Inspecting EFL teachers' academic literacy development in multilingual contexts: A global vision

Abstract

Academic literacy, as a representation of required skills in the academic community, has gained increasing prominence and attention over the past decade. It has been the focal point of many studies in different contexts drawing on different perspectives. However, the way academic literacy development is researched and practiced in multilingual and multicultural settings is limitedly clarified and dealt with in second/foreign language contexts. Moreover, the role of different developmental trends of this research strand on EFL teachers in multilingual milieus has been overlooked, to date. To shed more light on the construct of academic literacy development in multilingual and EFL contexts, the present review article takes a global vision and explicates the past, present, and future trends in researching and practicing this significant construct. In so doing, it defines the concepts and presents the dimensions of academic literacy and academic literacy development. Then the role of academic literacy in multilingualism has been elaborated on using empirical evidence. Finally, the study provides and explains some implications for EFL teachers, teacher educators, curriculum designers, and scholars, who can update their information about academic literacy development in multilingual contexts with particular nuances.