Mainstreaming academic literacy teaching: Implications for how academic development understands its work in higher education

Abstract

This article draws on research into the role of academic literacies within a range of disciplines and its implications for academic literacy teaching in Higher Education. The study explored ways of transforming current academic literacy teaching practices with a view to developing better synergy between the academic literacies that are taught and the disciplinary knowledge that students are accessing. The study examined how academic literacy practitioners and subject lecturers at a university of technology constructed their understandings of an integrated approach to the teaching of academic literacies. With a focus on the changing role of lecturers and academic literacy practitioners, the article briefly contextualises the study by sketching some of the background and outlining the methodology. The nature of disciplinary discourses is then theorised in relation to the findings from the study. Finally the article presents a theoretical model for the teaching of disciplinary discourses, and considers the implications of the theoretical model for academic development work generally, and for higher education broadly.

J South African Journal of Higher Education Vol. 21 (7) 2008: pp. 870-881