Meeting students’ academic literacy needs

Introduction  

I have been responsible for in-sessional provision in the School of Media since it was first introduced in 2015. This provision has, since its inception, been primarily targeted at taught postgraduate students. Since 2019, however, I have also delivered academic literacy within a module for foundation year students. In addition, my role has now expanded to include individual academic consultations for undergraduate and, occasionally, postgraduate research students in the School.  

The Academic Literacy Provision 

My role at taught postgraduate level involves students on the School’s eight Master’s programmes. Academic literacy provision for this cohort sits within the core Dissertation and Research Methods module (COMM5600M). This central location is designed to reflect the relevance of academic literacy development to all students and not simply non-native speakers (Nesi and Gardner, 2012). It also facilitates the effective dissemination of academic literacy resources and the overall coordination of embedded activity such as the workshops that I prepare for all MA students on the development of their dissertation proposals.  

Being based in the School has enabled me to include the discipline-specificity essential for effective in-sessional teaching (Wingate, 2018). Academic language and literacy within the broad discipline of media and communication is taught in a weekly course which runs through semester one for students across the MA programmes. Based on my research into the written discourse genres of digital media studies, however (Webster, 2020), I have also developed a separate course specifically for the MA New Media students. In addition, individual workshops have been embedded within individual MA programmes to focus on the written discourse genres students are required to produce (e.g., annotated bibliographies on MA Communication and Media and individual reflective logs on MA New Media). This approach allows the provision to be uniquely tailored to the specific needs of students within their individual study programmes.  

In 2019, the School of Media introduced a new Media-related foundation year module (COMM0010).  As the course is aimed at level 0 students preparing for undergraduate study, I was invited to embed an academic literacy strand within this module. As a result, regular academic literacy sessions have been introduced which are fully integrated with the disciplinary content delivered by the module convenor. The academic literacy provision is also mapped to develop the skills that students require for each of the written discourse genres required for their assignments (i.e., reflections, written responses, essay plans and essays) and for their assessed academic presentations.  

The developments which have taken place in in-sessional provision in the School of Media can be attributed in large part to the excellent support provided by senior management, programme leaders and individual lecturers in the School. Colleagues clearly recognise the value of academic language and literacy provision and have welcomed collaborations which scaffold such development amongst their students. As an instance of this, there has been very high take-up of a system by which lecturers can refer students for individual academic consultations where there are indications that these learners would benefit from an opportunity to discuss their written output.  

My current pedagogical research in the School is a PRiA-funded project being carried out with Holly Steele, the School SALIP. We are investigating inclusive pedagogical practices for academic seminars in the field of media and communication. The intention is that this research will inform both pedagogic discussion in the School and issues of oral academic literacy to be addressed in my in-sessional role.  

References  

Nesi, H. and Gardner, S. 2012. Genres across the disciplines: Student writing in higher education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Webster, S. 2020. The written discourse genres of digital media studies. In: Whong, M. and Godfrey, J. eds. What is good academic writing?: Insights into discipline-specific student writing.  London: Bloomsbury, pp.31-56. 

Wingate, U. 2018. Academic literacy across the curriculum: Towards a collaborative instructional approach. Language Teaching. 51(3), pp.349-364.