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Negotiating Meanings and Scaffolding Learning: Writing Support for Non-English Speaking Background Postgraduate Students.

. Higher Education Research and Development, 26 (3): 253 - 268 (2007)

Abstract

Language and learning advisers and non-English speaking background (NESB) postgraduate students negotiate complex territory when working together to improve students' texts. However, the individual writing consultation is sometimes conceptualised one-dimensionally by faculty as a form of editing. The writing consultation with NESB postgraduate students has also received only sporadic attention in the higher education literature. This paper provides a contextual, discourse analytical account of one writing consultation between a faculty-based language adviser and a Master of Public Health NESB student. The findings show that the consultation was a dynamic exchange during which a range of meanings were negotiated. The findings also show that the adviser scaffolded the student's academic writing and learning in a number of ways. More research is needed in different teaching contexts and at various stages of students' writing in order to provide a greater understanding of the writing supp

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