Writing and New Technologies
CROSSING THE BRIDGE – BRIDGING THE GAP
Anna Rolinska
EFL Unit, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland
International students arriving to study at an Englishspeaking university frequently encounter various challenges. Not only do they have to negotiate language and culturerelated hurdles but often they need to adapt to subtly different academic practices of presenting knowledge. While attempting to achieve this, the students may feel that their voice and capital, instead of being acknowledged, are being suppressed. The course ‘Digital English’, which was experimentally offered at Glasgow University to a small cohort of learners, attempted to ease the students into the new ways of academic being and knowing. The course extensively used digital social spaces, such as blogs, collaborative documents and visual tools, which, by being typical of homebased literacies, intended to reflect the students’ subjectivities, fears and concerns, more accurately. By elaborating on those through creating digital artefacts of ‘Identity Boxes’ (following Gauntlett, 2007), the students could develop selfawareness and consider what influences them as humans, academics or professionals. The next stage entailed analysing the visual metaphors through a collaborative and more structured academic report, whereby the students had to adopt an identity of a more objective researcher/writer. The exercise of a selfexploration as an object of a more academic discussion of students’ ways of selfportrayal seemed to provide a useful introduction to collaboration, reflection and analytical thinking skills, so crucial when writing academically. It appears the digital environments may provide safe spaces where students can develop their understanding of academic writing in ways that creatively and sensitively acknowledge their inner voices and experiences.
References
Gauntlett, D. (2007) Creative Explorations: New approaches to identities and audiences . London: Routledge.