The use of Academic Literacies: a Reflection on Supporting Students from Widening Participating Backgrounds

Students at UONL predominantly come from a non-mainstream background, including European students whose first language is not English, students from specific ethnic groups which are underrepresented at university and mature students who are returning to formal education. Whilst, extremely rewarding, teaching such groups of students brings added challenges to embedding language and literacy skills to help ensure students achieve successful academic performance. 

In this talk, we explore and reflect on how we can incorporate a range of academic literacies for modules such as an academic skills module at foundation level, as well as embed it at a Level 4 healthcare module.   Academic literacies entails being able to use technology, navigate the internet and use a range of technologies in composing texts. Given this, we have created multiple opportunities to develop this in class materials and also collaborate directly with the Learning Resource Centre in developing this.