Herrington & Curtis (2000), building on Goldblatt's (1995) idea of the "sponsoring institution," (p. 48) showed students' need for a personal sense of connection with a "sponsoring discourse" when writing in the academy. As Herrington and Curtis, as well as Goldblatt point out, these "sponsoring discourses" often come from outside the academy.…

With more constructivist approaches to learning in higher education and more value on teamwork skills, students' oracy (speaking and listening) features more prominently in curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. The paper reports on a study of two first-year Australian university courses in disciplines with explicit industry orientations and high…

Children of foreign origin are increasingly failing in mathematics in Swedish compulsory schools. This article analyses the didactics at a school proven very successful in teaching mathematics to all children including the 70% of children of foreign origin. The situation at the studied school is compared to research of the Swedish school system…

The language shortcuts used in text messages are becoming evident in students' academic writing assignments. This qualitative study sought to determine if the use of the shortcuts has an adverse impact on developmental students' spelling and grammar skills. This research was based on the constructivist theory, which rationalizes that students use…

Recent research has explored the complex, situated process by which students from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds become socialized into academic discourses and practices. As part of a multiple case study involving seven international students, this study provides an in-depth analysis of the academic discourse socialization…