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This article examines Anglo-western assumptions about the role of individual views and voices in constructing knowledge, and how these assumptions can disadvantage students from 'Confucian-heritage' cultures whose social values around education and authority constrain their self-expression in western classrooms. Lecturers may mistake their good manners for a lack of critical thinking or originality, and read their suggestive style as a failure to take responsibility for their ideas. A challenge for academic skills specialists promoting inclusive practices is to go beyond helping students to acculturate to local conventions, and help lecturers to recognise the varieties of writing that stem from different kinds of intellectual and social engagement with the world. This article advocates respect for students' reticence, together with explicit discussion of local expectations. It suggests a method by which lecturers, skills specialists and students could identify common goals of writers in different educational traditions, and see how these are achieved in the target discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University students with Learning Difficulties (LD) undergo lengthy, expensive assessment by an educational psychologist to provide a detailed cognitive profile on which to base accommodations to enable each individual to study without disadvantage. However, reports are often hard for students to understand and, without trained LD tutors, this information remains underutilized. We trialed an alternative instrument based on the York Adult Assessment developed in the UK, hoping to enable university staff in disabilities and academic skills units to identify students with dyslexia quickly, easily and at no cost to the student and to recommend a limited range of appropriate accommodations based on the result. The trial produced significant group effects, but unacceptable false negatives; we cannot recommend the instrument, therefore, and the need for a reliable alternative remains. This article considers the problems surrounding the present method of assessment and discusses the methodological problems of devising an alternative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education policy is seeking, in the interest of 'quality assurance', to reward teaching and the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). Academic language and learning (ALL) advisers, who work closely with students to improve their performance in their courses of study, have much to contribute to SoTL. ALL advisers who adopt an 'academic literacies' approach share with lecturers in the disciplines an engagement with issues of '-ography' (i.e. writing in and for a discourse community) - including the relationships between epistemology, form, and language - yet, misconceptions about ALL advisers' work can prevent discipline lecturers from consulting them when thinking about questions of teaching and learning in their own field. This paper discusses ALL advisers' access to insights into students' experiences of learning and of being taught, with relevance both for particular disciplines and for academic culture across the disciplines; their contributions to SoTL; the difficulties they encounter in trying to communicate across the borders of the disciplines; and ways of improving this situation in the context of the new emphasis on encouraging improvement in the quality of teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper recounts the process by which a severely reading-disabled adult student taught himself to read and write Ancient Greek, and in so doing, improved his ability to read and write in English. Initially, Keith's reading and writing were slow, difficult and inaccurate, accompanied by visual disturbance. However, motivated by a strong interest in Ancient Greek literature and philosophical ideas, Keith enlisted me (his Faculty's academic skills adviser) to help him learn the language. Working on transliteration focused Keith's attention on the alphabetic principle separately from meaning, while practising translation focused on the formal markers of meaning. Relieved of the stress of performing under pressures of time and others' expectations, Keith made good progress with Greek and, after 6 months, found himself reading more fluently in English, without visual disturbance. This paper seeks to contribute to our knowledge of how adults learn to read, looking at the interplay of motivation, phonological awareness, knowledge of how form conveys meaning, and the learning environment. It both draws upon, and raises questions for, the neuroscientific study of dyslexia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trained in a distanced and distancing style of writing, students on the threshold of graduate study in archeology can find oral presentations challenging. Although they worry about presenting themselves (“Will I sound like a competent scholar?”) and presenting information (“Will they think I know what I'm talking about?”), their success depends largely on linguistic choices that affect the degree of abstraction in the message itself. Through participant observation, I discovered that effective communication in this setting was related, in part, to choices about oral grammar. I drew on functional grammar and the sociology of scientific discourse to understand my observations, and offered these insights to the honors students planning their presentations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maintenance of academic standards, assessment and monitoring are key tasks for tertiary education, as the system attempts to meet government targets for universal participation. Tertiary education therefore demands more attention to the measurement of outcomes. However, the use of a graduate skills assessment test, we contend--particularly in the form this currently takes in Australia--implies a limited sense of the value added by a university education. We question the validity of national testing both on grounds of its suitability to assess the skills cultivated by university study and on grounds of equity and cultural inclusiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the problem of students misunderstanding what tutors write on their essays. Students often consult academic skills units for help with interpreting markers' comments and this study sought to gauge how widespread such confusion may be. Students and tutors in selected Humanities subjects were asked what they thought was meant by a common marking comment - 'Too much description; not enough analysis' - to discover how far their understandings coincided. Almost half of the students who responded did not interpret this comment in the way their tutors intended it. The paper discusses possible reasons for this discrepancy, including ambiguities in the term 'analysis' and differences in its meaning for different disciplines. It concludes that marking comments need to be carefully explained with examples from the discourse of lectures, tutorials and readings in the disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on the arguments raised by Erika Lindemann and Gary Tate on their articles `Freshman Composition: No Place for Literature' and `A Place for Literature in Freshman Composition' appearing in the periodical `College English'. Criticisms on the use of style and imagination in teaching composition; Includes reply by Gary Tate on the teaching of freshmen composition.