Call for Contributions to an Edited Volume: English Language and Communication Classes in Higher Education

We are delighted to invite you to contribute a chapter to an upcoming edited volume on English writing programs, such as academic writing courses, communication skills courses, critical thinking and communication courses, English composition courses, writing in the discipline (WiD), writing across the curriculum (WAC), etc. A commissioning editor at Routledge, Katie Peace, has expressed great interest in this volume.

English Language and Communication Classes in Higher Education: Designs, Methods, Challenges, Evaluations and Outcomes

Editors:
Dr Rosmawati (Assistant Professor, Singapore Institute of Technology)
Dr Marjolijn Verspoor (Professor Em., University of Groningen)

Courses (or modules) on English language and communication skills are now rather prevalent in many universities and institutes of higher learning around the world. In English as a medium of instructions (EMI) institutions particularly, these courses are frequently part of the curriculum for students regardless of their disciplines/major specializations. An example is the ubiquitous first-year writing course that is now near mandatory at almost any tertiary institution across the globe. The approach taken in the implementation of these courses, however, varies from institution to institution and country to country. We, therefore, feel the need to put together a volume that maps the landscape of these courses and would like the chapters to focus on curriculum design innovations, instructional strategies, classroom challenges, assessment practices in the teaching and learning process. Thus, in this book we will identify themes and pedagogies used, discuss challenges, and share our reflection on the teaching and learning practice in these courses.

This edited book will bring together a collection of chapters that showcase these language/communication courses in tertiary education institutions, with clear descriptions of the theoretical and practical considerations underpinning them. The aim is to enable replication and/or adaptation where need be. The intended target audience includes university teachers, coordinators, and especially practitioners and teaching teams of such courses.

To make the book coherent, we envision inclusion of the following parts in each chapter:

1. Contextualisation of the course, including the goal(s) of the program, the stakeholders
2. Theories and practices that have informed the program
3. Implementation of the course (including details such as the profiles of students and the instructors, profiles of the course, etc.)
4. Evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the course (e.g., what do students say; what do instructors say about the workload, etc.)

Papers will be selected through peer-review of extended abstracts by our expert panel and the editing team. This is the timeline we will work with:

If you are interested in contributing to this volume, please prepare a title and an abstract (of 500-600 words, not counting references) in a single file (in WORD or PDF format) and send it to Dr. Rosmawati (rosmawati@singaporetech.edu.sg) by 12 Sept 2022.

If you know of other potential authors who might be interested in contributing to our volume, please feel free to forward this message to them or to let us know. Thank you for kindly considering our invitation.

Kind regards,
Rosmawati & Marjolijn