Challenging orthodoxy: the where, the who and the how of students' disciplinary genre knowledge development

The seminar will deal with the ever-present question in the area of LSP: teaching the content knowledge versus teaching how to communicate the content. Lecturer Lisa McGrath will share the results of her research among specialist teachers and their consequences for our ESP/EAP courses.

Lisa will answer the following questions:

• Why is teaching in the disciplines mainly directed to content knowledge learning outcomes rather than how that learning is communicated (i.e. through disciplinary discourse)?
• Why might this be problematic?
• What can we as EAP/ESP specialists do to encourage disciplinary lecturers to work with their students' development of disciplinary discourse?

Lisa McGrath is an Associate Professor at the Sheffield Institute of Education. Her research focuses on academic English – how it is used, how it is taught, and relevant policy issues. Lisa's work has appeared in journals such as Applied Linguistics, Higher Education, Teaching in Higher Education, Journal of Second Language Writing, and Language for Specific Purposes Journal. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of English for Academic Purposes and is currently guest editing an issue of the Journal of Second Language Writing on innovation in task design.

A more detailed abstract of the seminar can be found here.