Designing and managing an online, personalised research writing course for postgraduates

in Mcdiarmid, Carole (Ed.) Exploring pedagogical approaches in EAP teaching (in press)

This paper describes and evaluates a multidisciplinary, online research writing course for PhD students. First, we explain our course rationale and set-up. The core principles are personalised, self ... [more ▼]

This paper describes and evaluates a multidisciplinary, online research writing course for PhD students. First, we explain our course rationale and set-up. The core principles are personalised, self-regulated and peer learning, and the optimal use of class time. This is achieved through the following components: an e-coursebook developed in-house; tasks preparing students for the workshops; workshops; writing and reflection; peer review; and individual consultations. Next, we review participants’ feedback from course evaluation surveys. Many students liked the online format although most would prefer the peer review and discussion of theory to happen ‘offline’. A key finding for course efficacy is that students greatly valued working with their own examples in the workshops. They saw this and independent learning tasks as the greatest drivers of their writing development. They also benefited from multidisciplinary peer review. As regards the writing and reflection, all students chose to write on their own and the writing reflection tool was deemed ineffective. We furthermore discuss our (teachers’) perceptions of the affordances and challenges of this course format. On the one hand, it allows workshops to be devoted to collaborative tasks, reflection and data-driven learning. On the other hand, preparing such workshops is very time-consuming, while the multiple components and regular task submissions carry a heavy administrative burden. The paper concludes with how lessons learnt have been implemented into the current course configuration. [less ▲]

Designing and delivering an online research article writing course for doctoral students in Luxembourg during Covid-19

in Fenton, James; Gimenez, Julio; Mansfield, Katherine (Eds.) et al International perspectives on teaching academic English in turbulent times (2023)

This chapter reports on the design, delivery and evaluation of an online research article writing course for doctoral students. The course format was a response to COVID-19 but was designed to be ... [more ▼]

This chapter reports on the design, delivery and evaluation of an online research article writing course for doctoral students. The course format was a response to COVID-19 but was designed to be sustainable through enabling flexible, interactive, personalised and independent learning. Its five major components are independent learning tasks, online workshops, writing output, peer review and consultations. Moodle is used for resources and assignments; WebEx for workshops and consultations. Students independently use the e-coursebook to read the theory and submit tasks based on their own texts and articles in their discipline ahead of a workshop on the topic. Additionally, they periodically submit article drafts and engage in peer review. Consultations with the instructor further personalise learning. Having described the course, the chapter goes on to evaluate its affordances and issues by reporting student feedback and teachers’ experiences. It was found that students greatly appreciated the systematic work on their writing in tasks and workshops. However, workshop preparation was very time-consuming for teachers and students would prefer them to be ‘offline’. Furthermore, multidisciplinary peer reviewing and the need to write throughout the course were positively perceived, although requiring greater flexibility in submission times. Consultations were also rated as extremely useful. We conclude with recommendations regarding online course delivery and a blended adaptation for post-COVID purposes. [less ▲]

A survey of EMI lecturer training programmes: content, delivery, ways forward.

Scientific Conference (2022, June 09)

This talk will provide insights into designing and delivering English Medium Instruction (EMI) lecturer training by surveying published initiatives worldwide (Deroey, 2021). Although EMI is not a recent ... [more ▼]

This talk will provide insights into designing and delivering English Medium Instruction (EMI) lecturer training by surveying published initiatives worldwide (Deroey, 2021). Although EMI is not a recent phenomenon, many higher education institutions are only now beginning to organize specific support for EMI lecturers. EAP practitioners are often tasked with providing such support, since the perception commonly is that language is the main issue requiring improvement. However, the efficient design and delivery of EMI lecturing training and support is a complex challenge. First, most literature highlights the need for pedagogical and communication training in addition to language work. Second the varied EMI context means training should be adapted to the local cultural, educational, linguistic and institutional contexts (Herington, 2020; Martinez & Fernandes, 2020; Tuomainen, 2018). Third, we need to be sensitive to lecturers’ attitudes towards EMI and EMI training (Tsui, 2018). Fourth, there are practical considerations such as the timely provision of support (Guarda & Helm, 2017); promoting participation; facilitating learning transfer to lectures; and working with what are usually heterogeneous participant groups in terms of English proficiency, (EMI) lecturing experience and discipline (Ball & Lindsay, 2013). Finally, the design of these programmes typically needs to happen with very limited institutional resources, few (if any) published materials and relatively little published research on lecture discourse and EMI lecturer training. Having surveyed the main components, formats and work forms of the programmes, the conclusion highlights ways forward in EMI lecturer training that emerge from this analysis. References Ball, P., & Lindsay, D. (2013). Language demands and support for English-medium instruction in tertiary education. Learning from a specific context In A. Doiz, D. Lasagabaster, & J. M. Sierra (Eds.), English-medium instruction at universities: Global challenges (pp. 44-61). Multilingual Matters. Deroey, K. L. B. (2021). Lecturer training for English Medium Instruction: what and how? In B. D. Bond, A. & M. Evans (Ed.), Innovation, exploration and transformation. Proceedings of the 2019 BALEAP Conference (pp. 245-253). Garnet. Guarda, M., & Helm, F. (2017). A survey of lecturers’ needs and feedback on EMI training. In K. Ackerley, M. Guarda, & F. Helm (Eds.), Sharing perspectives on English-medium instruction (pp. 167-194). Peter Lang. Herington, R. (2020). Observation as a tool to facilitate the professional development of teaching faculty involved in English as a Medium of Instruction: trainer and trainee perspectives. In M. L. Carrió-Pasto (Ed.), Internationalising Learning in Higher Education (pp. 65-82). IGI Global. Martinez, R., & Fernandes, K. (2020). Development of a teacher training course for English medium instruction for higher education professors in Brazil. In M. Del Mar Sánchez-Pérez (Ed.), Teacher Training for English-Medium Instruction in Higher Education (pp. 125-152). IGI Global. Tuomainen, S. (2018). Supporting non-native university lecturers with English-medium instruction. Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, 10(3), 230-242. [less ▲]

Designing and managing an online, personalised research writing course for postgraduates

Scientific Conference (2021, April 08)

This paper describes and evaluates an online research article writing course at the University of Luxembourg. Participants were self-referred PhD students from different disciplines. The aim of the ten ... [more ▼]

This paper describes and evaluates an online research article writing course at the University of Luxembourg. Participants were self-referred PhD students from different disciplines. The aim of the ten-week course is to improve insight into the structural, stylistic and rhetorical features of research articles as well as the writing and publication process. It also provides tools for students to develop their own writing. We will situate our course rationale and design within the literature, then compare these to both the reality of managing and delivering the course online as well as participants’ feedback as reflected in 30 surveys. We will focus on the following results: • The practicability of including multiple pedagogical elements in an online course was challenging. We wanted to integrate both independent and collaborative work, production and reflection. However, results of the surveys and our own experience show that the multiplicity of elements was often seen as complex and difficult to manage and multiple submission deadlines problematic. • Students favoured working alone over working together and uptake of writing groups (Aitchison, 2009) was poor. Multi-disciplinary peer groups were, however, positively reviewed (cf. Hyland, 2012). • The flexibility of the online environment was seen as positive, yet many reported problems finding time to write. However, participants did see the benefit in having to write regularly. Tools of reflection did not score highly. • The personalisation of learning input scored highly in the survey, but this was time-consuming to implement. Whilst instructor-student consultations were offered to further personalise feedback, these had a low uptake (8/30). • We wanted to create a course which included guidance on the writing and publication process (Starfield & Paltridge, 2016) as well as increased genre awareness (Swales, 1990) to prepare students for publication. However, tasks on language and structure were rated more useful by more students than this content. • More participants commented on the benefit of working through their language issues in live sessions over learning how to address language issues through the corpus-tools that were integrated into the course (Charles, 2018). Through sharing this information, we hope to generate a discussion with the audience about ways to optimise online writing courses and manage some of the problems associated with online delivery. Aitchison, C. (2009). Writing groups for doctoral education. Studies in Higher Education, 34(8), 905-916. Charles, M. (2018) Corpus-assisted editing for doctoral students: More than just concordancing. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 36, 15-26. Charles, M. (2018). Using do-it-yourself-corpora in EAP: A tailor-made resource for teachers and students. Teaching English for Specific and Academic Purposes, 6(2), 217-224. Hyland, K. (2012). Disciplinary Identities: Individuality and Community in Academic Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nesi, H. & Gardener, S. (2012). Genres across the disciplines: Student writing in higher education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Paltridge, B., & Starfield, S. (2016). Getting published in academic journals: Navigating the publication process. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [less ▲]

Constructing effective and efficient EAP curricula

Presentation (2021, March 04)

In this talk I will sketch the development of an EAP curriculum at the University of Luxembourg Language Centre that takes into account multilingualism, needs analysis, insights into EAP teaching and ... [more ▼]

In this talk I will sketch the development of an EAP curriculum at the University of Luxembourg Language Centre that takes into account multilingualism, needs analysis, insights into EAP teaching and materials, discussions with stakeholders, and human resources. I will argue for an EAP curriculum approach that trains a set of core skills and enables discipline-specific genre and language learning through awareness-raising activities and corpus search tools. In this view, English for Specific Academic Purposes is not the teaching of disciplinary vocabulary. Instead, teachers use their EAP expertise to ascertain disciplinary needs, compose or evaluate materials, set tasks in line with disciplinary activities, and –importantly- provide the skills and tools to continue (discipline-specific) learning beyond the course. I will draw on examples of EAP course design from my own practice as well as on findings from my published research into EAP coursebook authenticity and multilingual course design. [less ▲]

Lecturer training for English Medium Instruction: what and how?

in Deroey, Katrien (Ed.) Innovation, exploration and transformation. Proceedings of the 2019 BALEAP Conference (2021)

Bracketing in student writing: its uses (and abuses)

Scientific Conference (2019, July 23)

This paper reports on the use of bracketed text in a large corpus of student writing. The function of bracketing has been neglected in academic writing research and coursebooks. Yet it is closely related ... [more ▼]

This paper reports on the use of bracketed text in a large corpus of student writing. The function of bracketing has been neglected in academic writing research and coursebooks. Yet it is closely related to important text construction issues such as information packaging, coherence, clarity, conciseness, intertextual framing and sourcing. With a view to informing academic writing description and instruction, we examined the relationship between bracketed text and its cotext in a wide variety of disciplines and assignment genres. The relationships are described using an adaptation of Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2014) logico-semantic framework of clausal relationships. To better understand and teach the use of this information packaging feature, we studied the relationship between bracketed text and its cotext in the British Academic Written English (BAWE) corpus of high-graded student assignments. Using Sketch Engine and corpus query language, we extracted a random sample of 2000 instances of bracketing in running text only. This subcorpus is composed of 500 instances from each of the four main disciplinary groupings (Arts and Humanities, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Social Sciences) and contains instances from most of the BAWE assignment genres. The concordances were imported into a database table in FileMaker Pro. This database programme facilitates coding by limiting choices depending on previous selections and thus guiding the coder through the analytical steps. For the analysis of the data, it offers flexibility for grouping records and aggregating results on different levels. The logico-semantic framework used in systemic functional linguistics to classify the relationships between clauses (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014) served as our starting point to classify the relationships between bracketed text and cotext. This framework distinguishes two fundamental logico-semantic relationships: expansion, which ‘relates phenomena as being of the same order of experience’, and projection, which ‘relates phenomena of one order of experience (the processes of saying and thinking) to phenomena of a higher order (semiotic phenomena – what people say and think)’ (p. 443). The latter contains three subtypes: elaboration (‘one clause elaborates on the meaning of another by further specifying or describing it’) (p. 461), enhancement (‘one clause (or subcomplex) enhances the meaning of another by qualifying it) (p. 476) and extension (‘one clause extends the meaning of another by adding something new to it’) (p. 471). This framework was refined and expanded through several stages of interrating and discussion in order to reflect our findings. We first analysed a random sample of 1000 instances from the whole BAWE corpus. With the resulting adapted classificatory framework we next independently analysed a quarter of our subcorpus of 2000 concordances. This led to further refinement of the framework and classificatory criteria. Finally, we each analyzed a different set of concordances from the disciplinary groupings. Disciplinary informants were consulted where needed. Our analysis revealed four major logico-semantic relationships between the bracketed text and cotext: in addition to Halliday & Matthiessen’s (2014) projection (1) and expansion (elaboration (2), enhancement (3, 4), extension (5)), we identified bracketed text functioning as intratextual reference (6) and code (7). The few instances that could not be confidently classified were assigned to a ‘hard to classify’ category. (1) However the anticipated number of children per woman in Europe and the USA is still near or above two (Bongaarts, 1999), showing that many are still having children. (2) Many of these injures are healed fractures and breaks occurring around the torso (upper body). (3) It is dated to the reign of Nectanebo II (360-343 BC). (4) Acetanilide (4.78g, 35.4 mmol) was dissolved in cold, glacial acetic acid (25ml, 437.1 mmol) (5) Parmenides decision to include a cosmology that he has already (apparently) proved to be flawed is an interesting one to say the least. (6) This is called circular polarization (figure 5) and is the natural state of white light. (7) Stronger field ligands such as (PPh 3) and (NCS) increase the splitting. Projection was –perhaps not surprisingly- the most common relationship by far, although markedly less frequent in the Physical Sciences. Expansion was mainly achieved through elaboration, with restatements (2) and abbreviations predominating. Enhancement relationships were mostly temporal locations (3) or measurements (4). Extension was relatively rare (5). Intratextual references (6) took various forms, such as figures, appendices, equations, and line numbers for quoted text. Bracketed code was a marked feature of the Physical Sciences, occurring in formulae and enclosing symbols or abbreviations (7). Overall, students’ use of bracketed text appeared to reflect disciplinary conventions and reflected the genre goals of assignments by demonstrating knowledge, understanding and appropriate source use. Contrary to expectations, instances where the bracketed text seemed superfluous or adversely affected coherence were rare. We conclude by discussing what these findings mean for academic writing instruction. Reference Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2014). Halliday's introduction to functional grammar (4 ed.). Abingdon: Routledge. [less ▲]

How can we support lecturers in English-medium instruction?

Scientific Conference (2019, April 13)

English-medium instruction (EMI) is a worldwide phenomenon. EMI language and communication issues (e.g. Hu et al., 2014; Murray, 2015; Werther et al., 2014) have led to calls for EAP practitioners to ... [more ▼]

English-medium instruction (EMI) is a worldwide phenomenon. EMI language and communication issues (e.g. Hu et al., 2014; Murray, 2015; Werther et al., 2014) have led to calls for EAP practitioners to collaborate with lecturers and other HE stakeholders to explore ways in which these lecturers can be supported and teaching standards ensured (Coleman, 2006; Doiz et al., 2013; Dubow & Gundermann, 2017). The design and implementation of EMI training and support programmes can be an especially challenging task for EAP practitioners. First, lecturers may not recognize the need for support and may be reluctant to be assessed. Second, we need to factor in practical considerations such as their limited availability and possible reluctance to attend ‘classes’ with colleagues. Third, we have limited resources in terms of specialized standardized tests, training materials and research literature that could inform our 'course' design. Innovative approaches are therefore needed to factor in all these circumstances. This paper has two main parts. First I summarize research on the challenges EMI lecturers face, including the results of a needs analysis among lecturers at the University of Luxembourg and my work on lecture discourse organization (Deroey, 2015). From the relatively few studies that exist, we will see that lecturers tend to believe they have sufficient English language skills and that reduced interactivity is a particularly common issue. Second, I survey different support and training schemes at HE institutions across the world. Here, it will become clear that work on relevant pedagogical skills needs to be included and an apparently ‘remedial’ approach should be avoided if we want to get lecturers on board. [less ▲]

Panel discussion: academic writing across languages: multilingual and contrastive approaches in higher education

in Huemer, Birgit; Lejot, Eve; Deroey, Katrien (Eds.) Academic writing across languages: multilingual and contrastive approaches in higher education (2019)

Academic writing across languages: multilingual and contrastive approaches in higher education

Book published by Böhlau (2019)

This book explores how academic writing varies across languages in order to enrich concepts for teaching academic writing in multilingual environments. The contributions focus on teaching approaches ... [more ▼]

This book explores how academic writing varies across languages in order to enrich concepts for teaching academic writing in multilingual environments. The contributions focus on teaching approaches, linguistic features and writing practices in multilingual contexts. It aims to discuss how these findings could be applied in order to develop multilingual approaches for teaching academic writing at the university. [less ▲]