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Academic Literacy and Student Diversity: The Case for Inclusive Practice
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Reviews / English for Specific Purposes 41 (2016) 82–85
Academic Literacy and Student Diversity: The Case for Inclusive Practice, Ursula Wingate. Multilingual Matters, Bristol, Buffalo and Toronto (2015). vii D 194 pp., $39.95
In our globalized world, it is not a surprise that student diversity has reached an all-time peak in schools across the globe, especially in Anglophone higher-education institutions. Although largely driven by internationalization, this student diversity has also been promoted by the widening access to higher education – as Wingate (2015) points out. While diversity has become increasingly celebrated in various spheres of society, particularly in education, the author posits that there has been a decline in academic standards over the past few years due to “low levels of literacy and numeracy” in higher-education institutions worldwide (p. 1) and that Anglophone universities have continuously failed to support students’ academic literacy development. Accordingly, the purposes of this book are to foster a clear understanding of the concept of academic literacy, dissecting students’ true academic literacy needs and current literacy models in Anglophone institutions, and to propose a model for inclusive practice for academic literacy in higher education based on the author’s own empirical research. Wingate considers ‘inclusive practice’ to be much more than just different types of student populations but rather an academic literacy practice that is fully integrated in the curriculum of discipline-specific college courses and not simply in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) or English Composition classes. Academic Literacy and Student Diversity is divided into eight well-organized and easily accessible chapters. Chapter 1 provides a discussion of the general objectives of the book, student diversity, academic literacy, and the problem with the lack of literacy support in higher education worldwide. In line with current genre and language socialization theories, Wingate defines academic literacy as “the ability to communicate competently in an academic discourse community” (p. 6). This definition goes beyond traditional notions that academic literacy encompasses reading and writing only. It focuses on the importance of understanding discipline-specific epistemology, socio-cultural context and purpose as well as the conventions and norms of different ‘communities of practice’ (Lave & Wenger, 1991), laying the foundation for the inclusive practice proposed. In Chapter 2, the author offers a succinct yet quite helpful overview of various approaches to academic literacy instruction over the past several decades with a focus on the works of Lea and Street (1998), Ivanic (2004) and Hyland (2002). She pays special attention to the three most widespread genre approaches to teaching academic literacy: Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS), the Sydney School/Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), and English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Wingate dedicates the second part of this chapter to exploring the main tenets of these three genre approaches, drawing on their ‘best aspects’ to develop the inclusive practice later introduced. Chapters 3 and 4 discuss current practices and discipline-specific approaches in academic literacy instruction, respectively. In the former, Wingate highlights the limitations of existing models of academic literacy support in Anglophone universities. Specifically, she strongly criticizes the generic teaching of academic English in EAP and Intensive English classes with its dominant goal of improving non-native speakers’ grammatical accuracy through the use of generic texts that are not discipline-specific and do “little to help students learn the discourse conventions of their own disciplines” (p. 39). In Chapter 4, she discusses discipline-specific approaches that she deems more suited to help foster pertinent academic literacy skills since these approaches connect literacy instruction to the discipline and subject curriculum. Throughout the chapter, the author discusses different types of integration in subject-specific courses (i.e., extra-curricular, additional, curriculum-linked, and curriculum integrated) as well as the different levels of collaboration between subject-area instructors and EAP and literacy experts. She then offers examples of different types of integration and collaboration from two contexts, Australia and South Africa, and ends the chapter with a further discussion of genre and corpus-based instruction and how their methods and materials might be used in discipline-specific literacy instruction. Although commending these approaches and models for their attempt to provide literacy requirements that address students’ immediate contexts, Wingate is also quick to emphasize their limitations, which she hopes to overcome with her proposed inclusive practice. In Chapter 5 the author provides an important analysis of reading and writing practices in academic literacy instruction, and in Chapter 6 she reviews students’ experiences with academic literacy development that have been empirically documented. Wingate claims that academic literacy instruction in Anglophone universities has focused almost exclusively on writing, with the teaching of academic reading being largely neglected in most EAP and English courses – despite the fact that university writing assignments are typically source-based and despite strong research evidence that reading “is the premise of good writing” (p. 79). She thus devotes Chapter 5 to exploring the reading process, common challenges students face with reading, the reading-to-writing process, and reading-to-write interventions. Chapter 6 reads almost as a condensed literature review of studies that have examined students’ experiences with learning academic literacy. Wingate reviews research on academic discourse socialization and on the literacy development of undergraduate ‘home students’ and concludes that there are “shortcomings in the way in which Anglophone universities integrate diverse student groups and support them in their academic literacy development” (p. 113). In the final two chapters, Wingate presents the inclusive practice model for which she makes the case throughout the book. In Chapter 7, the author first introduces four principles, which she argues are paramount to this inclusive curriculumintegrated academic literacy practice. According to ‘Principle 1’, literacy instruction needs to be genre-based and linked to the students’ subject knowledge with more attention devoted to reading and use of sources, making visible social and communicative functions of specific genres in the students’ discourse communities. ‘Principle 2’ requires that academic
Reviews / English for Specific Purposes 41 (2016) 82–85
85
literacy instruction must include all students, including all home students (not only ‘at-risk’ students) and not simply international and/or immigrant student populations. In ‘Principle 3’, “academic literacy instruction needs to be integrated with subject teaching” (p. 129); and finally ‘Principle 4’ calls for the collaboration of literacy experts and subject experts. In the last part of the chapter, she describes a teaching methodology designed by her and her colleagues in the postgraduate program in applied linguistics at her institution (King’s College London). The author explains their context and pedagogical design as well as the evaluation of their approach according to students’ perceptions, observed instances of learning, and improvement in student text. In the final chapter, Chapter 8, Wingate argues for a quite ambitious plan of inclusive academic literacy instruction in Anglophone institutions. The author maintains that radical institutional and structural changes are vital and explores these changes and the pedagogical design needed for the successful implementation of this inclusive practice. Among these changes, Wingate contends that academic literacy should be fully integrated in subject-area curricula and taught by their content-area instructor with the assistance of literacy experts. Further, she makes the point that academic literacy instruction (again taught in discipline-specific courses) needs to go beyond writing and include reading instruction and reading-to-write activities. Finally, the author suggests ways this literacy instruction could be supported, namely special lectures and seminars, follow-up tutorials and e-learning, personal tutoring, assessment and feedback, and modeling of the literacy process. In this timely and quite accessible volume, Wingate successfully achieves her goals of raising awareness about students’ holistic needs when it comes to academic literacy and of examining current approaches to writing and literacy pedagogy. However, she seems to have fallen short in her ultimate objective of proposing a feasible inclusive model of academic literacy instruction. While her proposed practice is certainly thought provoking and insightful in many aspects, it appears quite naïve at times and highly contextually bound for the most part. For instance, although she advocates having “subject lectures take responsibility for students’ academic literacy development” (p. 153) with the assistance of literacy experts, logistical and practical examples of how this would be implemented in diverse universities across the globe are not fully discussed. This inclusive practice also seems to imply that EAP and Intensive English courses would no longer be needed, and such model would most definitely be considered a radical change in most Anglophone universities and perhaps even ideologically opposed not only by untrained subject-area instructors but also by literacy experts. An example of the contextual nature of this proposed practice is Wingate’s affirmation that “most universities have a system in which every student entering the university is assigned a personal tutor who provides pastoral care and is usually also responsible for monitoring and advising academic progress” (p. 157). She does not clarify where these universities are located or cites any sources to support this claim. As an academic who has both taken classes and taught in higher education institutions in the United States for over a decade, I have yet to be introduced to this personal tutoring system. Wingate’s point in mentioning the personal tutors is to argue that they could provide literacy support for all students during some of their meetings. No discussion is offered of who these tutors are (upperclassman or graduate students? counselors? teachers?) and how they would have the knowledge and the training to provide students with academic literacy support. Finally, even though her small-scale intervention study presented in Chapter 7 is quite interesting, it is hardly illustrative of an inclusive model and reveals many of the same shortcomings of existing literacy models criticized by the author. For example, postgraduate applied linguistic students do not represent ‘all university students’, and the workshops included in the study were stand-alone, extracurricular activities and not part of an inclusive practice integrated in any course curriculum – not to mention that the instructors in this case were in fact language and literacy experts themselves. Despite these shortcomings, Academic Literacy and Student Diversity does provide a rich and up-to-date overview of academic literacy instruction, and more importantly it addresses how the great majority of Anglophone universities have failed to support students’ academic literacies, drawing our attention to different possibilities and ideas for the implementation of more successful practices in the future. It deserves careful reading by EAP and literacy instructors and scholars as well as by policy makers in higher education. References Hyland, K. (2002). Teaching and researching writing. Harlow: Pearson Education. Ivanic, R. (2004). Discourses of writing and learning to write. Language and Education, 18(3), 220-245. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lea, M., & Street, B. (1998). Student writing in higher education: an academic literacies approach. Studies in Higher Education, 23(2), 157-172. Luciana Junqueira works as an adjunct professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and has published articles in JSLW, JEAP, and CMLR among other journals. Her research interests include academic literacies, genre analysis, and second language writing.
Luciana Junqueira The University of Alabama in Huntsville, Morton Hall, 232B 301 Sparkman Drive, Huntsville, AL 35899, United States E-mail address: [email protected] Available online 26 September 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2015.09.001
Reviews / English for Specific Purposes 41 (2016) 82–85
Academic Literacy and Student Diversity: The Case for Inclusive Practice, Ursula Wingate. Multilingual Matters, Bristol, Buffalo and Toronto (2015). vii D 194 pp., $39.95
In our globalized world, it is not a surprise that student diversity has reached an all-time peak in schools across the globe, especially in Anglophone higher-education institutions. Although largely driven by internationalization, this student diversity has also been promoted by the widening access to higher education – as Wingate (2015) points out. While diversity has become increasingly celebrated in various spheres of society, particularly in education, the author posits that there has been a decline in academic standards over the past few years due to “low levels of literacy and numeracy” in higher-education institutions worldwide (p. 1) and that Anglophone universities have continuously failed to support students’ academic literacy development. Accordingly, the purposes of this book are to foster a clear understanding of the concept of academic literacy, dissecting students’ true academic literacy needs and current literacy models in Anglophone institutions, and to propose a model for inclusive practice for academic literacy in higher education based on the author’s own empirical research. Wingate considers ‘inclusive practice’ to be much more than just different types of student populations but rather an academic literacy practice that is fully integrated in the curriculum of discipline-specific college courses and not simply in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) or English Composition classes. Academic Literacy and Student Diversity is divided into eight well-organized and easily accessible chapters. Chapter 1 provides a discussion of the general objectives of the book, student diversity, academic literacy, and the problem with the lack of literacy support in higher education worldwide. In line with current genre and language socialization theories, Wingate defines academic literacy as “the ability to communicate competently in an academic discourse community” (p. 6). This definition goes beyond traditional notions that academic literacy encompasses reading and writing only. It focuses on the importance of understanding discipline-specific epistemology, socio-cultural context and purpose as well as the conventions and norms of different ‘communities of practice’ (Lave & Wenger, 1991), laying the foundation for the inclusive practice proposed. In Chapter 2, the author offers a succinct yet quite helpful overview of various approaches to academic literacy instruction over the past several decades with a focus on the works of Lea and Street (1998), Ivanic (2004) and Hyland (2002). She pays special attention to the three most widespread genre approaches to teaching academic literacy: Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS), the Sydney School/Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), and English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Wingate dedicates the second part of this chapter to exploring the main tenets of these three genre approaches, drawing on their ‘best aspects’ to develop the inclusive practice later introduced. Chapters 3 and 4 discuss current practices and discipline-specific approaches in academic literacy instruction, respectively. In the former, Wingate highlights the limitations of existing models of academic literacy support in Anglophone universities. Specifically, she strongly criticizes the generic teaching of academic English in EAP and Intensive English classes with its dominant goal of improving non-native speakers’ grammatical accuracy through the use of generic texts that are not discipline-specific and do “little to help students learn the discourse conventions of their own disciplines” (p. 39). In Chapter 4, she discusses discipline-specific approaches that she deems more suited to help foster pertinent academic literacy skills since these approaches connect literacy instruction to the discipline and subject curriculum. Throughout the chapter, the author discusses different types of integration in subject-specific courses (i.e., extra-curricular, additional, curriculum-linked, and curriculum integrated) as well as the different levels of collaboration between subject-area instructors and EAP and literacy experts. She then offers examples of different types of integration and collaboration from two contexts, Australia and South Africa, and ends the chapter with a further discussion of genre and corpus-based instruction and how their methods and materials might be used in discipline-specific literacy instruction. Although commending these approaches and models for their attempt to provide literacy requirements that address students’ immediate contexts, Wingate is also quick to emphasize their limitations, which she hopes to overcome with her proposed inclusive practice. In Chapter 5 the author provides an important analysis of reading and writing practices in academic literacy instruction, and in Chapter 6 she reviews students’ experiences with academic literacy development that have been empirically documented. Wingate claims that academic literacy instruction in Anglophone universities has focused almost exclusively on writing, with the teaching of academic reading being largely neglected in most EAP and English courses – despite the fact that university writing assignments are typically source-based and despite strong research evidence that reading “is the premise of good writing” (p. 79). She thus devotes Chapter 5 to exploring the reading process, common challenges students face with reading, the reading-to-writing process, and reading-to-write interventions. Chapter 6 reads almost as a condensed literature review of studies that have examined students’ experiences with learning academic literacy. Wingate reviews research on academic discourse socialization and on the literacy development of undergraduate ‘home students’ and concludes that there are “shortcomings in the way in which Anglophone universities integrate diverse student groups and support them in their academic literacy development” (p. 113). In the final two chapters, Wingate presents the inclusive practice model for which she makes the case throughout the book. In Chapter 7, the author first introduces four principles, which she argues are paramount to this inclusive curriculumintegrated academic literacy practice. According to ‘Principle 1’, literacy instruction needs to be genre-based and linked to the students’ subject knowledge with more attention devoted to reading and use of sources, making visible social and communicative functions of specific genres in the students’ discourse communities. ‘Principle 2’ requires that academic
Reviews / English for Specific Purposes 41 (2016) 82–85
85
literacy instruction must include all students, including all home students (not only ‘at-risk’ students) and not simply international and/or immigrant student populations. In ‘Principle 3’, “academic literacy instruction needs to be integrated with subject teaching” (p. 129); and finally ‘Principle 4’ calls for the collaboration of literacy experts and subject experts. In the last part of the chapter, she describes a teaching methodology designed by her and her colleagues in the postgraduate program in applied linguistics at her institution (King’s College London). The author explains their context and pedagogical design as well as the evaluation of their approach according to students’ perceptions, observed instances of learning, and improvement in student text. In the final chapter, Chapter 8, Wingate argues for a quite ambitious plan of inclusive academic literacy instruction in Anglophone institutions. The author maintains that radical institutional and structural changes are vital and explores these changes and the pedagogical design needed for the successful implementation of this inclusive practice. Among these changes, Wingate contends that academic literacy should be fully integrated in subject-area curricula and taught by their content-area instructor with the assistance of literacy experts. Further, she makes the point that academic literacy instruction (again taught in discipline-specific courses) needs to go beyond writing and include reading instruction and reading-to-write activities. Finally, the author suggests ways this literacy instruction could be supported, namely special lectures and seminars, follow-up tutorials and e-learning, personal tutoring, assessment and feedback, and modeling of the literacy process. In this timely and quite accessible volume, Wingate successfully achieves her goals of raising awareness about students’ holistic needs when it comes to academic literacy and of examining current approaches to writing and literacy pedagogy. However, she seems to have fallen short in her ultimate objective of proposing a feasible inclusive model of academic literacy instruction. While her proposed practice is certainly thought provoking and insightful in many aspects, it appears quite naïve at times and highly contextually bound for the most part. For instance, although she advocates having “subject lectures take responsibility for students’ academic literacy development” (p. 153) with the assistance of literacy experts, logistical and practical examples of how this would be implemented in diverse universities across the globe are not fully discussed. This inclusive practice also seems to imply that EAP and Intensive English courses would no longer be needed, and such model would most definitely be considered a radical change in most Anglophone universities and perhaps even ideologically opposed not only by untrained subject-area instructors but also by literacy experts. An example of the contextual nature of this proposed practice is Wingate’s affirmation that “most universities have a system in which every student entering the university is assigned a personal tutor who provides pastoral care and is usually also responsible for monitoring and advising academic progress” (p. 157). She does not clarify where these universities are located or cites any sources to support this claim. As an academic who has both taken classes and taught in higher education institutions in the United States for over a decade, I have yet to be introduced to this personal tutoring system. Wingate’s point in mentioning the personal tutors is to argue that they could provide literacy support for all students during some of their meetings. No discussion is offered of who these tutors are (upperclassman or graduate students? counselors? teachers?) and how they would have the knowledge and the training to provide students with academic literacy support. Finally, even though her small-scale intervention study presented in Chapter 7 is quite interesting, it is hardly illustrative of an inclusive model and reveals many of the same shortcomings of existing literacy models criticized by the author. For example, postgraduate applied linguistic students do not represent ‘all university students’, and the workshops included in the study were stand-alone, extracurricular activities and not part of an inclusive practice integrated in any course curriculum – not to mention that the instructors in this case were in fact language and literacy experts themselves. Despite these shortcomings, Academic Literacy and Student Diversity does provide a rich and up-to-date overview of academic literacy instruction, and more importantly it addresses how the great majority of Anglophone universities have failed to support students’ academic literacies, drawing our attention to different possibilities and ideas for the implementation of more successful practices in the future. It deserves careful reading by EAP and literacy instructors and scholars as well as by policy makers in higher education. References Hyland, K. (2002). Teaching and researching writing. Harlow: Pearson Education. Ivanic, R. (2004). Discourses of writing and learning to write. Language and Education, 18(3), 220-245. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lea, M., & Street, B. (1998). Student writing in higher education: an academic literacies approach. Studies in Higher Education, 23(2), 157-172. Luciana Junqueira works as an adjunct professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and has published articles in JSLW, JEAP, and CMLR among other journals. Her research interests include academic literacies, genre analysis, and second language writing.
Luciana Junqueira The University of Alabama in Huntsville, Morton Hall, 232B 301 Sparkman Drive, Huntsville, AL 35899, United States E-mail address: [email protected] Available online 26 September 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2015.09.001