What is ‘good’ English – and how can we effectively teach students to write, so they emerge with strong capabilities (and of course a degree)?
There is a lot of interesting research emerging in the learning and teaching space right now, but three recent publications are of particular interest, and bear many questions for staff who wish to cling to traditional rubrics.
The first is evidence from Karen Miller and Claire Hulcup of Curtin University’s Library team, who have written an interesting paper on a proven approach to equipping people studying preparation programs with academic writing skills.
The pair have documented a five stage approach to teaching academic writing, built on a mix of qualitative and quantitative data to shape a proven pathway to acquiring academic writing skills.
The pair lay out the lessons learned from running a three-week preparation program for international students, providing students with opportunities to build skills over each stage of the writing process. Interestingly, “although all students demonstrated that they saw writing as a process, three said English language proficiency presented a challenge in executing it.”
The findings will be relevant to many others seeking to build writing skills, but also link to a different research tome released by three Manchester University academics which is gaining profile in recent weeks, raising the question of whether alternative forms of English should be legitimised and recognised in the academic process.
Emerging Englishes: China English in Academic Writing looks at the use of ‘China English’ in student essays in a single university program, identifying recurring expressions and grammatical errors, and asking whether these consistent issues should be embraced as valid and correct expression in a different type of English, rather than errors in standard English.
As Chinese academic Brent Yan notes in a review of the new book, further research is required to understand whether China English is indeed consistent across other universities and disciplines, and whether it is worthy of special consideration by markers.
Meanwhile, a review of the knowledge, perceptions and experiences of health students and academics in using AI in their studies and practice presents a more pressing linguistic issue: identifying the urgent need to introduce AI into education and practice.
The study, by Western Sydney’s Sara Shishehgar and colleagues, found that students believed universities were the best place to learn AI technologies and that AI training urgently needed to be embedded in curricula.
ChatGPT English appears to be the lingua franca of 2025.
