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Developing your students’ English language proficiency THE ACADEMIC LITERACIES APPROACH

LEARNING AND TEACHING CENTRE

Contact the Learning Skills Group, Learning and Teaching Centre, to explore options for collaboration or professional development

in the areas of English language proficiency and academic literacy.

learningskills@mq.edu.au

This guide was written by the Learning Skills Group and was funded by a Competitive Grant awarded by the Learning and Teaching Centre, Macquarie University

This publication contains information which is current as at 13th February 2015. Changes in circumstances after this date may affect the accuracy of the information contained therein.

Learning Skills takes all due care to ensure that the information contained here is accurate but reserves the right to vary any information described in this publication without notice.

© Macquarie University 2015

CRICOS Provider 00002J [March, 2015] LTCA415_oo4 BC0454_RDCover photo: Jeremy Piper Photography

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Created by the Learning Skills Group,

Learning & Teaching Centre, Macquarie University

learningskills@mq.edu.au

ContentsWhy should I be concerned with students’ language proficiency? 2

What is my role in developing students’ language proficiency? 3

But I’m not a grammar teacher! 4

Resources to assist students with grammar issues 5

How do I scaffold the development of Academic Literacy? 6

Scaffolding Academic Literacy through assessment tasks 8

How does Academic Literacy align with the Macquarie Graduate Capabilities? 9

Clarifying the conventions of your discipline 10

Strategies for developing students’ academic reading 12

Strategies for developing students’ writing 14

Strategies for developing students’ spoken proficiency 17

Effective feedback 18

Giving feedback on language 20

How can I map Academic Literacy development within my teaching unit? 22

Where can I get more help with this? 23

Useful resources for students 24

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What do we mean by English Language Proficiency?The draft English Language Policy for Macquarie University defines English language proficiency as: ‘The ability of students to use English language effectively in production (speech and writing) and reception (listening and reading). This includes but is not limited to proficiency in academic, professional, and discipline-specific discourse.’It then defines each of these key terms:

ACADEMIC DISCOURSEThe uses of language across university disciplines for learning, teaching and research. It includes but is not limited to language used in lectures, assessments, exams, set readings, consultations with academics, discussions with peers, and university policies.

DISCIPLINE-SPECIFIC DISCOURSEAcademic discourse specific to a particular discipline (e.g., the discourse of Physics as opposed to the discourse of History).

PROFESSIONAL DISCOURSEThe discourse used in professions. For instance, the language used by engineers in the workplace has some overlap with the discipline-specific discourse of Engineering at universities, but also encompasses a range of contexts different to those at university (e.g. dealing with clients and architects, reading reports and briefs, and so on).

1 Hyland, K. (2006) English for Academic Purposes: An Advanced Resource Book. New York: Routledge. p.116. 2 Baynham, M. ‘Academic Writing in New and Emergent Discipline Areas’ in Lea, M. & Stierer, B. (2000) Student Writing in Higher

Education. Buckingham: Open University Press. pp. 17-31. 3 Coffin, C., Curry, M., Goodman, S., Hewings, A., Lillis, T. & Swan, J. (2003) Teaching Academic Writing. London: Routledge.

Why should I be concerned with students’ language proficiency?Our students come to us from increasingly diverse backgrounds, and commence their studies with significantly different understandings of what it means to be a university student, as well as different levels of English language proficiency and awareness of academic language and conventions.

Regardless of each student’s background, all students at Macquarie have met whatever entry requirements the university requires of them. However, whilst these requirements are sufficient to allow them entry to their course, students need to be consistently reminded that continual development of their language proficiency is both an expectation and a necessary condition of being successful in their studies.

There are concrete things that all teaching staff can do to assist students to develop their language proficiency. This does not mean teaching spelling, grammar or punctuation. Your key role is to make clear to students the culture of your academic discipline and the ways that language is used within that culture.

Each academic discipline “has different ideas about what is worth communicating, how it can be communicated, what readers are likely to know, (and) how they might be persuaded.” 1 To participate effectively in the discourse of a specific discipline, students need this ‘insider knowledge’ and those best placed to teach discipline specific practices and conventions are discipline specialists, 2 who should explicitly:

• “identify the kinds of language use with which students need to become familiar in order to write successfully in higher education;

• make these uses available to students in ways which enhance their learning;

• find ways of building on students’ existing knowledge of and uses of language.” 3

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What is my role in developing students’ language proficiency?In order to develop students’ language proficiency, you should focus on integrating academic literacy into a teaching unit. This can be done by developing students’ understanding, skills and strategies in relation to:

• the nature and demands of academic study, including the importance of being an independent learner who actively seeks resources to assist their own learning

• appropriate approaches to academic reading

• the process of academic writing, including:

– understanding the assignment question – planning and structuring written work – incorporating evidence

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But I’m not a grammar teacher!It is not the direct responsibility of academic teaching staff to teach grammar, spelling and punctuation. However, most academic staff will encounter students whose problems with grammar are significant enough to make their meaning unclear. Below are some tips on how to respond to this. See page 20 for more tips on giving feedback on language issues.

• All students, regardless of their level or background, should be consistently advised that continuing to develop their academic and professional language proficiency is one of the fundamental requirements of university study.

• Students often try too hard to write in what they perceive to be an academic style. The result is often written work that is overly complicated, with incorrect grammar and sentence structures and consequently problems with meaning. Students, especially those in 100-level units, should be advised to focus on making their meaning clear, rather than on writing ‘academically’.

• You don’t need to point out every grammar or spelling mistake. Feedback should make it clear to students when language problems are making the meaning unclear, and relevant language resources can then be recommended (see next page).

• If you decide to offer feedback about grammar, make it explicit. Comments such as “poor grammar” don’t allow students to address the problem, as they don’t explain which part of the grammar was wrong, nor why. Feedback should circle the incorrect grammar and explain why it is wrong (for specific examples of giving feedback on language issues, see pages 20-21).

• If you are unsure about how to explain grammatical errors, it is still extremely useful to the student if you provide an alternative word, phrase or sentence that would more clearly and correctly convey the meaning.

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Resources to assist students with grammar issues The factor which most significantly impacts upon the quality of students’ academic work is the process they use to put together their assignment, and the approach to learning reflected in this process.4 Explaining to students the process you would expect them to follow in order to produce a suitable standard of work can be a useful way of getting them to think about the steps they need to take in order to ‘make it happen’.

4 Prosser, M. & Webb, C. (1994) Relating the Process of Undergraduate Essay Writing to the Finished Product. Studies in Higher Education, 19:2 pp.125-138.

• The StudyWISE online academic literacy resource includes a section that covers the mechanics of English proficiency; including grammar, punctuation and vocabulary. Grammar issues addressed in StudyWISE include verb forms, parts of speech, subjectverb agreement and correct use of articles. Punctuation issues covered include the correct use of full stops, commas and apostrophes.

• Learning skills offers a range of free workshops dealing with various aspects of academic language (see the timetable at mq.edu.au/learningskills). Topics include:

– Building your academic vocabulary – Fixing your grammar errors – Writing clear sentences – Linking your ideas coherently – Verb tense in academic writing

• There are some extremely useful English learner dictionaries, which provide not just definitions but usage in context. Although these are aimed at English learners, they can be recommended to any students

who have significant problems with grammar. Any of the following dictionaries would be useful to recommend, and are usually available in hard copy or as online subscriptions:

– Collins Cobuild English Dictionary – Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English – Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary

• There are three Academic Communication Units offered through the Linguistics department which aim to enhance students’ overall academic language and literacy in the areas of social sciences and humanities (ACSH100), business and economics (ACBE100), and science (ACSC100). They are creditbearing units which explicitly scaffold the development of students’ academic literacy and address various aspects of the assignment writing process.

• Academic Writing for Graduate Students: Essential Tasks and Skills, available at the Macquarie Library, has excellent language based activities set in an academic context, focusing on both overall writing structure and sentence level.

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How do I scaffold the development of Academic Literacy?Obviously there is no single correct process for producing an assignment, and it is very much dependent upon the type of assessment task and the conventions of the discipline. However, there are steps common to the process of producing most types of academic assignments.

These can be broadly identified as follows:

Figure 1: The assignment process

Appropriately incorporating

the source information to support one’s ideas,

arguments or conclusions

Recording, evaluating

and synthe-sising the

information

Communicat-ing effec-

tively in an appropriate style for the

genre and audience

Understand-ing the task

Finding information relevant to

the task

• Discussing a framework such as this (or your own version) in class is a useful way to encourage students to think about how they plan to approach their assessment task. As students develop the skills involved in each step of the process, they can learn to recognise and become more comfortable with the expected practices and conventions of their discipline.

• These steps can be further broken down into the key academic literacy skills required of students to achieve each step of the process (see following page). The development of these skills can be scaffolded throughout the curriculum using appropriate assessment tasks, and each of the skills can be used as learning outcomes for assessment tasks or for a unit.

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Step of the assignment process

Relevant academic literacy skills

Understanding the task

Understanding the expectations and requirements of the task

Analysing the assignment question

Planning for the task

Finding information relevant to the task

Understanding what kinds of sources/resources are necessary for the task

Developing efficient search strategies

Identifying whether a source is relevant to the assignment task

Recording, evaluating and synthesising the information

Identifying the main ideas of a text

Developing critical reading and thinking skills

Taking notes systematically and effectively

Evaluating a source for reliability and credibility

Appropriately incorporating the source information to support one’s ideas, arguments or conclusions

Developing an argument supported by valid evidence

Developing skills in paraphrasing, summarising, quoting and citation

Deciding what types of evidence to use

Using the appropriate referencing style correctly

Communicating effectively in an appropriate style for the genre and audience

Using appropriate, logical structure for the assignment

Using cohesive and coherent language

Using academic voice appropriate to the assignment type and the discipline

Editing and proofreading

Each of the academic literacy skills listed above can be scaffolded through an activity which helps students to further develop the skill. Such activities are most effective when they are assessable (or a component of an assessable activity).

The StudyWISE iLearn unit contains resources for students to develop each of these academic literacy skills: mq.edu.au/learningskills-studywise

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Assessment task

Assessment task

Possible activities to scaffold the development of these skills

Delivery mode(s)

Academic essay

1. Analysing the assignment question

Analysing some examples of essay questions in tutorials, focusing on the key directive words and the scope

Tutorial activity – pair or group work followed by class discussion

2. Developing critical reading skills

Critical reading exercise requiring students to answer questions on a set chapter or journal article, focusing on how the key argument is developed, including the way that the ideas or research of others is incorporated

Tutorial pair work activity, followed by an assessment task for the following week’s reading (10%)

3. Developing an argument supported by valid evidence

A quiz where students are given actual examples of citation and referencing and have to decide whether it is acceptable academic practice

Online quiz in iLearn

5 Adapted from USQ Learning & Teaching Support Unit: Developing Students’ Academic Skills

Scaffolding Academic Literacy through assessment tasksThe table below 5 can help you think about how to scaffold the development of those academic literacies that are relevant to a particular assessment task. It’s useful to start by asking yourself which academic literacy skills your students will need in order to complete the assignment, and then focus on what you could do prior to the task to help them develop these skills.

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How does Academic Literacy align with the Macquarie Graduate Capabilities?Academic literacies can be thought of as subsets of some of the Macquarie University Graduate Capabilities. There are three Graduate Capabilities in particular which are strongly linked with English Language Proficiency and Academic Literacy:

Scholarship Engagem

ent Sustainability

Eth

ical

Pra

ctice

DisciplineSpeci�c

Knowledge& Skills

Critical,Analytical &Integrative

ThinkingProblem

Solving andResearch

Capability

Engaged andEthical Local &Global Citizens

Capable ofProfessional &

PersonalJudgement &

Initiative

Commitment to Continuous Learning

Socially and Environmentally

Active andResponsible

E�ectiveCommunication

Creative and Innovative

peopleplanet

participation

Because an Academic Literacy approach assumes that all learning and teaching at university is discipline specific, this Guide focuses on the Graduate Capabilities of ‘Effective Communication’ and ‘Critical, Analytical and Integrative Thinking’. Each of these has been broken down into the academic literacies which students must master in order to effectively demonstrate these

capabilities. This enables teachers to map academic literacies within a unit and across a program of study, while ensuring they are aligned with the broader Graduate Capabilities. Academic Literacy then becomes a tool to assist in making the Graduate Capabilities specific to a given discipline and demonstrably assessable.

6 Graduate Capabilities from the Curriculum Renewal White Paper, accessed from:

staff.mq.edu.au/teaching/curriculum_development/graduate_capabilities/gradcaps_resources/7 Ibid.8 Ibid.

• ‘Discipline Specific Knowledge and Skills’ requires students “to articulate the structure of knowledge of their discipline”6.

• ‘Effective Communication’ requires students to “communicate and convey their views in forms effective with different audiences” 7.

• ‘Critical, Analytical and Integrative Thinking’ requires students “to be capable of reasoning, questioning and analysing, and to integrate and synthesise learning and knowledge from a range of sources” 8

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Clarifying the conventions of your disciplineA simple but effective way of making clear to students the conventions and culture of your discipline, as well as your expectations of students within a particular unit, is to have a Question and Answer section prominently displayed within your unit guide or iLearn unit.

The Q&A format is familiar to students and displays a more personalised tone than a “how to” guide (although guides on how to write an essay or report in your particular discipline are also useful).

Questions that you might consider writing 200 word answers for (using Philosophy as an example discipline), include:

9Adapted from: Preparing Students for Learning through Written Assessment: A toolkit for Learning Guides (2009) Student Learning Unit, University of Western Sydney.

• What are the main questions that philosophers are interested in answering and how do they go about answering them?

• How should I approach my readings in philosophy? What am I looking for?

• What can be considered valid evidence in philosophy?

• What makes a good philosophy essay?

• How do I develop an argument in philosophy?

• What are the main obstacles or difficulties that philosophy students face when writing an essay?

• Is there a standard referencing system used in philosophy and if so, what is it?9

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Is this acceptable/common in your discipline? (Or is it acceptable to you as a marker?)

If not, what would be a more appropriate way of expressing this?

Use of direct questions

e.g. What can be done to fix this problem?

Consideration needs to be given to possible solutions to this problem.

Use of first person

e.g. In this essay I will address three interconnected aspects of globalisation.

This essay will address three interconnected aspects of globalisation.

An explicit statement of what the piece of writing will be about

e.g. This essay will evaluate two conflicting theories of educational development in early childhood; X and Y.

Two of the most influential theories regarding educational development in early childhood are X and Y.

Use of headings

e.g. Introduction, Conclusion

The introduction and conclusion are written as distinct paragraphs, without headings, and are identifiable by their location in the text and their structure. If this is the case, it is extremely useful to provide for students some examples of a ‘good’ introduction and conclusion from your discipline, explaining what makes it effective.

Extensive use of direct quotes Paraphrasing the ideas and arguments of others, remembering to cite them correctly. Paraphrasing is an extremely difficult skill for students, and one which needs to be developed through constant practice. It can be very helpful to provide practice activities, which may be a component of an assessment task.

A tentative tone (also known as ‘hedging’)

e.g. The findings indicate the possibility of….

The findings show that…..

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Strategies for developing students’ academic readingA very useful exercise for encouraging students to critically engage with their reading is to do a group reading of a chosen text in a tutorial. This allows you (the teacher) to point out some main features of the text, including those that make it a ‘typical’ or ‘good’ example of writing in the discipline.

To ensure that a group reading is effective, go through the text yourself before the tutorial, highlighting key aspects of the structure or language that you wish to draw attention to.

These could include:

• how the abstract is constructed

• what we can predict about the full text from reading the abstract

• how the introduction is constructed – how it sets up the rest of the article or chapter

• how the argument or hypothesis is developed, including the ways in which the research, ideas or

theories of others are introduced into the text and responded to by the author

• how the author weaves between ‘descriptive’ writing and critical or analytical writing

• how the author reports his/her own research results and comments on, interprets or extrapolates from these findings

• any features of the text that can be considered ‘typical’ of academic writing in that discipline. For example, in some disciplines, any claims that are made by the author tend to be qualified (or softened) by the use of phrases such as “this seems to suggest that…” or “the findings indicate that …”

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Case Study – EDUC106

CONTEXTEDUC106 is a core first-year unit in the Bachelor of Education degree program. The Unit Convenor, David Saltmarsh, was concerned that students were having significant difficulties engaging with and understanding the research literature, especially because this unit is deliberately influenced by research in other disciplines. He was also more broadly concerned with the lack of student preparedness for the nature of tertiary study.The foremost aim was to create an assessment task which would explicitly assist students to develop the critical reading skills necessary to properly engage with the literature. However, it was also considered necessary to make students more aware of the culture of learning within a tertiary setting; including the importance of critical thinking, the nature of academic writing within the discipline and the need for students to prepare more thoroughly for their classes and their assignments. David was keen to ensure that any task that was created would actively contribute to students’ learning in these areas, and wished to create an assessment that could be both formative (assessment for learning) and summative (assessment of learning).

THE TASKIt was decided that a Critical Review was an appropriate task to achieve the outcomes stated above. Students are required to provide a one or two age critique of their weekly set texts. As well as giving students a stronger incentive to do their required readings prior to attending class, it is also an excellent way to demonstrate to students how to read the types of texts required in their discipline, by showing them what they should be paying attention to whilst reading.Assignment guidelines give students a list of the key features they need to engage with in their reviews. These features fall within three broad categories:

• the author’s stated aims, key argument and theoretical perspective(s), and methodological approach;

• the students’ reflections on whether the reading achieves its stated aims, with a specific focus on the coherence of the argument and the effectiveness of the methodological approach to answering the stated research questions; and

• aspects of the article that students need to explore further in order to increase their understanding or answer any questions they may still have.

Students are required to write a draft critical review of each week’s reading prior to the tutorial. These drafts are used as the basis for discussions and activities during each tutorial. Students are then expected to revise their reviews, based on the class discussions, and each week’s critical review is collated and submitted as a portfolio for assessment at the end of semester.

OUTCOMESThe following comments from student feedback best sum up the potential benefits of this type of task, aimed at giving students repeated and scaffolded practice of developing their critical reading and thinking skills:

By critically reviewing each particular reading it has demonstrated to me as well as helped me understand that these issues are of significant importance to me……I have been able to take a position on the issues discussed either accepting or challenging them. By doing this it has enabled me to gain an understanding as well as a perspective on these issues.(The) assessment methods…not only promoted student learning, but advanced the notion of scholarship to a high level, while encouraging philosophical thought.

For a more detailed description and evaluation of this assessment task, see:Saltmarsh, D. & Saltmarsh, S. (2008) Has anyone read the reading? Using assessment to promote academic literacies and learning cultures, Teaching in Higher Education, 16:6, 621-632.

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Strategies for developing students’ writingAn effective way to demonstrate the style of writing expected in your discipline is to show students a model.

Ideally this should be a real assignment written by a student in the subject in which the exemplar is being used, keeping in mind that this requires the written permission of the student. Ideally this would form the basis of a discussion on how the text was constructed, highlighting features such as:

• Effective development of argument, including the use of evidence to support claims or ideas

• The language used to make the text cohesive (including linking words such as ‘however’, ‘conversely’, ‘therefore’ and ‘consequently’)

• Effective paraphrasing, citation or referencing (including the use of reporting verbs such as: “According to Thompson and Smith….”)

• Use of structure or style which is typical of the discipline, which may include features such as:

– hedging e.g. “This data seems to suggest that….”

– passive voice e.g. “Participants were then divided into two groups.”

– use of figures e.g. graphs or tables

Usually an exemplar would be a piece of work that received a high grade, however it can also be useful to have two different student responses to the same question, which received different grades.

This allows students to see that the same question can be approached in very different ways. It also allows the teacher to explain why one piece of work received a better grade than another.

Another idea can be to give students the marking rubric, along with the written assignment (without a grade on it) and ask them to give the writing a grade based on the marking rubric.

Students can then compare the grades they gave and discuss how they made this decision.

Showing the feedback that was given on a model text can also help students to see which features of the text were considered by the marker to be most or least effective. It also allows students to see the style of feedback they can expect to receive, and allows for a discussion on what students might be expected to “do” with this feedback.

Students should always be encouraged to use feedback as part of the learning process.

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But then I’m just giving them the answer!Some teaching staff are reluctant to use model texts because they feel it makes it too easy for the students. The reality is that, even with a model, each student will still face the significant challenge of conducting their own research and constructing their own response to the question.Making more explicit the expectations of the markers and taking some of the mystery out of the assignment process ensures that all students start on a more equal footing, regardless of how much or how little previous exposure they have had to academic texts and academic writing within the discipline.

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Case Study – PHYS 149: Instructions for writing a physics laboratory report

Creating a ‘how-to’ guide for a particular assignment type (e.g. an essay or a report) within your discipline is a very effective way of clarifying for students the structure and the type of language that you expect them to use.

An excellent example of such a guide has been created by the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Their ‘Instructions for writing a physics laboratory report’ explains clearly and explicitly the purpose of each

section of the report, as well as the typical language structures used. The guide was put together by a team including Prof. Terry Freeman (since retired) and Prof. Deb Kane from the Physics Department, and Dr Peter Roger from the Linguistics Department.

Although not all assignment types have such a set structure, there are always aspects of the structure and/or the language that is expected within your discipline that you can choose to focus on.

1. INTRODUCTIONIt is often difficult to write an introduction before you conduct an experiment. It has been suggested that an introduction should not be more than 20% of a completed report. We also suggest that your introduction should be more than one sentence and not more than half a page. This being the case, you are asked to leave half a page so that you can go back and add an introduction at the end of your experimental report.

A full Introduction must do two things:

a. it must give the background of the experiment, explaining why it is significant or important, and

b. it must give the aim(s) -i.e., the goal(s), or objective(s) - of the experiment(s).

These are sometimes presented in two sections: Introduction, and Aims. However, the Aims are frequently combined with the background information (which is normally given first), in a full Introduction, especially in the shorter reports that we expect you to prepare.

A. The verbs in the first part of the introduction are usually in the present tense. This is the tense normally used to describe the laws of physics as well as the current state of knowledge.

B. When talking of aims, there is a choice between present (“This experiment measures …”, or “The aim of this experimenttis to measure …”) and the past tense (“This experiment measured …”, or “The aim of this experiment was to measure …”). If you are more confident of your grammar this could be made more impersonal: “In this experiment, the … was measured, was tested, etc., etc.”. (Other common verbs are: compare, prove, demonstrate, show, test.)

4. DISCUSSIONThis section can usefully be seen as having two parts:

a. Saying what the results mean - discussing the significance of the results for situations outside the experiment (if any), and

b. Discussing the importance of uncertainties, and speculating about what caused them.

A. You should say what you were able to do/show/obtain and perhaps what the results mean. The latter usually involves saying whether they were expected or unexpected. Results are unexpected if they do not agree with (i.e. ‘are not consistent with’) accepted values. If they are as expected - i.e. within an acceptable range - that means that they agree with (‘are consistent with’) accepted values. You might use expressions like the following: “From the recorded data, we were able to …”, or “The results were/were not consistent with the accepted/published value of/for …”’, or sometime you may prefer to summarise these aspects of your results more briefly in the Conclusion (see next section).

B. In this section you should always state - or speculate about - the cause(s) of any uncertainties. In discussing uncertainties (as opposed to reporting them, as in the previous section), we often use verbs like may. In the past tense, when describing experiment(s) that have already been carried out, this becomes may have …ed/en. E.g.: “X may have caused the uncertainty.”: or “The readings may have been affected by …”; or “The uncertainty may have been …”. Some times of course it is more straightforward: “The uncertainty was calculated using the percentage error in the … This was well within (or; just within) the normal range.”

Below are two of the sections of the PHYS149 Instructions:

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Strategies for developing students’ spoken proficiencyMethods of assisting the development of student’s speaking and presentation skills include:

• Requesting all students in the class to provide feedback on each other’s presentations. To ensure that such feedback is constructive, students should be instructed to write down one thing that was positive about the presentation, as well as one thing that could be improved.

• Showing video examples of very effective (or ineffective) presentations in class, leading to a discussion about what the speaker did (or didn’t do) to make their ideas accessible and clearly understood. Suitable examples may include TED talks (available on YouTube) or publically available conference presentations.

• Remember that in every lecture you present or tutorial you facilitate, you are modelling the way that students should be initiating discussions, posing questions and responding to students’ observations in class.

• As well as being extremely useful for students who find it difficult to follow the content of lectures, recording lectures on iLearn also allows students the opportunity to pay more attention to how you have presented key ideas in the lecture. This may be through asking the class the kinds of questions that are particularly important to the discipline, or clearly repeating the main ideas through a brief summary before moving on to a new idea.

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Effective feedbackClear and detailed feedback on students’ written work is important to help them understand how to improve their writing. However, as Coffin et al. note11, the consensus from a range of studies suggests that:

• students sometimes find feedback too vague to help them improve their writing;

• students may get quite conflicting feedback from different lecturers (especially across different disciplines) about what constitutes effective academic writing;

• the giving and receiving of feedback can be quite emotional for some people.

One of the ways to encourage students to make more use of the feedback they are given is to provide them with opportunities to give their own feedback on the processes they used in preparing and completing their written work.

A feedback sheet such as the one on the following page has several benefits:

• Asking students to complete this form and submit it with the assignment encourages them to reflect on problems they had with understanding or responding to the requirements of the assignment.

• It encourages students to be proactive about trying to solve the problems they faced in completing the assignment, and to reflect on the effectiveness of the solutions they came up with.

• The marker can use the completed form to ensure the feedback they give responds to areas that have been identified by the student as being problematic, thus responding directly to each student’s individual concerns.

• It can help identify patterns (or commonalities) in the types of problems that students are facing. If there are certain areas that are problematic for a large number of students, this can help you decide if you need to change what you are doing. For example you may decide to:

– re-word the question, or

– provide more scaffolding on a literacy skill which is important for that assignment (such as how to correctly cite or paraphrase), or

– include a link to an appropriate resource (such as an online referencing guide) with the assignment instructions

10 Coffin, C., Curry, M., Goodman, S., Hewings, A., Lillis, T. & Swan, J. (2003) Teaching Academic Writing. London: Routledge

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Possible problem area

Tick (√) if you are confused about this or you had a problem with it

How have you tried to resolve this issue?

Tutor comments

The essay question

What does the essay question mean?

What does ‘discuss’/‘evaluate’ mean?

Content and use of sources

Does my essay answer the question?

How do I decide what is relevant?

When should I refer to ‘experts’?

How do I reference?

When do I use direct quotes?

What is plagiarism?

Can I use my own opinions?

How do I write in my own voice?

How do I develop an argument?

Does what I’ve written show my understanding of

key ideas?

Structure

What should the introduction include?

Am I allowed to use headings?

Should the conclusion recap everything I’ve said

in my essay?

Language

Is my writing ‘academic’?

Is my grammar ok?

Other concerns? If there were any other areas that were problematic for you, please describe them in the box below

Adapted from Coffin, C., Curry, M., Goodman, S., Hewings, A., Lillis, T. & Swan, J. (2003) Teaching Academic Writing. London: Routledge.

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Giving feedback on languageAlthough there is no expectation that academic staff should address students’ grammar problems, beyond making it clear to students where they have problems making their meaning clear and recommending relevant resources to address this, some staff prefer to give feedback which more directly assists students with specific language problems.

The table below11 looks at some common problems encountered in students’ academic writing, with an explanation of what is causing the student to make this error, as well as some suggestions as to what feedback to give to address the problem.

Problem What’s going on? Possible Feedback Comment

Clumsy sentences

e.g. If in the software industry things get patched up and without social responsibilities in the event such patching up could lead to damage it would be ignored.

The writer is trying to formulate and express an idea which involves several strands

. Suggest breaking the sentence into two sentences

• Inquire about what the writer is trying to say, by circling the sentence and writing:

What do you mean here?

Incomplete sentences

e.g. Leaving many questions unanswered.

The writer may be influenced by spoken language patterns where boundaries between clauses may be marked by a pause or a change of intonation

• Remind the student that every sentence needs a subject and a finite (verb) and suggest s/he does some self-study on sentence structure (e.g. using StudyWISE)

• Rewrite the sentence to be grammatically correct

e.g. There are many questions left unanswered.

Where’s the full stop?

e.g. These two have a common focus, both stress the systemic nature of society

The writer is making decisions about the use of commas/full stops on the basis of pauses in spoken language rather than on the structure of written language

• Remind the student that full stops need to be based on clause structure rather than on sound, and suggest they do some self-study on sentence structure and clauses.

• Recommend that the student looks at the punctuation section of StudyWISE

This doesn’t make sense

e.g. Exponential advancements in the developmental improvement caused rapidly changing to the structural element of the global economics.

The writer is trying to sound ‘academic’, at the expense of coherence and conciseness

The writer may also be relying on a dictionary to translate directly from their first language

Rather than just writing “Doesn’t make sense”, try to circle the phrase, sentence or paragraph in question (so it is clear exactly which part doesn’t make sense) and ask a question such as ‘Do you mean…..?”

Recommend one of the dictionaries listed on page 3, which give relevant examples of vocabulary in context

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Problem What’s going on? Possible Feedback Comment

Incorrect register (i.e. too informal for academic writing)

e.g. What can be done to fix this problem?*

The writer is using the register of spoken or informal written language, probably because they are not aware of the common academic convention of not asking direct questions

*Obviously this is very much discipline-specific (and also dependent on the task type), and asking such a question may be perfectly acceptable in the particular discipline and/or task that you are marking,

Explain that in this discipline or in this text type it is considered inappropriate (i.e. too informal) to write a direct question

Rewrite the sentence as an indirect question

e.g. Consideration needs to be given to possible solutions to the problem.

Fragmented ideas or long paragraphs that go off track.

The writer lacks understanding of the role of paragraphs as an organisational tool and may also be using a ‘chain of thought’ approach to writing.

• Indicate where there should be separate paragraphs.

• Recommend that the student does some selfstudy in StudyWISE on structuring academic texts.

• Encourage the student to plan their ideas before they begin writing, possibly by using argument mapping techniques.

It seems repetitive

e.g. Teachers need to review and modify their practice because it is important to reflect on and change teaching habits.

The writer is using a common convention of spoken language, rephrasing an idea in an attempt to emphasise the point they are making.

Suggest alternative strategies for reinforcing a point, such as:

• presenting evidence to support the point they’re trying to make, or

• explaining how/why this point is relevant to the key argument of the text

e.g. It is important for teachers to reflect on and change their teaching habits in order to make effective use of educational technologies.

Writing is descriptive rather than analytical

e.g. it summarises the readings without taking a position on them or developing an argument

The writer may:

• feel that it’s inappropriate for them as a ‘novice’ to offer opinions about theories or research conducted by ‘experts’

• be confused about what they see as conflicting advice they’ve received:

i.e. ‘use your own voice’ and ‘refer to the relevant literature’

Ask questions to provoke more critical thought

e.g. Can you provide an example where this would be useful? Why is this particularly significant/relevant?

• Give feedback to the whole class, emphasising that students are part of an ongoing conversation within the ‘community’ of the discipline. All members of the community are expected to have an opinion, but to base it on evidence (keeping in mind that what constitutes evidence is quite different in each discipline).

• Consider showing students some examples of effective critical writing or development of an argument (from journal articles or student essays)

11 Adapted from Coffin et al. 2003 pp108-109

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How can I map Academic Literacy development within my teaching unit?In order to ensure that you are adequately addressing issues of English language proficiency in your program, a good starting point is to map those aspects of academic literacy that you are explicitly covering, and how you are addressing them within a particular unit. The chart below is an excellent guide for reflecting on which literacies you are currently teaching and how this is being done.12

Rele

vant

M

acqu

arie

G

radu

ate

Cap

abili

ty

Aca

dem

ic

Lite

racy

Stat

ed(in

uni

t gui

de o

r el

sew

here

)

Ass

umed

St

uden

ts a

re a

ssum

ed

to h

ave

acqu

ired

this

sk

ill p

rior t

o th

e un

it

Taug

ht

Enco

urag

ed/

mod

elle

d/ e

xplic

itly

taug

ht?

Ass

esse

dSt

uden

ts a

re

eval

uate

d on

this

lit

erac

y in

this

uni

t

Expl

icit

Fee

d-ba

ck G

iven

(e

.g. m

arki

ng c

riter

ia,

com

men

ts)

Effective Communica-tion

Writing cohesively –writing sentences which have a clear meaning and which link together appropriately into paragraphs

Structuring writing appropriately and using appropriate academic language and style for the discipline

Referencing –

acknowledging the ideas of others

Demonstrating effective public speaking skills

Critical, Analytical and Integrative Thinking

Analysing assignment questions and

knowing how to respond appropriately

Making effective and reflective notes

Developing a cohesive, logical and valid argument when writing and speaking

Paraphrasing and synthesising

incorporating the ideas of others into writing

Evaluating and critically analysing information and arguments (critical reading)

Mapping every unit within a program in this way allows you to work out where there are gaps or overlaps, and where it may be necessary to make changes to the curriculum. The objective is that all of the academic literacies essential to the discipline are being explicitly taught and assessed across the program.

12 Adapted from Sumsion, J. and Goodfellow, J. (2004) Identifying generic skills through curriculum mapping: a critical evaluation, Higher Education Research & Development, 23:3, 329-346

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Where can I get more help with this?Learning Skills is in the unique position of having both a student-facing and a staff-facing role. Our student-facing role gives us ‘coal-face’ knowledge of the problems that students have in trying to understand (and then deliver) what is expected of them in the various disciplines. Our staff-facing role allows us to combine this knowledge with our expertise in language teaching and academic literacy to collaborate with teaching staff in order to embed academic literacy and language development into the curriculum.

Some of the ways in which Learning Skills staff can collaborate with teaching staff include:

• Identifying strategies for integrating ELP and academic literacy into learning/teaching outcomes and program evaluation

• Mapping academic literacies across a unit or a program, to ascertain where it might be appropriate to develop further scaffolding for specific academic literacies

• Collaborating on the design and implementation of assessment tasks which explicitly scaffold the development of academic literacies and English language proficiency

• Providing annotated exemplars of various written genres to model and make explicit for students the discipline-specific conventions of various types of written assignments

• Conducting professional development workshops for teaching staff, examining methods of integrating the development of academic language and literacy within the curriculum

To discuss options for collaborating with a Learning Adviser, please visit the Staff section of the Learning Skills website: mq.edu.au/learningskills.

Other resources for staffThe Degrees of Proficiency website, developed as part of an Office for Learning and Teaching Grant, lists a range of strategies for developing students’ English Language Proficiency at tertiary level: degreesofproficiency.aall.org.au/A good introductory book is ‘Teaching Academic Writing’ (Coffin, C., Curry, M., Goodman, S., Hewings, A., Lillis, T. & Swan, J., (2003). London: Routledge), which is available at the Macquarie Library and gives some good practical tips and example activities for developing students’ writing within particular disciplines.The Journal of Academic Language and Learning ( JALL) is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal which focuses on academic language and learning development in tertiary education: journal.aall.org.au/index.php/jall

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Useful resources for studentsThe following services and resources have been specifically developed to assist students to develop their academic literacy and English Language Proficiency:

StudyWISE: an iLearn resource developed by Learning Skills, with interactive activities on topics such as locating and evaluating sources, critical reading and writing, and English grammar and vocabulary. Students (and staff) can self-enrol in the module via the Learning Skills website: mq.edu.au/learningskills

Learning Skills workshops: offered at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, these workshops cover a range of academic literacies, including critical reading and writing, essay structure, writing with your own voice and referencing.

Info Desk: located in the Library foyer, the Info Desk is a one-stop shop for questions relating to academic study. Learning Skills staff are available to answer student questions relating to academic language and learning, writing and referencing. Library staff are also on hand to answer questions relating to researching and library resources.

Academic Integrity Module for Students: this self-guided iLearn module raises students’ awareness of their responsibilities and rights concerning academic integrity and acceptable academic practices at Macquarie University. Staff are welcome to use the module as an assignment preparation activity.

Students can self-enrol in the module via the Learning Skills website: mq.edu.au/learningskills

Higher Degree Research Learning Skills Support: offers workshops, writing groups and online resources tailored specifically to HDR students: hdr.mq.edu.au/information_for/current_candidates/hdr_support

Academic Communication Skills Units: credit-bearing and faculty-specific units which aim to enhance students’ overall academic literacy in the areas of social sciences and humanities (ACSH100), business and economics (ACBE100), and science (ACSC100).

New Conversation Groups (NCG): aka English Corner, conversation groups are designed for international students to practice their spoken English. They’re designed to be fun and social and students are encouraged to talk about a wide range of topics.

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