Social Practices in Higher Education - A Knowledge Framework Approach to Linguistic Research and Teaching - Tammy Slater
Knowledge Structures as Designs: Tracing Patterns across Textual Trajectories
Social Practices in Higher Education - A Knowledge Framework Approach to Linguistic Research and Teaching - Tammy Slater
Diane Potts [+]
Lancaster University
Description
Drawing on examples from study abroad and foreign language higher education settings, this chapter examines use of Mohan’s Knowledge Framework as a heuristic for curriculum design. It highlights the function of the framework during periods of textual instability for addressing current concerns regarding a) textual trajectories (the relations between texts across time and space), and b) support for practices of textual critique and reflection literacy. The examples illustrate the possibilities for addressing these concerns while simultaneously targeting linguistic forms and the register demands of higher education. In the first example, a longstanding study abroad program for Japanese university students provides the context for examining how differences in knowledge structures’ linguistic patterns can be harnessed to support students’ understanding and use of projection/reporting verbs and to scaffold their interrogation of course content on intercultural communication. Similar attention to the sequencing of knowledge structures in curriculum development at a Korean university’s English language institute makes it possible to draw students’ attention to language’s interpersonal metafunction and the dynamics of interlocutors’ positioning in oral interaction. The chapter closes with a personal tribute to Mohan, whose scholarship consistently demonstrated respect for teachers and the demands they face.