A Survey on Needs for English Academic Course for Doctoral Candidates

Teaching of English for Academic Purpose (EAP) has caught great attention to developing the academic literacy of doctoral candidates. Therefore, it is a necessity to investigate their learning needs towards EAP courses. The paper did a survey on 105 doctoral candidates from 9 dimensions to investigate their overall situation of EAP learning needs. Teaching implications on EAP course concern teacher qualities, curriculum design and teaching practice.

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Academic literacy across the curriculum: Towards a collaborative instructional approach

Language Teaching ◽

10.1017/s0261444816000264 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 51 (3) ◽

pp. 349-364 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Ursula Wingate

Keyword(s):

Professional Development ◽

Literacy Development ◽

Intervention Study ◽

Teaching Practice ◽

Academic Discipline ◽

Academic Literacy ◽

Integrated Approach ◽

English For Academic Purposes ◽

Learning Needs ◽

Conference Theme

I respond to the conference theme ‘English across the Curriculum’ by suggesting that ‘Academic literacy’ should be taught across the curriculum. I first explain the concept of academic literacy, which describes the range of abilities that students have to acquire when starting out in a new academic discipline. I then discuss the dominant instructional provision at universities. As this provision fails to address students’ real learning needs, I argue for curriculum-integrated academic literacy instruction that is based on the collaboration between English for academic purposes (EAP) specialists and subject lecturers. I provide examples of collaborative, discipline-specific approaches to supporting student learning, and present some insights from an intervention study that I have carried out to explore feasible ways of teaching and collaboration. Finally, I discuss the need for lecturer training to achieve a curriculum-integrated approach, and report on my experience of running a professional development module which aimed to enable lecturers to embed academic literacy development into their teaching practice.

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Issues in developing the learning motivation of adult learners for studying foreign languages

BULLETIN of the L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University. PEDAGOGY. PSYCHOLOGY. SOCIOLOGY Series ◽

10.32523/2616-6895-2020-133-4-99-105 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 133 (4) ◽

pp. 99-105

Author(s):

А.А. Palina ◽

◽

T.A. Kokhanover ◽

Keyword(s):

Adult Learners ◽

Adult Students ◽

Teaching Practice ◽

Native Speakers ◽

Foreign Languages ◽

Educational Activity ◽

Learning Needs ◽

Distinctive Features ◽

Experimental Training ◽

Basic Learning

This article highlights issues of formation a motivation to learn foreign languages in adult students. The teaching practice shows that working with students of different ages has its own distinctive features, and teaching adults has its own specifics. This article considers such element of educational activity as motivation, and particularities of its formation namely in adults. It presents the basic learning needs of adults, their requirements for the pedagogical process, as well as possible difficulties in teaching them. It provides the list of conditions and principles necessary for successful development and maintenance of adult students’ motivation. The article suggests such method as correspondence with native speakers of a foreign language. It describes the conduct of experimental training using the proposed method, which is supported by the results of a survey to identify the level of adult students’ motivation.

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Teachers as researchers: A discovery of their emerging role and impact through a school-university collaborative research

Brock Education Journal ◽

10.26522/brocked.v24i2.374 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 24 (2) ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Ken Chow ◽

Samuel Kai Wah Chu ◽

Nicole Tavares ◽

Celina Wing Yi Lee

Keyword(s):

Curriculum Design ◽

Primary Schools ◽

Collaborative Research ◽

Teaching Practice ◽

Project Based Learning ◽

Teacher Professionalism ◽

Four Dimensions ◽

Culture Teaching ◽

The Impact

This study explored the impact of the role of teacher-researchers on in-service teachers’ professional development, as well as the reasons behind the lack of a teacher-as-researcher ethos in schools. In the study, teachers from four Hong Kong primary schools participated in a school-university collaborative research project that promotes collaborative inquiry project-based learning (IPjBL), in which they took the dual role of the teacher and researcher. Five focus group interviews were conducted with the teachers to collect in-depth qualitative data on their experiences. The impact of this experience on teacher professionalism was examined from four dimensions: knowledge enrichment, school culture, teaching practice and curriculum design. The study provides evidence for the benefits of teacher research and sheds light on how university-school collaboration could contribute to engaging teachers in action research in their everyday classroom.

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The English Communication and Learning Needs of Master of Business Administration Students and Curriculum Development at a Chinese University

SAGE Open ◽

10.1177/2158244019835951 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 215824401983595

Author(s):

Qing Xie ◽

Jie Chen

Keyword(s):

Curriculum Reform ◽

Curriculum Design ◽

English Learners ◽

Oral Communication ◽

Business Administration ◽

Master Of Business Administration ◽

Learning Needs ◽

Business English ◽

English Curriculum ◽

English Students

This study investigates the communication and learning needs of Master of Business Administration (MBA) business English students and their perceptions of effective curriculum design. The research instruments are two-stage surveys of 99 MBA students from a public university in China. The results of the study show that English is not extensively used in the workplaces of MBA business English students, and that the majority of them use Chinese. Most English usage occurs in foreign businesses. The most difficult skills for MBA business English learners are found to be oral communication and listening comprehension. However, there are still very strong needs for further improvement in English communication. For the MBA business English courses, oral communication activities, especially with expatriate teachers, are particularly needed. The MBA business English courses should connect with real-world practice and be relevant to job and business needs. This study has significant implications for MBA business English curriculum reform in both Chinese and international contexts.

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Creating epistemic access through a scaffold approach: Academic literacy skills development for South African first-year public administration students

Teaching Public Administration ◽

10.1177/0144739418822133 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 37 (2) ◽

pp. 156-174

Author(s):

Gerda HG van Dijk ◽

Brenda A Vivian ◽

Lianne P Malan

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

Academic Performance ◽

Public Administration ◽

South African ◽

Curriculum Design ◽

Higher Education Institutions ◽

Academic Literacy ◽

Literacy Skills ◽

First Year ◽

Epistemic Access

For higher education institutions to produce graduates capable of contributing to society and the economy in a productive manner, educational emphasis is placed on the development of critical thinking. The above necessitates that higher education institutions are able to engage in responsive curriculum design and delivery for enhanced student success and access. Public Administration programmes focus on equipping students to work within the broader government sector, able and capable of delivering public functions responsive to the needs of society. Literature suggests that there are a number of factors which influence the success ratio of any undergraduate programme in the South African context, including, inter alia, increased enrolments, student–staff ratios and the overall decline of professional and intellectual life in the country. Further complicating matters are classes too big to be participatory and crammed syllabi preventing in-depth discussions. The notion of embedding academic literacy development in curriculum design through a scaffolded approach aims to influence the academic performance of students through engaged and active learning in order to attain a higher level of achievement as well as benefit from the process of scaffolding. The research comprises a mixed method approach using a case study of the first-year students enrolled for a Public Administration degree. Data collected included an analysis of 2015, 2016 and 2017 student cohorts in: determining their academic literacy level upon registration (set as a baseline before any academic literacy intervention); tracking their academic performance through their formative and summative assessments (through a scaffolded approach); and reflecting upon their learning through their completion of a semi-structured survey. The research intends to argue that the use of a scaffolded approach to learning enhances epistemic access, which sees students moving beyond propositional, or foundation knowledge to epistemic or reflexive knowledge.

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E-commerce Curriculum Design Based on Distance Learning System

International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET) ◽

10.3991/ijet.v10i3.4598 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 52

Author(s):

Congwei Li

Keyword(s):

Distance Learning ◽

Social Interaction ◽

Curriculum Design ◽

Teaching Practice ◽

Comprehensive Evaluation ◽

Learning System ◽

Evaluation Methodology ◽

Control Group ◽

Interaction Mode ◽

Distance Learning System

Distance learning system, as an important teaching means, demonstrates the gradual maturity and penetration of technology in the teaching practice of disciplines. This paper proposes an application of distance learning for an e-commerce curriculum. First, this paper forwards the implication of distance learning system and its superiority, and further the system based on the SNS social interaction mode to address the limitations of existing distance learning systems by the advantages of the SNS social interaction mode. Second, the distance learning system is applied for an e-commerce curriculum. In accordance with the requirements of an e-commerce curriculum, the distance learning system and user frameworks are designed. The experiment adopts multiple evaluation indexes, and then utilizes the linear regression evaluation methodology for result assessment. Result shows that students in the experimental group under the distance learning system teaching mode are superior to students in the control group in terms of various indexes and comprehensive evaluation.

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