Supporting widening participation through the development of academic language and literacies – Helen Sadig

Supporting widening participation through the development of academic language and literacies – 
Helen Sadig – H.C.Sadig@leeds.ac.uk
This scholarship project has evolved out of earlier work on linguistically-informed language pedagogy training for Leeds students and teachers in local schools, the findings of which suggested that both learners of English as an additional language (EAL) and monolingual English-speaking pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds benefit from explicit, metalinguistic and contextualised academic language support. This study aims to draw parallels between EAL and EAP (English for academic purposes) paradigms to develop academic language and literacies in language learners, and investigate the extent to which this knowledge may also benefit traditionally underrepresented student groups in HE. In the first instance, this will involve scoping activities to ascertain the current cross-institutional understanding and provision of academic language and literacies within existing HE pedagogies at Leeds, and crucially, a means of evaluating the efficacy of this provision.