This volume describes in detail teaching philosophies, curricular structures, research approaches and organizational models used in European countries. It offers concrete teaching strategies and examples: from individual tutorials to large classes, from face-to-face to web-based teaching, and addresses educational and cultural differences between writing instruction in Europe and the US.
All over Europe, universities are moving over to English as the language of instruction. This development has been accelerated by global forces, and its pedagogical consequences have yet to be fully explored. This book examines this situation from the point of view of students and teachers, focusing particularly on the acquisition of English language writing skills in European university contexts. It takes an academic approach, and is firmly grounded in the bibliography on teaching academic writing to second language users in English-speaking countries, as well as in the bibliography on teaching English in Europe in higher education. In addition to providing sound pedagogical guidelines, it also brings together the most recent critiques of current practice and an overview of the innovative approaches devised in the last ten years. This is a book for all those who are involved in the changing European university scenario: English teachers and writing instructors, lecturers faced with the challenge of teaching their courses in English, university administrators and decision-makers.
Student academic writing is at the heart of teaching and learning in higher education. Students are assessed largely by what they write, and need to learn both general academic conventions as well as disciplinary writing requirements in order to be successful in higher education. Teaching Academic Writing is a 'toolkit' designed to help higher education lecturers and tutors teach writing to their students. Containing a range of diverse teaching strategies, the book offers both practical activities to help students develop their writing abilities and guidelines to help lecturers and tutors think in more depth about the assessment tasks they set and the feedback they give to students. The authors explore a wide variety of text types, from essays and reflective diaries to research projects and laboratory reports. The book draws on recent research in the fields of academic literacy, second language learning, and linguistics. It is grounded in recent developments such as the increasing diversity of the student body, the use of the Internet, electronic tuition, and issues related to distance learning in an era of increasing globalisation. Written by experienced teachers of writing, language, and linguistics, Teaching Academic Writing will be of interest to anyone involved in teaching academic writing in higher education.
Academic Writing is emerging as a distinct subject for teaching and research in higher education in the UK and elsewhere. Teaching Academic Writing in UK Higher Education introduces this growing field and provides a resource for university teachers, researchers and administrators interested in developing students' writing.
University Writing: Selves and Texts in Academic Societies examines new trends in the different theoretical perspectives (cognitive, social and cultural) and derived practices in the activity of writing in higher education. These perspectives are analyzed on the basis of their conceptualization of the object - academic and scientific writing; of the writers - their identities, attitudes and perspectives, be it students, teachers or researchers; and of the derived instructional practices - the ways in which the teaching-learning situations may be organized. The volume samples writing research traditions and perspectives both in Europe and the United States, working on their situated nature and avoiding easy or superficial comparisons in order to enlarge our understanding of common problems and some emerging possibilities.
It is now held that writing influences and is influenced by the discipline where it occurs. The representations that writers employ to produce and comprehend texts are said to be sensitive to the specificities of their disciplinary discourse communities. This exposes writers to divergent disciplinary demands and expectations on what counts as good and appropriate writing in terms of generic structure, discourse features, and stylistic preferences, reflecting dissimilar practices. Because of such exigencies, academic writing seems at times to be very challenging, especially for novice scholars. Thus, any attempt to perceive the function of academic writing in higher education or to evaluate its quality should not discard the shaping force of the disciplines. Teaching Academic Writing as a Discipline-Specific Skill in Higher Education is a critical scholarly resource that examines the role of writing within academic circles and the disciplinary practices of writing in scholastic environments. The book will also explore the particular difficulties that confront writers in the disciplines as well as the endeavors of educational institutions to develop discipline-specific writing traditions among practicing and novice scholars. Featuring a range of topics such as blended learning, data interpretation, and knowledge construction, this book is essential for instructors, academicians, administrators, professors, researchers, and students.
Writing about Learning and Teaching in Higher Education offers detailed guidance to scholars at all stages-experienced and new academics, graduate students, and undergraduates-regarding how to write about learning and teaching in higher education. It evokes established practices, recommends new ones, and challenges readers to expand notions of scholarship by describing reasons for publishing across a range of genres, from the traditional empirical research article to modes such as stories and social media that are newly recognized in scholarly arenas. The book provides practical guidance for scholars in writing each genre-and in getting them published. To illustrate how choices about writing play out in practice, we share throughout the book our own experiences as well as reflections from a range of scholars, including both highly experienced, widely published experts and newcomers to writing about learning and teaching in higher education. The diversity of voices we include is intended to complement the variety of genres we discuss, enacting as well as arguing for an embrace of multiplicity in writing about learning and teaching in higher education.
This text presents strategies and approaches to allow the reader to gain more control over his or her academic writing in a higher education environment. This edition includes more detailed consideration of plagiarism and careful use of source material.
In the current economic climate, more than ever, international students provide an important income to universities. They represent much-needed funds for many institutions, but they also come with their own diverse variety of characteristics and requirements. This insightful book offers a critical stance on contemporary views of international students and challenges the way those involved address the important issues at hand. To do this, the authors focus specifically on giving voice to the student experience. In particular, the authors show how international student experience can be a ready asset from which to glean valuable information, particularly in relation to teaching and learning, academic support and the formal and informal curriculum. In this way, the issues affecting international students can be seen as part of the larger set of difficulties that face all students at university today. Integrating contributions from a academics and student voices from a range of backgrounds issues raised include: Academic Writing for International Students The Internationalisation of the Curriculum Identities: The use of stereotypes and auto-stereotypes International Students’ Perceptions of Tutors, and The system in reverse, English speaking learners as 'international students'. This book will be of interest to education management and administrators, higher education professionals, especially those working or training to teach large numbers of international students, to which it offers a unique opportunity to understand better the students’ point-of-view. Because of this the book will likely appeal to academics in all English speaking countries that recruit significant numbers of international students, as well as the growing number of European universities which teach in English and those in the Indian sub-continent that send large numbers of international students to the UK, Australia, New Zealand and the US.
This collection of essays reflects on the ways in which writing centres in South Africa are working in and across disciplines. Institutional constraints and challenges that arise from these collaborations are addressed and opportunities for transforming teaching and learning spaces are explored. The chapters speak to the global move in higher education to reconsider how knowledge is made, who makes it, and how support and development opportunities for students and lecturers should be created and sustained across the disciplines. This volume contributes to the body of knowledge in the growing field of the scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education in South Africa. It builds on the work of the first collection of such essays: Changing Spaces: Writing Centres and Access to Higher Education (Eds. A Archer and R Richards, 2011, SUN PReSS) to understand why working within the disciplines is so critical for writing development in a South African context.
