USING A CULTURALLY FAMILIAR GENRE TO ENHANCE ACADEMIC LITERACY

Abstract

Non-native speakers unfamiliar with the Western approach to argumentation are often at a disadvantage in reading English academic texts. This article reviews a strategy whereby the researcher built a bridge to academic argument in English through the use of a culturally familiar genre (the fable). Students analyzed a familiar fable in terms of form (linear, cause-effect connected sequential development) and content (essentially an argument for a particular moral quality or mode of behaviour), and were then presented with the same fable rewritten as though it were an academic text, using academic metadiscourse and structure. Students discussed similarities and differences between the two texts and then wrote ‘academic fables’ of their own. The strategy was applied in college courses for Hebrew and Arabic speakers at three colleges of education in Israel. Effects of the strategy were measured by student summaries of authentic academic texts written before and after the experimental manipulation, in comparison to those written by a control group. Findings reveal a complex picture of the place of intercultural rhetoric in the instruction of English for academic purposes, and support the use of a familiar genre in contributing to the accessibility of English academic texts.