The rocky terrain between delocalized and localized, duplication and originality: learning to write and learning to teach academic English

Abstract

In this paper I report the action research I carried out on improving the teaching and learning of academic writing at a university. The action research sprang out of my experiences of learning and teaching academic writing. It sought locality and originality in what students read and write during academic writing courses. The macro and micro discourse and practice of textual literacy, especially academic writing literacy, in Third World academia, which the action research tried to disentangle, has major stifling effects on what and how students learn to write. It was this learning condition that the action research sought to challenge by adopting Habermas' communicative action for a triangular engagement of course participants that maximized the possibilities of localized and original meaning-making efforts. This action research has shown how students seize (and resist to a certain extent) opportunities in a refashioned course to generate knowledge and make meanings that are meaningful and original to them.

The Academentia of ECAs: Navigating Academic Terrain Through Critical Friendships as a Life Jacket

“…These also impacted how students articulated their knowledge through the duration of their degree, and were responsible for compromising student success over the longer term. Ultimately, academic support programmes require all disciplinary specialists to contribute to the development of academic literacy and the commitment to core writing practices that will promote critical thinking and challenge students to think and reason (Tessema, 2011). This is however not so easy in practice.…”

“…They did not see the link between the development of skills in the academic support programme and their own modules. This is not uncommon in higher education (see, for example, Tessema, 2011). The input of the PR in Cycle 2-using mediating artefacts from different disciplinary modules as the basis of student and tutor activities-seems to have brought about more lecturer involvement.…”