Education Commons^™

Re-Integrating Academic Development And Academic Language And Learning: A Call To Reason, Alisa Percy

Alisa Percy, PhD

This paper argues for the re-integration of academic development (AD) and a academic language and learning (ALL) practitioners in Australian higher education. This argument is made as universities aim to develop internationally recognised, inter-disciplinary and standards-based curricula against the backdrop of international comparative education (e.g., Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), the Australian Qualifications Framework and a quality emphasis on English language standards (e.g., Tertiary Education Quality and Assessment Agency). Drawing on Rowland's argument that professional life in the academy has become fragmented across five fault lines ([2002]. Overcoming fragmentation in professional life: The challenge for academic development. Higher Education …

A Critical Turn In Higher Education Research: Turning The Critical Lens On The Academic Language And Learning Educator, Alisa Percy

Alisa Percy, PhD

This paper suggests that historical ontology, as one form of reflexive critique, is an instructive research design for making sense of the political and historical constitution of the Academic Language and Learning (ALL) educator in Australian higher education. The ALL educator in this paper refers to those practitioners in the field of ALL, whose ethical agency has largely been taken for granted since their slow and uneven emergence in the latter half of the twentieth century. Using the lens of governmentality, genealogical design and archaeological method, the historical ontology proposed in this paper demonstrates how the ethical remit of the …

Invited Panel Presentation On Theoretical Perspectives On Research In Higher And Professional Education: Making Sense Of Academic Language And Learning (All), Alisa Percy

Alisa Percy, PhD

Making Histories: Developing An Oral History Of All In Australia, Alisa Percy, Bronwyn James, Tim Beaumont, Reem Al-Mahmood

Alisa Percy, PhD

How might our present understandings of our professional identities, our struggles, our achievements and our capacities for agency be better understood through the memories and accounts of those who championed our emergence? What might oral accounts of the emergence of our field offer beyond what can be gathered from its existing literature? Indeed, why look at the history of a professional field at all?

This session approaches such questions by reporting on oral accounts of the emergence and evolution of ALL in Australia. As we note some of the insights and lived experiences of those engaged in the formative years …

Do The Guiding Principles Help Or Hinder Our Assessment & Development Of Students’ Understanding & Use Of English?, Emily Purser, Alisa Percy

Alisa Percy, PhD

As universities articulate their strategy for improving students’ English language ‘proficiency’, the need for principled guidelines to direct English language education programming is high. Institutions, and ALL educators, have to comply with various educational policies which make reference to constructs such as ELP, ‘communication skills’ and academic ‘literacies’. The interpretation and implementation of these in relation to ALL teaching and disciplinary curriculum development seem largely to be occurring in separate spaces, as though the problems are self-evidently separate, and bounded by different concerns and practices. Do these principles assist in developing a coherent and effective approach to English language education …

Learning Content / Teaching Language, Emily Purser, Alisa Percy

Alisa Percy, PhD

English language teaching in universities is shaped in complex ways by the internationalization of higher education, student mobility and technological development. Within and around English medium universities, educational programs have to respond to changing national, institutional and departmental level understandings of students’ learning needs. In Australia, lecturers across the academic disciplines face, in classrooms and online, a high proportion of students who enter into disciplinary studies before they are quite proficient in the language of instruction – and institutions are required to demonstrate to the national education quality and standards agency (TEQSA) that they are helping international students to develop …

Editorial: Social Inclusion--Are We There Yet?, Kimberley Mcmahon Coleman, Alisa Percy, Bronwyn James

Alisa Percy, PhD

This special edition of the Journal of Academic Language and Learning arose out of a Forum titled Critical Discussions about Social Inclusion held at the University of Wollongong, Australia in June 2011. It was organised by academic language and learning educators from five different universities: Ingrid Wijeyewardene from the University of New England, Helen Drury from the University of Sydney, Caroline San Miguel from the University of Technology Sydney, Stephen Milnes from the Australian National University, and ourselves from the University of Wollongong. Initially funded by a grant from the Association for Academic Language and Learning, this funding was later …

Invited Panel Presentation: Whole Of University Approaches, Alisa Percy, Christian Ritz

Alisa Percy, PhD

No abstract provided.

Paradigms Of Aall Work: A Practical Exploration Of Contradictions And Convergences, Bronwyn James, Alisa Percy

Alisa Percy, PhD

No abstract provided.