WRITING SKILLS, LANGUAGE SKILLS, AND LANGUAGE-FOR-WRITING SKILLSCoutinho, April 2012
MIKE HANNAY, VU AMSTERDAM
Faculteit der Letteren
AND A LONG SUBTITLE
Some thoughts and some questions regarding academic English course design
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Faculteit der Letteren
CURRENT TRENDS IN DUTCH UNIVERSITY EDUCATION
Academic English courses in:
PhD programmes
Research master programmes
Master programmes
Remedial programmes for master entry
BA electives
International BA programmes
BA programmes with an English stream
BA academic core (UCs and universities)
…
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Faculteit der Letteren
BASIC OPTIONS
Academic writing in English
English for academic writing
Writing academic English
So what to highlight and how to blend?
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THE PLACE IN THE CURRICULUM AND CHOICE OF MATERIALS
International students with relatively little academic writing experience
(Predominantly) Dutch-speaking groups with basic academic writing skills via Dutch
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LANGUAGE POLICY ISSUES
Should all students learn to write via English, or should they learn to write in Dutch first?
University policy here can partly determine the appropriateness of AWE
Where writing is not first taught in Dutch, AWE becomes more appropriate. Might this situation become more the norm?
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WRITING SKILLS AND LANGUAGE SKILLS
If you put writing first, or if you adopt a
writing perspective rather than a language
perspective, what do you do about
language?
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OPTIONS FOR LANGUAGE AS BACK-UP
1.Offer a separate or companion language course
2.Embed selected language modules
3.Give comprehensive feedback
4. Offer repertoire expansion modules
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EMBEDDING AND ADDING SELECTED LANGUAGE MODULES
- What specific points in the writing programme can benefit from what specific language content?
- There may still be a need to generalize at
university level, but it can be dangerous, because you are training writers who have started on the path towards gaining control of their own choices
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GIVING FEEDBACK
1 Coded feedback with error marking and progress marking [cf English Profile project; Embed project; Springer 2012]
2 Workbench, with links to tutorials and exercises, but ...
3 Feedback linked to dedicated website and material, but ...
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FEEDBACK ON FLOW AND COHERENCE[CF. HANNAY 1997, TAVECCHIO 2010 ON SENTENCING]
1 LINKING [e.g. connector quality; underspecification of link; form of clause combining status]
2 PARALLELISM [e.g. coordination; syntax and semantics and rhetoric of lists; parallel structures for contrast]
3 SENTENCEHOOD [e.g. fragments; length; newsworthiness]
4 ORDERING [e.g. frontal overload; focus identification; theme choice]
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REPERTOIRE EXPANSION AND LANGUAGE-FOR- WRITING SKILLS: SOME EXAMPLES
1 Sentence management [translation of coherence feedback]
2 The language of evaluation [Springer 2012]
3 Non-finite and verbless structures [Springer 2012]
4 Elaboration techniques [Hannay & Mackenzie 1990, Springer 2012]
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CONCLUSION
1. Highlighting the writing process with English as the medium may become more attractive at all levels in Dutch higher education.
2. If so, there are implications for language skills work.
3. One major area in need of development for more advanced writing courses and their feedback packages is ‘sentencing’: language-for-writing skills.
4. One way forward may be to move to a more integrative approach, at least including more language work in courses which highlight the writing process.
5. So in AWE, but what does the follow-up need to do?
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REFERENCES
Hannay, M. & J.L. Mackenzie (1990). The writing student: from the architect of sentences to the builder of texts. In W. Nash (ed.), The writing scholar: studies in academic discourse. Newbury Park CA: Sage. 205-235.
Hannay, M. (1997). Sentencing in Dutch and English. In J. Aarts et al. (eds), Studies in English language and teaching in honour of Flor Aarts. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 231-156.
Hannay, M. & J.L. Mackenzie (2009). Effective writing in English: a sourcebook. 2nd edition. Bussum: Coutinho.
Springer , P. (2012). Advanced learner writing. PhD dissertation. VU University Amsterdam.
Tavecchio, L.M. (2010). Sentence patterns in English and Dutch. LOT dissertation series 248. Utrecht: LOT.
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