Advanced Academic Literacy
Academic literacy enhances the impact over a student’s life and then way he/she expresses and presents him/herself in educational or scholastic environment. Different methods which help in effectively reading, writing and thinking critically are some tools which helps an individual not only in the educational setups but also in personal discovery. Experiences of individual with the advanced academic literacy build their confidence and help them to feel comfortable in any setup.
In case of Australia, with an increasing number of international students making their ways to Australian, the importance of academic literacy has also increased. If the academic literacy skills are highly integrated and embedded within certain disciplinary context, the said system will help international as well as domestic students. (Brooman-Jones and Cunningham et al. 2011, 1-4)
DEVELOPMENT OF ADVANCED ACADEMIC LITERACY
Development of appropriate academic literacy especially with respect to all the subjects for students in the universities of Australia is more helpful if it is linked to discipline specific academic writing activities and assessment tasks. Hence to obtained measurable results, advanced Academic Literacy Skills can be developed through four different steps/levels of collaborative approach.
STEP I: REMEDIAL STUDIES:
The support system of academic literacy is provided with independent and additional sessions which are general in nature and anyone from any discipline of academic level can join them. With the help of Advanced Academic Literacy, student sitting in any part of the city can join the session with the help of internet connection and computer/laptop. These sessions are more of remedial studies and hence students are more enthusiastic to learn and attend. Remedial studies are interactive in nature and students are welcomed to participate and discuss the issues in hand because this is the only way to have a two way interaction and the instructor is more inclined to understand the difficulty level of students. The session are not meant to be a TEACHING session but the actual idea is to have an interactive session and for academic literacy test. (Evans, T. 2001, 225-227)
STEP II: COOPERATION AND COLLABORATION
Each session is tailored in a manner to sort one issue at a time and these individual classes are designed for specific requirements and these requirements are assessed through meeting between discipline teachers and academic literacy moderators hence these support classes run simultaneously with the discipline classes. Collaboration with the discipline teacher is also meant to understand the level of difficulty the student will face in the future and hence drafting the academic literacy class to help the student to be prepared for that level of studies. (Evans, T. 2001, 226-230)
STEP III: TEAM TEACHING:
Advanced Academic Literacy system coexists with the discipline hence the classes at times run in the same space. There is no possible way to separate discipline from academic literacy because later is a support system to the former for all the students who have problem with understanding discipline. Research suggests that separate academic literacy support is ineffective if they are not collaborated with the discipline and it also suggests that collaborative discipline and academic literacy results in higher passing grades and better and greater retention. There are times when this approach becomes costly and complex as the student has to concentrate on two classes at one time. (Evans, T. 2001, 230-237)
STEP IV: INTEGRATED ASSESSEMENT:
No joint collaboration system and team teaching will help the student to achieve maximum out of the efforts he/she has made during that one semester if the integrated assessment is not taking place. Hence academic literacy support goes hand in hand with the discipline subjects and the better measurable results will be more visible through collaborative assessment where the assignment provided to students are a mix and match of academic literacy and discipline where the results of one link with the result of the other and both the teachers or instructors assess them simultaneously. (Brooman-Jones and Cunningham et al. 2011, 7-9)
Following these four (“4”) steps through which a better and measurable academic literacy can be developed but now with invasion of internet, academic literacy has also moved one step up and has now become Advanced Academic Literacy which the student who can attend classes as they live at a distance, they can always attend the class with the help of internet and laptop and interact with the instructors at all time and this as almost the same as that of the actual class the only difference is that the student is not present in the class physically. (Wingate and Dreiss 2009, 14-19)
This system is useful for all the students who are academically weak and the instructor through a collaboration build up a system to help these students whether they are domestic or international students yet there are certain skill sets which are required by the students to perform well in these sessions. Besides the reading, writing and listening abilities, the student should have the courage and enthusiasm to get involved in the class and learn best out of it. Only that one understands that these additional classes are for their own benefit, one can perform well. (Wingate and Dreiss 2009, 19-22)
Although a research suggests that academic literacy classes should be from day one of student life as its makes student life easier in the high education as well as in the professional environment yet if they are taken up seriously in the universities, these session along with the discipline classes will have a better impact on student educational as well as professional life. (Wingate and Dreiss 2009, 22-25)
CONCLUSION:
Although Advanced Academic Literacy has many advantages but writing skills of the student are dependent on laptop and computer system instead of the brain of the student hence the writing skills should be assessed different. Academic literacy for university students in Australia is very important because the number of international students is increasing every day but with the team efforts of discipline teachers, moderator of academic literacy and student his/herself, good results can be obtained.
References:
- Brooman Susan, Cunningham Jones Greg , and Hanna Laura, “Embedding academic literacy – A case study in Business at UTS:,” Journal of Academic Language & Learning, 7, no. 2 (2011): 3-10,
- Dudley-Evans, T. “Team-teaching in EAP: Changes and adaptations in the Birmingham approach. In M. Peacock, & J. Flowerdew (Eds.). Research perspective on English for academic purposes” Cambridge University Press, (2001): 225-238
- Wingate, Ursula and Cecile Dreiss. “Developing students’ academic literacy: an online approach.” Journal of Academic language and Learning 3, no. 1 (2009): 14-25.
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