Listening to academic lectures can be a daunting task, as the listener faces various challenges related to processing the speech stream, prioritizing the importance of information, and deciding when, where and how to take notes (Ipek, 2018; Siegel, 2021). These near-simultaneous operations become even more challenging when the lecture is delivered in a second language (L2) or when the language of instruction is other than the student's native language. A host of factors can contribute to student comfort in and ability to take “good” notes during L2 lectures (e.g., Badger, et al., 2001). The purpose of this project is to understand and elucidate factors that influence notetaking ability and to offer pedagogic solutions to offset notetaking challenges during L2 lectures. The present study aimed to address the following research questions:
To what extent do students feel personal, speaker and contextual factors affect their notetaking performance while listening to L2 academic English?
What level of agreement does a cross-cultural comparison show related to factors affecting notetaking ability?