ERIC Number: EJ1061558
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2015
Pages: 16
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1522-7502
EISSN: N/A
The Development of Disciplinary Expertise: An EAP and RGS-Informed Approach to the Teaching and Learning of Genre at George Mason University
Habib, Anna S.; Haan, Jennifer; Mallett, Karyn
Composition Forum, v31 Spr 2015
In the U.S., international enrollment trends have increased the pedagogical imperative to address multilingual graduate student writers' linguistic needs/growth in the process of their developing disciplinary expertise. In the context of this internationalization effort, what can two disciplines--Applied Linguistics and Composition--constructively offer in terms of a pedagogical approach to address such growing institutional demands? With regard to the various ways in which these disciplines approach the teaching and learning of disciplinary expertise, what might a research-informed English for Academic Purposes (EAP)/Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS) curriculum arc look like and how might multilingual graduate writers respond to such an integrated pedagogical trajectory? Further, to what extent might such a curriculum be able to balance evolving student needs and institutional expectations for students' linguistic development? This program profile examines the potential of Tardy's 2009 model for building genre knowledge among a specific student population: first-year multilingual international graduate students enrolled in a "bridge" program at George Mason University. In addition to describing the practical work of enacting Tardy's model at the program and course levels, the authors detail the results of a related study aimed at exploring students' development of genre knowledge over the course of the bridge year. Results point to the complexity of designing and implementing an EAP/RGS-informed course structure which values the intersectional nature of disciplinary knowledge development and suggest the need for such an approach to explicitly foreground the visibility of language teaching, learning, and assessment in order to ease student anxiety around both language and genre development.
Descriptors: English for Academic Purposes, Graduate Students, Multilingualism, Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, Applied Linguistics, Enrollment Trends, Writing (Composition), Teaching Methods, Program Descriptions, Profiles, Models, Anxiety, Language Styles, Writing Instruction, Assignments
Association of Teachers of Advanced Composition. e-mail: cf@compositionforum.com; Web site: http://compositionforum.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Virginia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A