Dear Adam
Thanks for your note about language of 'module' and 'course' - a potential confusion of which I, in the UK, was not aware. (You can find my website on the details of writing academic English for Higher Education students in the UK at hull.ac.uk/awe.)
Can I ask another linguistic question? What does "non-tenure track faculty teaching skills" mean? I get 'tenure/non-tenure'; but to me 'track' is half the US name for what I grew up calling 'athletics' (I am retired, being over 65.)
(I'm copying this to the List in the interests of linguistic curiosities.)
Peter
Peter Wilson
quondam Academic Writing and Study Skills adviser
formerly of Study Advice Service
University of Hull
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-----Original Message-----
From: European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing - discussions on behalf of Adam Turner
Sent: Fri 29/10/2010 03:42
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Masters in Education - Academic Writing Module?
I forgot to mention that in the US some writing centers have sponsored
writing groups for both grad students and faculty and even "boot camps" for
summer dissertation writing--whether writing in L1 or L2. I think these
approaches may also be worth looking into because postgrad students may have
more maturity to make these work as long as there is a minimal framework and
support in place.
This also seems to be a good model where you get a critical mass of
expertise and and institutional knowledge of best practices that can be
passed on rather than just one off courses.
http://web.ceu.hu/writing/sfaccess.html
Anyone interested in sharing materials for use with non-native speaking
postgraduate students is welcome to email me at
[log in to unmask] (not this email I am sending from) I am teaching both
social sciences and engineering research writing in English classes in
Korea.
As non-tenure track faculty teaching skills, I would like to see all this
research on research writing that is coming out lately actually result in
more usable materials like Swales and Feak have written, rather than even
more research about how research writing is difficult for non-native
speakers, an issue that has been discussed in technical communication and
mainstream science journals since the 80s, and is well-known to us working
"on the ground."
It seems that tenure track faculty only get rewarded for journal articles
but have little incentive in they way they are evaluated to make good
materials and sometimes don't teach the writing skills they research. Yet
non-tenure track faculty often have materials and are doing this kind of
work but are often invisible as we don't easily appear in reference lists as
much of our material is unpublished. I think the field of ESP/EAP has some
structural problems on this issue.
An alternative would be more research like the "Write like a Chemist"
project:
http://www.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780195305074/about_book/?view=usa
where they have researched the field, published about the process, piloted
and evaluated (and published about this too), and made a usable textbook and
where I seem to remember content faculty and composition specialists working
together as they do at MIT. At MIT they build the communication
requirements into the curriculum as well (mostly at undergrad but some grad
courses too)
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=12155
rather than separate out composition/ESL support often with a disconnect to
the curriculum which is a common criticism of both EAP and composition.
I admit that this approach is not easy to organize and takes resources and a
specialized staff but small steps can be taken as I have done with minimal
resources (reduced teaching load and a part-time assistant).
Making materials is a lot of work so another approach could be if different
institutions developed units on different skills and then traded them and
edited them for their local context. I am working on materials for teaching
paraphrase and using references in the sciences and engineering as I found
the traditional approach to teaching direct quotation, paraphrase, and
summary http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/563/1/
to not really reflect how science writing is really done or the complexity
of how to use references in postgraduate study. I would like to get
materials on describing data that are more detailed than what you might find
in an IELTS book on common line graphs.
If one is not going to publish an entire textbook commercially, then we
would have much to gain and little to lose by trading materials. See
creative commons permissions. http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/
A final interesting cultural note. The word "module" is common in the UK to
mean postgraduate "course" in a North American context. However, in North
America, the term "module" is often used to refer to parts of an online
course. Therefore, in the context of this discussion, it could be confusing!
I wonder how these words are used in other countries.
Adam
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On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 9:24 PM, Sandra Sinfield <[log in to unmask]
> wrote:
> Dear All,
> Currently our university recruits many international and other
> 'non-traditional' students - it is one of our many great strengths and
> virtues! I am interested in offering a Masters Module in Academic Writing
> for those students who want to develop their ability to write fluently,
> authorially, authoritatively and elegantly in their topic (and in good
> academic English). As a great believer in re-purposing material that is
> already successful rather than always starting from scratch, I wondered if
> anyone out there already had a module along those lines that they might like
> to share with the list - or just with me...
> I am really happy to share any eventual Module that I develop with the rest
> of the list.
> Thanking you in advance,
> Best,
>
> --
> Sandra Sinfield
> Co-ordinator (North) Learning Development
> LC213, Learning Centre
> London Metropolitan University
> Holloway Road
> London N7 6PP
> 020.7133.4045
>
>
>
> Companies Act 2006 : http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/companyinfo
>
--
Adam Turner
Director
English Writing Lab
Hanyang University
Center for Teaching and Learning
Seoul, Korea
http://ctl.hanyang.ac.kr/writing/
http://www.hanyangowl.org
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