Developing academic English
Developing academic English
At Monash, it is our responsibility to provide opportunities in which students can grow and develop their academic English skills. This includes modeling what is expected of them, providing them with feedback, and motivating them to succeed.
Why develop academic English?
All students must meet the minimum entry requirements for starting their academic journey; however, language proficiency is not a point in time marker. It is a process developed through timely and targeted input. This means the university is responsible for providing students with opportunities to continue to develop their academic English.
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Embed academic English
Learn why it’s important to embed academic English in teaching and learning, as well as strategies to support students in different learning environments.
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Consider student differences
Learn about a range of vocabulary learning strategies that you can implement in your teaching to support your students in developing competence in using the specialised vocabulary.
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Create an exemplar
Exemplars illustrate assessment standards as examples of best or worst practice of an assessment in order to assist students in understanding particular skills, content or knowledge. Learn how to develop strong exemplars for your students.
Supporting your students
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In the video below, students discuss some simple but effective techniques you can adopt to help students from non-English speaking backgrounds in the classroom.
How to support your students
Students need to be active participants and drivers in the process of communication skills development, but they need to be aware of the resources available to them.
What resources and services are available to students
There are two main areas at Monash who support students in their development of academic, conversational and professional language use: Student Academic Success and English Connect.
You can alert students to these resources in several ways. For example, you could include a link to Student Academic Success in your PowerPoints or in your feedback to students, or even refer them directly to Student Academic Success for individual consultations.
Student Academic Success
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Student Academic Success provides a range of free resources and services to support students with their academic language development:
Individual Consultations: Advisers who are experts in academic language and learning skills are available for one-on-one consultations with students.
Learn HQ Resources: Student Academic Success maintains a wide range of resources for improving academic English on Learn HQ, including strategies for listening, reading, speaking and writing.
Workshops and Modules: Students can access free workshops and online courses to develop their academic language and assessment literacy, including self-paced modules on English grammar.
Feedback Studio: Students can access feedback and advice on their written and spoken work to help them improve their academic language.
Academic Language Needs Analysis: Students can access individual testing for academic language skills (vocabulary and speed reading), and academics can engage Student Academic Success for cohort testing and reporting. Results link students to a range of customised supports for language support and development.
English Connect
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English Connect offers a suite of resources to assist students in their professional and social language development. These include: Let’s Chat; Global Professional Communication (GPC) and pHD programs.
Let’s Chat: The Let’s Chat program provides engaging and interactive ways for students to build their conversational English skills and make friends.
- Classes run from week 2 to week 11 at all Monash Victorian campuses
- Let’s Chat HDR is also available for PhD and Master by research students
Learn HQ resources
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Master academic language
Learn information about and practise three major features of academic language including formality, objectivity and impersonality.
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Listening to Academic English
Develop your listening skills and strategies to identify the key messages in online and face-to-face interactions.
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Reading academic English
Rate your level of academic reading fitness, learn new strategies for effective reading and for handling major challenges when reading academic English.
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Write clear sentences
Clear sentences are the building blocks of clear writing. Learn how to ensure you get your point across and keep your readers on the right track.
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Describing things, actions and events
Most academic writing requires some informative description. Accurate descriptive writing will lay the groundwork for you to develop critical analysis and evaluation in your writing.
Related resources
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Dr Anna Filipi - Teaching strategies and techniques
Dr Anna Filipi (Faculty of Education) shares her teaching strategies for developing students’ communication skills. She uses the flipped classroom model; however, her ideas can be easily adapted to the traditional lecture and tutorial model.
Provided are some relevant resources that will help support you with embedding English language, including Monash's specific policies and procedures related to embedding communication and English language in your curriculum.
Take the time to review these to inform your teaching practice.
Learning and Teaching policyMonash University Learning and Teaching policy outlines the learning and teaching policy framework for Monash University. Of particular note is the section on English language expectations (see sections 3.8 to 3.9). |
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Good Practice Principles for English language proficiency for international students in Australian universities is a comprehensive document defining language proficiency in academic settings and the key principles to guide teaching and learning in communication skills attainment. The document has many examples of best practices.
You may find this document useful to review at subject level to consider what principles and best practices would be suited to your subject and student cohort.
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A framework to embed communication skills across the curriculum: A design-based research approach is a research article providing a theoretical rationale and approach to embedding communication skills in curriculum. It contains some useful examples.
Research article: Johnson, Steve; Veitch, Sarah; and Dewiyanti, Silvia, (2015). A framework to embed communication skills across the curriculum: A design-based research approach, Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 12(4).
A framework to embed communication skills across the curriculum: A design-based research approach
Related technologies
Learning tools may be used to further support students with their English language skills. Here are a few technologies that may be used to support the teaching strategies previously identified.
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The glossary activity in Moodle allows you and/or your students to build, display and search a list and its definitions, like a dictionary. Premade electronic glossaries could assist students with frequently used terms or instructions. Alternatively, students could benefit from creating a glossary as a class activity. Enabling the auto-linking feature will highlight any word in the unit which is located in the glossary.
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Panopto has the ability to add Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) generated captions to your sessions. This means you can view a session and read a text based version of the content. Providing multiple modes of communication makes the video more accessible.
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Quizlet is a free online flashcard tool that may be used to improve vocabulary and general content knowledge. Both students and educators can create and share electronic flashcards or access pre-made flash cards.
Students can choose which of Quizlet's seven different study modes works best with their style of learning. Quizlet tracks their progress and provides instant feedback about where to focus.
Watch the video below to learn more.
How Students Study Using Quizlet from Quizlet on Vimeo.
Education Performance Standards Framework
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The Education Performance Standards identify the expectations of education practice at Monash – See the Education Performance Standards for more details.
Impact on student learning | Impact on educational knowledge | Impact on educational environment | |||||
Effective teaching and learning | Responsive program design | Student- centred orientation | Professional learning engagement | Pedagogical content knowledge | Education research performance | Education innovation | Education leadership |
✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||||
You could address these Practice Elements by providing evidence of how you:
- Provide subject-specific vocabulary lists to your students – these could be PDFs that students could download from the subject Moodle module.
- Include vocabulary tests in quizzes – this could be multiple choice or matching tasks.
- Reinforce subject-specific vocabulary by mentioning it in your lectures and tutorials consistently, and highlighting to students its importance to the subject.
- Provide subject-specific glossaries to your students – these could be part of your slide presentations, downloadable PDF, emailed to students.
- Engage students in vocabulary learning activities – such as creating their own vocabulary lists, test each other on key vocabulary, report to the class on key vocabulary from an article.
- Include a vocabulary requirement for assessments – for example, “Your assignment should incorporate specialist vocabulary accurately and as appropriate”.
- Give assessment feedback on students’ usage (or lack) of vocabulary.