Academic expectations

At a New Zealand university you are expected to work by yourself and to be a self-motivated learner. While you will have lectures, tutorials or seminars with a tutor, you are expected to work without their direct assistance. No one will follow up if you have not made a deadline for an essay - you will simply fail the paper. Nor will anyone check if you have read the relevant course material. You have complete responsibility for your study. For many students, this requires a lot of self-discipline and good time management.

Any academic work that you do must be your own. Do not copy from your texts or use other people's work as a quick solution. The University regards acts such as cheating and plagiarism as serious academic offences. Such behaviour may lead to a disciplinary penalty.
 

New Zealand universities may have a very different marking system to the one you are familiar with.

In New Zealand, a very good piece of work may be rewarded with only 65 percent whereas 70 percent may be a poor result in your home country. It is important that you understand this possible difference between the marking systems, and to not get upset if you are awarded lower grades than you are used to. It is best to measure your level of achievement by comparison with the grades given to your classmates, not marking systems from your home country.
 

If English is not your first language, you may experience the following problems when you first begin studying at a New Zealand university:

1. Listening to lectures in English
At first you may have difficulty understanding the English spoken by your teachers and classmates. While this can be very frustrating for you, it is a normal experience. Do not be discouraged; you simply need time to get used to listening to spoken English.

Solution: You need to improve your listening comprehension.

• Socialise with other students who cannot speak your first language, including other international students. See the activities on offer at iSPACE.
• Listen to the radio and watch English-speaking television and films.
• Utilise the excellent resources at ELSAC (English Language Self-Access Centre).
• Sign up for workshops at the Student Learning Centre.

2. Contributing to group discussions
The aim of academic experience in a New Zealand university is to explore a subject by listening to different opinions and discussing available information. The sharing of ideas and analytical thinking which takes place in seminars and tutorials may be uncomfortable at first and you may feel shy about making a contribution.

Solution: Overcome your shyness by contributing to class discussions as often as possible. The more you contribute, the easier it will get. Discussions help you to think analytically in English.

3. Getting through the course reading material
The amount of English reading material you are expected to get through as part of your course can be extremely daunting. If you try to read every word, you'll never get through it.

Solution: You can process texts rapidly by using a new set of reading strategies.

• Learn how to skim read to extract the fundamental points. It doesn't matter if you don't understand every single word; you just need to understand the main points.
• It may be enough for you to study the introduction, abstract and conclusion of an article to get the essential ideas.
• Your lecturers will draw your attention to the most important items on your reading list - quite often you do not have to read every single text.
• Check out the Student Learning Centre website for workshops on reading strategies and make use of the resources at ELSAC to improve any reading strategies you already have.

4. Writing: 3000 word academic essays
Don’t worry if you get a relatively low mark for your first essay. You will probably find it difficult for a number of reasons. Firstly, you may not have written an essay of this length before; secondly, you may not be familiar with the style (such as including a literature review or relating theory); thirdly, the correct use of the English language is expected.

Solution: Treat your first essay as a learning experience.

• Follow your tutor’s advice.
• Sign up for relevant workshops at the Student Learning Centre.
• Use the resources available at ELSAC.

If you are struggling with your English, you can take an ESOL paper through the Department of Applied Linguistics. There are both credited and non-credited papers to help you.

It is also a good idea to do a screening test with DELNA. This is free to all students and will identify where you need to improve. For example, the test may show that you have adequate reading skills, but require help with listening.

For further details on how you can get help with your English, visit English language support.