2016 AALL Symposium
Theoretical frameworks informing in-discipline language
development: transforming perceptions and practice
What works best: strengthening the evidence-base for oral and written
communication skills in higher education?
Kerry Hunter (University of Technology Sydney)
Neela Griffiths (University of Technology Sydney)
Issues around the English language communication skills of Australian graduates have been simmering for a
number of years. Foremost in this conversation has been the lack of evidence around ensuring that
students are graduating with good oral and written communication practices. Australian higher education
institutions (HEIs) have graduate attributes that typically include communication skills, yet at present it is
not possible to determine with any confidence the language and literacy standards of graduates on
completion of their degree (Arkoudis, 2014). Research indicates challenges faced by HEIs are accentuated
by the separation of communication skills from disciplinary learning and assessment and that assessment of
communication is generally not visible (e.g. Baik, 2010; Harris & Ashton, 2011; Briguglio, 2014).
Since the introduction of the Higher Education Standards Framework in late 2011, HEIs have refocused
attention on developing strategic plans to address the English language learning needs of all students.
However, as these approaches are often fragmented (Dunworth, 2013), and not considered core business
within learning and teaching (Arkoudis, 2014), an important concern for HEIs is identifying and
implementing practices that are sustainable and develop and assure students’ language skills (Arkoudis &
Doughney, 2014). We report on a multi-university OLT project which explores the best ways to rethink,
consolidate and strengthen the evidence base for integrating language interventions. The project aims to
situate these approaches harmoniously within institutional quality assurance practices and core business.
In the initial phase the project team conducted national workshops, interviews with a range of academic
leaders and industry representatives, and undertook an extensive literature review. We present the key
findings that emerged.
References
Arkoudis, S. (2014). Integrating English language communication skills into disciplinary curricula: Options
and strategies. Sydney: Office of Learning and Teaching. http://www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/arkoudis_fellowship
Arkoudis, S. and Doughney, L. (2014). Good Practice Report–English Language Proficiency. Sydney: Office
for Learning and Teaching.
Baik, C. (2010). Assessing linguistically diverse students in higher education: A study of academics’ beliefs
and practices. Unpublished Doctor of Education dissertation, The University of Melbourne.
Briguglio, C. (2014). Working in the third space: promoting interdisciplinary collaboration to embed English
language development in the disciplines. http://www.olt.gov.au/resource-working-in-the-third-space
Dunworth, K. (2013b). Discussion Paper 2: In-course Student English Language Development. In Five Years
On: English Language Competence of International Students – Outcomes Report.
http://www.ieaa.org.au/documents/item/54
Harris, A. and Ashton, J. (2011). Embedding and integrating language and academic skills: An innovative
approach. Journal of Academic Language and Learning, 5(2). A73-A87.
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2016 AALL Symposium
Theoretical frameworks informing in-discipline language
development: transforming perceptions and practice
What helps or hinders the gathering of data on language development?
Emily Purser, University of Wollongong
There is and has always been a not unreasonable expectation that students will graduate from a university
with a greater sophistication of thought, flexibility of expression, and accuracy in wording than they were
able to comprehend let alone display on entry to their chosen course of study. These days though, there is
increasing demand that universities be very explicit about this kind of thing, and somehow assure that their
graduates can communicate effectively. We are well aware that this kind of focus on the medium of
teaching and learning relates to the rapidly rising proportion of students who are first in family to attend
university, and/or who use English as an additional language.
Of interest in this presentation is not so much the teaching programs and resources we develop in response
to the clear need to pay close attention to English language education in universities (these being well
established and pretty good on the whole), as the challenge of evidencing where, when and how students’
language is actually developing. We live in an educational environment framed by discourse of standards,
and a scientific culture that values evidence as the most valid basis for continual improvement of
instruction and managerial systems. This sounds fine, except when you want to measure something as
complex as language development. How we do this in universities depends very much on how we talk
about English language proficiency, academic literacy and communicative competence – do we assume
these to be neutral ‘things’ existing in the real world, that can be objectively measured, or do we recognise
them as constructs, emerging from and framed by particular discourses and potentially opposed agendas in
research, development and commercialisation?
We struggled for years at UOW to find the right terms to make a policy on English language education
palatable to the University as a whole. Why does ELP mean something or nothing to different groups, who
contests a term like literacy, and why is ‘communication’ as difficult to define as ‘culture’? Who finds these
terms interchangeable, and who sees them as obviously separable? Why do some find ‘skills’ a useful word
to put next to language, writing, thinking, or academic, while others prefer to drink hemlock than utter it in
the academy? It seems worth discussing which discourses we draw on when we seek to define ELP,
academic literacy and communication skills, in order to be ‘accountable’ in our roles as ALL educators.
The talk will focus on a few questions, which those coming to the symposium will be asked by survey to
respond to before the day, and it will look at the institutional and theoretical factors that seem to facilitate
and frustrate attempts here to formulate and implement a policy on English language.
References
Arkoudis, S. (2014). Integrating English language communication skills into disciplinary curricula: Options
and strategies. Sydney: Office of Learning and Teaching. http://www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/arkoudis_fellowship
Dunworth, K., Drury, H., Kralik, C., Moore, T. and Mulligan, D. (2013). Degrees of Proficiency: Building a
Strategic Approach to University Students’ English Language Assessment and Development. Sydney: Office
for Learning and Teaching. http://www.degreesofproficiency.aall.org.au
Knocha, U., Rouhshada, A., Oonb, S.P. and Storcha, N. (2015). What happens to ESL students’ writing after
three years of study at an English medium university? Journal of Second Language Writing, 28. 39–52.
University of Wollongong English Language Policy
http://www.uow.edu.au/about/policy/alphalisting/UOW187817.html
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2016 AALL Symposium
Theoretical frameworks informing in-discipline language
development: transforming perceptions and practice
Embedding communication into curricula: an approach from Macquarie University
Dr Susan Hoadley, University of Technology Sydney
Communication outcomes are included in learning outcomes at all levels of curricula, in university graduate
attributes and in accreditation frameworks such as the AQF and professional associations. The requirement
to develop communication outcomes has been used in the Faculty of Business and Economics at Macquarie
University as an imperative for embedding discipline-specific discourse development (Hoadley & Wood,
2013). This approach is articulated and disseminated through an academic professional development
resource that provides a theoretically informed rationale, as well as practical guidance, for embedding
discipline-specific discourse in subjects, constituting a strategy for in-discipline language development. The
approach integrates educational theory in relation to curriculum alignment (Biggs, 1993; 1996; 2014),
discourse theory in relation to the construction of areas of knowledge, identities and relationships through
language based texts (Fairclough, 1992) and systemic functional linguistics (Halliday & Hasan, 1985; Martin,
1999; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004). The resource explicitly uses these theoretical frameworks to convince
academics that language development is something “we all do” in terms of discipline-specific discourse.
The resource has been widely accessed both within Macquarie University and beyond. The theoretical
frameworks and practices presented in the resource are transferable to other disciplines, particularly those
that lead to specific professions.
References
Biggs, J. B. (1993). From Theory to Practice: A Cognitive Systems Approach. Higher Education Research &
Development, 12(1), 73–85. http://doi.org/10.1080/0729436930120107
Biggs, J. (1996). Enhancing teaching through constructive alignment. Higher Education, 32(3), 347–364.
http://doi.org/10.1007/BF00138871
Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Halliday, M. A. K. and Hasan, R. (1985). Language context and text: aspects of language in a social-semiotic
perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Halliday, M. and Matthiessen, C. (2004). An introduction to functional grammar. London: Arnold.
Hoadley, S. and Wood, L. N. (2013). How to embed discipline-specific discourse: learning through
communication. Retrieved from https://staff.mq.edu.au/public/download.jsp?id=106634
Martin, J. R. (1999). Mentoring semogenesis: “genre-based” literacy pedagogy. In F. Christie (Ed.),
Pedagogy and the Shaping of Consciousness: linguistic and social processes (pp. 123–155). London, UK:
Cassell (Open Linguistics Series).
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2016 AALL Symposium
Theoretical frameworks informing in-discipline language
development: transforming perceptions and practice
Pedagogy, practices and language as a social semiotic – the LASS model of
integration
Dr Jim Donohue, Thinking Writing, Queen Mary University of London
Julian Ingle, Thinking Writing, Queen Mary University of London
Over a ten-year period at The Open University, UK, Coffin and Donohue developed an approach to language
and learning which they describe in their book, A language as social semiotic-based approach to teaching
and learning in higher education (2014). Two years ago, Donohue moved to join the Thinking Writing team
at Queen Mary University of London. In this presentation, Julian Ingle will set the scene for the work that
Thinking Writing have done in the collaborative development of writing, teaching and learning at Queen
Mary. Jim Donohue will then present the Language as Social Semiotic (LASS) approach outlined in Coffin
and Donohue (2014) and consider how the LASS approach is transferring into the new contexts of Thinking
Writing at Queen Mary.
The broad objectives of the Thinking Writing team are similar to those that Donohue had pursued in The
Open University – to collaborate with disciplinary specialists in the development of writing and hence in the
development of teaching and learning. In considering how the LASS approach has fared in the transition,
the presentation will outline the different lines of research that the LASS approach builds on. These can be
summarised as: i) the linguistic analysis of disciplinary meaning making informed by systemic functional
linguistics (SFL) (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004); ii) research into students’ predispositions towards making
particular kinds of meanings – their ‘semantic orientations’ (Hasan 2011); and iii) research into ‘semiotic
mediation’ (Hasan, 2011, Vygotsky,1978), the ways in which language mediates meanings to the mind in
teaching and learning interactions, and in relation to this, the value of ‘metasemiotic mediation’, the
explicit bringing to awareness of how meanings are made by teachers and learners.
References
Coffin, C. and Donohue, J. (2014). A language as social semiotic-based approach to teaching and learning in
higher education (Language Learning Monograph Series). Chichester, West Sussex; Malden, MA: Wiley‐
Blackwell. Also Language Learning 64, 2014, (Supplement 1).
Halliday, M.A.K. and Matthiessen, C.M.I.M (2004). An introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward
Arnold.
Hasan, R. (2011). Language and education: Learning and teaching in society. London: Equinox.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
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2016 AALL Symposium
Theoretical frameworks informing in-discipline language
development: transforming perceptions and practice
Framing assessment of language with SFL – interviews with researchers from the
SLATE Project
Emily Purser, University of Wollongong
A comprehensive report on the ‘SLATE’ project (Scaffolding Literacy in Academic and Tertiary
Environments) has recently been published in book form under the title Genre Pedagogy in Higher
Education. It is of particular interest to organisers of this symposium because of its theoretical framing of
the teaching of academic literacy, and the development of a language-focused rubric to help students and
tutors develop writing and evaluate learning in academic disciplines in Hong Kong (where English is the
medium of instruction, but students’ proficiency in this language is under-developed and needs serious
support if they are to meet the literacy demands of senior years, and compete well for professional
employment in their field).
This book describes the linguistic and pedagogical dimensions of a large action research project that
deployed and extended the current work on genre pedagogy to an on-line learning environment. In
particular, it explores how genre-based pedagogy can be used to support the academic literacy
development of non-English speaking background (NESB) students in tertiary educational institutions to
develop their academic literacy practice. The book reports on work with the Department of Chinese,
Translation & Linguistics (CTL) and the Department of Biology and Chemistry (BCH) in a two-year project
called the SLATE (Scaffolding Literacy in Academic and Tertiary Environments) Project. It includes
theoretically- and practically-oriented material that can serve the needs of researchers and practitioners
engaged with the literacy development of tertiary students in both English-speaking and non-English
speaking countries.
The timing of this symposium made it impossible for members of this research team to attend and speak in
person. So rather than just talking about their work, I interviewed one of them and will present to our
audience a digest of their views on the approach and the outcomes of this project. This presentation will
first provide some introductory context for their work and explanation of why I see this work as particularly
relevant to the day’s discussions, and then an edited video of the interviews conducted for the purpose of
this symposium.
References
Dreyfus, S., Humphrey, S., Mahboob, A. and Martin, J. (2016). Genre Pedagogy in Higher Education: The
SLATE Project. UK: Palgrave MacMillan.
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