The present quantitative study investigates MA-students’ comprehension of lectures in the first language (L1) and in English at a large university in Sweden. Forty-five students responded to a self-assessment questionnaire survey regarding their comprehension of lectures in the L1 and lectures in English. The scores from these were compared to each other to see if English lectures are more difficult to comprehend than lectures in the L1 and if so, to what extent. The findings show that, although not substantial, most students find almost all aspects regarding English lectures to be more difficult than L1 lectures. This is in line with what other studies investigating the effects of English Medium Instruction in higher education have found. The most prominent issues were with unfamiliar vocabulary and expressions as well as unclear pronunciation of content. The results suggest that there is a need to improve students’ and lecturers’ English proficiency as well as the effectiveness of lectures in higher education, regardless of the language of instruction.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The goal of this thesis was to create a model of how video-taped law lectures (authentic materials) can be used in designing individual lessons which will, in general, incorporate current EAP practices and standards in aiding the LL.M. students to improve their lecture listening comprehension skills. More specifically, my model will show how within each lesson the video-taped law lectures can be used to target either a particular linguistic form or lecture construct feature for which studies have shown to be problematic in L2 lecture comprehension. Moreover, this model will further demonstrate how these lessons should address lecture organization specific to the study of law, as well as show how general lecture listening strategies can be presented as an integral part of every lesson.