Collaborating across boundaries: Developing a cross-departmental approach to English language development in an undergraduate business unit

This paper analyses a collaborative activity undertaken to identify and support undergraduate students at one Australian university who could be considered "at risk" because of the level of their English proficiency. The program, which was piloted in 2009, involved collaboration among staf...

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Main Authors: Dunworth, Katie, Briguglio, Carmela
Format: Journal Article
Published: Association for Academic Language and Learning 2010
Online Access:http://journal.aall.org.au/index.php/jall/article/view/117/85
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/47227
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author Dunworth, Katie
Briguglio, Carmela
author_facet Dunworth, Katie
Briguglio, Carmela
author_sort Dunworth, Katie
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description This paper analyses a collaborative activity undertaken to identify and support undergraduate students at one Australian university who could be considered "at risk" because of the level of their English proficiency. The program, which was piloted in 2009, involved collaboration among staff across a number of areas: the faculties of Business and Health Sciences, academic language and learning staff and TESOL specialists. The project comprised an initial compulsory English language diagnostic assessment of all students enrolled in a discipline-specific communication skills unit, and the provision of a structured series of supplementary English language tutorials for those who were found to be in need of additional developmental assistance. The procedure, activated under the nomenclature, Starting University Confidently and Competently English Support Scheme (SUCCESS), was linked to the unit in the sense that the supplementary tutorials complemented the content of the disciplinary unit. The pilot program not only revealed the benefits of the scheme for the students and a wider group of stakeholders, but also uncovered some problematic issues that served as lessons for the future and threw up some ongoing questions.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-472272017-01-30T15:31:59Z Collaborating across boundaries: Developing a cross-departmental approach to English language development in an undergraduate business unit Dunworth, Katie Briguglio, Carmela This paper analyses a collaborative activity undertaken to identify and support undergraduate students at one Australian university who could be considered "at risk" because of the level of their English proficiency. The program, which was piloted in 2009, involved collaboration among staff across a number of areas: the faculties of Business and Health Sciences, academic language and learning staff and TESOL specialists. The project comprised an initial compulsory English language diagnostic assessment of all students enrolled in a discipline-specific communication skills unit, and the provision of a structured series of supplementary English language tutorials for those who were found to be in need of additional developmental assistance. The procedure, activated under the nomenclature, Starting University Confidently and Competently English Support Scheme (SUCCESS), was linked to the unit in the sense that the supplementary tutorials complemented the content of the disciplinary unit. The pilot program not only revealed the benefits of the scheme for the students and a wider group of stakeholders, but also uncovered some problematic issues that served as lessons for the future and threw up some ongoing questions. 2010 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/47227 http://journal.aall.org.au/index.php/jall/article/view/117/85 Association for Academic Language and Learning fulltext
spellingShingle Dunworth, Katie
Briguglio, Carmela
Collaborating across boundaries: Developing a cross-departmental approach to English language development in an undergraduate business unit
title Collaborating across boundaries: Developing a cross-departmental approach to English language development in an undergraduate business unit
title_full Collaborating across boundaries: Developing a cross-departmental approach to English language development in an undergraduate business unit
title_fullStr Collaborating across boundaries: Developing a cross-departmental approach to English language development in an undergraduate business unit
title_full_unstemmed Collaborating across boundaries: Developing a cross-departmental approach to English language development in an undergraduate business unit
title_short Collaborating across boundaries: Developing a cross-departmental approach to English language development in an undergraduate business unit
title_sort collaborating across boundaries: developing a cross-departmental approach to english language development in an undergraduate business unit
url http://journal.aall.org.au/index.php/jall/article/view/117/85
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/47227