Collaboration between English for Academic Purposes and the Disciplines
Featured Colloquia > Collaboration between English for Academic Purposes and the Disciplines
Dr Sophie Arkoudis
University of Melbourne
Australia
Sophie Arkoudis is Deputy Director of the Centre for the Study in Higher Education (CSHE) at the University of Melbourne. Her research and scholarship is focused on second language education in both secondary and tertiary education contexts. Her papers incorporate theoretically generative as well as applied projects and have been published in journals such as Language and Education, and Language Testing. Recent research work has focused primarily on second language acquisition by English as a second language (ESL) students in higher education. In addition she is an innovator in professional development activities in this field. Her booklet Teaching International Students receives many downloads on the CSHE website. She has also co-produced a DVD titled Every Voice with Professor Ian Lang from the Victorian College of the Arts, which explores English language issues in higher education.
Mr Nigel Bruce
University of Hong KongChina
Nigel Bruce is the Principal Language Instructor at the English Centre, the University of Hong Kong. He currently teaches students of Law, Education and Applied Linguistics. His research and development interests are in constructions of knowledge and practice, academic writing, Academic Grammar, rhetoric and reasoning in academic and professional legal writing and the potential of the Internet for promoting autonomous learning and enriching writing response practices across the academy. Recent publications include Knowledge and Discourse: Towards an Ecology of Language (2002), with Colin Barron and David Nunan (Eds) (Longman), and "Dovetailing language and content: Teaching balanced argument in legal problem answer writing", English for Specific Purposes, 21: 321-345. (2002).
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Prof JoAnn Crandall
University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyUSA
JoAnn Crandall is a professor in the Department of Education at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). She has researched and published widely in the area of English language and content teaching, with particular interest in school and tertiary education. Among her recent publications are Content-based instruction in primary and secondary school settings and Content-based instruction in higher education settings (both co-edited with D. Kaufman); Adult ESL in the Community College (with K. Sheppard); Passing the Torch: Strategies for Innovation in Community College ESL (with F. Chisman); “Providing professional development for mainstream and novice or experienced ESL and bilingual teachers” (with J. Nelson & H. Stein); and “Diverse teaching strategies for diverse learners: Immigrant children,” with A. Jaramillo, J. Peyton, L. Olsen, & S. Young).
Dr John Trent
Faculty of Education, HKU/ Department of English, HKIEdChina
John Trent has been involved in language education at the secondary and tertiary level in Hong Kong since 1996. He completed his PGDE, MA and PhD degrees at the University of Hong Kong. The title of his doctoral thesis is “Second Language Learners’ Investment in Classroom Discourse: Developing a Multilevel Conceptual Framework”. His work has been published in TESOL Quarterly, Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics and Asia Pacific Journal of Language in Education. He is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the Hong Kong Institute of Education.
Abstracts
Collaboration between English for Academic Purposes and the Disciplines
One of the more significant changes within higher education has been the increase in the number of students for whom English is an additional language (EAL) studying in English-medium universities around the world. Recent emphasis within teaching and learning is on learning communities, which is characterized by student participation, and where English language and disciplinary learning play a significant role. These shifts require consideration as to how the curriculum can better address the language and learning needs of EAL students. However, the issue of English language learning is usually marginalized and left to English language programs. There has been very little research dedicated to developing collaboration between English language and disciplinary academic staff. This colloquium will focus on discussing some of the complex issues involved in developing collaboration. It will draw on research from the Netherlands, Hong Kong, USA and Australia to examine critical issues around collaboration and the implications for policy and practice.
Integrating English Language and Disciplinary Teaching: Enter with Caution
by Dr Sophie Arkoudis
Dr Sophie Arkoudis will open the colloquium with an overview of issues concerning the development of collaborative practices within Australian higher education institutions. She will case study one institution’s attempt to embed language programs within disciplinary teaching and analyze the different stakeholders’ views about English language development in higher education. The paper will argue that the focus should be on discussing issues of teaching and learning within curriculum planning, with particular attention to developing English language skills required for completing the assessment tasks.
Collaboration Across the Disciplines: Insights from U.S. Community Colleges
by Prof JoAnn Crandall
This paper will draw upon extensive research with five representative community colleges in the United States, to discuss ways in which faculty in these colleges have collaborated across disciplines and with a number of other stakeholders to enable adult English language learners (ELLs) with diverse language, literacy, and educational backgrounds and goals to transition from adult ESL to academic, vocational, or workforce preparation programs, including moving from noncredit to credit EAP courses. Attempts to structure career pathways for adult ELLs will also be discussed.
"English in the Major” at HKU: A Second Turn of the Academic Literacy Wheel
by Mr
Nigel Bruce
I review 15 years of collaboration by English Center (EC) teachers with faculty at the University of Hong Kong in the development and review of a range of different types of EAP programs. These typically began with close collaboration on needs analysis and source material, and settled into a comfortable delegation to the EC of responsibility for developing students’ disciplinary literacy – which for many colleagues meant improving their grammar. The impending expansion to a 4-year curriculum in 2012 has brought English back in focus, with an institutional ambition to expand attention to, and ideally responsibility for, English into the 97% of students’ curricula taught by faculty. I will address some of the problems this policy promises to revive, notably foundational and conduit constructions of the relationship between language and knowledge, and issues of trust, competence and status when language and subject teachers contemplate strategies to develop students’ academic literacies that go beyond the exclusive partitioning of labor and expertise.
The Role of an Integrated Approach to Language and Content in Promoting Student Participation in Classroom Discussion at English Medium of Instruction Universities
by Dr John Trent
Integrated language and content instruction is thought to be an effective way for both English language learners and learners of other languages to develop both their language and academic skills at the same time (Creese, 2005; Gibbons, 2002). However, researchers have reported difficulties in the establishment of collaborative partnerships between language and content teachers, difficulties which seem to go beyond practical issues such as workload, timetabling and resources to the underlying epistemological differences between language and content teachers (Arkoudis, 2000; Davison, 2006). Yet few researchers have attempted to explore how these differences are realized in the situated activity of the classroom or how these differences are shaped by broader institutional polices and practices. This paper draws on questionnaire, interview and observational data collected as part of a larger ethnographic study of Chinese-background freshmen in an English medium of instruction (EMI) university in Asia. Adopting Layder’s (1993; 2006) theory of social domain analysis, the paper begins with an examination of some of the underlying assumptions in current conceptualizations of learning in and through English among students and staff in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and Economics and Finance at the tertiary level, then explores the epistemological differences revealed by such perceptions and practices. The implications of this research for evaluating approaches to collaboration and for setting realistic goals for staff development and institutional change will also be explored.
