5: Academic Talk in An Australian Academic Preparation Context

We are cognisant of the fact that all students, regardless of linguistic and educational background, benefit from developing academic talk as part of academic preparedness. However, in order to shine a light on academic talk and to draw out its significance and role in being academically ‘ready’, we now focus on one specific context: Enabling Education (EE) in Australia. Whilst we have discussed the FY in the UK as exemplifying WP contexts, our data for Chapters 5 and 6 draws on previous research conducted solely in Australia with Enabling educators. Our understanding of FY practices would benefit from research exploring FY educators’ perceptions and experiences of working with academic literacies, and in particular, academic talk. This chapter is the first of two chapters that turn to our empirical work conducted with educators working in EE programmes. We begin by introducing our ten participants who work in different programmes across the country. Through the voices of these ten Enabling educators, we present the diverse ways in which academic talk is understood and valued and the challenges these educators experience in teaching and assessing academic talk in the context of academic preparation pathways.