Interrogating a collaborative instructional approach to academic literacy: the missing link in supporting students’ language learning

Abstract

In Covid-19’s ‘new normal’ academics have been urged to tear down subject silos and approach teaching collaboratively with renewed interest and increased urgency. An example of this can be found in curriculum-integrated academic literacy instruction which is based on the collaboration between language and content instructors. Case studies frequently report barriers to engaging content instructors in supporting students’ language learning. However, the internal conflicts of language instructors are under-represented: little is known about their subjective experiences and emotions as they go about negotiating and accommodating a collaborative instructional approach. This paper undertakes a narrative inquiry into three language instructors’ stories of teaching discipline-specific academic literacy. In bringing to the fore their reflexive voices on authority, agency and feelings of student resistance, it explores themes around identity and collaboration and underlines a critical missing link that mediates faculty collaboration and student learning. Humanising faculty development and venturing into scholarly enquiry are then proposed as potential ways to empower language instructors to manage the emotional complexities in their collaborative engagements.