AALL Northern Territory Report – 2015
The Charles Darwin University School of Academic Language and Learning (SALL) is dedicated to
empowering a diverse range of students to maximise their potential and help them succeed in their
educational journey. SALL has three programs to equip students with the skills, literacy and
confidence to progress in Higher Education and the workforce. The programs are Academic
Language and Learning Success Program (ALLSP), The Common Units Program and Tertiary Enabling
(TEP). This report highlights some of the innovations that ALLSP has been involved in for 2015.
Academic Language and Learning Success Program (ALLSP)
The ALLSP team provide academic support to all higher education students via individual
consultations, drop-in centres, the PASS program and workshops (online and on-campus).
1. Embedded literacy workshops
Working collaboratively with subject lecturers and coordinators, ALLSP significantly increased the
number of embedded workshops offered in specific disciplines across the university this year. Over
50 embedded workshops were designed and implemented into courses in humanities, nursing,
psychology, engineering, and environment undergraduate as well as masters programs. This is
intended to be increased in 2016. In addition to running the embedded workshops in courses, short
edited videos were created and added to unit Learnline sites. This proved a popular resource for
students with over 85% accessing the videos during the semester.
In conjunction with these workshops and video resources, ALLSP have worked closely with discipline
lecturer to identity at risk students who are struggling with academic language and literacy and offer
one-on-one consultations to develop their individual needs to ensure they progress with the
necessary skills for their university studies as well as their future work. To date, during 2015, over
700 individual consultations have been conducted with students.
2. Drop-in Centre
This year ALLSP increase there offering of drop-in services to 3 days per week. This has been well
received by our students with our 20min timeslots remaining full for the duration of the semester.
This service was also available to our external students who are able to use an ALLSP free-call
number to contact staff during the allotted drop-in times. ALLSP will retain the 3 day offering in 2016
given its success this year.
3. Introductory Academic Program
ALLSP for the time this year ran 30 hours intensive introductory academic programs for all incoming
Australia Awards Scholarship students. This program was tailored to the discipline of study that the
students would be undertaking. The aim was to provide academic language and literacy support to
these students prior to commencement of their study and introduce them to academic writing for
their discipline at CDU. The program has been an overwhelming success and will continue in 2016.
4. Writing programs
A number of Masters academic writing programs are also currently in early stages of design and
development by ALLSP staff to assist students who are transitioning to higher education in Australia.
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Research Projects/Seminars
Two university wide academic literacies workshop were held for all staff to reflect and share current
ALL practices. Details of the workshops are listed below.
1. Refocussing academic literacies workshop
This workshop focussed on the common unit program and its strategies and initiatives for
supporting students’ academic literacy development at CDU. The common unit programs principle
aim is “To be responsive to individual student backgrounds and needs as they make the transition
into successful study at university and to help provide a level playing field for all beginning
students.” In this way this compulsory first year program represents the university’s commitment to
supporting and enabling diversity and improving retention. Students are required to complete one of
the Academic Literacies units CUC100 or CUC106 and the Cultural Literacy unit CUC107. By building
students’ cultural and academic skill capabilities through a supportive and developmental approach
in the first year of study, their chances of success and retention are improved. Research into the
efficacy of the program confirms its success in improving outcomes; however, two common units at
the beginning of students’ learning journey are not enough. Ongoing support to help them to
continue to build their literacy and become acculturated to the requirements of academia is
essential. How well are we achieving this at CDU and how might we do this better?
This session was facilitated by Dr Nicola Rolls, Common Units Theme Leader, Roz Rowen, Academic
Language and Learning Lecturer.
2. Embedding academic literacies in Assessment design and support
This workshop focused on the embedded nature of academic literacies in the design of high quality
and engaging assessment tasks. The staff members who support the Academic Language and
Learning Skills Program (ALLSP) at CDU are often approached by students who are unsure of the
purpose, meaning and alignment of an assessment. To resolve these issues ALLSP work through a
triangulated approach with the students, whose concerns have been gathered, and the lecturers,
who have specific expectations of the students. Workshops are then designed and embedded within
the different subjects to scaffold the assessments. This results in an improved experience for both
lecturers and students. Additionally, this process provides lecturers with a framework for developing
or redeveloping assessments with an embedded focus on academic literacies. In this workshop you
will deconstruct a ‘problem’ assessment task. You will also apply a framework developed by ALLSP to
identify whether the assessment task is clear. This is done by focusing on the Purpose, Meaning and
Alignment of the task.
This workshop was facilitated by Amanda Janssen, Theme Leader, Academic Language and Learning
Success Program and Roz Rowen, Academic Language and Learning lecturer.
3. Academic Integrity Project
The ALLSP team are also involved in a university wide project to develop a resource for staff and
students to assist in the decision making process when having to deal with cases of academic
misconduct.
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