Oral accounts of the emergence and development of ALL MAKING HISTORIES

Alisa Percy, Bronwyn James, Reem Al-Mahmood and Tim Beaumont

John ClanchyAustralian National University

Communication and Study Skills Centre 1975-1994

Graduate School 1995-1997

Brigid BallardAustralian National University

Communication and Study Skills Centre 1977-1999

Dr Hanne BockLaTrobe University

Language and Academic Study Skills Unit1979-1990

Associate Professor

Gordon TaylorMonash University1974-1998

Director, Language and Learning UnitFaculty of Arts1988-1998

Associate Professor

Carolyn WebbUniversity of Sydney1974-1995

A/P Inaugural Head Learning & Teaching UnitUniversity of Western Sydney1996-2006

JOHN CLANCHYBA (Hons), DipEd, MA, University of MelbourneEnglish Language and Literature

• Taught in schools in Victoria

• Started at ANU in 1975

• Initial observations: psychology, pastoral care and reading machines

• He was one of the first to begin to conceptualise the area of ALL as we might recognise it today.

John ClanchyANU 1975-1997

“…the transition from school to university is most usefully seen in terms of cultural adjustment. Language,

which is perhaps the most potent and tangible expression of culture, is both the biggest obstacle to

successful integration into an alien culture and the most powerful means for unlocking it”. (Clanchy 1981, p. 24)

“..when we talk about the reading and writing failures of tertiary students we are dealing with a complex set of phenomena which we cannot begin to understand unless we consider the total learning and language environment in which those failures occur.” (Clanchy, 1976, p. 20)

I was struggling when I first came to the ANU because when I arrived …I was told was that I was running the reading laboratory, and I thought,

What the hell’s a reading laboratory?,

and there were these reading machines…speed reading was the big go in those years…

John ClanchyANU 1975-1997

But anyway Brigid came along [1977] and said,

Look, this really isn't very…,

and she gave all [the reading machines] away. She solved the problem.

John ClanchyANU 1975-1997

BRIGID BALLARDBA, English Language and Literature, Oxford UniversityMA, Teaching, Harvard UniversityGradDip, Intercultural Communication, Goulburn CAE

• International teaching experience (England, Nigeria and Papua New Guinea)

• Started at ANU in 1977

• Worked with John to shape the anthropological approach to ALL work (language, knowledge and culture)

Brigid BallardANU 1977-1999

1988 SRHE and Open University Press

Language, whether oral or written, is indivisible from the culture in which it functions.... This is true at the level of the general academic culture, though it is far more obvious at the sub-cultural level, the level of disciplinary languages or ‘dialects’.

The key to improving standards of student literacy lies, we think, …in exploring this fundamental relationship between the culture of knowledge and the language by which it is maintained and expressed.

By such an exploration we are seeking to redress the imbalance in current thinking and discussion about literacy in the university: to move beyond the focus of attention from a concern simply with issues of surface correctness to a larger concern with the functions of and demands upon language in a particular cultural context.(Excerpt, p.7)

…if there's one thing that

characterised the way we thought

about it, we're kind of intermediaries

and interpreters of this whole culture

of knowledge and learning, and we're

in between the student in a sense,

we're in between the student and the

practitioner…

John ClanchyANU 1975-1997

…and that whole idea of culture

actually spread because when we

were working with international

students …we began to realise that it

wasn’t just the disciplinary cultures, it

was the whole culture of learning,

whether you question, how do you

make an argument…

Brigid BallardANU 1977-1999

…certainly working with international

students you realise that language

was NOT the key problem; it was

culture, cross culture, across major

cultures, across disciplines, across

what you could say and what you

couldn’t say…

Brigid BallardANU 1977-1999

I think our definition of ourselves and

our work comes back to this whole

business of the focus upon the nature

of the context and …, I suppose, if

you've got to give it a name, it's

epistemology…John Clanchy

ANU 1975-1997

…that is, a particular cultural system of

knowledge, a good understanding of

the underlying culture, and some idea

about the way that gets diversified

and differentiated by the disciplinary

base and how that interacts with

styles of learning. John Clanchy

ANU 1975-1997

That first conference we had, now that

was important, because we were

aware that there were other people

working in the other institutions but

we didn’t know that much about

them. John ClanchyANU 1975-1997

Study Skills Conference, ANU, 1980

And what we found was we had a lot

that wasn’t in common, and that was

a real eye opener because we realised

that we came from very different

backgrounds and had very different

understandings of what we were

doing. So there was the whole

psychological stream…out of which a

lot of people came…

John ClanchyANU 1975-1997

And then there's a group of us who

come out of some more generalised

thing, I suppose it's either

epistemology or education...

So it's more, What is the university? What is its cultural system? What is it aiming to do in bringing students through and how is language involved in that intellectual development?

John ClanchyANU 1975-1997

And then there was a third group

which was very much more heavily …

focussed on linguistics … and within a

subset of that was an interest in

second language, English for Academic

Purposes. John ClanchyANU 1975-1997

And so while we all started together as

having a common interest in student

development, intellectual

development and personal

development, our emphases and our

interests were actually quite diverse.John ClanchyANU 1975-1997

Brigid did lots of writing about her

particular interest in cross cultural

education and …that was appreciated

by the study advisors…but it was much

more appreciated by the academics

around Australia, who [invited her] to

visit virtually every university in

Australia at their request.

John ClanchyANU 1975-1997

ANU Reporter, 10 June 1983

A selection of their commercial books

I think the books we wrote were

useful because they were the first.

They may not be the best, but they

were the first…there was absolutely

nothing in the field that was

pragmatic, and I think they were really

useful actually.

Brigid BallardANU 1977-1999

…the most used thing that we've produced is a one page diagram about different styles of learning and different styles of teaching in different cultures…We still get lots of royalties from the UK ……

Ballard, B & Clanchy, J. (1997) Teaching international students: A brief guide for lecturers and supervisors, IDPE AustraliaCited 243 times GS

Ballard, B & Clanchy, J. (1991) Teaching students from overseas: A brief guide for lecturers and supervisors, Melbourne: Longman Cheshire.Cited 371 times GS

…you know, the books we produced

for teaching students from overseas,

are actually books about how to teach

at the tertiary level, but again they're

all saying,

We've learnt all this from working with the students,

so we're coming at it from that end all the time…

John ClanchyANU 1975-1997

We're here to help your students work better.

We're never here to help you teach better, but actually

that's what you were doing...

…when we went out to the

departments - this is part of

Brigid’s cunning - [she]

always said,

…[we worked] alongside staff

through discussion and

sharing of experience and

then feeding in odd bits of

technique or theory as it

seemed appropriate. But it was always driven by what was

happening to the tutors at that time within their different

classes rather than here's a course you’ve got to go

through…

…you can see how the work we did

often got very close to academic

teaching development. Tricky

boundaries were happening, and the

CEDAM people went off more into

research, so it was alright, but we

were really treading, well we could

have been seen to be treading on

their paths.

Brigid BallardANU 1977-1999

At one point when they were trying to

amalgamate [us with CEDAM]. We

were very uppity, and we said,

Yes, well, we will blend with them: (a) if we can run it, and (b) if all

their staff have to work with students for two years,

because they'd never taught and

worked with students…but that never

happened…

Brigid BallardANU 1977-1999

The things that happened structurally

over [the 25 years] were more to do

with the gradual changes that took

place in the university, and so we had

to respond to that…gradually we

acquired resources and different kind

of styles as the university changed…John Clanchy

ANU 1975-1997

ANU Reporter, April 1987

“…far from being a purely remedial service, [the Centre] provides assistance to a significant proportion of students who go on to obtain credits and distinctions…”

…I suppose we always saw ourselves

as responding to the context rather

than trying overall to shape it too

much…

John ClanchyANU 1975-1997

…it's still a highly flexible and open

variable field, isn't it. It's not like

you’ve got the set lines of a discipline.

…So it is much less settled, which is an

opportunity for people to do all sorts

of things...John ClanchyANU 1975-1997

[ALL educators ] actually are very

valuable to [the university], if the

university recognises them, because

they see what's happening right across

the university.John Clanchy

ANU 1975-1997

I think the important thing is that it

isn't static. It is actually responsive to

changes, and although you're right,

we've got a core of different things, I

think once we defined ourselves as

something specific, we'd be done for,

we'd be out-dated …

Brigid BallardANU 1977-1999

…the biggest shift…in the 20 years

[is] that this became a field rather

than an oddity. It’s becoming a field

that’s serious about itself and is

taken seriously by the institution …

even if they don’t understand

particularly well what is being

done…

John ClanchyANU 1975-1997

Brigid and John’s Research Publication record

1976

1976 The ‘higher illiteracy’: Some personal observations (John)

1978 Language in the university (John)

1981 From school to university: the transition between two cultures (John)

1982 Language is not enough: responses to the academic difficulties of overseas students (Brigid)

1984 Improving student writing: An integrated approach to cultural adjustment (Brigid)

1987 Academic adjustment: The other side of the export dollar (Brigid & John)

1988 Literacy in the university: an 'anthropological 'approach (Brigid & John)

1989 Cultural Adjustment by Foreign Students : The Australian Experience (Brigid)

1990 The Cultures of Reason: Students in Strange Lands (Brigid)

1991 Assessment by misconception: Cultural influences and intellectual traditions (Brigid & John)

1994 The integrative role of the learning advisor (Brigid)

1995 Generic skills in the context of higher education (Brigid & John)

1995 Some issues in teaching international students (Brigid)

1996 Contexts of judgement: an analysis of some assumptions identified in examiners' reports on

62 successful PhD theses (Brigid)

1997 Through language to learning: Preparing overseas students for study in Western

universities (Brigid)

1997

StudentsConsults &WorkshopsEmbedded practices‘How to’ publications

StaffWorking with tutors and teaching

teams in situated practices Working with academics on their own

literacy practices‘How to’ publications on teaching

international students

InstitutionCommittee Participation

Internal ReportsExtensive Networks

Pivotal role in establishing Aboriginal Centre and Graduate Program

SectorConference hosting and participationExtensive academic and commercial

scholarshipConsultation to most Australian

universitiesVarious international visits

Spheres of influence

La Trobe University (1979-1990)

DR HANNE BOCK

Dr Hanne Bock came from Denmark to Australia to escape the cold and met her Australian husband. Her background was in English Literature, Philology, Linguistics, and Scandinavian Literature.

DR HANNE BOCK

LITERACY TUTORLITERACY & STUDY SKILLS

SENIOR LITERACY TUTORLANGUAGE & ACADEMIC SKILLS UNIT

YEARS 1979-1990

SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

LA TROBE UNIVERSITY

HANNE BOCK STARTED HER APPOINTMENT INITIALLY FOR 9 MONTHS AT LA TROBE UNIVERSITY IN 1979.

SHE WAS TO REPORT TO THE DEAN ON: WHY STUDENTS CAN’T WRITE ESSAYS

“So the Dean was my boss and I was very, very lucky in [that] the Deans we had in those early years the first 2 or 3 Deans, they were very supportive and they gave us a very free hand.

And one more thing, I could use the secretarial services of the dean’s private secretary.”

IN THE BALANCE OF THINGS:

HERDSA COUNSELLORS

STUDY SKILLS PEOPLE &

THE STUDENT?

“There were the HERDSA people those who were doing

teacher development and teaching methods and so on.

Then there were the counsellors,

the psychological counsellors

and then there were what was called

study skills people like myself.

And we were the people who met occasionally, once a year

or so, and tried to learn a bit from each other and generally.

We ended up being in separate corners all of us

but anyway if I define my role within that triangle then in

contrast to those who worked with teachers

we didn’t work on statistics,

we didn’t work on models…”

Hanne Bock

HOW I SAW MY ROLE… “Trying to explain:

students to teachers,

teachers to students…

and sitting on the borderline between the two groups, to some extent debunking, to some extent drawing out the

blind spots”

Hanne Bock 

Image Source Escher Bond of Union

“In relation to the counsellors we had a very funny

relationship with the counsellors at Latrobe they

kept saying: ‘Give them confidence and they’ll

get competence’, and we kept saying: ‘Give them

competence and they’ll get confidence’.

 

… And that sort of defined the relationship

we had with them but my point …was always

we think that we are right,

they think they are right

but where do the students come in?”

Hanne Bock

…BEYOND ‘STUDY SKILLS’

“I found [existing study skills publications] practically criminally insane in the advice they were giving…”

Hanne Bock

“I cannot say anything else, forget about

model theories, forget about that student doesn’t fit into the

pattern, if a student doesn't fit into a pattern

then it's up to you to find where that student’s

universe [is], how that student’s universe

looks. …”

Hanne Bock

“It really was the individual approach that did it.”

“It is [a privileged space], you have to guard it...”

Hanne Bock

ADVICE FOR A NEW ALL PERSON

“Don’t presume you know.

Start listening. Start asking.

Ask, ask, ask specifically into that student,

that situation,

and then listen until you feel you have got firm ground,

and then always remember

that a student is an entire little universe

and you have to find access to that universe

to help the student

and the student has to allow you that access

and that’s something you must treat as a very personal

and very precious thing.”

Hanne Bock

BEYOND THE CONSULTATIONTHE DUCKS AND TOADS CAMP

Academic staff and the VC attended

& taught in the one week camp

pre-uni during summer holidays!

“One thing we did, we had 500 students in that course from the first

year, a 5-week course, and we had lecturers from within the school

teaching it, and Helene [Lewit, colleague at La Trobe] had an

incredible gift of convincing people they should take part.

There were a couple of professors teaching in it

and the nice Dean was teaching in it

and other than that several lecturers and tutors

and they all came back and said:

“They had learnt a lot from teaching that course.”

REWARDS OF ALL WORK

“The daily work with students

that’s one aspect of it.”

Hanne Bock

REWARDS OF ALL WORK“A student came and had finished her studies and brought me an assignment and said:

“I realise this is what you were trying to teach me in year 1 and now I have done it.

This is my first A paper, and now I'm finished and it's for you, you must have it, you did it.

I didn’t keep the paper of course because she would need to look at that.”

Hanne Bock

 

HIGHLIGHT OF ALL WORK: BEYOND THE UNIVERSITY

“Another highlight was another student a tiny little thing who became a teacher and the first year of her teaching career, she was sent out to do sports with a group of HSC boys who were head and shoulders taller than her,and she was a square little Greek girl who had never done a day of sport in her life. It was a terrible situation, and she said:

‘She really felt very, very badly about it.’ And then she said: ‘But then I thought: “What would Hanne have done?”’ And so I did what you would have done, and it worked.’”

Hanne Bock

Dr Hanne Bock’sPublications & Provocative Titles

Hanne Bock was one of the instrumental co-authors of the seminal book in the ALL field:

BOCK, H. (1988) Academic Literacy: Starting Point or Goal?, in G. Taylor, B. Ballard, V. Beasley, H. Bock, J. Clanchy & P. Nightingale, Literacy by Degrees (Milton Keynes, The Society for Research in Higher Education & Open University Press.

SOME OF HANNE BOCK’S PUBLICATIONS

‑‑‑‑‑ (1988) In Search of a Task. HERDSA News 10: 3, 3‑6.

‑‑‑‑‑ (1986) Phenomenography: Orthodoxy and Innovation or Innovation and Orthodoxy? In: Student Learning: Research into Practice. Ed. John A. Bowden, Centre for the Study of Higher Education, The University of Melbourne.

‑‑‑‑‑ (1985) Interim Report on Transition Course with Peer Group Support for First Year Students, Report commissioned by the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission, La Trobe University.

SOME OF HANNE BOCK’S PUBLICATIONS

‑‑‑‑‑ and Lewit, H. (1984). Head Counting or Skull‑Duggery: a Case of Caput Mortuum? In: Proceedings from the conference Language and Learning at Tertiary Level. Ed. R. Meyer, Community Services, Deakin University, Vol. 2, pp. 1‑12.

‑‑‑‑- and Lewit, H. (1983). What are Remedial Problems?‑‑A Tentative Analysis. In Proceedings from the Conference: the Communication Needs of Tertiary‑Level Students. Eds. C. Webb and H. Drury, Language Centre, Sydney University, pp. 1‑19.

‑‑‑‑‑ (1983). Essay Writing: Meaning as a Way to Language. Research & Development in Higher Education VI, HERDSA, Sydney, pp. 273‑284.

‑‑‑‑‑ (1982). University Essays as Cultural Battlegrounds: The Problems of Migrant Students. In Bock & Gassin (1982), pp. 140‑155.

SOME OF HANNE BOCK’S PUBLICATIONS

‑‑‑‑‑, and Gassin, J. (1982). (Eds): Papers from the Conference ‑ Communication at University: Purpose, Process and Product. School of Social Sciences, La Trobe University.

‑‑‑‑‑ (1981). Teaching Essay Writing to First‑Year Social Science Students. Research and Development in Higher Education IV, HERDSA, Sydney, pp. 304‑317.

----- (1980). Essay Writing: The Purgatory of University Studies. Laura 1979/80 (Legal Studies Students' Association, La Trobe University), pp. 36‑38. Reprinted Blackacre (Sydney University Law Society), pp. 40‑42.

WHERE IS HANNE BOCK NOW?

Hanne Bock returned to Denmark with her husband after they both served in Australian universities for significant years to embark on a new adventure and establish a translating company.

She will be gifting her ALL resources, papers, and books to our project.

She reflects on her 11 years of ALL work at La Trobe, saying:

“It was a terrific experience.”

Gordon Taylor

Gordon Taylor

Key Thinker & Pivotal Founder of the ALL Profession

Monash University Appointments English Advisor 1974-1975

Lecturer and Senior Lecturer, Higher Education Advisory and Research Unit 1976-1987

Senior Lecturer and Director, Language and Learning Unit Faculty of Arts, 1988-1995

Associate Professor and Director, Language and Learning Unit Faculty of Arts, 1996-1998

Honorary Associate: School of Linguistics and Philosophy Faculty of Arts, 1999-2000

Adjunct Senior Research Fellow: School of Languages, Culture and Linguistics Faculty of Arts, 2007-2010

Names“The first thing to do was to get rid of remedial teaching office. So I got rid of the teaching officer and turned that into English advisor but still had the remedial in front” “And it took me two years to get rid of the remedial bit, officially that is. You know, because you have a plaque on the door, Remedial English Advisor (laughter).”

Names“It was going to be called the Language and Learning Unit by hook or by crook. Fortunately the Dean agreed to it and said, ‘yeah, that’s a good name.’”

“I just became the Director of the Language and Learning Unit … And the only person I was directing was myself, at first.”

Academic Status“I also managed to change [the position] from an administrative to an academic job, which I’d worked hard at for over two years because I didn’t think I was going to get any sort of credence from the academic staff unless I was also a member of the academic staff.”

“And, of course, I would also say that if you don’t have an academic appointment, then again you’d want to fight for one of them because that’s the best way to start getting the ear of the academic staff”.

Committees“I spent a lot of time in the last few years at Monash on faculty and university committees trying to influence the thinking at that level.”

“So I was really able to have an enormous input into the teaching that went on…So that committee work, I think, for me anyway, was important.”

Staff club “Being a member of the staff club helped. We had long lunches with English department people, with historians, with philosophers, and that became part of my life, you know; long lunches with plenty to drink.”

“I got to know a lot of academics in the club. And that’s just so important. And I think, a lot of people in the sort of work we did felt isolated in that respect, socially isolated, and so you’ve got to overcome that, and if you’ve got a club in your institution, use it.”

Into the disciplines“The first thing to do is to get inside the disciplines and get to know the disciplines.”

“You’ve just got to specialise in a range of disciplines that’s really the first thing, and if you happen to be in a position which isn’t like that, then my advice to anybody would be to say, agitate to get back into the faculties or schools.”

Building a presence through university publications

Gordon’s publication legacy

Gordon's Prolific ScholarshipGordon wrote across Linguistics, Higher Education, Philosophy, Engineering, English Language, Grammar, Writing, History, Education, etc., in a variety of genres:

– Edited Books– Book Chapters– Books– Refereed conference papers– Journal articles– Monographs– Government & University commissioned reports– Reviews– Book Reviews– Keynote addresses

Gordon’s Scholarly Journals & Publishers• Applied Linguistics • Australian Journal of Linguistics • Australian Universities Review• English in Australia• HERDSA News • Higher Education Research & Development • The History Teacher• Journal of Literary Semantics • Professional Engineer • Quadrant• Regional English Language Centre Journal• Victorian Universities & Schools Examinations Board

Cambridge University Press

Open University Press & Society

for Research into Higher Education

Oxford University Press

Literacy by

Degrees

Taylor, G. V., Ballard, B., Beasley, V., Bock, H., Clanchy, J. Nightingale. P., (1988) Literacy by degrees. Milton Keynes: Open University Press and Society for Research into Higher Education.

“What Should We Be Doing As A University?”

Carolyn Webb

University Of Sydney1974-1995

University Of Western SydneyAssociate Professor,

Inaugural HeadLearning And Teaching Unit

1996-2006

English for Migrant and Overseas Students – circa 1978

A LIITLE BIT OF EXTRA WORK

In 1974 I started working at Sydney, and in 1975 I started from the role that I had just doing a little bit of extra work which was tutoring international – well, students of non-English speaking background.

It was 1975 – a year in from starting up work at what was then called the Language Centre at Sydney. And the reason was that there was this flow of students starting to come into the Language Centre… to study English independently, using tapes, the old tapes, spool tapes…

Early Days: A LITLE BIT OF EXTRA WORKs

AND THERE WERE SO MANY OF THEM,

just this growing stream of students coming in, and the Director of the Language Centre at the time, suggested that I start running some classes…and as it got known more and more students would be …attending these classes. So the numbers of classes grew and over a period of some years this eventually became my full job, and I got given a title of Tutor, then Senior Tutor, and so on.

USyd News October 23 1984 – Carolyn Webb, Helen Drury, and students

And then during the rest of the 70’s, that grew into something that became a recognised service, and then from probably about the beginning of the 1980’s, it became increasingly formalised and turned into a centre, …

During the mid 1980’s, what I was doing was then restructured into the Centre for Teaching and Learning, which was an academic development unit in the university.

And then from the 1990’s I headed up what was then the new Learning Centre.

The 1980’s at the University of Sydney with Helen Drury

SIGNIFICANT MOMENTS: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

And I guess it was logical that I was doing that, because of my own background in languages and literature that was a reasonable beginning.

I didn’t have any ESL teaching background, or any ESL knowledge. So I just started learning it for myself and then in 1981 I enrolled in the Masters Degree in Applied Linguistics at Sydney.

I had the enormous benefit of working in the same building that the Linguistics Department was originally located in … I was very much an active part of that whole, the Linguistic School…

I was really up-to-date and it was, it was a very, very exciting time, leading edge stuff…

Michael Halliday was up on another floor and Jim Martin was there and it was, it really was very exciting.

SIGNIFICANT MOMENTS: INSTITUTIONAL ENGAGEMENT AND

RECOGNITION

It was always the work with faculties directly alongside them working with curriculum, I found that was the highlight of my work, the pinnacle. So I could be working with them as equal colleagues coming from my perspective with their perspective combined – that is where I always saw the best success.

I was really, really excited at the time when the Chair of Academic Board at Sydney University asked me to take on what eventually became the MASUS work. I thought that was a significant initiative.

Bottom right are Jim Martin (pony tail) and me. I think Jim was on the Interim Board of Studies. I had been invited to design a course on ‘introduction to academic writing’ or some title like that as one of the foundation courses for credit so that’s why I was at the meeting – I think. Sign of recognition of the value of the work Helen and I had been doing. Of course none of that eventuated and UWS was established quite differently...

Circa 1988

EARLY DAYS: KEY FIGURES

I thought about the significant figures, for me Gordon Taylor was always a really cool guy he had a lot to say and a lot of really valuable stuff that was a reflection on language and learning. And I really enjoyed what, what he used to say and what he wrote. I think the Clanchy and Ballard stuff was quite interesting for all of their work on cultural influences. I always appreciated Kate Chanock’s work, I think she did really good stuff on the pedagogical practices of ALL and it was always interesting reading the views on individual consultations.

EARLY DAYS: KEY FIGURES

Of course all the work that was done at the Sydney University Linguistics School, Jim Martin and all of those on Genre Studies were really important even though they weren’t exactly ALL practitioners, far from it. A lot of the people that were working in teaching and learning centres could’ve just about been called ALL practitioners. If people like Peggy Nightingale, they, she wrote a book on assessment that should’ve been written by an ALL practitioner, but of course there’s been an enormous amount of work since those early days.

SIGNIFICANT MOMENTSBut it wasn’t I suppose till the 1980’s that I started to see the signs of people sharing information, sharing ideas, and a field really starting to emerge where there was a name for something that, you’d promote the name, you’d say there’s a meeting and a number of people would come along thinking that it must refer to them. And in a sense that was like, preparing the soil.

SIGNIFICANT MOMENTS EARLY DAYS

BUILDING THE FIELD

I think was a really fundamental contribution that I and many others made, we got things published, we got discussions going with other groups like HERDSA. We got onto the agenda of HERDSA basically and I remember that going back to early 1980’s where myself and a few other people met with the HERDSA executive to get this as a recognised group within HERDSA. But I think the research function was, was probably quite important in that sharing ideas in a more scholarly kind of forum was a valuable contribution. And not just from me, I mean everyone who contributed from those early days, when we were just building it.

SIGNIFICANT MOMENTSCOMING OF AGE – A FIELD EMERGES

I think in the 1990’s we started to see the seeds were in and the crop was starting to grow by the 2000’s. I think it was, it was really probably around about 2000 or 2001, in fact for me a very significant time was that conference at Wollongong, because it was really focussed on what the profession was about, that 2001, what was it called? Changing Identities?I found that a really significant turning point, because it just looked like it was such a professional sort of conference, there were so many people speaking in a very interesting and insightful way about what the role was. I thought, oh yeah this is great, the field is really now properly developing into a profession.

SIGNIFICANT MOMENTS EARLY DAYS

KEY DRIVERS FOR ACADEMIC LANGUAGE AND LEARNING

The whole business of internationalisation was very significant, but I think even before that the bigger influence was the opening up of education. What they call massification, I mean I think that was a really critical part of it and it took quite a long time I think for universities to come to grips with what that would mean.

So I think that ALL as a field was really very significant in helping universities interpret the meaning of that, on the ground, so the equity drivers were really fundamental to all of that

AND ONGOING:KEY DRIVERS FOR ACADEMIC LANGUAGE AND

LEARNING

Quality assurance is something that the universities took really seriously because of the audit processes that were put in train. It took a long time before that started turning into quality improvement, the QA/QI two sides of the coin, but I think what really happened for, not just for the ALL field, but also for teaching and learning support services across the whole plethora. I think they helped universities to articulate what it meant to bring about improvement processes, not just the simpler accountability processes, but actually showing that, auditing and evaluating had some goal, which was to bring about improvement, and clear improvement that you could actually attest to the value for money that public funding was giving.

FROM THE MID 80’S ON

SIGNIFICANT MOMENTSWHAT SHOULD WE WE DOING AS A

UNIVERSITY?

The work that we did in running workshops for students, fabulous, they were always fun, you always felt that you’d enriched the lives of students in some way, and that they went away having learnt valuable things.

So I loved doing those, but they were really frustrating because you could never do enough, and the work that you did with individual students, was always absolutely brilliant, but you just couldn’t do enough.

FROM THE MID 80’S ON

WHAT SHOULD WE WE DOING AS A UNIVERSITY?

…for me it was very much about not just having an immediate impact on the students … but actually having an impact that had a longer term that would stay. Even though a student had finished their degree, someone else had learnt something that had become part of a system. That things had a longevity beyond the lives of each individual student, and that the whole system was improving. And I think that was really driving my thinking, probably from about the mid 1980’s and caused me to get into a lot of discussion, a lot of argy bargy, as I tried to beat people around the head, with what my view was.

… taking up the job at UWS Hawkesbury was really exciting because I could bring those 2 things [learning and teaching] together in a way that I wasn’t aware at the time was being done anywhere else in the country. And they were, they were really exciting years actually, even though I’d have to also say they weren’t easy, because it was a constant process of trying to engage other people in sharing that understanding. And that included both the staff of the university outside the unit, but also the staff within the unit. I think people struggled to understand how you could marry those 2 elements, because it was just such a view that teaching and learning were separate, that staff and students had to be dealt with in different domains. And I just never, never really subscribed to that view…

TEACHING AND LEARNING