4.6 Classroom Observations
4.8.3 Practitioners’ perceptions of the impact of the ALUGS module on students’ writing practices134
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the process of knowledge production (writing inclusive), as against the traditional pedagogy where the emphasis is on telling. One may add that students continue to make mistakes because they were not shown what to do and how to do it through exposure to different models, but are only told about the processes.
Apart from this, it was also discovered that a particular area students often struggled with in relation to writing both within and outside the ALUGS module, was referencing. The module seemed to have given students different information about referencing. What was taught at the lectures and in tutorials was the APA style, however, the course pack seems to be giving students contradictory information that are opposite to what they were told (see ALUGS course pack, 2014, pp. 67-71). All these seem to have contributed to students‟ writing challenges both within and outside the ALUGS module. Having established that students have different perceptions about the impact of the module on their writing practices, the next section will turn to the AL practitioners‟ perceptions of the impact of the ALUGS module on students‟ writing practices. This also will be substantiated by tutors‟ comments on students‟ marked scripts.
4.8.3 Practitioners’ perceptions of the impact of the ALUGS module on
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“…for example, I‟m in for Professional studies and Education studies. I was given third years students so these students have gone through AL; so you can see it- like eighty percent of them you can see that they know how to structure an essay and those two modules are basically looking at students writing essays…
Still referring to the importance of the ALUGS module in student writing practices in other modules, the tutor stated that she encourages students to always revisit their ALUGS packs as the information contained therein are not for the AL classes alone, but useful up to post- graduate level.
“I always say guys whenever you are writing an essay or any academic work go back to you course packs, AL course packs refer to that; that‟s gonna help you. It will guide you…they end up getting the good marks because you`ve guided them even though AL was just a module that came and gone but for me it hasn`t because I still utilize it in my class whether it`s AL, Professional Studies or Diversity and Learning. I teach them all of that…I‟m doing my Masters but I still have my books because sometimes then you refer to that very special book, because that`s where I learnt to write academically or that‟s where I think I learnt how to structure an essay and write in a manner that is acceptable in the university” (Mrs. Zumbo).
The above excerpt indicated that students‟ writing practices improved as a result of what they learnt in the ALUGS module. The tutor later added that the improvement also reflected in students‟ writings in other modules, particularly in structuring their essays. Moreover, the tutor included that she even learnt how to structure essays through the teaching of the module.
Nevertheless, it seems that this tutor notices an improvement with the third year students alone, and not with those who were registered for the module at the time of this research. In addition, the two modules that this tutor made reference to are also co-generic modules as the ALUGS module itself. These two modules have nothing to do with students‟ disciplinary discourses. The second lecturer, Mr Tina, answering the same question on the impact of the module on students‟
writing practices, stated:
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“It does (improve students‟ writing) because when you give the assignments some of them do produce good writing, but you can also feel that there is still more that needs to be done.” (Mr. Tina).
From the above excerpt, it is informative that the module was able to improve some students‟
writing practices as they were able to produce good texts. Nonetheless, the lecturer indicated the need for improvement. In this same manner the second tutor, Mrs Rak, was of the opinion that the module was able to impact positively on students‟ writing practices as:
“(Their) writing improves as the weeks unfold because (emmm) some of them like came without knowing how to write. As the weeks unfold and how you like explain to them and give them work to do, they tend to like improve on the way in which they write. So you came to see that a majority of them actually improve in the way in which they write.
From Mrs Rak‟s statement above, it is clear that she perceived students‟ writing to have improved due to their engagement with the activities in ALUGS class as well as a result of the explanations and instructions given by the practitioners. Nonetheless, she was of the opinion that not all of them could improve in their writing, and this she described as the result of the nature of differences that these students came into the system with. She stated:
“…while others, because all of them are not the same. Others are very slow…it takes time for them to come to that stage of writing (Mrs. Rak).
In the same vein, Mr Tina added that:
“…it is not at the point where one would want it (talking about students‟
writing practice). You also find students even at forth year level still producing poor writing…so then it means there is room for improvement”
(Mr. Tina).
From the statements of these practitioners, it becomes clear that the module has not been able to improve the writing practices of all students, and Mrs Sets, lecturer 1, is of the opinion that that the module does not benefit the students :
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“No I don‟t (think it is improving students‟ writing)….I don‟t think we should have lectures. We must have only the tutorials with very very small groups and I think then it will be a worthwhile programme…we are forced to do (it in this) this model (generic), it is not beneficial to students” (Mrs Sets).
The above excerpt indicated this practitioner‟s dissatisfaction with how writing was being taught within the ALUGS module. The lecture-tutorial model, in agreement with students‟ own observation, has created much confusion, and as a result Mrs Sets feels that the module was not beneficial to the students. She insisted that running the module as a generic programme will not empower students to properly acquire academic discourse, because according to her, academic literacy cannot be asocial but is embedded in the disciplinary Discourses of the students. She therefore suggested that if acceptable, academic writing is:
“…quite difficult to answer (define) that one…(in a generic model).
Because every discipline really has its own academic writing conventions.
So, I think in terms of acceptable academic writing, it will have to be academic writing that conforms to the demands of a particular discipline”
(Mrs. Sets).
Following on from the above statement, it appears that this practitioner was not pleased with the way writing was being taught in the ALUGS module because what counts as academic writing in ALUGS module may be inappropriate to other disciplines. She thus posits that the module will continue to have a negative impact (the acquisition of inappropriate discourse) if academic writing modules are not housed within each discipline.
“Yes…particular discipline and then it will be acceptable to that discipline. But what‟s acceptable to English and to History is not necessarily accepted to the Science world. They write differently…I would basically say that I do feel that academic literacy should be housed in every discipline and I do feel that the lecture-tut model does not work within our context” (Mrs Sets).
The above statement revealed the students‟ confusion in relation to the acquisition of appropriate academic writing. This lecturer argued that the module ought to be discipline-embedded, as
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acceptable academic writing at HE differs from one discipline to the other. This therefore alludes to the ideological perspective about the notion of multiple literacies, (see Gee, 1996, 1998, 2002;
Street, 1995, 2003) and what counts as literacy within a particular context (discipline) may be unacceptable in another context (discipline). (See chapter 2). This therefore confirms the lecturer‟s position that the kind of literacy that students acquired in the ALUGS module may have nothing to do with their writing practices outside the module and even within the module;
she argued earlier that the module has failed to expose students to a range of written texts which ought to serve as models for students to imitate in the process of developing their writing practices.
Beside the students‟ and practitioners‟ views about the impact of the ALUGS module on students‟ writing practices, students‟ marked scripts also serve as documentary evidences to such impacts. Tutors‟ comments on students‟ returned scripts constitute the object of analysis within this section. Table 7-1 below shows the types of feedback students received on their assignments.
Table 4.3 Types of feedback comments Type of
document:
assignment scripts
Content Structure Referencing Questions Others Total Notes
Script 1 5 4 3 7 10 29 52%
Script 2 1 7 3 2 11 24 52%
Script 3 - 6 3 - 17 26 62%
Script 4 6 - - 2 10 18 48%
Script 5 - - 2 - 17 19 72%
Total 12 17 11 11 65 116 1 failed;
4 passed.
% 10.3% 14.7% 9.5% 9.5% 56%
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The marked assignment scripts of five students, containing tutors‟ feedback comments were used to analyse the impact of tutors‟ comments on students‟ writing practices. These comments were classified and focused on five areas; content, structure, referencing, question, and others.
Comments classified under content were those which focused on the objectives of the assignment or the information expected in the assignment. Those on structure focused on paragraphing, sentence construction, punctuation, lexis and tenses, while referencing focused on those comments that related to both in-text and end-text referencing, for example, citation and paraphrasing. Comments that pertained to questions were instances where tutors questioned an error in the students‟ scripts. The category labeled „others‟ contained ticking, circling and underlining used as measures to evaluate student writing. Of the 116 total comments as shown in table 6.3 above, 12 (10.3%) were concerned with the contents of the assignment, while 17 (14%) focused on language features and structure of an academic essay. 11 (9.5%) focused on referencing, while 11 (9.5%) of the comments also focused on questioning. It is notable that the comments grouped as „others‟ contained the remaining 65 comments - 56%.
It was discovered that most of the comments focused on correcting students‟ errors none except for the ticks commended students on their correct answers. Lea and Street (1998, p. 167) describes such comments as those that point out errors in students‟ work with “little (or no) mitigation or qualification”. The majority of the comments were vague or ambiguous and gave students no opportunity to learn from, for example; „fragment, problematic sentence, confirming‟, etc. One of the comments was in total disagreement with the content, for example;
„No!‟, however, this comment did not assist in pointing out what should have been done or do in subsequent writings. It is evident from the above table that only few of the comments focused on content. This is an indication that the assessment was not focusing on content knowledge, but rather on other technical or academic skills such as grammar, sentence construction, referencing (see Street, 2000; 1998).
In essence, the majority of the comments by the tutors in the ALUGS module focused on error corrections. In his position against the danger of error correction in assessing students‟ writing practices, Truscott (1996, p. 328) contended that error correction is ineffective as it is incapable of producing “better writers, and harmful because students do not learn for themselves. In the same way, Bengesai (2012) also disagrees with this approach, the reason being that it does not
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lead to further learning, but rather produces students who can only depend on writing consultants and editors for the rest of their future writings. Data from this study also reveals that although students effected the corrections of their errors as indicated by their tutors, they still made the same errors in their subsequent writing. For example, Simple, the first students confirmed that despite all efforts by the tutor “…but then again we all make mistakes”.
In summary, it was revealed from the foregoing that most comments on students‟ written works (assignment) focused on features of language and academic or technical skills, and pointing out the students‟ errors. Such comments are counterproductive, as they imitate what Sutton (2009, p.
3) refers to as “transmission model of learning which supposes that tutors transmit feedback messages concerning the strengths and weaknesses of assessment which students then receive and put into practice”. Rose (1995) also refers to this as a „myth of transience‟, where the fixing of errors in student writing is believed to be tantamount to solving their problems. Such superficial feedback, having being described as ambiguous, does not lead to student writing development. Feedback can only feed forward only if they are perceived to be “part of a dialogue or conversation between students” and their tutors (Bengesai, 2012, p. 182), where the two parties are believed to be co-protagonists in the process of writing development.
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