Multiple metaphors in an understanding of academic literacy

This article describes understandings derived from work in a first year Systematic Philosophy class at a historically black South African university which challenge the assumptions on which the writer has based her practice as a teacher of English as a second language for many years. These assumptions focus on the perception of problems related to the production and reception of academic texts as solely, or even mainly, linguistic in origin. Analysis of writing and interviews with students suggests that the problems in the writing stem mainly from their unfamiliarity with academic discourses in spite of the fact that all are speakers of English as an additional language

Texts, practices and student learning: a view from the South

This article uses ‘close-up’ ethnographic research to provide an account of students’ engagement with learning in a South African university. Broadly based on Halliday’s (1973, 1978, 1994) understanding of texts resulting from contexts, the account challenges dominant constructions of the problems students encounter as stemming from the use of inappropriate ‘approaches’ to learning, the lack of ‘study’ and other skills or problems with proficiency in areas such as writing or language and shows how students’ unfamiliarity with the context of the university leads them to draw on ‘other’ contexts in order to engage with the texts they must read, write and listen to in the course of their studies. This drawing on ‘other’ contexts then results in the texts produced by students, and the practices which give rise to those texts, being inappropriate to the context of the university. Although the research on which the article is based took place in South Africa, it is argued that the theoretical perspective it provides has relevance across other contexts given the increasingly diverse student bodies which characterize higher education across the globe

Naming students problems: an analysis of language-related discourses at a South African university

This article examines a number of discourses that construct students 'problems' as they engage with tertiary study at a historically black South African university. These dominant discourses are then linked to Street's 'autonomous' model of literacy and Rampton's 'autonomous' model of applied linguistics in order to interrogate their ideological biases. Implications of the discourses for the provision of epistemological access to tertiary study are then explored. The article ends by indicating how a 'literacy across the curriculum' approach to working with students' difficulties could provide an alternative to current 'remedial' programmes

Institutional Difference: A Neglected Consideration in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning?

Excerpt: This invited essay considers how thinking about institutional differences can enhance the scholarship of teaching and learning. It does this by drawing on a recent piece of South African research which used data produced as part of a national process of auditing institutions for quality assurance purposes (Boughey, 2009; Boughey 2010; Boughey & McKenna, 2011a; 2011b). Overwhelmingly, the research revealed that, although universities were paying attention to issues related to teaching and learning (and drawing on literature and research produced as part of the scholarship of teaching and learning to do so), little attention had been given to the way institutional type could, and indeed needed to, impact on teaching and learning and on efforts to enhance both areas

Postgraduate education in a globalised world

No abstrac

The origin of the African flora: an inaugural lecture given in the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland

An inaugural lecture on botanical species of Africa.As with all scientific investigations, the study of the Origin of the African Flora requires first an examination of the terms and difficulties which beset the subject, before the real problems emerge. The most obvious obtrusion is that the continent of Africa contains not one but several floras, and perhaps the final word in the title of this address should have been pluralized. There are, however, more complex questions than this to be resolved

Graduate Recital: Derek Boughey, Percussion; April 16, 2010

Kemp Recital HallApril 16, 2010Friday Evening6:00 p.m

What are we thinking of? A critical overview of approaches to developing academic literacy in South African higher education

In South African higher education, the development of academic literacy is often seen to be the responsibility of those working in the field that is known as ‘academic development’. This paper uses an analysis of submissions to the 2012 annual conference of the Higher Education Learning and Teaching  Association of Southern Africa, the forum most used by those working in the field to present their work, (i) to examine critically the way the construct of academic literacy is understood by practitioners in the field and (ii) to consider the approaches to the development of literacy to which these understandings lead.Key words: academic literacies, academic development, higher  education,reading, writing, skills, practice

Interaction Between Animals, Vegetation, and Fire in Southern Rhodesia

Author Institution: University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Salisbury, Southern Rhodesi

The interactions of the soil micro-organisms

(1) A record of numbers of soil fungi, and bacteria and actinomycetes, in a fallow plot in the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, was kept over the course of one year, 1937 -1938, together with variations in soil moisture, soil temperature, soil pH, and soil organic matter content.(2) The numbers of soil fungi exhibited a marked seasonal periodicity with a biennial maximum in April and October.(3) The numbers of soil bacteria and actinomycetes exhibited similar fluctuations, but with maximums in May and September.(4) Records of numbers of certain individual species were also taken. Fluctuations in numbers of one or two of the species departed considerably from the mean as indicated by the fluctuations in total numbers of soil fungi.(5) Numbers of fungi developing on agar plates exposed to the air over the soil plot were recorded over the year.(6) The effect of four different soil treatments on soil fungi was investigated. Sterilised dung, nutrient solution, and weak growth caused a significant depression in numbers after 3 months. Sterilised filter -paper had no effect.(7) A new method of distinguishing between fungal spores and fungal mycelium is outlined