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Based on the premise that computers have now become cultural and cognitive artifacts with which and not from which learners interact on a daily basis, this chapter focuses on best practices in preparing and engaging digital natives to become tomorrow’s leaders of a global knowledge economy that is increasingly dependent on electronic modes of communications. Using a study based on online tools in a writing course taught at the University of Victoria (Canada), we take a qualitative interpretative stance to explain the opportunities and challenges of learning and teaching in such environments. We comment on such aspects as the need to properly address learner’s functional skills (or lack off), the various tools that can be used to engage and motivate learners, and the need to go beyond methods based on delivery in order to better focus on the development of multiliteracies, in particular critical literacy and functional literacy. Our argument, grounded in cognitive and sociocultural theories of learning, favors an interdisciplinary approach while focusing on disciplines that are typically housed in the humanities, in particular second language academic programs. Our discussions and conclusions move from these case studies to a more general reflection on the extent to which electronic environments are reshaping higher education.

This chapter begins by identifying some of the difficulties experienced by students who speak English as an additional language or dialect (EAL/D), then discusses theories and research-based strategies for teaching. The implications for teachers in regular classes in primary and secondary schools include recognising the academic language demands of the subject and the texts, including abstract concepts, technical terms, genres and grammar. Further, understanding the literacy and language skills the students bring to the classroom and which strategies can be employed to assist student learning. Research and teaching strategies used internationally and Australian policies, curriculum documents and the Australian school context are discussed.

Certainly, most academic-disciplinary literacy initiatives in the Ibero-American context have arisen with the purpose of achieving social justice, especially in a territory that has suffered from inequity and whose deepening has increased with the current health emergency situation. However, despite well-intentioned initiatives, these programs, in general, have followed Anglo-Saxon models far removed from Ibero-American needs and reality. Therefore, in their implementation, they have dichotomies that ultimately weaken their sustainability over time and their results in their level of real inclusion, some of these – considering the approaches of Tierney (2018) and others – are: assimilation/accommodation, elitism/inclusion, institutional reform/educational innovation, research/action, remediation/re-mediation, standardization/contextualization, performance/learning, submission/emancipation, monologism/dialogism and homogeneity/diversity. In this way, based on a qualitative and reflective analysis on the experiences of three academic literacy programs in three universities in Argentina, Chile, and Spain, we will make these tensions explicit, and we will reveal practices that are truly contextualized to the communities where they are inserted, such as their eclectic, collaborative, dialogic, and remediated nature, which allows them to be constantly codesigned by the participation of students, professors, and tutors and whose research is promoted through action. In this sense, these countries can be related by sharing the language, a recent tradition of academic literacy and high school dropout rates. Finally, knowing both the strengths and the contradictions they still hold will contribute to continuing the process of contextualizing to the communities and, thus, establishing them as emancipatory pedagogies from the South to the South.

This study, carried out in the bilingual and bicultural border area of South Texas, is an exploration of bilingual preservice teachers’ identity formation and their experiences and beliefs about literacy and biliteracy during an undergraduate class focused on learning about emergent literacy in the bilingual classroom. This study is based on a sociocultural approach to learning and identity development, and research that explores how bilingual teachers’ identity is shaped through their participation in cultural and linguistic practices. The purpose of this practitioner research is to provide insights into preservice teachers’ identities as they start to explore literacy and biliteracy practices. Two research questions guide the study: What experiences about literacy and biliteracy development do prospective teachers identify as meaningful? How do these experiences contribute to define bilingual preservice teachers’ identities? Findings indicate that bilingual preservice teachers’ identities are shaped by cultural and linguistic experiences that define the bilingual and bicultural dynamics of the region. Two predominant types of experiences impact bilingual preservice teachers’ beliefs about teaching, learning, and literacy/biliteracy development. Particularly significant in defining their perceptions are the lessons learned from meaningful others – especially mothers and teachers – and certain relevant memories regarding effective practices they experienced when learning to read and write. Implications for teacher education preparation of bilingual teachers are identified.

Both accounting professionals and accounting academics have noted the importance of communication skills for the career success of students. Further, the general consensus from the academic and practitioner literature is that these communication skills are an area in which many students could use improvement. One factor that has been shown to impact the improvement and development of these skills is communication apprehension.

In this chapter, we describe a combination of pedagogical methods we employed in tax classes at two universities to reduce written communication apprehension among students. More specifically, we draw ideas from communications research which suggest that increased writing opportunities, progressively increasing the weighting of the assignments, using models and examples for study and comparison, and trying to make feedback more effective may help to reduce written communication apprehension. We implemented this suggested approach by using a series of assignments that incorporated writing components.

Results suggest that writing apprehension reduced from the beginning of the semester to the end of the semester. Further, the reduction in writing apprehension was even greater for those students who began the semester with high written communication apprehension. In addition, the results of the survey questions at the end of the semester suggest that the methods also improved students’ confidence in preparing tax-related written communication.

This qualitative case study explored the information literacy acquisition of 23 students enrolled in a learning community consisting of an advanced English as a Second Language (ESL) writing class and a one-unit class introducing students to research at a suburban community college library in California. As there are no other known learning communities that link an ESL course to a library course, this site afforded a unique opportunity to understand the ways in which ESL students learn to conduct library research. Students encountered difficulties finding, evaluating, and using information for their ESL assignments. Strategies that the students, their ESL instructor, and their instructional librarian crafted in response were enabled by the learning community structure. These strategies included integration of the two courses’ curricula, contextualized learning activities, and dialogue. ESL students in this study simultaneously discovered new language forms, new texts, new ideas, and new research practices, in large part because of the relationships that developed over time among the students, instructor, and instructional librarian. Given the increasing number of ESL students in higher education and the growing concern about their academic success, this study attempts to fill a gap in the research literature on ESL students’ information literacy acquisition.

This chapter discusses textography as a strategy for researching academic writing in higher education. Textography is an approach to the analysis of written texts which combines text analysis with ethnographic techniques, such as surveys, interviews and other data sources, in order to examine what texts are like, and why. It aims to provide a more contextualized basis for understanding students’ writing in the social, cultural and institutional settings in which it takes place than might be obtained by looking solely at students’ texts. Through discussion of the outcomes of a textography, which examined the written texts submitted by visual and performing arts doctoral students at a number of Australian universities, we reflect on what we learnt from the study that we could not have known by looking at the texts alone. If we had looked at the texts without the ethnographic data not only are there many things we would not have known, but many of the things we might have said would likely have been right off the mark. Equally, had we just had the ethnographic data without the text analysis, we would have missed the insights provided by the explicit text analysis. The textography enabled us to see the diversity of practices across fields of study and institutions as well as gain an understanding of why this might be the case, all of which is of benefit to student writers and their supervisors.

In this chapter, the author provides empirical research that supports the implementation of DLPs as programs that provide cogitative learning, high academic achievement, and the opportunity to be competitive in a global economy for all students – including culturally and linguistically diverse students – in order to achieve education equity. The author utilizes Arizona as an example of education policy that excludes and further marginalizes language minority students by requiring English proficiency as a requirement to be part of Dual Language Programs (DLPs). Furthermore, the author frames the current education climate and language policy affecting DLPs through an Interest Convergence theoretical lens.

This chapter explores an approach to instruction in pre-service classes called “goofiness pedagogy.” Embedded in teaching and learning theories, goofiness pedagogy is designed to model creative teaching to help emergent bilingual learners academically, linguistically, and socially. Currently in Arizona, highly restrictive language policies limit curricular and pedagogical choices for students acquiring English. As a result, pre-service teachers are often reluctant to work with them, and worried that their own creativity will be constrained. This chapter thus discusses a multi-year study of goofiness pedagogy – theatrical drama, play, and performance – that helps pre-service teachers develop an alternative vision of exceptional teaching for and with emergent bilingual learners. Data sources include student and author reflections on the practice of performed goofiness in Structured English Immersion classes at the University of Arizona, video-taped performances of students engaged in drama and improvisation, and analysis of student written artifacts. Findings indicate that while some pre-teachers hesitate to participate in “performed goofiness,” the majority believe that theatrical activities encourage them to try out innovative teaching strategies, take risks, make mistakes, and analyze those mistakes in a supportive community of practice. Equally important, pre-service teachers begin to understand that learning in general, and language learning in particular, are social pursuits and that teachers should create social spaces in their own classrooms to support the academic and language development of emergent bilingual students. Goofiness pedagogy also has transformed the author’s own teaching practices, and consequently represents a “pedagogy of hope” within a rigid state context.