Research reflections from the CALD PG Pre-sessional and IFP Text Response programmes
by Jo Kukuczka (Doctoral Student, Open University) & Donna MacLean (EAP Tutor, CALD, University of Bristol)
This blog post reflects on the fruits of our research and teaching collaboration across boundaries, and we don’t just mean institutional boundaries. The pedagogical research we report on here took place in the post-pandemic academic year of 2022/2023, the year disrupted by ongoing national HEI industrial action and the cost-of-living crisis affecting all involved. Only the support and dedication of CALD leadership and pre-sessional and IFP Text Response teams and students made this intervention possible under such circumstances, and ultimately enabled closer collaboration between the researcher (Jo) and the teacher (Donna) leading to this reflection. Read on to hear our story.
When research meets teaching
One of the aims of CALD’s 2022/2023 EAP provision was to go beyond the development of students’ academic communication and disciplinary knowledge and skills, and to more explicitly support their development as global citizens (Bristol Futures, 2023).
Part of this ambition was realised through an optional global citizen photo diary activity that was designed and piloted on the CALD PG pre-sessional programme and the IFP Text Response unit as part a larger study on the social impact of an EAP curriculum. The activity was inspired by the Photovoice methodology (Wang & Burris, 1997) originally developed (and found) to enable people to record and reflect on their community’s strengths and concerns, to promote critical dialogue and knowledge about important issues through small group discussions of photographs, and to reach policy makers. In this context, the activity aimed at the first two goals only (as relevant to EAP), which meant asking students to complete weekly diary entries (photo and caption) and then discuss the photos with peers during a focus group.
Prior to the commencement of the activity, consenting student participants completed an appropriate ethical training, and were asked to select a sustainable development related focus (UN SDGs, 2023), for example, sustainable cities and communities (SDG11). Then they were asked to go out and take photographs of anything relating to their specific foci. This was then followed by a focus group during which students discussed their photographs, and how the participation in the activity made them feel in relation to global citizenship.
The findings
The focus groups that followed enabled a richer understanding of how students felt about the diary. As – with a varied level of guidance across groups – they discussed their photos and reflected on going out, thinking about their SDG issues, and deciding on the photos and captions, it became apparent that for some, it was an eye-opening experience. The discussions revealed that students felt that – compared to how they saw themselves prior to their EAP course at CALD – the diary had helped them develop as global citizens, and specifically, as people who notice, know, talk, and care more about global issues. However, as students went on to discuss and challenge their roles as change agents, a collective feeling of powerlessness came to the surface, with students sharing that they do not feel they can do anything other than change their own views on sustainability.
So what?
While those findings offer a glimpse into potential benefits of a global citizen diary as an EAP activity supporting students’ development as global citizens, they also reveal drawbacks. Not all consenting students fully participated and/or completed the activity, and some reported being unsure about what they were asked to do until later in the project. This calls for further investigation into lifting the activity off the page, better scaffolding of the task, and investigation of the teachers’ views on the place of such an activity in an EAP classroom.
On that note, informed by those findings, Jo has adapted the activity for another cohort of her research participants at another institution, and Donna has already begun work towards scaffolding the activity more effectively and exploring CALD tutors’ views on the task. Stay tuned.
References
Wang, C. and Burris, M.A. (1997). Photovoice: Concept, Methodology, and Use for Participatory Needs Assessment. Health Education & Behavior. 24(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/109019819702400309