Genre pedagogy in the mediation of socially-situated literacies acquisition – the experience of apprentices in a higher education community of practice

Abstract

In this article, the writer explores learner experience during the scaffolding of subjectspecific academic literacies using a genre pedagogical approach that views linguistic expertise as a socially-situated phenomenon. For the learners of this case study, the mastery of the descriptive report genre, in particular, was fundamental for Anatomy and Physiology which is a core subject of the B Pharm (Bachelor of Pharmacy) degree at a South African higher educational institution. To facilitate success in completing a contextualised descriptive report assigned to the learners, the English for Pharmacy course was designed to support the Anatomy and Physiology module by providing collaborative pedagogic support of apprenticeship practices and mediation of academic literacy. The data collection involved an analysis of written work samples, interviews and reflections gathered from a group of first-year South African Pharmacy degree learners by determining the language lecturer’s explicit teaching practices to deconstruct the complexities of textual schemata rooted in genre.