Developing disciplinary discourse in a first-year engineering course: The DELNA initiative

Abstract

First-year students in higher education settings tend to face ongoing challenges with variations in discursive practices and genres within their discipline. Within this context, a Diagnostic English Language Needs Assessment (DELNA) was administered to first-year engineering students to assess the strengths and needs of their ability to navigate academic language. The purpose of this paper is to report on our initiative to support student’s development of academic literacy, specifically their disciplinary language proficiency through the implementation of pedagogical support activities.

Keywords

• discursive
• discipline-specific
• reading skills
• delna
• disciplinary
• pedadogical support
• engineering
• diagnostic
• workshop
• genre
• engineering communication
• discourse
• undergraduate students