Trialing project-based learning in a new EAP ESP course: A collaborative reflective practice of three college English teachers

Currently in many Chinese universities, the traditional College English course is facing the risk of being ‘marginalized’, replaced or even removed, and many hours previously allocated to the course are now being taken by EAP or ESP. At X University in northern China, a curriculum reform as such is taking place, as a result of which a new course has been created called ‘xue ke’ English. Despite the fact that ‘xue ke’ means subject literally, the course designer has made it clear that subject content is not the target, nor is the course the same as EAP or ESP. This curriculum initiative, while possibly having been justified with a rationale of some kind (e.g. to meet with changing social and/or academic needs of students and/or institutions), this is posing a great challenge for, as well as considerable pressure on, a number of College English teachers who have taught this single course for almost their entire teaching career. In such a context, three teachers formed a peer support group in Semester One this year, to work collaboratively co-tackling the challenge, and they chose Project-Based Learning (PBL) for the new course. This presentation will report on the implementation of this project, including the overall designing, operational procedure, and the teachers’ reflections. Based on discussion, pre-agreement was reached on the purpose and manner of collaboration as offering peer support for more effective teaching and learning and fulfilling and pleasant professional development. A WeChat group was set up as the chief platform for messaging, idea-sharing, and resource-exchanging. Physical meetings were supplementary, with sound agenda but flexible time, and venues. Mosoteach cloud class (lan mo yun ban ke) was established as a tool for virtual learning, employed both in and after class. Discussions were held at the beginning of the semester which determined only brief outlines for PBL implementation and allowed space for everyone to autonomously explore in their own way. Constant further discussions followed, which generated a great deal of opportunities for peer learning and lesson plan modifications. A reflective journal, in a greater or lesser detailed manner, was also kept by each teacher to record the journey of the collaboration. At the end of the semester, it was commonly recognized that, although challenges existed, the collaboration was overall a success and they were all willing to continue with it and endeavor to refine it to be a more professional and productive approach

Digital innovations in online articles in the field of Chemistry: Implications for the teaching of genre and new academic and digital literacies

Este trabajo pretende identificar las innovaciones digitales presentes en tres revistas de Química, considerar sus propósitos retóricos y examinar por qué aparecen en la comunicación académica en línea. El corpus se utilizó con fines pedagógicos en la Universidad de Creta para identificar las habilidades y los retos que los estudiantes de Química necesitaban o afrontaban, respectivamente, al componer, analizar, deconstruir y comparar géneros similares. Se analizaron las percepciones de profesores, jóvenes investigadores y estudiantes para descifrar sus prioridades y necesidades. A partir del análisis de cuatro conjuntos de datos, entre ellos un corpus de artículo de investigación, cuestionarios, entrevistas e informes de reflexión en voz alta, se extrajeron implicaciones para la enseñanza de los géneros y las nuevas alfabetizaciones académicas y digitales, de modo que los profesores de ESP y EAP puedan tomar decisiones informadas sobre el diseño de los cursos, la pedagogía de los géneros y cómo pueden fomentar las alfabetizaciones académicas digitales utilizando publicaciones académicas. Los resultados sugieren que las innovaciones digitales en las revistas de Química, dependiendo de cómo las abordemos, entendamos, remediemos (reutilicemos) y utilicemos (como productores o usuarios de contenidos), pueden afectar a la forma en que nos relacionamos con otros miembros de la comunidad (miembros de la comunidad de discurso o comunidad de práctica), la forma en que percibimos la comunicación académica, cómo "hacemos" comunicación académica y cómo negociamos nuestras formas de ser y hacer dentro de un ecosistema de género establecido pero en constante cambio.<br /

Genre Archive: Bibliography

The Genre Archive, created by the English Language Institute at The University of Michigan, is a collection of around one thousand papers dealing in nearly all cases with some aspect or aspects of non-literary genres. The Archive was assembled by John Swales, his graduate students, and the visiting scholars who came to the institute, often supported by the H. Joan Morley Scholarship Fund, with the assistance of the staff of the ELI Library. The earliest papers are from the 1950s and the latest from 2007, but the majority are from the 1985 to 2005 period. Some are published papers; others dissertations or theses, or parts thereof; some are manuscripts, sometimes drafts of later publications and sometimes term papers or other coursework. Many of the last group have no date (n.d). This bibliography lists the papers contained in the Archive in alphabetical order by author, and then by year of publication. A few of the entries are highlighted in yellow, indicating that these papers themselves are currently missing. The Genre Archive exists solely in paper form and is housed at the ELI offices. Access to the Archive is available by appointment only. Researchers interested in visiting the Archive should email [email protected]. Unfortunately, we are not able to accept requests for scanned copies by mail or email or to otherwise circulate the contents of the Archive. (Introduction by John Swales)http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134394/1/ELI Genre Archive Bibliography 10-12-16.dochttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134394/2/ELI Genre Archive Bibliography.pdf-1Description of ELI Genre Archive Bibliography 10-12-16.doc : Genre Archive: Bibliography (Word Version)Description of ELI Genre Archive Bibliography.pdf : Genre Archive: Bibliography (pdf version

Studying disciplinary corpora to teach the craft of discussion

Producing publishable quality research articles is a difficult task for novice scholarly writers. Particularly challenging is writing the Discussion/Conclusion section, which requires taking evaluative and interpretive stances on obtained results and substantiating claims regarding the worth of the scholarly contribution of the article to scientific knowledge. Conforming to the expectations of the target disciplinary community adds another dimension to the challenge. Corpus-based genre analysis can foster postgraduate writing instruction by providing insightful descriptions of rhetorical patterns and variation in disciplinary discourse. This paper introduces a pedagogically-oriented cross-disciplinary model of moves and steps devised through top-down corpus analysis. The model was applied to pedagogical materials and tasks designed to enhance genre and corpus-based teaching of Discussion/ Conclusions with an explicit focus on rhetorical conventions

Collaborative interdisciplinary publication skills education: implementation and implications in international science research contexts.

This portfolio of three research projects addresses at an educational level the increasing pressure on scientists internationally to publish research in highly-ranked, peer-reviewed journals, and thus in English. Building on a tradition of collaboration between language- and content-based expertise in English for Specific/Academic Purposes, the portfolio examines the contribution of a pedagogical approach dubbed Collaborative Interdisciplinary Publication Skills Education (CIPSE) for teaching novice scientist authors who use English as a first or additional language. Project 1 examines CIPSE development from its antecedents in content-based learning and genre analysis, culminating in the production of a teaching text/website package Writing Scientific Research Articles: Strategy and Steps (WSRA) by a collaborative team of the candidate, an applied linguist, and a publishing, refereeing scientist. The aim was to redress the incomplete coverage of existing approaches to produce a resource accessible to novice authors of all language backgrounds and to teachers/mentors within both science and language contexts. The research questions driving Projects 2 and 3 emerged from initial implementation of CIPSE, and were addressed by analyzing evaluative data from selected implementation sites. Project 2 investigates interdisciplinary teams for publication skills development. Part A, framed within the constructs of interdisciplinary higher education, demonstrates that the CIPSE structure, led by an applied linguist working with interdisciplinary collaborators as appropriate/available in each presentation context, was effective at all levels of collaboration. It was important that CIPSE outcomes were 'core business' for collaborators, and a need was identified for terminology that intersects with the agendas of those with power to implement. Part B, framed within English for Specific Purposes, focuses on challenges to interdisciplinary collaboration in China. Recommended strategies for developing collaboration between Chinese scientists and English-language professionals, rather than foreign visitors, include institutional support for collaboration, and training to enhance the ability of English professionals to present themselves as bringing valuable expertise to publication skills education. Project 3 investigates CIPSE effectiveness for Chinese scientists at different career stages. Part A, addressing academic writing instruction, highlights challenges to publication success for EFL (English as a Foreign Language) science researchers as identified by CIPSE workshop participants. Introducing the WSRA package to Chinese scientists who train/mentor students resulted in significantly increased confidence both to write/publish their own articles and to teach others, and a shift in the training methods deemed appropriate. Part B analyses a 4-cycle action research study at the Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 2006-9, to investigate use of CIPSE in an EFL university with early-candidature students from mixed disciplines. The resulting adapted, CIPSE-based course shows potential for use by Chinese teachers. Taken together, the three projects provide a theorised basis and practical steps for building effective training regimes for publication skill development in a wide range of science research contexts. Overall findings are summarised as a matrix of descriptor scales for analysing training contexts to identify cost-effective levels of collaboration: client training goals, trainee research experience, training program type, and English language context. The portfolio findings thus contribute to knowledge of interdisciplinary collaboration in education and context-sensitive implementation of educational innovation.Thesis (D.Ed.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Education, 201

Comparative Study of Generic Structural Elements in Research Article Abstracts of Selected Arts-Based Disciplines

Academic genre analysts have over the last few decades preoccupied themselves with the description of rhetorical organisation of different academic genres This is done with a view to providing writers most especially young entrants into academic discourse community with knowledge on academic genre literacy Extant literature reveals that generic structural elements of arts-based research article abstracts have not been much explored using generic comparative analytical approach perspective and this creates a research vacuum in the literature This study therefore fills the vacuum as it carries out a comparative study of Generic Structural Elements in Research Article Abstracts of Selected Arts-Based Disciplines This is done with a view to determining the generic structural variations across disciplines The study utilised as data three hundred abstracts 100 from each group purposively selected from 27 journals in Languages and Communication LC 13 in Literary and Creative Arts LCA and 25 in Cultural Studies and Philosophy CSP published between 2001 and 2010 The journals selected are domiciled in universities in the inner circle countries where English is spoken as mother tongue The generic structural elements of these abstracts are comparatively analysed using insights from the Generic Structural Potential analytical tool of SF

La estructura retórica del resumen (abstract) en las disciplinas arte y diseño : un estudio descriptivo

Maestría en Inglés con Orientación en Lingüística AplicadaAs an effective means of representing the research article, the abstract has increasingly become an essential part of this genre. For that reason, understanding the rhetorical conventions that govern abstract writing in their respective fields may help students and novice researchers acquire reading and writing skills in their fields of specialization. Recent research on the rhetorical features of abstracts has revealed broad patterns of regularity as well as disciplinary variation. Although several investigations have focused their analysis on a variety of disciplines, no study appears to have explored the rhetorical structure of abstracts in the fields of Art and Design. The present research, therefore, examines the rhetorical moves and main linguistic features of Art and Design abstracts, and proposes a schema for the abstract genre in each of these disciplinary domains. To conduct the study, a corpus of 30 abstracts from four high-impact journals was compiled, and subjected to a move analysis (Swales, 1981, 1990) using the analytical framework proposed by Pho (2008), and the methodology suggested by Dudley-Evans (1994) and Holmes (1997). The results reveal that although Art and Design abstracts bear some similarities, they also show some differences that result in distinct emerging patterns. Based on these findings, two models are proposed of the rhetorical elements that are constitutive of each discipline. The outcome of this research has pedagogical implications for students, novice researchers and teachers within ESP (English for Specific Purposes) contexts.Fil: Caturegli, Alicia. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Lenguas; Argentina

A systematic review of pedagogical approaches that can effectively include children with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms with a particular focus on peer group interactive approaches

The broad background to this review is a long history of concepts of special pupils and special education, and a faith in special pedagogical approaches. The rise of inclusive schools and some important critiques of special pedagogy (e.g. Hart, 1996; Norwich and Lewis, 2001; Thomas and Loxley, 2001) have raised the profile of teaching approaches that ordinary teachers can and do use to include children with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms. Inclusive education itself is increasingly conceived as being about the quality of learning and participation that goes on in inclusive schools rather than simplistic matters of where children are place