Search

This study investigated the epistemic conventions of pedagogical practices in higher education (HE) from the viewpoints of lecturers. Phenomenological design, focusing on semi-structured interview guide, was considered for the study. Through the purposive sampling technique, 15 lecturers from three departments of institution of higher learning were considered for the study. The study utilised emerging themes as an analytic procedure. Analysis focused on two principal domains: Peripheral Academic Writing Practices with focus on Pedagogy (PAWP-P), and Actual Academic Writing Practices focusing on Pedagogy (AAWP-P). In terms of PAWP-P, lecturers considered students' ability to engage in self-regulated practices such as perusing course outline, concomitant with reading and making their own notes prior to lectures to be momentous pedagogical practices. Also, in tandem with AAWP-P, lecturers placed dialogue, argument, meaning making, and criticality (i.e. analysis, evaluation, and creation) as requisite pedagogic practices in HE. In addressing the pedagogical limitation in Lea and Street's (1998) academic literacies model, the finding of this study helps to build on the model; hence, in this study, Lea and Street's (1998) academic literacies model is reconceptualised as academic socialisation, with three developmental overlapping orbitals: electromagnetic wave, normative socialisation and academic literacies socialisation. Management in HE should prioritise the teaching of Information Literacy and Language Literacy courses such as Communicative Skills (variously expressed elsewhere as Use of English, Writing across the Curriculum, General Composition, and Academic Writing).

The author presents a study that employs a modified version of Swales' (1990) move analysis to investigates the generic structure of introductions in a total of 120 writing samples of Ghanaian undergraduates in English and Sociology. The study reveals differences between the two groups in their use of move-structures.

In the last two decades academic literacy has received considerable attention in tertiary education in several English-medium universities. English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and similar writing programs have constantly been revised in the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and Australia as a result of globalization, the increasing numbers of international students and the dominance of English as an academic language. In contrast, EAP programs in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa have experienced very little innovation and change. In this paper, I argue for a change in the curriculum of an EAP program (Communicative Skills) in an English-medium university in Ghana, advancing three key reasons. Such a curriculum, it is argued, should address issues of general and discipline-specific writing, foundation and remediation, and lastly the teaching approach. The paper then concludes with a discussion of some implications worth considering for both theoreticians and implementers of EAP in university education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]