Transcript Presentation Title

CENTRE FOR LEARNING AND
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Promoting Good Practice Principles
Researching a tool for developing ‘the 4 Ls’
Life-Long Language Learning
Ursula McGowan
Copyright © 2011 The University of Adelaide
Overview
 Students in transition at risk
 Inadvertent plagiarism
 Interventions
 Good Practice Principles
 Pilot project
 Conclusions
Slide 2
The University of Adelaide
Students in transition at risk
 Inadvertent plagiarism
(academic integrity breaches)
– Don’t know why
– Don’t know what
– Don’t know how
 Similar effects for students in transition, both
– Local students
– International students
 Complexity of academic integrity
Slide 3
The University of Adelaide
Inadvertent plagiarism
 Local students – Bradley Report
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Widening participation
Complexity of academic integrity
Skill set required for academic conventions
Nuances of language to indicate author stance
 International students – up to 30%
– IELTS entry requirements 6 or 6.5 or 7
– Nuanced language, skill set, complexity
Slide 4
The University of Adelaide
CENTRE FOR LEARNING AND
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Focus on international students
on a continuum of issues
similar to those for local students, but more readily identified
Copyright © 2011 The University of Adelaide
Students in transition at risk
 Complexity of academic integrity not made explicit
 Students:
– Don’t know why they need to use the literature
• Need to be apprentice research writers
(McGowan 2010, McGowan & O’Regan 2008)
– Don’t know what to cite paraphrase, summarise
• Need to see how the conventions function (models)
– Don’t know how to write
• Need to accelerate their academic literacy development
(McGowan 2005)
Slide 6
The University of Adelaide
Interventions
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Supplementary workshops & consultations
Academic writing centres / resources
Embedded approaches, co-teaching
How do these stack up against Good practice
principles?
 Issues
– Self-access by relatively small minority
– Embedded effective but resource intensive
(Hunter 2011)
– Dependent on ‘champion’ (Barthel 2011)
Slide 7
The University of Adelaide
Good Practice Principles
#6
Development of English language proficiency is
integrated with curriculum design, assessment
methods and course delivery through a variety of
methods
#10 Universities use evidence from a variety of
sources to monitor and improve their English
language development activities
(AUQA 2009)
Slide 8
The University of Adelaide
Pilot Project
 August 2010, Postgraduate Diploma Course
 Intervention: 5 subject-specific academic
language development sessions
 Approach: Genre pedagogy (Cargill & O’Connor 2009,
Cope & Kalantzis, 1993, Halliday & Hasan 1985, Halliday & Martin 1993,
Martin & Christie (eds) 1997, Swales 1990, 2004 – and many others)
Slide 9
The University of Adelaide
Pilot project – Purpose
– Develop and test and a self-help tool that is
• based on genre analysis
• capable of being embedded into curricula
• capable of becoming a transferable self-help tool for students for
the 4 Ls
– Longer-term purpose:
• test potential for roll-out across a Discipline, Faculty, University
– To support of GPP # 6 and #10:
• English language proficiency… integrated with curriculum
design, assessment methods and course delivery
• Universities use evidence from a variety of sources to monitor
and improve their English language development activities
Slide 10
The University of Adelaide
Pilot project – Intended Learning Outcomes
 In the 5-week program students will be able to
– Identify variations in spoken and written genres
– Analyse models of academic writing
– Pattern their own writing on structure and language
derived from analysis of models from their Discipline
– Apply tool of genre analysis to writing outside their
own discipline
Slide 11
The University of Adelaide
Pilot project – Method
 Recruitment
• research project – voluntary participation
• 20 students identified as at risk were invited to join an
academic literacy development project
• 5 responded, 3 turned up
• two more attended from session 2
• Permissions obtained from all participants
Slide 12
The University of Adelaide
Pilot project – Method
 Crystallised from Sydney School Genre Pedagogy
(Halliday
& Hasan 1985, Martin, 1997 and many others)
 Adapted for individual use: follows patterns set
– (a) Use of model text for Genre pedagogy cycle, by
Field – Model deconstruction – joint construction – individual construction
– (b) Weissberg & Buker (1991) where language is modelled,
explained and extracted for each stage of research reports
– (c) the simple layout structure by Ballard & Clanchy (1988 Ch7) as
the self-help template for analysing stages and extracting language
Slide 13
The University of Adelaide
Pilot project – Method
Analysis of example article modelled
Students guided to:
1. focus on ‘field’ (content) of the article
2. identify stages: label ‘what is happening’ at each
stage
3. extract non-content language associated at each
stage
4. start personal ‘dictionary’ of words, phrases and
sentence templates that characterise the specific
genre
Important: find several articles to serve as models
Slide 14
The University of Adelaide
Pilot project – Method
In class exercise - students practise to:
– Pick one phrase or sentence template
– Insert content from own previous essay
– Compare effect of using extracted language with
their own original text (usually written in more
informal spoken style)
– Discuss and critique the relative merits of using the
spoken vs formal academic style
– Discuss criteria for personal decision
Slide 15
The University of Adelaide
Pilot project – Results
 Student comments - positives
– This kind of teaching is a priority to all students writing essays, and should be
introduce from middle years to postgraduate students. It should be taught
according to the students level and their needs. It is a lifelong skill to learn, a
must.
– Everything given during the workshop was useful especially the samples of
academic writing that was handed to us to analysed in order to develop our
writing skills
– This is what I have been doing but I didn’t know it
– You have given us one tiny idea and it has opened p a wide window
– It should be the first course to be taught for the international students. This
will help them in writing their assignments and to adjust with the ways it is
done here in Australia
Slide 16
The University of Adelaide
Pilot project – Results
 Student comments – barriers
– The timing was an obstacle at the beginning of the workshop.The workshop
should be done during the day when the energy in man is still fresh. It took
me time to adjust towards the evening after I have dissipate much energy
during day. However the price is worth it
– For me, the obstacles were: not being able to check my email regularly, not
having internet access, changing venues, changing timetable
Slide 17
The University of Adelaide
Pilot project – Discussion
 5 sessions sufficient to introduce the basics
– But required commitment, follow-up exercises
 Attendance was
– Low, erratic; teaching done by outsider to the course
 Intervention was subject-specific but
– Remedial, voluntary, in students’ own (additional)
time, not assessed - so not ‘valued’
 Intervention was most helpful to two persons
who were least in need
Slide 18
The University of Adelaide
Pilot project – Discussion
 in order to write in an academic style, one needs to
have been reading within that genre. If there is plenty of
time, and students actually do engage in reading, many
will eventually absorb enough of the language and
structure of what they are reading to reproduce
reasonable versions of their own. But these preconditions clearly do not apply to a large range of our
current students
 Genre analysis is a self help tool – next step: to embed
it into scheduled classes and include language
criteria in assessment - and therefore in learning
objectives (‘constructive alignment’ - Biggs 1996)
Slide 19
The University of Adelaide
Conclusion
 Further step proposed
–
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Slide 20
embed within curriculum
subject lecturer involved in teaching
integrated, not remedial
in set contact time
assessed, not optional add-on
The University of Adelaide
References
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AUQA (2009) Good practice principles for English language proficiency for international
students in Australian universities, Canberra: Department of Education, Employment and
Workplace Relations. www.aall.org.au/research (Accessed 28/3/2011)
Ballard, B. & Clanchy, J. (1998) Studying in Australia. Melbourne. Longman Cheshire,
Barthel, A. (2011) Integrating academic language and learning in curriculum, policy and
practices. Pre-conference Workshop, AALL Conference, Adelaide.
Biggs, J.(1996) Enhancing teaching through constructive alignment. Higher Education 32:
347-364.
Cargill, M. & O’Connor , P. (2009) Writing scientific research articles. Strategy and steps.
Oxford. UK. Wiley-Blackwell.
Christie, F. & J.R. Martin (eds) (1997) Genre and Institutions. London. Cassell.
Cope, B. & Kalantzis, M. (1993). How a genre approach to literacy can transform the way
literacy is taught. In B. Cope & M. Kalantzis (Eds.), The powers of literacy: A genre
approach to the teaching of writing pp1-21. London: Falmer Press.
Halliday, M.A.K. & Martin, J. R. (1993). Writing science. Literacy and discursive power.
London: Falmer Press.
Halliday, M.A.K. & Hasan, R. (1985) Language, Context and Text: language in a social
semiotic perspective. Deakin University Press.
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The University of Adelaide
References
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Hunter, K. (2011) making disciplinary writing practices an integral part of academic
content teaching. Paper presented at the HERDSA Conference. Gold Coast
McGowan, U. (2010) Re-defining academic teaching in terms of research apprenticeship.
In M. Devlin, J. Nagy and A. Lichtenberg (Eds.) Research and Development in Higher
Education: Reshaping Education, 33 (pp. 481- 489)
http://www.herdsa.org.au/?page_id=1371#M (Accessed 15/10/11)
McGowan, U. (2005) Does educational integrity mean teaching students NOT to ‘use
their own words’? International Journal for Educational Integrity1(1)
(http://www.ojs.unisa.edu.au/index.php/IJEI/article/view/16/6 Accessed 15/10/11)
McGowan, U. & O'Regan, K. (2008) Avoiding Plagiarism: Achieving Academic Writing.
Audio narrated resource for students and
staff. http://www.adelaide.edu.au/clpd/plagiarism/ (Accessed 15/10/11)
Swales, J. (1990) Genre Analysis. English in academic and research settings.
Cambridge University Press.
Swales, J. (2004). Research genres. Exploration and applications. Cambridge & New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Weissberg, R. & Buker, S. (1990) Writing up research. Experimental research report
writing for students of English. Eaglewood Cliffs. NJ. Prentice Hall Regents.
Slide 22
The University of Adelaide
Abstract
Local and international students in transition from school to university are at risk of producing written
assignments that violate the norms of academic writing and, as a result, of being penalised for
an offence under a university’s Academic Integrity Policy. Interventions to assist students in
developing their skills in academic writing and appropriate uses of citation and referencing
conventions are plentiful and imaginative. They include supplementary workshops, one to one
consultations and online or paper-based resources in academic language and learning centres;
and embedded programs, including courses where language advisers co-teach with subject
lecturers within their disciplines.
However, valuable as these interventions can be, they are a small step only in the direction outlined
in the Good Practice Principles (AUQA 2009). Individual and small group interventions are only
accessed by a small minority of students; and co-teaching approaches are resource intensive
and unlikely to be supported by cash-strapped Faculties. This paper reports on the first stage of
a piece of research into a discipline-embedded genre-based approach (Halliday & Martin 1993;
Cope & Kalantzis, 1993, Swales 2004, Cargill & O’Connor , 2009 – and others) for developing
not only students’ skills and language for academic writing within one Discipline, but also the
tools for applying their own genre analysis to texts and contexts in a variety of university
disciplines, as well as in future employment contexts. The possibilities for, and barriers to
achieving implementation of this approach as a university-wide strategy, supported by policy
and resourcing (AUQA 2009 p.4) will be outlined and opened for discussion.
Key Words: academic language, life-long language learning, genre analysis
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The University of Adelaide
Contact details
Promoting Good Practice Principles
Researching a tool for developing “the 4 Ls”:
Life-Long Language Learning
Ursula McGowan
Senior Lecturer, The University of Adelaide South Australia 5005
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 8313 4745
Slide 24
The University of Adelaide