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Shifting the discourse from a focus on academic language to the more dynamic construct of academic literacies, this volume offers a conceptual framework for examining academic literacies as situated, overlapping, meaning-making practices.
Shifting the discourse from a focus on academic language to the more dynamic but less researched construct of academic literacies, this volume addresses three key questions: • What constitutes academic literacy? • What does academic literacy development in adolescent multilingual students look like and how can this development be assessed? • What classroom contexts foster the development of academic literacies in multilingual adolescents? The contributing authors provide divergent definitions of academic literacies and use dissimilar theoretical and methodological approaches to study literacy development. Nevertheless, all chapters reflect a shared conceptual framework for examining academic literacies as situated, overlapping, meaning-making practices. This framework foregrounds students’ participation in valued disciplinary literacy practices. Emphasized in the new college and career readiness standards, the notion of disciplinary practices allows the contributing authors to bridge the language/content dichotomy, and take a more holistic as well as nuanced view of the demands that multilingual students face in general education classrooms. The volume also explores the implications of the emphasis on academic literacy practices for classroom instruction, research, and policy.
Negotiating Academic Literacies: Teaching and Learning Across Languages and Cultures is a cross-over volume in the literature between first and second language/literacy. This anthology of articles brings together different voices from a range of publications and fields and unites them in pursuit of an understanding of how academic ways of knowing are acquired. The editors preface the collection of readings with a conceptual framework that reconsiders the current debate about the nature of academic literacies. In this volume, the term academic literacies denotes multiple approaches to knowledge, including reading and writing critically. College classrooms have become sites where a number of languages and cultures intersect. This is the case not only for students who are in the process of acquiring English, but for all learners who find themselves in an academic situation that exposes them to a new set of expectations. This book is a contribution to the effort to discover ways of supporting learning across languages and cultures--and to transform views about what it means to teach and learn, to read and write, and to think and know. Unique to this volume is the inclusion of the perspectives of writers as well as those of teachers and researchers. Furthermore, the contributors reveal their own struggles and accomplishments as they themselves have attempted to negotiate academic literacies. The chronological ordering of articles provides a historical perspective, demonstrating ways in which issues related to teaching and learning across cultures have been addressed over time. The readings have consistency in terms of quality, depth, and passion; they raise important philosophical questions even as they consider practical classroom applications. The editors provide a series of questions that enable the reader to engage in a generative and exciting process of reflection and inquiry. This book is both a reference for teachers who work or plan to work with diverse learners, and a text for graduate-level courses, primarily in bilingual and ESL studies, composition studies, English education, and literacy studies.
This edited book brings together an international cast of contributors to examine how academic literacy is learned and mastered in different tertiary education settings around the world. Bringing to the fore the value of qualitative enquiry through ethnographic methods, the authors illustrate in-depth descriptions of genre knowledge and academic literacy development in first and second language writing. All of the data presented in the chapters are original, as well as innovative in the field in terms of content and scope, and thought-provoking regarding theoretical, methodological and educational approaches. The contributions are also representative of both novice and advanced academic writing experiences, providing further insights into different stages of academic literacy development throughout the career-span of a researcher. Set against the backdrop of internationalisation trends in Higher Education and the pressure on multilingual academics to publish their research outcomes in English, this volume will be of use to academics and practitioners interested in the fields of Languages for Academic Purposes, Applied Linguistics, Literacy Skills, Genre Analysis and Acquisition and Language Education.
This book provides a comprehensive overview of approaches to academic literacy instruction and their underpinning theories, as well as a synthesis of the debate on academic literacy over the past 20 years. The author argues that the main existing instructional models are inadequate to cater for diverse student populations, and proposes an inclusive practice approach which encourages institutional initiatives that make academic literacy instruction an integrated and accredited part of the curriculum. The book aims to raise awareness of existing innovative literacy pedagogies and argues for the transformation of academic literacy instruction in all universities with diverse student populations.
Shifting the discourse from a focus on academic language to the more dynamic but less researched construct of academic literacies, this volume addresses three key questions: What constitutes academic literacy? What does academic literacy development in adolescent multilingual students look like and how can this development be assessed? What classroom contexts foster the development of academic literacies in multilingual adolescents? The contributing authors provide divergent definitions of academic literacies and use dissimilar theoretical and methodological approaches to study literacy dev.
The editors and contributors to this collection explore what it means to adopt an “academic literacies” approach in policy and pedagogy. Transformative practice is illustrated through case studies and critical commentaries from teacher-researchers working in a range of higher education contexts—from undergraduate to postgraduate levels, across disciplines, and spanning geopolitical regions including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Cataluña, Finland, France, Ireland, Portugal, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
South African universities face major challenges in meeting the needs of their students in the area of academic language and literacy. The dominant medium of instruction in the universities is English and, to a much lesser extent, Afrikaans, but only a minority of the national population are native speakers of these languages. Nine other languages can be media of instruction in schools, which makes the transition to tertiary education difficult enough in itself for students from these schools. The focus of this book is on procedures for assessing the academic language and literacy levels and needs of students, not in order to exclude students from higher education but rather to identify those who would benefit from further development of their ability in order to undertake their degree studies successfully. The volume also aims to bring the innovative solutions designed by South African educators to a wider international audience.
This book presents Combinations as a set of high-yield instructional strategies for advancing academic literacy for multilingual learners and all students. It discusses the strategies themselves as well as how they work to advance content and language learning simultaneously, across the grades and content areas. The book is particularly beneficial for all teachers working with linguistically and culturally diverse learners to accelerate their language and content learning. Utilizing these strategies will not only greatly improve students’ writing but also supports their critical thinking, content area reading and language comprehension skills. This book argues for utilizing Combinations with Strategic Inquiry, presenting evidence of how each amplifies the impact of the other, and how together they address many of the challenges to learning new and counter-cultural methods and to establishing school and district cultures in support of multilingual learners’ success. This book is a great resource for classroom teachers, literacy coaches and school and district administrators who want to support multilingual learners and all students to thrive.
This text examines multilingual learners in college classrooms and covers subjects including: experiences of ESOL students and faculty across the curriculum; acquiring academic literacy in a second language; and helping students use writing to learn.
