Julia Kearney and Lori Bingham (pseudonyms), two middle school social studies teachers in a large urban school, have a problem. They want to have their students asking and exploring important questions about American history, and they want them to have the vocabulary knowledge needed to do so. While Julia and Lori recognize the rich linguistic…

Supporting and contributing to the development of each other's academic writing within a 'writing group' in a university setting has enhanced the authors' professional and personal connections. As their sense of community and commitment to collaboration evolved, their group engaged in conversations about other aspects of their academic work,…

This study set out to examine the Masters students' attitudes towards research component of their programme. It was conducted in Makerere University Business School (MUBS) in Uganda. A phenomenological qualitative study approach was employed. The respondents were able to narrate their stories on their own experience when undertaking research. The…

Academic language is the formal language that is common in books and at school, but that students are unlikely to encounter in everyday conversations with friends and family. Not only is academic language critical to school achievement but it is also foundational for the true comprehension of contentrich subjects. Academic language should permeate…

This exploratory sociolinguistic study examined D/discourses and writing modes in a Grade 10 English literature classroom wherein students answered literature-based questions by means of both traditional and new literacies approaches. Studies conducted at the intersection of classroom instruction and online affinity spaces are still surprisingly…

This study examined 388 elementary education teacher candidates (n = 388) across four semesters in one educator preparation program about their experiences completing the performance-based assessment edTPA. Candidates were in one of three programs at a large, public research university in the Southeast region of the United States. These programs…

This paper brings to light the notable contributions of Wikipedian Adrianne Wadewitz (1977-2014) who enlisted her peers and students to help reduce the gender imbalance by participating in mass collaborative initiatives like edit-a-thons to increase the stock of knowledge about and of interest to women. Such projects, and the edit-a-thons that…

This study investigates the rhetorical choices of the engagement features in Pakistani Academic Research Discourse (PARD) of natural and social sciences. Using the 'Interaction Model' (Hyland, 2005), it explores how the writers of different disciplinary cultures employ engagement features to define and maintain their knowledge territories in their…

A learning format gaining attention that encourages language acquisition in science is the use of dynamic models as instructional tools. This grounded theory investigates the impact of the dynamic food chain model as an alternative lesson for teaching food chains. The researchers examined the impact of a paper-based activity and a dynamic model…

Given that formulaic sequences play an important role in enhancing L2 learners' academic writing skills and that phraseological sequences constitute a large proportion of written discourse, the current study was an attempt to draw up a list of key phrase frames--phraseological sequences with a variable slot--in a corpus of research articles (RAs)…

Students in academic contexts are expected to engage with large amounts of reading and they frequently meet unknown words and phrases in those reading materials. Previous research has shown that second and foreign language learners can acquire some of the unknown vocabulary that they encounter during reading. However, these previous findings were…

Vocational universities are increasingly becoming susceptible to pressures associated with the phenomenon known as 'academic drift'. Yet the specific influence of such pressures is experienced differently at various institutional levels and by different stakeholders in such universities. Exploring lecturers' understanding and perceptions of…

Academic writing practices constitute central processes through which students learn the conventions of their disciplines to meet the expectations of their academic communities. Therefore, academic writing courses should touch on the specific dimensions of it. One of the most prominent requirements of these courses is to identify the needs of…

While recent research has highlighted the increasing importance of peer feedback as a supplementary pedagogy to supervision in higher education academic contexts, little is known regarding whether and how peer feedback can induct research students into the academic discourse community. Underpinned by the academic discourse community theory, this…

Despite existing work on the situated and sometimes alienating nature of academic writing practices, the implications of the specifically spatial nature of these practices continue to pose questions for teaching and learning in higher education. This paper addresses these questions through a study of the views and experiences of students and…