News
Tackling Academic Literacy Needs Of International Students
Tuesday January 12th, 2010
Staff from Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University have devised a new pedagogical learning model to help international students get to grips with the often complex use of English language in academia.
Programme Director of Learning Support and Enhancement in Newcastle Business School's postgraduate area, Dr Diane Sloan, and senior lecturer Elizabeth Porter are rolling out their 'CEM' model to meet the academic literacy needs of overseas students.
The CEM model has been developed following rigorous research among all the Business School's international postgraduate students and international programme directors, undertaking both focus groups and questionnaires.
The model draws on a combination of 'contextualisation': making the academic literacy programme more subject-specific, 'embedding' the positioning of the programme within the overall academic study programme, and 'mapping' the timing of language support to take into account the needs of both tutors and students.
"Northumbria University is one of the largest UK destinations for international students, with approximately 3,500 students recruited annually from overseas, and Newcastle Business School alone takes in 1,000 international students," Dr Sloan said.
"One of the biggest issues facing Newcastle Business School was the way in which international students were taught 'academic' English - and a 2008 study found that the extra-curricular in-sessional academic literacy programmes were being seen by students as an 'optional extra' outside their main programmes of study. As a result, student attendance and engagement in the academic literary programme was low and needed to be revised and reviewed accordingly."
"However, since we've introduced the CEM model, we've turned that picture on its head and have achieved a five-fold increase in attendance by international students on the Business School's academic literacy programmes."
The model is now being advocated as an example of good practice within Northumbria University, and trialled at Heriot Watt University with the support of a teaching research and development grant from the Higher Education Academy's Subject Centre for Business Management, Accountancy and Finance.
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