the ISFC39 Proceedings - International Systemic-Functional ...

Papers from the 39th ISFCInvestigating Thai students’ academic literacy development inAustralian universities 11Yupaporn PiriyasilpaRajamangala University of Technology Isan, Khon Kaen Campus / Macquarie UniversityAbstractDifferent social settings create different goals and demands for learning, and writing goals and the requireddegree of sophistication in writing can change when students move across different disciplines. Especially forThai students who further their education abroad, the challenge they face is not writing in isolation. Therelocation to a new learning context means that they encounter a number of variables, for example, culture,educational level, and potentially different disciplines, which may bring difficulties and influence their academicliteracy development. Taking a case study approach, this study examines the writing development of Thaistudents in Australian universities. The participants in this study are Thai students undertaking postgraduateeducation in Australian universities. The data includes students’ writing, reading texts, classroom observationand interviews with students to examine the writing demands and students’ writing development. The data areanalysed using tools from Systemic Functional Linguistics, including work on genre analysis (e.g. Martin andRose, 2008) and curriculum macro-genres (e.g. Christie, 1997). The research is in progress, and this paper willdiscuss the research design and methodological issues.1 IntroductionHigher learning involves the practice of reading and writing to gain more experience andknowledge. When students move through different levels of education in different socialsettings; however, the challenges they face can change from discipline to discipline(Clereham, Kett, Gedge, and Tuovinen, 2003: 328). At undergraduate level in Thailand,students’ writing in English is mainly essay type for classroom assignments. At higher levels,however, students write not only an essay, but also theses, research papers or other academicpapers for different purposes. This requires them to take on new roles and to engage withknowledge in new ways, constructing texts which constitute unfamiliar and unlearnt language(Hood, 2004: 1). The requirements from different levels of education and learning contextsreflect the change in discipline that students have to encounter which lead to a more complexprocess of reading and writing (cf. Flower, 1990). Bhatia (2002: 38) argues that whenstudents move from one discipline to another, they are faced with the problem of reconcilingdifferences and even contradictions associated with varying disciplinary practices, includingthe use of genres as well as conversations with their teachers and specialist writers. For Thaistudents who further their education in Australia in particular, the challenge they face is notwriting in isolation. The relocation to the new learning context means that they encounter anumber of variables, such as, culture, educational level, and potentially different disciplines,which may bring difficulties and influence their academic literacy development (cf. Belcher,1994). It is therefore important to examine how students adjust to the new discourse demandsin order to better understand how future curriculum development can create a learning bridgebetween institutions.By examining how Thai students' writing develops as they study in Australianuniversities, and how these students adjust to the new disciplines and different socialdemands, this study aims to contribute to our understanding of the difficulties faced by this11 This study is fully funded under an Endeavour Award Scholarship.33