Thanks to those who were able to come along to our Reading Club on 14 December 2022 – it was great to be back. This time around we discussed Joe Greenwood’s ‘A systematic approach to designing English for very specific academic purposes materials tailored to a specific course in the main subject of a higher degree.’ From Issue 23. We would like to thank Joe from joining us to discuss his work and answer our questions.
We started the Reading Club by discussing the differences between EAP and EVSAP and the similarities with learning development in ensuring these skills are delivered within a specific subject and/or towards specific assessment expectations and learning outcomes. This led to a general discussion around how international students are supported across different institutions and in different countries.
We spent a lot of time talking about the importance of Joe’s inclusion of the student voice and perspective in his framework to design embedded sessions. We discussed how this element is often missing when learning developers co-design embedded sessions, with the focus usually on negotiating topics and approaches with lecturers, while over-looking what students themselves feel the focus should be on.
Lastly, Joe advised on some practical aspects of implementing his framework when designing sessions with input from various stakeholders (assessment briefs, lecturers and students). Although Joe emphasised the framework didn’t take as long to implement as it may seem on paper, he did advise that it is perhaps most suitable when applied to longer, recurrent instances of embedded teaching.
Our next Reading Club will be held on Wednesday 8thth February at 5:30pm
We will be in touch in advance of the meeting with a selection of JLDHE articles for you to choose from. We will then confirm the piece with the most votes and share the zoom link before the day. Please contact Jenny if you would like to be added to the Reading Club mailing list.