Addressing Literacy Brokering in the EAP Classroom

Lecturer, Language Tutor, and Student Perspectives on the Ethics of the Proofreading of Student Writing

“…But rather than relying wholly on other people’s research results, policymakers can usefully complement existing findings and take an inclusive, participatory approach to formulating guidelines by adding another layer of research findings to the mix from their own institutions by soliciting input from all stakeholder groups, rather than simply imposing policy in a top-down fashion. One way of eliciting the views of stakeholders is via group discussions, and here we can draw inspiration from Conrad (2021). Conrad provides an interesting account of how students’ awareness can be raised as to the ethical issues associated with proofreading, describing the results of a lesson delivered to students on a first-year writing course in the United States.…”

“…As a reviewer pointed out, assessment and the nature of assessment have important roles to play in debates about proofreading in the university. She or he pointed out that as well as being able to ask friends on their course or on social media for help with their writing, students can also avail themselves of programs like Grammarly and various electronic translators (e.g., Google Translate) for additional help (see, for instance, Groves & Mundt, 2015, 2021Mundt & Groves, 2016). The reviewer concluded that "It's safe to say that now it is impossible to objectively assess the quality of a student's writing, or their 'real ability,'" given all these potential resources, unless we decide to set unseen exams (as Penelope suggested).…”