ERIC Number: EJ1176625
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018
Pages: 19
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0729-4360
EISSN: N/A
Constructive Content-Based Feedback in EAP Contexts: Lessons from a Cross-Border Engineering-Related Pre-Sessional Course
Guariento, William; Rolinska, Anna; Al-Masri, Nazmi
Higher Education Research and Development, v37 n3 p514-532 2018
This paper investigates a small-scale project concerned with establishing and sustaining an e-partnership between international students in the UK and engineering students in Palestine. It focuses on the value of peer teaching and learning as an attempt to ensure a greater balance between knowledge and language on a UK pre-sessional English language course, by involving more able peers from a Gazan student body. At the same time, it was hoped that such an arrangement would enable the Gazan students to develop a range of transferable skills, of use in accessing employment at a distance. The article initially outlines the wider context to the Project, discussing the issues related to instituting peer learning/teaching schemes in an HE setting. At its centre though is the presentation and evaluation of a constructive feedback course, whose design and delivery aimed at facilitating the development of skills needed to perform as a peer mentor. It demonstrates students' attitudes towards feedback and the strategies they use when asked to provide their peers with content feedback in an e-partnership. In this way, it provides food for thought to educators interested in developing similar cross-border schemes. Though the potential issues that emerge in terms of First World/Global South imbalance are very considerable, the paper suggests that telecollaboration projects of this nature may help overseas students start interrogating discipline-specific literacies, thus preventing the decontextualisation of the learner, including those unable to pay to study at a prestigious HE institution.
Descriptors: Foreign Students, Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, Foreign Countries, Partnerships in Education, Feedback (Response), Engineering Education, Transfer of Training, Peer Teaching, Higher Education, College Students, Mentors, Student Attitudes, Intellectual Disciplines, Academic Discourse, Computer Mediated Communication, Videoconferencing, Social Media, English for Academic Purposes, Peer Evaluation, Developed Nations, Developing Nations
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom; Palestine; Gaza Strip
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A