This blog post by Dr Mark Brooke is the first of a two-part series on special interest groups in the CELC community that offer opportunities for learning partnerships with fellow colleagues. This post, as well as the second upcoming post in the series by Ms Dara Richard, describe what it’s like to be part of such a group, and the various activities, initiatives and projects undertaken by group members. We hope that these small narrative vignettes help to inspire you to take the next step to either set up, or join a special interest group here at CELC. If you’d like to find out more, the SDC’s March Dialogue Session will also focus on special interest groups, with the various group members of these special interest groups in CELC speaking and sharing about their experiences.

Legitimation Code Theory SIG accomplishments (2016-2019)

by Mark Brooke

I think what motivated the members of the LCT SIG to start collaborating at the beginning was really a desire to work together to share our research. We had all published on SFL and LCT and read each other’s work at that time, around 2017. I had published a research article in the AJoSTL, Laetitia in the The Journal of Academic Language and Learning (JALL), and Namala a book chapter with Szenes and Maton (Karl Maton the founder of LCT and Director at the LCT centre for Knowledge Building). I was citing some of their work in my 2017 paper; and I think they were both doing the same. So having read each other’s work, we decided to conduct a research project together so I would say that is a critical juncture for the initiation of the LCT SIG. The paper is out this month in the AJoSTL: Tilakaratna, N. L., Brooke, M., & Monbec, L. (2019). Reflecting writing across the disciplines: Challenging Western critical thinking models in the Asian context. Asian Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 9(2). In it, we look at student critical reflection papers in Engineering, a CELC module, and Business Studies in 2017. We did not receive any funding for the project but we had a mutual curiosity to understand how student critical reflections were valued by lecturers across faculties such as these.

After that, we decided to co-present our work at conferences and explored ways of doing so. Our first co-presentation was at the local 2018 53rd RELC International Conference. 50 Years of English Language Teaching and Assessment – Reflections, Insights and Possibilities. Our talk was entitled “Knowledge-building and ELT: Using Legitimation Code Theory to teach Academic Literacy”. We separated the talk into 3 sections related to our individual research projects at that moment: using LCT to develop students’ abilities to critically read; to write expository texts; and to conduct social science research. All 3 subjects relate to our own action research projects but were joined by an overarching theme. Since those collaborative projects, we have also presented together at NIE and CDTL-organised conferences, and co-authored a paper Brooke, M., Monbec, L., & Tilakaratna, N. (2019). The analytical lens: developing undergraduate students’ critical dispositions in undergraduate EAP writing courses in Teaching in Higher Education, 24(3), 428-443, which I presented in London. We are also currently working on a 3-year CDTL-funded project with the nursing faculty from the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies entitled “Reflecting across the disciplines”. Again, this focuses on how LCT and SFL can help to explain what is valued in high scoring student critical reflections. A co-authored book chapter is forthcoming from that research.

I would say that one of the main reasons why our SIG has developed in this way is our shared interest in the research that we do. The main aim of this research is to help students and faculty develop the quality of their work. This is particularly salient in a lot of the research we do, whether it be the action research in our own classrooms or exploring the written work of students in other faculties. In disciplines like nursing where practicum is considered an essential learning experience, student-nurses need to be able to critically reflect using theory. The subjects that the student-nurses discuss are sometimes very serious such as making decisions about what to do when finding unidentifiable medicine at a patient’s bedside. In addition to a feeling that we are helping students, as well as a curiosity to do research, I would say that to be a successful SIG, it is important to feel that there is progression. We also function based on the academic output that we hope to achieve. Thus, our projects to date have always focused on producing a conference presentation paper, empirical research paper for a journal, or a book chapter. I would also say that being part of a larger international group is motivating. Thus, we also have an international network of colleagues with whom we interact. Moreover, LCT is growing internationally and has quite established itself in South Africa and parts of South America. There also frequent roundtables during which LCT associate members can log into Skype and participate in a research presentation. Additionally, we receive updates about who is presenting at the roundtable session and any new publications that are out on a regular and frequent basis. This sense of being a part of a larger community is a strong factor in the SIG identity. It helps to justify what we do as a satellite group. Our research is always added to the LCT centre’s repository and shared amongst the members -we provide updates on publications from our community. We hope to build LCT in Singapore. We have colleagues at NIE and we hope to build on our SIG here at NUS too. We hope to organise an international conference with LCT members in the coming 2 years through CDTL at NUS.

I would say that to get the most from the SIG, you need to be an active member; I have found that deadlines for conferences and publications have always helped for that. We normally propose a co-authored article or presentation individually and if it takes off, that person who proposes takes on the corresponding author and/or PI status. However, the main motivation is the interest to share a curiosity about one’s own practice, and a shared sense of wanting to help students. In the past, I have spent a great deal of time researching and writing on my own. If you have done a doctoral thesis, you know what that is like. I still enjoy working on my own publication projects but it is also very rewarding to work with SIG members. This kind of social motivation helps an academic to come out of the shell for time to time.