EAP course design within a context of institutional change and cross-disciplinary collaboration: Factors shaping the creating of ‘writing for commerce’

Abstract

__________________________________________________________________________________ Many reports of needs analysis and curriculum design of EAP courses focus largely on the immediate pedagogic context and ensuing decision making and materials design processes of the course designers. This paper explores the process of curriculum design from the perspectives of both debates and developments within the field of language and literacy education, and the impact of international, national and institutional shifts in higher education on one course design process within one South African university. The paper explores the realities of institutional and disciplinary histories and changes that impacted on the design of an EAP course for a linguistically, culturally and racially diverse group of firstyear commerce students. The intricacies of creating such a course as an inter-disciplinary school, rather than departmental, project are explored and briefly evaluated. The key principles underpinning the course design are explained. The paper concludes with consideration of why the collaborative inter-disciplinary project has faded, although the course has continued successfully.This paper traces the curriculum design process of Writing for Commerce (WC), a compulsory English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing course for all first-year Commerce Students at the former University of Natal, Pietermartizburg (UN), first offered in 2001. My argument is framed in terms of shifts and debates within the field of language and writing instruction. I outline contextual factors, at national, institutional and disciplinary levels, that impacted on the course design process. A unique dimension to this project was its location within collaboration across two departments, and the relative successes and failures of this aspect are also considered. I outline the key principles informing the course structure and briefly consider the success and fragility of the cross-disciplinary course design process. I have drawn my data from interviews with three stakeholders 1 and my observations as a participant researcher who was part of the design and teaching team. BRIEF OVERVIEW OF PEDAGOGIC/INSTRUCTIONAL DEBATES ON ACADEMIC LANGUAGE AND LITERACY DEVELOPMENTThe field of academic development and, more specifically, academic literacy studies, has undergone significant shifts over the last twenty years. The key trajectory has been one of a move from focusing on the language deficits of students, which primarily presume grammatical remediation (Celce-Murcia, 1991), sometimes identified in the South African context as an English Second Language (ESL) approach, to a focus on the multiplicity and 62 specificity of academic discourses that students are required to enter and master. This latter view, often identified as an Academic Literacies (AL) approach, shifts more responsibility onto institutions and lecturers to provide overt instruction on the underpinning values and conventions of their disciplines, as well as ongoing discipline-based literacy support f...

Literacy practices and business education: Pedagogic intentions for teacher training

“…To be employable in a modern economy, university graduates need to meet more than just the requirements of the exit level outcomes. As a result of market pressures shaped by professional boards, higher literacy levels are expected from business graduates (Jackson, 2009). Snow, Burns and Griffin (1998) claim that students must be able to read challenging material and solve problems independently to meet the requirements of an increasingly competitive economy and an expanding technological society.…”

“…Business education (BE) lecturers do not normally focus on literacy practices, since literacy is generally regarded as a focus of the business communication module. Both Jackson (2009) and Ivanič et al (2009) comment that reading and writing skills are reserved for the language specialist who has little expert knowledge of subject discourses. This could lead to disciplinary vulnerability and uncertainty about how to meet the particular needs of business students.…”