Familiarizing postgraduate ESL students with the literature review in a WAC/EAP engineering classroom

The Faculty of Engineering, University of Melbourne, enrolls a culturally and linguistically diverse group of ESL students into its postgraduate coursework (M.A.) and Ph.D. research programs, many of whom also enroll in a semester-long (12 week) English for Academic Purposes (EAP) class called 'Presenting Academic Discourse--Engineering.' Enrollees include those who do not meet the minimum language requirements and others who are recommended to take the course by their thesis supervisors. During the research period discussed here, a majority of students who completed the classes were from Southeast Asia, and EAP class size averaged twenty five students. Initially most were coursework masters students; as time passed, an increasingly significant number came from research (Masters and PhD) programs. The combination of research and coursework students created a slight tension in that the first group had immediate need to write a literature review and the second did not. These students arrive in Australia with varied levels of English proficiency, diverse cultural backgrounds, and prior educational experiences. Students from Asia often come not only with limited English proficiency but also with other academic practices that may be obstacles to good writing in a Western academic context, including conservative rather than critical learning approaches and issues with establishing an academic voice through writing (Ballard & Clanchy 1984; Ramanathan & Atkinson 1999). Ward (2001) notes that Engineering students in Thailand often learn strategies to avoid reading engineering texts in English in their undergraduate training, a practice which may perhaps extend to other Asian countries. Not surprisingly, a limited ability to read required texts is not conducive to learning to write a literature review. This paper has foregrounded the need for students to understand and engage in critical analysis through an assessment process that culminates in a literature review task and oral presentation based on discipline-specific research sources.