Study skills or academic literacy? A Wertsch et al,1995).While undergraduates are seen as peripheral,and perhaps only temporary,members of a disciplinary community,they must nevertheless adopt the discourse practices of their professors to be accepted.To a large extent, their academic accomplishments are seen to depend on the success of this induc tion,shown by their ability to reproduce particular discourse forms.The emphasis here is therefore on a gradually mentored pathway to membership,or'cognitive apprenticeship,to full induction marked by control of the genres valued by their communities. The metaphor of apprenticeship,however,is not an entirely happy one,as it suggests a clear route to a well defined goal,achieving membership,which confers privileges and responsibilities(Gollin,1998).Apprenticeship to a discipline is more vague and ill defined than apprenticeship to a trade,and lacks the same kind of implied mutual agreement between participants,with tutors willing to provide coaching and structured support and students accepting a passive and recipient role. Belcher(1994),however,points out that this was not the case in a study of three postgraduate students and Candlin and Plum(1999)found little evidence from student focus groups that undergraduates in psychology perceived their experience in this way.Introduction to the cultural world of a discipline may well take place in a situated learning context,but this is normally restricted to circumscribed pedagogic tasks,particularly writing assignments. ACADEMIC LITERACIES tion by sup g stude arning of dis f d relevance a ractices in th ciplines h guage ords it links lan th aci uage the odel i and m critically,of the unequal power relations which help structure them This perspective takes anew literacies'position which rejects: the ways language is treated as though it were a thing.distanced from both teacher and learner and imposing on them external rules and requirements as though they were but passive recipients. (Street.1995:114 Instead,literacy is something we do.Street characterizes literacy as a verb and Barton and Hamilton(1998:3)see it as an activity 'located in the interactions between 21
Wertsch et al., 1995). While undergraduates are seen as peripheral, and perhaps only temporary, members of a disciplinary community, they must nevertheless adopt the discourse practices of their professors to be accepted. To a large extent, their academic accomplishments are seen to depend on the success of this induction, shown by their ability to reproduce particular discourse forms. The emphasis here is therefore on a gradually mentored pathway to membership, or ‘cognitive apprenticeship’, to full induction marked by control of the genres valued by their communities. The metaphor of apprenticeship, however, is not an entirely happy one, as it suggests a clear route to a well defined goal, achieving membership, which confers privileges and responsibilities (Gollin, 1998). Apprenticeship to a discipline is more vague and ill defined than apprenticeship to a trade, and lacks the same kind of implied mutual agreement between participants, with tutors willing to provide coaching and structured support and students accepting a passive and recipient role. Belcher (1994), however, points out that this was not the case in a study of three postgraduate students and Candlin and Plum (1999) found little evidence from student focus groups that undergraduates in psychology perceived their experience in this way. Introduction to the cultural world of a discipline may well take place in a situated learning context, but this is normally restricted to circumscribed pedagogic tasks, particularly writing assignments. ACADEMIC LITERACIES While study skills and socialization approaches have largely sought to respond to changes in tertiary education by supporting students in learning the unfamiliar demands of new kinds of discourse, the third approach, that of academic literacies, addresses some of the consequences of doing so. It does this by raising issues of relevance and legitimacy in relation to writing practices in the disciplines. Like the socialization approach, this perspective frames language as discourse practices, the ways language is used in particular contexts, rather than as a set of discrete skills. In other words it links language with action and emphasizes context. But unlike the socialization model, it sees one of the most important dimensions of these contexts as the participants’ experiences of them, and, more critically, of the unequal power relations which help structure them. This perspective takes a ‘new literacies’ position which rejects: the ways language is treated as though it were a thing, distanced from both teacher and learner and imposing on them external rules and requirements as though they were but passive recipients. (Street, 1995: 114) Instead, literacy is something we do. Street characterizes literacy as a verb and Barton and Hamilton (1998: 3) see it as an activity ‘located in the interactions between Study skills or academic literacy? 21 A SECTION
Introduction peopleBecause literacy is integral to its contexts,it is easier to recognize the disciplinary heterogeneity which characterizes the modern university.From the student point of view a dominant feature of academic literacy practices is there- fore the requirement to switch practices between one setting and another,to control a range of genres appropriate to each setting,and to handle the meanings and identities that each evokes. be expected to contront texts from accountancy,economics, ing,s atistics,and so on,each giving rise toa surfe of different text types.As an illustration.Baynham (2000:17)asks us to think of The harassed firs -year nu ng student,hurrying from backpack full of otocopicdjourmal notes and gu Cotutorial or ar the socic logy of nursinga cinical report,a case study,a reflective ents that writing and re ng ar not ho tudents can take hem as they move An academic literaciesa pproach emphasizes that thew ys we use language. as 'lite This that omeP such as those con ith ant that T of certain ofessional acade nic literacies clude many individuals reventine their access to academic succes ship ofacademic commun ties for those nteri the academy it force em to make a cultural shift'in order to take on alien identities as members of those communities.Gee(1990:155)stresses the importance of this shift: one cannot c age in a discourse in a less than fluent manner.You are either in it or you're not.Discourses are connected with displays of identity -failing to display an identity fully is tantamount to announcing you do not have that identity-at best you are a pretender or a beginner. Academic success means representing yourself in a way valued by your discipline adopting the values,beliefs and identities which academic discourses embody.As a result,students often feel uncomfortable with the'me'they portray in their academic writing,finding a conflict between the identities required to write successfully and those they bring with them. This approach therefore builds on the socialization perspective to take a more critical view of the extent to which we can see disciplines as uncontested,homo geneous institutional practices and power as equally distributed.While the academic literacy approach lacks a clear and distinctive pedagogy,it offers a more elaborate 2
people’. Because literacy is integral to its contexts, it is easier to recognize the disciplinary heterogeneity which characterizes the modern university. From the student point of view a dominant feature of academic literacy practices is therefore the requirement to switch practices between one setting and another, to control a range of genres appropriate to each setting, and to handle the meanings and identities that each evokes. Candlin and Plum (1999), for instance, show how students of business studies may be expected to confront texts from accountancy, economics, financial management, corporate organization, marketing, statistics, and so on, each giving rise to a surfeit of different text types. As an illustration, Baynham (2000: 17) asks us to think of: The harassed first-year nursing student, hurrying from lecture to tutorial, backpack full of photocopied journal articles, notes and guidelines for an essay on the sociology of nursing, a clinical report, a case study, a reflective journal. Such experiences underline for students that writing and reading are not homogeneous and transferable skills which students can take with them as they move across different courses and assignments. An academic literacies approach emphasizes that the ways we use language, referred to as ‘literacy practices’, are patterned by social institutions and power relationships. This means that some literacies, such as those concerned with legal, scientific and political domains, for example, become more dominant and important than others. The complexity and prestige of certain professional academic literacies work to exclude many individuals, preventing their access to academic success or membership of academic communities. For those entering the academy it forces them to make a ‘cultural shift’ in order to take on alien identities as members of those communities. Gee (1990: 155) stresses the importance of this shift: someone cannot engage in a discourse in a less than fluent manner. You are either in it or you’re not. Discourses are connected with displays of identity – failing to display an identity fully is tantamount to announcing you do not have that identity – at best you are a pretender or a beginner. Academic success means representing yourself in a way valued by your discipline, adopting the values, beliefs and identities which academic discourses embody. As a result, students often feel uncomfortable with the ‘me’ they portray in their academic writing, finding a conflict between the identities required to write successfully and those they bring with them. This approach therefore builds on the socialization perspective to take a more critical view of the extent to which we can see disciplines as uncontested, homogeneous institutional practices and power as equally distributed. While the academic literacy approach lacks a clear and distinctive pedagogy, it offers a more elaborate 22 Introduction A SECTION
Study skills or academic literacy? A and nuanced view of context to explain students'experiences.Drawing on halliday's (1994)concept of context,it argues that we need to understand the context of situation,or the immediate situation in which learning and language use occur together with the context of culture.a broader and more abstract notion.This concerns the ways language used in particular circumstances is influenced by the social structures,the institutional and disciplinary ideologies and the social expectations which surround those immediate circumstances.These issues will be taken up in relation to academic activity in Unit A1.4. Finally,we can see that while each of these three perspectives on EAP addresses students'immediate needs and experiences in the academy.none explicitly refers to the post-university world of work.For most students university is a temporary experience of acquiring knowledge,more or less firmly bracketed off from other domains of life and the more urgent workplace priorities of earning a living and building a career.In those contexts activities are focused less on the individua than on the transactions and collaborations of working in teams and groups,and for second-language speakers often with less engagement with native English speaker interlocutors and texts.One major difference between instructior scourse communities but w t communi ups and mpact far more whhieaThala d Blyler,.19明 are emerging as important challengcs for EAP profese TaskA2.3 ★ What is your view?Is EAP primarily a straightforward exercise in teaching study skills, ial ing studen ean a way igate nd sider the this choice.How ight each view influence how EaP teachers out their role? arr 23
and nuanced view of context to explain students’ experiences. Drawing on Halliday’s (1994) concept of context, it argues that we need to understand the context of situation, or the immediate situation in which learning and language use occur, together with the context of culture, a broader and more abstract notion. This concerns the ways language used in particular circumstances is influenced by the social structures, the institutional and disciplinary ideologies and the social expectations which surround those immediate circumstances. These issues will be taken up in relation to academic activity in Unit A1.4. Finally, we can see that while each of these three perspectives on EAP addresses students’ immediate needs and experiences in the academy, none explicitly refers to the post-university world of work. For most students university is a temporary experience of acquiring knowledge, more or less firmly bracketed off from other domains of life and the more urgent workplace priorities of earning a living and building a career. In those contexts activities are focused less on the individual than on the transactions and collaborations of working in teams and groups, and for second-language speakers often with less engagement with native Englishspeaker interlocutors and texts. One major difference between instruction for academic and workplace contexts is that there is less consensus on the skills, language and communicative behaviours required in this world (St John, 1996). It is also possible that text expectations may be linked not only with the values and conventions of particular discourse communities but with either national or corporate contexts (e.g. Garcez, 1993), so that communication strategies, status relationships and cultural differences are likely to impact far more on successful interaction (Thralls and Blyler, 1993; Pogner, 1999). These are among the key issues which are emerging as important challenges for EAP professionals. Task A2.3 ➤ What is your view? Is EAP primarily a straightforward exercise in teaching study skills, a means of socializing students into fields of study, or a way of helping students navigate their ways through conflicting issues of power and identity? Reflect on your response to this question and consider the reasons for making this choice. How might each view influence how EAP teachers carry out their role? Study skills or academic literacy? 23 A SECTION ★
Unit A3 Lingua franca or Tyrannosaurus rex? A third issue which shapes and confronts EAP is the consequences of the dominance that English has assumed in higher education and research throughout the world Depending on one's perspective,English in these circumstances can be viewed as neutral lingua franca,efficiently facilitating the free exchange of knowledge. linguistic grazing grounds(Swales,1997:374 THE GROWTH OF ACADEMIC ENGLISH While figures are hard by perhapsone n five of the population now speaks reasonab nant petenc (C ysta nglish at the nguag xpens tha f th cite nd are in lish-l ng These developments are largely the result of historical circumstances.particularly the legacy of US and British colonialism,the ex the world and the romotion of English by US and UK g nents and private on(1992),for instance,has charted the role of political and nomic interests in making English-lang rations and the internet has accelerated this process in recent years(Gray,2002) l rnmnahe emmg on the p and economic roots of EAP,Benesch(2001:34)argues that: EAP's discourse of neutrality has presented the history of this field as a consensual and inevitable chronology of pedagogical events rather than a well-crafted and organized effort on the part of governments,businesses, and foundations working together to promote English language teaching
Unit A3 Lingua franca or Tyrannosaurus rex? A third issue which shapes and confronts EAP is the consequences of the dominance that English has assumed in higher education and research throughout the world. Depending on one’s perspective, English in these circumstances can be viewed as neutral lingua franca, efficiently facilitating the free exchange of knowledge, or as a Tyrannosaurus rex, ‘a powerful carnivore gobbling up the other denizens of the academic linguistic grazing grounds’ (Swales, 1997: 374). THE GROWTH OF ACADEMIC ENGLISH While figures are hard to come by, perhaps one in five of the world’s population now speaks English with reasonable competence (Crystal, 2003) and English is now the world’s predominant language of research and scholarship. This growth has, inevitably, been at the expense of other languages (Balduf and Jernudd, 1983) so that now more than 90 per cent of the journal literature in some scientific domains is printed in English and the most prestigious and cited journals are in English. Countless students and academics around the world must now gain fluency in the conventions of English-language academic discourses to understand their disciplines, to establish their careers, or to successfully navigate their learning. These developments are largely the result of historical circumstances, particularly the legacy of US and British colonialism, the expansion of a single market across the world, and the promotion of English by US and UK governments and private companies. Phillipson (1992), for instance, has charted the role of political and economic interests in making English-language teaching a multi-billion-dollar industry. The increase in the number of world organizations, transnational corporations and the internet has accelerated this process in recent years (Gray, 2002) and its growth in higher education has been particularly dramatic, changing the conditions under which language learning takes place. Commenting on the political and economic roots of EAP, Benesch (2001: 34) argues that: EAP’s discourse of neutrality has presented the history of this field as a consensual and inevitable chronology of pedagogical events rather than a well-crafted and organized effort on the part of governments, businesses, and foundations working together to promote English language teaching, 24
Lingua franca or Tyrannosaurus rex? 4 conferences,publications,and faculty exchanges,ensuring that markets and labor would be available to promote their economic interests. These developments have been accompanied by an enormous expansion of second- language speakers studying academic subjects in English around the world.By the early 1990s,for example,foreign nationals outnumbered American students 995,an by 2004 over one mon st dents were stt dying in English o their hom 、2004.A hig Ind d s.cdu t tha 6 nsh as a me Asia h ia ha n to for oversea English in a range of disciplinary fields by pro This expansion of EAP has also been fuelled by the economic imperatives of modern education provision and current'user pays'ideologies.Fee-paying foreign students are increasingly important to universities in the anglophone world to compensate for shortfalls in government funding.There were,for instance,more than 270,000 overseas students in the UK in 2004,almost half of whom were postgraduates, contributing 23 billion to the British economy(Ward,2004).This raiincome from students has led to plans by theleadin UKtio to restric provision. Task A3.1 ★ >Reflect on this issue for a moment.Is the growth of English as the international language of academic communication a force for expanding participation in global knowledge networks or a means of restricting such access and tying it to vested corporate and academic interests?What arguments might persuade you of the opposite view to your own? SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE DOMINANCE OF ENGLISH The causes an of the global spread of the English iclife are s worth ome of the world. The first concern is the loss of linguistic diversity.Many European and Japanese journals,for instance,have switched to English,with Swedish,Dutch and 25
conferences, publications, and faculty exchanges, ensuring that markets and labor would be available to promote their economic interests. These developments have been accompanied by an enormous expansion of secondlanguage speakers studying academic subjects in English around the world. By the early 1990s, for example, foreign nationals outnumbered American students studying science and engineering in US graduate schools (Jenkins et al., 1993), and by 2004 over one million students were studying in English outside their home countries (Ward, 2004). At the same time, the expansion of higher education in postcolonial territories such as Hong Kong, South Africa, India and Singapore has meant that more teachers are using English as a medium of instruction. More recently, countries in the former Soviet bloc, Latin America and Asia have increased their use of English in education while countries such as Germany, France and Malaysia have begun to compete for overseas students by providing courses in English in a range of disciplinary fields. This expansion of EAP has also been fuelled by the economic imperatives of modern education provision and current ‘user pays’ ideologies. Fee-paying foreign students are increasingly important to universities in the anglophone world to compensate for shortfalls in government funding. There were, for instance, more than 270,000 overseas students in the UK in 2004, almost half of whom were postgraduates, contributing £23 billion to the British economy (Ward, 2004). This dependence on generating income from students has led to plans by the leading UK institutions to restrict admissions of home students to accommodate more international students (Henry, 2004), and so perhaps inevitably increasing the demand for EAP provision. Task A3.1 ➤ Reflect on this issue for a moment. Is the growth of English as the international language of academic communication a force for expanding participation in global knowledge networks or a means of restricting such access and tying it to vested corporate and academic interests? What arguments might persuade you of the opposite view to your own? SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE DOMINANCE OF ENGLISH The causes and outcomes of the global spread of English in academic life are complex, but it is worth highlighting some of the effects which have dominated the debate, particularly the erosion of other academic languages and the difficulties of many non-native English speaking scholars to engage in an English-dominated academic world. The first concern is the loss of linguistic diversity. Many European and Japanese journals, for instance, have switched to English, with Swedish, Dutch and Lingua franca or Tyrannosaurus rex ? 25 A SECTION ★