The academic literacy practices of language teacher-researchers at Autonomous University of Baja California [recurso electrónico] / Alma Denisse Dávila Sainz ; director María del Rocío Domínquez Gaona.

Licenciatura en Docencia de Idiomas.

Tesis (Licenciatura) - Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Facultad de Idiomas, Tijuana, 2018.

Incluye referencias bibliográficas.

Academic literacy was studied through a narrative research methodology to aknowledge the way teacher-researchers in the foreign language area have developed it in an institutional context. The teacher´s narratives were collected through a semi-structured interview, which were analyzed with the content analysis technique with the purpose to identify the narratives main topics. One of the purposes of this study was to know how the teachers had developed their academic literacy and the key moments in this process. The main finding was the identification of narrative patterns that show the way education policies have shaped this development of literacy processes and that have guided teachers to research and academic productivity. One of these patterns is the beginning of graduate studies, which led them to the development of research projects and to academic productivity. The majority stated that one of the key moments to develop academic literacy were their university studies, in which they started reading and writing academic texts. They emphasized their thesis writing during their studies in a master’s degree program. When they refered to their doctorate studies, they mentioned the need of writing articles in specialized magazine that came from their research projects, which implied identifying more specific reasearch lines. The two most mentioned topics were language teachers’ development and Language teaching and learning processes. According to their narratives, literacy development has been characterized by mentoring relevance, meaning, being hand by hand of their teachers and thesis supervisors during their graduate studies. This implied a specific development of reading and writing abilities, same that was described as a maturity and improvement process that involved specific academic abilities and study strategies such as the development of academic vocabulary of the discipline, the revision and text analysis, academic texts construction with diferent format, self-assessment, self-confidence, a lot of time and practice. Another purpose of this research was to highlight the importance of research as a practice in this community. We found that professors in this area are commited to research since it is an important indicator in their institution and their professional development. It is important to notice that it became an obligation to these professors because of education policies established in the 90’s. In the data, it was found that they adentified research as a key moment in their development of academic literacy which started as an obligation they did not like, but that little by little it became part of their daily life. Some of them have even shown their enthusiasm for this activity because they have understood their benefits and they have learnt to do research with the help of their colleagues and their mentors. It was acknowledged that the development of investigation projects either during their studies or their professional development encouraged them to publish results in the format of papers for proceedings, chapters of books and articles in specialized journals. It was noticed that this seems to have been the natural path these teachers followed to start publishing: they began presenting in academic events and publishing papers in proceedings; then, participated in collective books with one chapter and at the end, they started writing articles in refereed journal, which is presented as the desired goal. Another interesting topic that was brought to the discussion was the use of languages in this process of academic literacy development. It was found that due to these teachers discipline they have used mainly English and Spanish in their studies and in their academic productivity, being Spanish the most used for being mosts mother tongue. They also realized that if they wanted more visibility in their productivity, they had to start writing in English, the language of Academia (Mauren, Hynninen & Ranta, 2009). We can confirm that this group of professors notice the importance of writing in a language that can be approached by many people in the world and that help researchers make their results visible worldwide. To sum up, we found that the development of academic literacy in this community was part of these professors’ professional development; first, during their graduate studies; and second, while developing research projects. Their academic literacy development can be described as a process of maturity which took a while and that might still be in process, and which is characterized for the improvement of specific reading and writing skills with the outstanding support of their mentors either teachers, thesis supervisors and colleagues. One of the limitations of this study was the reduced number of participants that somehow restricted the possibilities to generalize; however, it was thought that this decision was good because of the time available to finish the thesis and because of the methodology that was going to be employed, narrative inquiry, which required a lot of time to analyze data. Nontheless, we think valid conclusions could be drawn since the researchprofessors who participated were good representatives of this community (senior and young professors) We suggest that special attention can be given to mentoring, academic literacy development and research encouragemnet in this institution so that langauge teacher development can be supported. We recommend that the Languages Faculty gives research some promotion in their BA programs, by this I mean, invite students and encourage them to participate in national and international research projects with the teachers help so that they are prepared to write academically. This would be an opportunity for teachers and students to develop their academic literacy. Theoretically teachers would have time for research because they would do collaboration and have support from students on projects instead of doing it all by themselves. Teacher-researchers also have to venture in a worldwide field so that the visibility of their projects expands from local or national to international. This would attract the attention of students to work with their teachers who are published in important or international sites and refereed specialized journals.