the reading that they had done for Week 1 of their course (Law and Economics) and Week 4 (Competition Law). Their final interview concerned reading preparation for their summative assignment for this module. Participants were positively encouraged to bring texts that they wanted to read and share with me to interviews. Participant IELTS reading scores ranged from 5.5 to 8.5 with estimated vocabulary size scores ranging from 2,600 to 15,800 word families; this enabled reading behaviour covering a wide range of proficiency levels to be studied. Interviews shed rich insights into the factors which underlie L2 reader comprehension behaviour at cognitive, affective and conative levels. These constitute each participant’s unique complex, dynamic system which prompts their reading behaviour as they interact with the text in question in line with their purpose for reading on their Master’s course. Reading texts for Weeks 1 and 4 were uploaded separately to Sketch Engine to enable analysis of the most common key words, collocations, two-word sequences and multi-word units for any text. Text complexity measures for each text were ascertained via Text Inspector and the level of lexical sophistication of single bounded words were estimated via Compleat Lexical Tutor. All texts were also measured for their core academic vocabulary profile. In this way, the level of lexical challenge that these texts presented was established; it served to enhance understanding of readers’ behaviour. Although there was a medium-strength correlation both between vocabulary size and overall IELTS scores (OIS) and between vocabulary size and IELTS reading sub-scores, there was in fact a wide variation in vocabulary size scores at each 0.5 OIS and reading sub-score bands. OIS scores however seemed ultimately to be more indicative of the level of reading challenge than reading sub-scores. In terms of OIS scores, it was more challenging for an L2 reader to extract and construct meaning from a text if their OIS was 6.5 or below, particularly without relevant background knowledge. However, the OIS of 6.5 acted as a cline, capable of accommodating less proficient reading behaviour at one end and more proficient at the other. This research study has resulted in outcomes that may not have been anticipated; there was no correlation between OIS scores or reading sub-scores and assignment results. This may have been due to differences in cognitive reading strategies used (particularly with respect to the use of machine translation and L2 resources), affective responses to the demands of the academic culture and personal levels of conative drive. The willingness to be metacognitively aware of one’s own reading behaviour also played an important role. The results of this study throw open to debate the fact that some L2 postgraduate students, keen to improve their English, but accepted on fast-paced degree programmes without the appropriate level of preparation for the demands of their modules, struggle unduly to gain their degrees. With the insights afforded by this research, HEIs, keen to take advantage of international student fees, may find new ways to deliver programmes that are better adjusted to L2 student needs.