Table Of Contents
Managing their time
Perhaps the biggest issue for the students, in their first semester in particular, is coping with the pressure of the limited time available to them, and learning to manage their time effectively (cf. Smith & Smith 1999).
Time pressure
The first impediment students face to getting off to a flying start is the difficulty or reading academic materials in a foreign language; but the biggest source of time pressure is the amount of work involved in writing assignments.
One consequence of this pressure is that students can feel they don't have time to seek help with their work, even if they want to.
Time management
Few if any of the students who come here from China have experience of progressive assessment as we practice it here, requiring students to submit a series of assignments in addition to or instead of sitting a final exam. Even if they know about it in the abstract when they start, it may take most of the first semester to grasp the dimensions of the problem as it applies to them as individuals, in the context of the courses they are taking.
Various sources of help may be available to the students; but they recognise that, in the long run, each has to work out his or her own solution.
Nonetheless, there are ways in which lecturers and tutors may be able to help them in this.
3 units, I reckon.
Yes. The big thing is the assignments. If there had been no assignments, just the final exam, it would have been OK. But the assignments took so long to write; this semester for 3 units I've had to write more than 10,000 words.
Every teacher has different requirements; and according to those requirements you have to go and find the right materials for yourself. And usually they don't tell you in much detail how to prepare it; and if they do it's likely to be just one or two weeks before you have to hand it in; and then you have to start finding the references…
Pretty much. The course outline tells you what assignments you're going to have to write, but it doesn't tell you in any detail what the lecturer wants, or how to go about writing them. Usually the lecturers will talk about this in class, and tell you what they want; but it's usually quite close to the deadline, so your preparation is pretty rushed.
I've thought about it, but I've never actually done it. Because usually you have several different assignments to do all at the same time in a couple of weeks –
Just do them in the order they have to be handed in; as you finish one you start preparing the next one.
Depends what you call "finishing". Usually for two or three days I barely slept!
...
No, I haven't.
Yes, I knew about it. People talk about it. Some of my classmates take their drafts there for editing…
No, I haven't been there. Because I never have time to do it.
There were a couple of workshops I registered for, but didn't go to, because I simply didn't have time.
I wanted to, but my working pace was always so slow, the due date always arrived before I had a chance to go and discuss with the teacher!
Because I started writing - We'd be given these assignments on a Monday; we'd start off spending quite some time doing research, getting ideas together and so on; but I wouldn't actually start the writing properuntil around Saturday. On Saturday there was no way to find a teacher; Sunday the same; then by Monday it was already too late.
In the first half of the semester it was quite a "struggle" for Daniel to adapt to the teaching and learning styles here. Language was a major element in this, but another was poor time management.
In essay writing, for example, you spend lots of time researching, you don't know what to write, and suddenly the deadline has arrived. Very stressful.
I think you have to learn to manage yourself. First you have to recognise that time management is a problem. For example, in this semester I had a total of 10 assignments to do in 13 weeks.
Yeah, I think I will. The big problem in the first semester is perhaps you didn't organise your timetable very well. Yeah, timetable is very important.
Yes, I did. I think that's really essential. Because when you first get here there are so many things you don't know, and they will tell you how to use the internet, how to find the book you want, even how to organise your time.
IAP.
Time management – Yes - yes, they did.
Yeah, I didn't apply [it] well. I want[ed] to, but sometimes you can't - just like you want to - all right, I'll finish this reading in two hours; but you finish in 5 hours! So I don't manage it!
I don't know if I've "adapted" to it; it's a matter of just doing it. The first essay I wrote, I'd only been here a month or so, I hadn't adapted at all, so my first essay was written very hastily. The next time, from that experience I knew I needed to start the preparation and research earlier on; I also had more idea about how to organize my ideas, and evaluate the sources materials I needed.
Basically it was my own realisation; but it was also from what other students said. Because in preparing the group work, we would discuss how essays ought to be written -
Yes, individual essays; and we'd help each other, give each other pointers and suggestions…
Time management - um, I think - Yeah, they can help you. Just like in the Orientation they have some teacher tell you how to do that, what's the importance of that; yes, you can get some idea, but the most important thing – is yourself. You have to follow and you have to find your way to do that.
Yes, I have to.
By myself
All right. I'm still alive
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Is reading much of a problem for you?
Why we Chinese students think the Masters course is too busy, too tiring, is because, for example, if you give me an A4 sheet of Chinese writing, we can read it in two minutes and get 90% of the information in it, but if you give me the same amount of English to read, I will spend maybe five minutes and get only half the information or maybe less. So that confuses us. It makes us so angry, frustrated, we read again and again and again, and can't find anything we can use. But this problem we can overcome: we just need patience, and to work hard, and we can overcome it. But the writing skill, I think, needs time.