Academic Literacy Development Research Articles

Opportunities for academic language and literacy development for emergent bilingual students during group work

ABSTRACTThe present paper argues for a shift in teacher knowledge and beliefs about the role of group work in the teaching and learning of emergent bilingual students. Using case study data from an eighth grade classroom, the authors analyze the role of collaboration in the interaction with grade-level text of emergent bilingual students. The analysis demonstrates that the quality of collaboration mediates in significant ways the opportunities available to emergent bilinguals for both content and language learning. The authors suggest that expanding students’ repertoires of practice to include collaborative learning should be a worthwhile instructional goal in mainstream classrooms. The analysis problematizes the currently dominant view of group work as an instructional strategy, and supports the positioning of collaboration as a key disciplinary practice in the new college and career readiness standards. The article offers a conceptual framework for contrasting different types of collaboration that is based on Engeström's (1993. “Developmental Studies on Work as a Testbench of Activity Theory.” In Understanding Practice: Perspectives on Activity and Context, edited by S. Chaiklin and J. Lave, 64–103. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) activity theory.

Academic Literacy Curriculum Renewal at a South African University: A Case Study

The number of students admitted by universities in South Africa has grown tremendously in the past two to three decades. Most of these students, however, graduate from high school without having gained the academic literacy ability required for success at university. A result of this has been that the students struggle to handle the demands of university education in English, the medium of instruction at these institutions. This causes them to fail to complete their studies in the scheduled time and even to drop out. South African universities have responded to this challenge by introducing academic literacy programmes to help the students bridge the language gap between high school and university. These universities spend large sums of money on academic literacy development requirements such as teachers, learning materials and general administration. It is important therefore that the academic literacy courses offered by such universities are effectively designed and taught. The Central University of Technology (CUT) introduced its first academic language programme in 2007. To date, three academic language courses have been offered under the auspices of this programme. The first of these courses was borrowed from another university and was taught at CUT until the end of 2009. The second one was developed by the academic language development staff inside CUT and was introduced at the beginning of 2010. The whole of 2013 was spent on designing and developing yet another academic language course inside the university, which was introduced in January 2014. This paper is a case study of the curriculum renewal process that went into this project.

"Roots and Routes": Professional Educators’ Transformative Insights Into the Linguistic and Experiential Worlds of Generation 1.5 Language Minority Students

This article explores findings of a project that addressed the academic literacy development of children who are born and/or begin their formal schooling in Canada, but who are raised in homes where the societally dominant language is not the primary idiom. It focuses on collaborating educators’ professional learning through engagement in community-referenced action research that provided opportunities for eighth graders to explore themes related to their developing personal and socially situated identities. One key insight pertained to students’ access to information regarding their family histories and trajectories; a second, to linguistic dynamics internal to generation 1.5 linguistic minority youths’ households.

The Effect of a Reading Program on the Reading Performance of First-Year Students at a Higher Education Institution

AbstractReading proficiency is an important predictor of academic achievement in higher education and cannot be left to random accomplishment. As a lack of reading skills may contribute to the termination of studies, reading development programs should be high on the priority list of scaffolding processes aimed at first-year students. The purpose of this paper was to determine the effect of the LectorSA reading program on the reading performance levels of 120 first-year B.Sc. students in the Access Program. The quantitative research design comprised a quasi-experimental method with a pretest, posttest non-equivalent control group design. Results indicated that first-year students read at distressingly low levels, but eight sessions on the reading intervention program significantly contributed to the improvement of the students’ reading performance. Including a reading development program in the scaffolding processes of first-year students may contribute to academic literacy development, which includes rea...

Academic Language in Early Childhood Classrooms

In this article, the author defines academic language, and provides examples of how it is used in early childhood classrooms. The connections between academic language and later literacy development are discussed, emphasizing how the differences in children's experiences with academic language may be reflected in their classroom performances. Strategies for incorporating and assessing academic language use in a variety of settings in early childhood classrooms are presented.

THE RESEARCH CIRCLE AS A RESOURCE IN CHALLENGING ACADEMICS’ PERCEPTIONS OF HOW TO SUPPORT STUDENTS’ LITERACY DEVELOPMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION

This article deals with an action research project in which a group of academics from different disciplines reflect on and gradually extend their knowledge on how to support students’ academic literacy development. The aim of this research is to understand how the collaborative work becomes a resource in challenging participants’ initial perceptions. The results show that participants’ experience-based stories play a significant role alongside research-based knowledge. The participants’ conversations change character from focusing on approaches to remedy students’ failings to focusing on participants’ individual teaching practices and institutional responsibilities. Accordingly, a basis for change and development is created.

Scaffolding academic literacy using the Reading to Learn intervention: An evaluative study of a tertiary education context in South Africa

This article reports on the use of the Reading to Learn (RtL) intervention at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) to accelerate the development of academic literacy skills of ill-prepared students transitioning from school to university. This paper makes an original contribution to the literature on academic literacy development in three ways: firstly, this study pre-dates another published paper on the topic; secondly, it was the first study of RtL in a tertiary education context in South Africa and, thirdly, it applies a novel statistical method for data analysis purposes. The RtL pedagogy draws on the theoretical assumptions of Vygotsky, Halliday and Bernstein, and assists in the development of literacy (reading and writing) skills necessary to succeed at university. The context of education and poor literacy levels amongst primary, secondary and tertiary students in South Africa is briefly outlined, followed by a brief overview of RtL. The paper continues by adopting a small-scale quantitative approach to testing the efficacy of RtL. In addition to various descriptive statistics, the analysis of literacy scores, scores which were generated throughout an academic writing module at UKZN, is undertaken using a nonparametric testing procedure. A noteworthy finding of the study concerns the weakest cohort of students, in that, these students made the greatest improvements throughout the RtL intervention. Hence, RtL may be a useful mechanism to ‘democratise’ literacy classrooms by narrowing the abilities gap between students with weaker and stronger literacy skills in South Africa.

English

Engaging students in reading permits students to experience reading in a more meaningful manner as well as develop their identity as effective readers. Currently, the teaching of reading does not allow students to experience reading in an engaging and meaningful manner because the process of retrieving the required information at the end of the reading text has hindered them from experiencing reading in this manner. This exploratory study presents an approach to facilitate students’ reading engagement through the employment of epistolary writing. The purpose was to explore the employment of epistolary writing in facilitating ESL students’ reading engagement. The students wrote their understanding and interpretation of printed texts in the form of a letter to their instructor. Three third year students participated voluntarily in this case study. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and documents such as students’ letters, instructor's reflective notes, and pre-teaching and post-teaching questionnaires. Findings showed that the students appreciated that their voices were being considered throughout the teaching and learning process. They also described how relating their ideas through epistolary writing contributed to personal changes of viewing reading as an active process. The research highlights the value of including students’ voices in the teaching and learning process. Allowing students to voice and share their learning experiences with their peers and the instructor, enabled the instructor to construct a better instructional approach to assist the students in their progress as engaged readers. In addition, this study extends knowledge that writing plays a key role in L2 tertiary level academic literacy development. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17576/GEMA-2015-1501-04

Academic Literacy and Cognitive Processing: Effects on the Examination Outcomes of Speech-Language Pathology Students at a South African University

This study was conducted in the South African context, where education is in a state of transition. One of the central issues in higher education is the development of academic literacy. However, as a result of an inadequate focus on educational linguistics and a lack of explicit instruction in academic literacy, many students do not achieve their full potential. This study focuses on aspects of academic literacy in the examination responses of a group of students studying in the discipline of speech-language pathology. The purpose of the study was to determine whether or not there is a relationship between the students’ academic literacy skills and their ability to answer examination questions. By means of an exploratory retrospective longitudinal record review, the examination scripts of 20 students were rated for evidence of various academic literacy skills. The ratings were highly correlated to the actual examination marks in both years of study, suggesting that there is a need to incorporate explicit instruction in academic literacy to develop students’ metacognitive processes while reading and writing for academic purposes.

Discipline matters: Embedding academic literacies into an undergraduate nursing program

In recent years the higher education sector in Australia has been increasingly concerned with ensuring that the English language proficiency levels of students are commensurate with the academic and professional tasks that they must perform. In many universities, this heightened attention to language proficiency has driven changes to teaching and learning practices. This paper reports on a project to embed academic literacies development into a core first year subject within a Bachelor of Nursing program in a large, culturally and linguistically diverse, metropolitan university. Prior to the commencement of their nursing program 747 students completed a Post Enrolment Language Assessment. Students who required additional support were advised to enroll in tutorials which included an additional literacy focus. These tutorials were part of the normal tutorial program for this nursing subject. Students with lower level language skills who attended the streamed tutorial with additional literacy support showed a greater improvement in their written communication than those with similar language proficiency who attended non-streamed tutorials. Evidence suggests that this improvement was transferred into writing tasks in other non-streamed subjects. The findings reported in this paper highlights that discipline specific embedded strategies are an effective approach to the development of academic literacies.

An analysis of the language of attribution in university students' academic essays

The study reports on challenges related to the use of the language of attribution in academic essay writing by Post-Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) students at Rhodes University, as a microcosm of similar challenges faced by university students elsewhere. The study content-analysed 150 essays written by 50 PGCE students taking the course ‘Language, Learning and Cognition’ which the researcher taught. Key categories analysed were: student preferences for the type and style of incorporating authors’ ideas in own academic essays, appropriateness of attributive words used, punctuation within the language of attribution, tense consistencies, appropriateness of attendant lexico-grammatical collocations, attributive words’ fit with the syntax and grammar of the writer’s ideas, as well as their consonance with the spirit and intent of the citations. Although findings point to gross challenges across all categories of analysis, they were most glaring in the matching of attributive words with the intent of citations and in the use of proper punctuation. Chief among the study’s recommendations is the need for explicit instruction in, and attention to, the language of attribution in university students’ essays by all lecturers and not just those in academic literacy development. Keywords : academic writing, attributive tags, attributive verbs, author’s voice, citing, direct quotes, essay, essay quality, language of attribution, paraphrases, referencing, tense consistencies.

Embedding Academic Literacy Skills: Towards a Best Practice Model

Learning advisors provide academic literacy development support in a variety of configurations, ranging from one-on-one consultations through to large-scale lectures. Such lectures can be generic, stand-alone modules or embedded within a discipline-specific course. Pragmatic and institutional considerations suggest that a generic model of delivery often has an effective role to play; however, there are strong pedagogical arguments for adopting an embedded approach wherever possible. The practice of embedding literacy interventions within subject papers is time-consuming and often logistically challenging; therefore, in order to help learning advisors, their managers and academic staff in faculties to consider the issues, options and constraints in a systematic manner, this paper proposes a best-practice model drawing from over two decades of literature and the authors’ practical experience over the same period in New Zealand and overseas. In order to elucidate the model, the paper critiques an embedded academic literacy skills programme facilitated by an interdisciplinary studies unit at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), New Zealand. The programme is embedded in a core paper entitled Knowledge, Enquiry and Communication (KEC) which is a prerequisite for entry into all of the Health Science programmes. As well as describing key features which have contributed to the success of the programme, the authors identify several key factors which need to be taken into account when considering embedded academic literacy initiatives

Embedding Academic Literacy Skills: Towards a Best Practice Model

Learning advisors provide academic literacy development support in a variety of configurations, ranging from one-on-one consultations through to large-scale lectures. Such lectures can be generic, stand-alone modules or embedded within a discipline-specific course. Pragmatic and institutional considerations suggest that a generic model of delivery often has an effective role to play; however, there are strong pedagogical arguments for adopting an embedded approach wherever possible. The practice of embedding literacy interventions within subject papers is time-consuming and often logistically challenging; therefore, in order to help learning advisors, their managers and academic staff in faculties to consider the issues, options and constraints in a systematic manner, this paper proposes a best-practice model drawing from over two decades of literature and the authors’ practical experience over the same period in New Zealand and overseas. In order to elucidate the model, the paper critiques an embedded academic literacy skills programme facilitated by an interdisciplinary studies unit at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), New Zealand. The programme is embedded in a core paper entitled Knowledge, Enquiry and Communication (KEC) which is a prerequisite for entry into all of the Health Science programmes. As well as describing key features which have contributed to the success of the programme, the authors identify several key factors which need to be taken into account when considering embedded academic literacy initiatives

Revisiting English as medium of instruction in rural African classrooms

In this paper, we address findings from a study conducted in a rural, Ugandan secondary school from August 2009 to May 2011 that explored the challenges and possibilities of developing language and literacy across the curriculum, including digital possibilities for the development of multilingual academic literacy. The central questions we address are: (1) in a rural African context, what educational conditions and language policies impact the use of English as a medium of instruction in secondary schools? and (2) how do teachers across the curriculum navigate these conditions and policies to integrate English language and content? Data collection methods included questionnaires, interviews, observations, policy document analysis and researchers' journal reflections. Central findings highlight the difficulties faced by content teachers in addressing their students' language needs in the context of contemporary policy guidelines; issues related to the pre-service preparation of subject area teachers; and possibilities for developing pedagogy for teaching language/s and literacies across the curriculum. From the findings, we argue that language policies, despite best intentions, might, like other ‘placed resources’ become dysfunctional when moved across distinctly different spaces from relatively well-resourced urban areas to poorly resourced rural communities and from elite to grassroots contexts.

What are we thinking of? A critical overview of approaches to developing academic literacy in South African higher education

In South African higher education, the development of academic literacy is often seen to be the responsibility of those working in the field that is known as ‘academic development’. This paper uses an analysis of submissions to the 2012 annual conference of the Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa, the forum most used by those working in the field to present their work, (i) to examine critically the way the construct of academic literacy is understood by practitioners in the field and (ii) to consider the approaches to the development of literacy to which these understandings lead.Key words: academic literacies, academic development, higher education,reading, writing, skills, practices

Academic literacies and the question of knowledge

This conceptual paper attempts to map the terrains of academic literacies work as it has evolved over the past twenty or so years in South Africa. In mapping these terrains, one of the areas the paper considers is how the dominant 'skills' Discourse continues to frame the way in which academic literacies work is implemented in South Africa. Drawing on the New Literacies Studies the paper also explores how academic literacies as a body of work defines itself, as well as the range of conceptualisations that inform such definitions. The paper then turns to a consideration of how different contextual agendas drive academic literacies work in different ways across the higher education sector in South Africa. The paper then goes on to explore the different frameworks that academic literacies work in South Africa draws on to theorise this field, as well as some of the premises underlying our thinking and informing our practices, such as: generic and disciplinary-specific approaches to academic literacies development; the role of collaborative partnerships between academic literacies and disciplinary specialists; and how to shift from tacit knowledge of the norms and conventions of disciplines to explicit teaching of these norms and conventions. Drawing on academic literacies research emanating from the United Kingdom, the paper then argues for a shift from normative to transformative approaches to the development of academic literacies in South African higher education. Finally the paper turns to the question of knowledge and its place in debates about how to develop academic literacies. My conclusions point to the need for a shared ontology within which to frame academic literacies work and research in South Africa. I am suggesting that by placing knowledge at the centre of how we understand our work, we might move closer to such a shared ontology.

Towards a responsible agenda for academic literacy development: considerations that will benefit students and society

The transition from secondary to higher education (HE) requires a change of cultural mindset (cf. Darlaston-Jones et al., 2003; Leki, 2006). It is widely accepted that the academic performance and motivation of first year students to stay in HE depend, among others, on how well they integrate into the university environment (Brinkworth et al., 2009). Academic integration or acculturation takes different forms. The premise of this article is that students have to learn to engage with academic discourse, i.e., they must acquire the community's communicative currency, defined as different kinds of language used to reflect the community's current norms, practices, values and expectations (cf., among others, Duff, 2010; Gee, 1998, 2000; Hyland, 2009). As reflective and responsible practitioners we therefore need to outline a critical agenda for academic acculturation by reviewing the debate on the nature of literacy and, particularly, by discussing similarities and differences in epistemology and approaches to literacy. Such an agenda will have to recognise insights gained from, in particular, the New Literacy Studies (Street, 1998, 2004) and the Academic Literacies movement (Lea & Street, 1998; Lillis & Scott, 2007), but it will also become enriched by a linguistic perspective (Biber, 2006; Blanton, 1994; Bachman & Palmer, 1996; Halliday, 1978, 1985, 1993, 1996, 2002; Hyland, 2009). In developing a template for the agenda we accordingly acknowledge the theoretical defensibility and the feasibility of different approaches to academic acculturation.

The parallel language use of Swedish and English: the question of ‘nativeness’ in university policies and practices

As a result of internationalisation, many universities in northern Europe have adopted English as a medium of instruction. At the same time, recent language policies have reinforced the importance of the national language(s) in the academic domain. Parallel language use was introduced and institutionalised in order to ensure students' right to receive education in their native language and to protect the national language(s) from the ‘threat’ of English. In this article, I discuss the concept of parallel language use and the extent to which it promotes ‘nativeness’ as a benchmark for language use in educational contexts. Drawing on the data collected at a major Swedish university, I show that the development of academic literacy in English is often mistaken for a need to achieve a native-like proficiency. I argue that academic language competence requires both more and less than a native/native-like competence. Thus, academics and students at Swedish universities may be mixing apples and pears and setting unrealistic goals regarding English proficiency in academic contexts, based on the standard native English norms.

Academic Literacy Development: Does Video Commentary Feedback Lead to Greater Engagement and Response than Conventional Written Feedback?

Academic Literacy Development: Does Video Commentary Feedback Lead to Greater Engagement and Response than Conventional Written Feedback?

On developing academic literacy in the mother tongue for epistemological access: the role of isiZulu as the LoLT in a South African University

This paper reports on a study that examined the extent to which the development of academic literacy in isiZulu, an indigenous language spoken across all the nine provinces in South Africa, enhances opportunities for epistemological access. The focus is in relation to a pilot study of a Bachelor of Education Honours module that uses isiZulu as the Language of Learning and Teaching. New Literacy Studies is used to examine the extent to which an understanding of the nature of literacy as no longer so much on the acquisition of language skills, but as social practice, can develop academic literacy in isiZulu and enhance episte­mological access. The paper confronts the questions about whose literacy counts?, and why, and engages in ‘a discursive politics of knowledge production, asking what counts as knowledge, who is allowed to author it, whose interests does it serve, how and by whom is it contested?’ (Baynham, M., & Prinsloo, M. [2001]. New directions in literacy research. Language and Education, 15, pp. 84–85). Case Study as a research design, Narrative Style interview technique and documentary evidence as research instruments, were used as a useful means to collect, conceptualise and organise data. Findings suggest that meaningful and successful engagement with the development of isiZulu, so that it becomes part of the academy, will depend entirely on implementing strategies to develop its academic discourse, the secondary discourse after the primary discourse of the home.