Academic reading instruction in tertiary English preparatory classes: A qualitative case study of an experienced instructor (original) (raw)

Academic literacy is a crucial means to read, comprehend, and reflect on academic texts. In tertiary English preparatory classes, to lay strong foundations for academic literacy, it is necessary to build a well-structured framework for academic reading instruction. One means of doing this is exploring the pedagogical views and practices of experienced teachers. This qualitative case study focuses on a highly experienced English instructor with established records of success and investigates the participant's views about academic reading instruction, her academic reading instruction practices, and the extent of consistency between her views and practices. The instructor has forty-one years of teaching experience, was given the Excellence in Teaching Award by her institution and is an active digital immigrant with two educational blogs. The research reveals an in-depth analysis of the instructor's multiple subjectivities in academic reading instruction and the details about her investment in learning. The data were collected by semi-structured interviews, teacher's blog posts and journal, and classroom observations and analyzed via thematic analysis. The findings displayed that the instructor believes in the significance of construction and activation of students' background knowledge as well as teacher and student motivation for successful reading. She reported teaching and practicing a number of pre-, while-and post-reading strategies. The reading instruction practices of the instructor displayed full compatibility with her concerning views. The study has significant implications for contexts teaching English for academic purposes (EAP) and concludes that experienced L2 teachers may apply effective teaching practices and serve as examples for their colleagues. Keywords: English for academic purposes (EAP), academic reading, academic reading instruction, teaching experience, experienced teachers