Academic Talk for Higher Education: In Support of Equity and Academic Preparedness

Academic Talk for Higher Education brings together several current debates around oracy, dialogic teaching, and the role that academic talk can play in both widening access to higher education and creating more equitable learning opportunities.

Exploring the notion that a focus on purposefully using academic discourse in university classroom settings can support students to better engage, argue, and connect with their learning, peers, and educators, Academic Talk for Higher Education examines the relationship between spoken language, equity, and academic preparedness for higher education, and provides a theoretical and empirical account of policy drivers and widening participation cohorts. Working with extensive prior research conducted by the authors focused on ‘alternative pathway’ teaching contexts―Enabling Education in Australia and Foundation Year Programmes in the UK―chapters draw on teachers’ perspectives and experiences of academic literacies to conceptualise the need for more explicit pedagogic focus on academic talk.

Concluding with an agenda for both policy and practice to value academic talk as a vehicle for equity, the authors offer recommendations for how to explicitly embed academic talk into the higher education curriculum, and particularly in academic preparation contexts. This is significant at a time of great turbulence in the higher education sectors in both the UK and Australia, and when activities to support widening participation, retention and progression of all university students are needed more than ever.

Marion Heron is Associate Professor in Educational Linguistics at Surrey Institute of Education, University of Surrey, UK.

Sally Baker is the Chief Executive Officer and founder of Refugee Education Australia, as well as co-lead of the new Refugee Student Settlement Pathway to Australia. She is also an adjunct Associate Professor of Migration and Education at the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Kieran Balloo is a Senior Lecturer (Pathways) at SCU College, Southern Cross University, Australia. He is also a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at Surrey Institute of Education, University of Surrey, UK.