Advanced English Language Competence at the Intersection of Programme Design, Pedagogical Practice, and Teacher Research: An Introduction

Abstract

With a growing societal interest in advanced second language (L2) learning and use due to the implications of globalisation, internationalisation, migration, and various other social, economic, and professional forces, the topic of advancedness has become an area of scholarly concern over the past decades. What kind of knowledge and skills do advanced language users have and how do they communicate? Is an instructed setting at university particularly conducive, perhaps even essential, to advanced-level language learning? What level of proficiency can university students realistically reach after several semesters of advanced-level language education? These are just a few of the questions that are of concern to researchers and practitioners in the fields of second language acquisition (SLA), language education, especially in English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) contexts, and language teacher education. This volume offers a curricular and instructional perspective on the question of advancedness by providing a profile of advanced-level language development in a specific institutional context, namely the Department of English and American Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria. Experienced language teachers, teacher-researchers, and student tutors in the English Language Competence (ELC) programme, the language study component of all curricula offered at the department, reflect on this approach, which rests on the idea that the key actors collaborate at the intersection of (1) programme design, (2) pedagogical practice, and (3) teacher research (i.e., teacher-initiated research to improve practice).

1.1 Aim and Scope of the Book

With a growing societal interest in advanced second language (L2) learning and use due to the implications of globalisation, internationalisation, migration, and various other social, economic, and professional forces, the topic of advancedness has become an area of scholarly concern over the past decades. What kind of knowledge and skills do advanced language users have and how do they communicate? Is an instructed setting at university particularly conducive, perhaps even essential, to advanced-level language learning? What level of proficiency can university students realistically reach after several semesters of advanced-level language education? What do tests mean when they certify fluent language use, academic language proficiency, or an excellent command of a very broad range of language? These are just a few of the questions that are of concern to researchers and practitioners in the fields of second language acquisition (SLA), language education, especially in English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) contexts, and language teacher education.

Despite a multifaceted body of literature on adult learners of English, a distinct lack of attention has been paid to advanced English language learning in this target group. Because of the diversity of adult learners, the literature has focused primarily on the types of adult ESL/EFL programmes and instructional strategies, ranging from basic literacy and life skills for adult immigrants and refugees (e.g., Snow & Kamhi-Stein, 2006) to vocational ESL/EFL and employability skills for professionally trained language learners (e.g., Orem, 2005). A large segment of the literature has focused on English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and its instructional basis, aiming to help students cope with the writing requirements in higher education (e.g., Flowerdew & Peacock, 2001; Tang, 2012). Only recently have studies in SLA started to address the capacity and potential for advanced language learning and use (Byrnes, 2012; Malovrh & Benati, 2018). The research has tended to investigate advanced proficiency from a specific theoretical viewpoint, for example, cognition (e.g., Langacker, 2006), psycholinguistic processing strategies (e.g., Rah & Adone, 2010), the assumption of a critical period or the age factor (e.g., Long et al., 2018), and, linked to it, ultimate attainment (e.g., von Stutterheim & Carroll, 2006).

This volume, Developing Advanced English Language Competence: A Research-Informed Approach at Tertiary Level, offers a curricular and instructional perspective on the question of advancedness by providing a profile of advanced-level language development in a specific institutional context. It presents a systematic approach to developing advanced English language competence in students in the teacher education programme or majoring in linguistics, literature, or cultural studies in the Department of English and American Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria. Experienced language teachers, teacher-researchers, and student tutors in the English Language Competence (ELC) programme, the language study component of all curricula offered at the department, reflect on this approach, which rests on the idea that the key actors collaborate at the intersection of (1) programme design, (2) pedagogical practice, and (3) teacher research (i.e., teacher-initiated research to improve practice).

This focus has a number of merits which are worth highlighting. Firstly, unlike other publications, which are often restricted to individual aspects of the curriculum, such as advanced-level L2 writing development (e.g., Byrnes et al., 2010), this volume presents an entire language programme with its diverse range of modules, amalgamating teaching expertise and teacher research with aspects of programme design. Secondly, the volume thus brings together three areas of English language education at tertiary level which are usually treated separately. No publication, to the best of our knowledge, deals with advanced English language competence at the intersection of these three areas. This one, in contrast, consciously seeks to transcend established professional and pedagogical boundaries. It addresses teaching-related aspects of a university language programme and accompanying research conducted in-house, as well as key issues concerning programme management, thereby illustrating how theory and practice interact dynamically in close interrelation. Thirdly, the ELC approach is an integrated approach to language teaching, combining various pedagogical models and methodologies, including, most notably, EAP, English for Specific Purposes (ESP), genre theory, text-based, literacy-based, outcomes-based, competence-based, and action-oriented language teaching. Accordingly, the book does not reflect or promote one specific pedagogical practice; instead, it seeks to advance our understanding of how various approaches and concepts interact in the setting of a tertiary-level language programme. Fourthly, few publications combine both teachers’ and researchers’ perspectives. Even fewer cater to those who consider themselves to be teacher-researchers. This volume, in contrast, provides examples of teacher research into teaching, learning, and assessment, where research is understood as systematic and (self-)reflective inquiry into teaching, learning, and assessment with a view to improving one’s work. Successful approaches to such inquiry can make a significant contribution to professionalising the field of language teaching in higher education, a goal that is shared by numerous language educators around the world. Such approaches also underscore the need to reconceptualise the role of practitioners, perhaps even reconsider the term ‘practitioner’ itself, reifying their scholarship-based identity in a university context where, as is often the case, contracts for teaching-only practitioners do not allow much room for active research. Finally, the volume integrates multiple perspectives on developing advanced English language competence. The contributors fulfil roles as language teachers, researchers, teacher-researchers, level coordinators, programme coordinators, and student tutors. Both internal and external members of staff are specialists in various fields, and their backgrounds are as varied as their professional interests, including cognitive-functional grammar, vocabulary acquisition, literature didactics, language testing, business English, and legal English, to name but a few. Different insights can emerge when those multiple perspectives are put together, resulting in an enriched understanding of language education at tertiary level.

With its focus on an Austrian university context, the volume is concerned with the topical issue of developing advanced English language competence from a highly situated point of view. In this sense, the volume represents a case study of advanced-level English development in an instructional setting. It draws on the acknowledged benefits of case studies and their potential to provide a thick description of a complex phenomenon embedded within a specific context, capable of generating new insights into the target phenomenon (Duff, 2008). The localness of the focus, however, does not diminish its relevance. The volume seeks to contribute to improving the accessibility and transparency of higher education systems. The approach presented here can also serve as a catalyst for more discussion on the topic or a source of inspiration for others. Overall, it reflects the current need and desire in English language teaching theory and practice to engage with local approaches and concepts so as to develop a more inclusive and contextualised view of English language education globally. Before the focus of this introduction shifts towards the specific ELC approach, some positioning of this approach and its underlying assumptions is worthwhile.

1.2 Perspectives on Advanced Language Competence

The notion of advanced language competence has been conceptualised in a number of different ways. The pertinent research in SLA has focused primarily on the potential and capacity for language learning at advanced levels. While some 15 years ago the knowledge of what constitutes advancedness was very patchy and tentative (Byrnes, 2006), the theoretical basis for understanding advanced language learning and use has grown considerably, integrating cognitive, social, semantic, and textual aspects of acquisition. The increased interest in advancedness from a wider range of perspectives recently manifested itself in a handbook publication on the topic, The Handbook of Advanced Proficiency in Second Language Acquisition (Malovrh & Benati, 2018), which brings together various approaches to investigating advanced L2 language development and use. It reviews specific theoretical frameworks which address advanced-level language development, such as systemic functional linguistics, psycholinguistics, generative grammar, and interaction-driven approaches. It covers individual and context-related factors influencing advanced performance and how it is assessed. The handbook profiles advanced L2 performance linguistically across phonological, lexical, morphosyntactic, and pragmatic domains. Finally, it also explores advanced language proficiency across genres and contexts by discussing topics such as cultural literacy, interlanguage pragmatics, and advanced writing. Synthesising the multiple perspectives in this handbook, we could characterise advancedness as a learner’s knowledge and control of a large repertoire of linguistic resources to be used in a number of situations and for various purposes.

In the context of ESL/EFL, one of the most recent developments that has drawn new attention to the advanced language learner, particularly in Europe, was the publication of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) Companion Volume (Council of Europe, 2020). A framework such as the CEFR (Council of Europe, 2001, 2020) presents a possible route to advanced L2 proficiency, one that is particularly attractive in ESL/EFL contexts, conceptualising as it does language use, competences, and the processes involved in language teaching and learning. The core of this framework is a taxonomy of communicative language activities and strategies along with the competences that language users draw on in such activities, as well as a set of common reference levels and illustrative descriptors defining proficiency from Pre-A1, a level “at which the learner has not yet acquired a generative capacity, but relies upon a repertoire of words and formulaic expressions” (Council of Europe, 2020, p. 243), to C2, a level termed “mastery” (p. 37). Thus, the notion of advancedness is captured functionally by a horizontal and a vertical dimension, with advanced learners being able to perform an ever-increasing number of communicative activities in various domains in increasingly complex and sophisticated ways. The C levels, covering the advanced range of the proficiency spectrum, are characterised by language use typical of “proficient users,” subdivided into “effective operational proficiency” (C1) and “mastery” (C2). In addition to a focus on argument, effective social discourse, and language awareness, the advanced levels are characterised by a high degree of control, fluency, and flexibility in language use. While level C1 is globally defined as “good access to a broad range of language, which allows fluent, spontaneous communication,” level C2 reflects the “degree of precision, appropriateness and ease with the language which typifies the speech of those who have been highly successful learners” (Council of Europe, 2001, p. 36). Whereas the C levels in the original document (Council of Europe, 2001) have been criticised for being clearly underspecified (Green, 2012) and thus inadequate, for example, to describe the language skills and proficiency required to follow a university course (see North, 2014), the CEFR Companion Volume updated the illustrative descriptors with the express purpose of enriching the description of advanced proficiency, particularly at level C2 (Council of Europe, 2020, p. 22). Indeed, a number of illustrative descriptors were added to the top levels for which no descriptor had been available in the original document. In addition, a multitude of new descriptors for mediation and plurilingual/pluricultural competence contribute to defining the ability of advanced language users and learners.

In tertiary education, in particular, advanced language proficiency is often associated with central aspects of EAP. From this perspective, advancedness is expressed in terms of the skills and abilities required to cope with the linguistic demands of an English-speaking university context, sometimes in relation to general academic purposes, possibly coupled with a certain cut score on an internationally recognised proficiency test such as the Test of English as a Foreign Language or the International English Language Testing System, and sometimes in relation to a specific area of study. The focus in EAP is on language skills relevant to academic study, such as advanced listening comprehension, fluency development, presentation skills, discussion skills, critical reading, and academic writing, as well as academic study skills, such as note taking, avoiding plagiarism, and library skills. Especially when academic writing is in focus, the notion of genre has come to play a crucial role (e.g., Bhatia, 2002; Hyland, 2004; Swales, 1990). Understanding the move structure of research articles, case studies, reports, proposals, book reviews, and other academic genres, as well as understanding how the specific academic community uses and shapes them, forms an integral part of advanced language learning in university settings. Within this perspective, progression can be captured by a development from pragmatic approaches to understanding and adopting the accepted conventions towards a critical approach involving an awareness of why the conventions exist and when it makes sense to challenge and flout them (Catterall & Ireland, 2010).

The discussion of advanced language proficiency has also featured prominently in the context of teacher education, not least through work on teacher cognition and teacher knowledge (e.g., Freeman, 2016; Freeman et al., 2015). In this context, advancedness has been discussed not so much in terms of a high level of general English proficiency as in terms of the ability to use English specifically for teaching purposes. Whereas language teaching competence is traditionally associated with a high level of general English proficiency, the inextricability of language proficiency and teaching ability has recently been challenged. Freeman (2017), for example, debunks the common assumption that advanced proficiency automatically means more effective teaching, characterising it as an aspect of ‘native-speakerism’ (Holliday, 2006), which posits that native speakers are better language teachers than non-native speakers, and that improving teachers’ language proficiency will suffice to improve their ability to teach the language effectively. Instead, advancedness is related to the mastery of the particular English that teachers need in order to be able to conduct their lessons effectively, a construct referred to as English-for-Teaching (Freeman, 2017; Freeman et al., 2015; Young et al., 2014). Teachers use specific language knowledge, guided by the curriculum and situated in the social and pedagogical interactions in the classroom, to manage their lessons, to understand and communicate lesson content, and to assess their students and give them feedback (Freeman et al., 2015). In this ESP view, advancedness is expressed in highly contextualised terms, foregrounding its discipline-specific nature as well as the identities, social relationships, and power relations characteristic of such contexts.

This volume consolidates the different perspectives on advancedness outlined above. Advanced learners of English at the Department of English and American Studies can be characterised as highly proficient language users, controlling a vast repertoire of linguistic resources for a wide range of communicative activities, including reception, production, interaction, and mediation, in many academic and professional, particularly instructional, contexts. They can produce stylistically appropriate texts for various purposes and audiences, as well as adapt texts to make them accessible to different target groups. Graduates have an in-depth awareness of the central aspects that are involved in mastering a language and are able to reflect, analyse, and evaluate their own and other people’s language use. The remainder of this introduction first provides some more information on the institutional background and then elaborates on the curricular perspective that this volume offers.

1.3 The Institutional Context

With about 3500 active students and more than 100 members of staff, the Department of English and American Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria, is among the largest in Europe. It offers two bachelor’s and three master’s degrees. The Bachelor of Arts (BA) in English and American Studies is designed to enable students to engage critically with the English language in general and Anglophone literatures and cultures specifically. After an introductory and orientation period (Studieneingangs- und Orientierungsphase) with introductory lectures in linguistics, literary studies, and cultural and media studies, the programme moves towards a deeper exploration of these disciplines and their applied issues. Students learn about geographical, social, historical, and functional variants of the English language, examine representative texts from different periods of Anglophone literatures, and encounter various aspects of the cultural and social history of English-speaking countries. The Bachelor of Education (BEd) prepares students for their future roles as teachers of English as a foreign language at secondary level. The programme is designed to give them a basic grounding in the core areas of language teaching, linguistics, literature, and cultural studies. The knowledge and qualifications gained enable them to understand the complexity of teaching and learning processes, justify their pedagogical practices, and critically reflect on their experiences. The master’s programme (MA) in English Language and Linguistics combines a range of approaches to the study of English, including research areas such as functional cognitive linguistics, educational linguistics, English as a lingua franca, and historical linguistics. The MA in Anglophone Literatures and Cultures offers students the opportunity to identify, analyse, and critically engage with complex cultural phenomena of the Anglophone area, and to apply their knowledge in inter-, multi-, and transcultural situations. Students can specialise in different subject areas, such as British, Irish, and New English Literatures, North American cultures and literatures, and cultural and media studies, with a special focus on transfer processes in culture and media. Finally, the Master of Education (MEd) continues the focus of the bachelor’s programme on teaching English as a foreign language and extends it to conducting research in educational contexts. Further information about these degrees is set out on the departmental website (Department of English and American Studies, n.d.).

What all curricula have in common is their orientation towards advanced language competence. All students, regardless of their degree focus, attend a number of language competence courses provided by the ELC programme, starting at level B2+ according to the CEFR (Council of Europe, 2001). The aim of this programme is to teach high-level language courses based on the latest linguistic and didactic research, exploiting a range of teaching methods where the focus is not only on advanced proficiency but also on raising students’ awareness of effective language use. Not only do the courses develop students’ language skills in a functional sense, they also promote broad linguistic, sociolinguistic, and pragmatic knowledge as well as metalinguistic awareness, which enables students to communicate highly successfully in various contexts.

The ELC programme is run by a team of nine internal members of staff, most of them senior lecturers, who are highly qualified and experienced teachers of English as a foreign language at tertiary level. They all have roles as programme, module, or course coordinators, whose responsibility it is to implement quality assurance measures, maintain consistency in courses with up to 12 parallel sections per semester, provide teaching and learning resources, develop test tasks, review course syllabi, schedule regular meetings with colleagues, and instruct new team members. Around 15 external members of staff with temporary part-time contracts support the ELC programme, most of whom also teach in other tertiary institutions. Now that the institutional context has been outlined, the ELC approach and the specific perspective of this volume are described in more detail.

1.4 A Curricular Perspective on Advanced Language Competence

Integrating different notions of advancedness, this volume addresses the topic from a curricular and instructional perspective. University language departments in particular grant students advanced status according to the aims and objectives specified in their curricula. In this vein, the volume provides a profile of advanced-level language development in the form of a curricular progression, pedagogical activities, and research deemed conducive to developing advanced English language competence. More specifically, the focus is on advancedness as conceptualised in the ELC programme at the University of Vienna, thus on advanced-level language learning and teaching in an instructed EFL setting in tertiary education. What is unique about this approach is that it brings together three areas of English language education that are usually treated separately: programme design, pedagogical practice, and teacher research. These three areas form the framework within which the development of advanced English language competence is seen as unfolding, based on the idea that the key actors collaborate at the intersection of these areas in a mutually rewarding relationship. Figure 1.1 illustrates this framework.

Fig. 1.1

A framework for developing advanced English language competence

Within this triangle, advanced English language education at tertiary level is the focus or, conversely, advanced language competence provides the lens through which links between programme design, language teaching, and teacher research will be established.

1.4.1 Programme Design

The ELC programme in its current form is the result of more than 20 years of curricular development. Historically speaking, three major periods of reform can be distinguished, each one representing an advance over the previous one. Prior to the turn of the millennium, language teaching in the Department of English and American Studies was a rather independent and isolated undertaking of individual lecturers. The programme, which was not called ELC back then, consisted of six successive courses, with content specifications being limited to a general overall topic for each course, such as different aspects of grammar, essay writing, or translation. Apart from a common focus, there was no standardisation; lecturers decided on the contents, objectives, and assessment procedures themselves. There was also a pronunciation course including a weekly language lab.

The second period commenced after a major curriculum reform in 2002. The core of the language programme was transformed into a three-level structure, with each level consisting of two courses: Integrated Language and Study Skills 1 & 2, Language in Use 1 & 2, and Advanced Integrated Language and Study Skills 1 & 2 (Sweeney-Novak, 2006). The first level was skills-based, focusing on skills and strategies required in an academic context; the second level was skills- and discourse-based, aiming to develop students’ understanding of characteristic features of various discourse formats and effective communication; and the third level was skills- and text-based, featuring advanced text analysis and translation. In addition, students selected a topic-specific course, specialising, for example, in translation, advanced oral skills, academic English, or language for specific purposes. A significant milestone in this period was the implementation of a standardised reading and writing test for students at the end of their first year: the Common Final Test (see Martinek & Berger, this volume; Sweeney-Novak, 2006). Another milestone was a test to ensure that students have a minimum level of proficiency before entering the programme: First, a commercially available test was used; for some time now, the test has been developed in-house (see Sweeney-Novak, this volume). One of the major achievements in this period was the production of syllabus documents for every course or module, specifying their rationale, aims, objectives, structure, content, teaching methods, and assessment procedures.

The third period has resulted in the current programme. Figure 1.2 provides an overview of all ELC courses as they feature in the various degree programmes. Although some of the courses have retained the original titles, the course concepts have changed profoundly over the years.

Fig. 1.2

Overview of English Language Competence (ELC) courses

The most recent curriculum reform in 2015 introduced two new courses specifically designed for future teachers of English: Mediation and Genre Analysis for English Teachers (see Smith-Dluha, this volume) and Advanced Speaking Skills for English Teachers (see Richter, “Advanced Speaking Skills for English Teachers,” this volume). Thanks to a dedicated and hard-working team, this period is characterised by an unprecedented commitment towards professionalism, a deliberate effort to encourage teacher research, and a new sense of institutional identity (not least because of the new name ELC). Routinely performed quality assurance activities include, inter alia, rater training, benchmarking sessions, syllabus reviews, staff seminars, and annual retreats to discuss specific issues, reflect on the status-quo, and create a vision for the future of the programme.

Part I of the volume provides a description of the ELC programme with more detailed information about the course syllabi and the rationales behind them. Each contribution, authored by former or current module or course coordinators, is divided into (1) the curricular and theoretical context, (2) the main contents and teaching methods, (3) feedback and assessment, and (4) challenges and future directions. Taken together, these chapters provide a descriptive account of the curricular trajectory towards advanced ability levels.

Kaltenböck and Heaney describe the introductory lectures on English grammar, Language Analysis (LA) and Grammar in Use (GIU), which are designed to give students an overview of the concepts and terminology used in grammatical analysis. Students learn to identify and name the individual parts of syntactic structures, use a variety of resources to find answers to grammar problems, talk informedly about key grammatical categories, and explain and evaluate their use in specific contexts. As such, the two lectures are the foundation for all other ELC courses, but are also relevant to the linguistics, literature, and cultural studies courses. The authors point out that the lectures are special in that they combine theoretical knowledge and practical application, include a text/corpus-based perspective, integrate form and function, introduce a view of grammar as a dynamic system, and, despite the lecture format, have a strong interactive component.

Martinek and Savukova introduce Integrated Language and Study Skills (ILSS), the first two-course ELC module with continuous assessment, where attendance is compulsory and the number of participants is limited to 25 per class, as is the case with all other courses described below. The focus is on integrated language skills and independent study skills as relevant in academic settings, as well as vocabulary development and remedial grammar in selected areas. Students work on text comprehension and on the production of well-organised and stylistically appropriate argumentative essays. Martinek and Savukova outline a teaching approach where aspects of the writing process, the product, and genre form a dynamic relationship, which has proved to be particularly useful for students transitioning from intermediate language learning at secondary level to advanced language learning at tertiary level.

While ILSS reflects a skills- and outcomes-based approach to language teaching, the Language in Use (LIU) module centres around the concept of text as the starting point for teaching and learning. Schwarz-Peaker describes a text-based approach, where text is understood in a broad sense, encompassing any meaningful written or spoken stretch of language that represents a unified whole. The aim of the module is to help students understand what and how texts mean in their social contexts, and how a text’s purpose, audience, and context interact with lexical, grammatical, and stylistic choices. While the module initially concentrates on text analysis, the focus gradually shifts to text transformation, which involves activities such as changing or adapting a text to make it more appropriate, relevant, or accessible to a different audience, thereby addressing what the CEFR Companion Volume refers to as “mediating a text” (Council of Europe, 2020, p. 91).

The focus on text analysis and transformation is continued in the English in a Professional Context (EPCO) module described by Bruno-Lindner. Unlike in LIU, however, the genres and texts are taken from specific occupational domains such as business, law, science, technology, or medicine, and the focus is on the language and skills specific to these domains. As such, the approach is akin to teaching ESP. Bruno-Lindner emphasises that while the subject area provides the carrier content, the real content, that is the specific language teaching points, are transferable language skills that can be applied in various professional settings. In particular, the module helps students prepare for a future role as language mediators in the workplace. The focus gradually shifts from text analysis to text production and text mediation, especially transforming specialist texts into texts that are accessible to laypeople.

Rieder-Bünemann provides an account of English for Academic Purposes (EAP), a module specific to MA students, which helps them to function effectively in academic disciplines within the humanities and social sciences, as well as supports them in the process of preparing and writing their MA theses. Focusing on the discipline-specific nature of academic discourse, the approach is related to teaching English for Specific Academic Purposes. What makes the course special is its tripartite syllabus model covering authorial identity or voice from the perspective of both readers and writers of academic texts, genre conventions within the specific academic discourse community, and textual competence that is sensitive to the L2 learning context. Adopting a social-constructivist view of academic writing, the course considers student genres to be legitimate and independent entities in their own right, and learning to write academic texts in an L2 is viewed as equivalent to learning a language within the language.

Building on the approaches taken in LIU, EPCO, and EAP, Smith-Dluha discusses the rationale behind Mediation and Genre Analysis for English Teachers (MAGNET), a recently developed course in the MEd programme intended for pre-service teachers of English. It is designed to equip students with the knowledge and skills necessary to cope productively and receptively with a wide range of specialised educational text types. Particular emphasis is placed on the mediation of texts: on the skills required to communicate to somebody else the content of a text to which they may not have access otherwise, as well as to facilitate access to knowledge and ideas for others, which are key concepts in teaching. As Smith-Dluha points out, the focus of MAGNET is not so much on pedagogical knowledge, for example in terms of how different genres are presented to learners or which activities are useful for teaching such genres, but rather on content knowledge and discourse competence, especially in terms of the parameters that shape educational texts and how these parameters affect linguistic encoding and text structure.

Richter’s first contribution is concerned with Practical Phonetics and Oral Communication Skills (PPOCS), a module focusing on spoken production and interaction, which is usually taken alongside LIU. PPOCS 1 elaborates on the main aspects of English pronunciation at both the segmental and suprasegmental levels. Richter positions the course in view of recent debates about the global spread of English and its role as a lingua franca, pointing to the particular needs and attitudes of a very specific student population. She stresses that the aim of the course is not so much perfect imitation of the model accent but rather a high level of phonological control, clarity, and precision, as well as natural and appropriate pronunciation in different communicative situations, along with the ability to exploit pronunciation to convey finer shades of meaning. PPOCS 2 focuses on formal presentation and interactive speaking skills, with a special emphasis on interaction management. The contribution clearly highlights the crucial role of feedback and guidance in developing advanced-level speaking skills.

Schwarz, Milchram, and Wankmüller present the language lab, a weekly student-led tutorial accompanying the PPOCS 1 course. While PPOCS 1 is more input-oriented, the language lab provides the opportunity for students to practise their pronunciation skills through computer-assisted listening and speaking activities, face-to-face interactions with a tutor, and group work with peers. Although the term ‘language lab’ might be reminiscent of audio-lingual or behaviourist approaches to pronunciation learning, the authors clearly show that the lab offers much more than just record-and-play-back functions. In particular, the communicative activities and the interaction and feedback components reflect more communicative and constructivist-oriented models of pronunciation learning.

Richter’s second contribution discusses Advanced Speaking Skills for English Teachers (ASSET), the companion course to MAGNET, specifically designed to develop the presentation, interaction, and mediation skills of pre-service teachers of English in the MEd programme. The course is based on the informed assumption that a high level of general proficiency is not sufficient for teachers to prepare and conduct their lessons effectively: Teachers also need to develop an understanding of instruction as a distinct language use domain along with the functional language skills required in that domain. In this sense, ASSET adopts an ESP-based approach to teaching speaking. It discusses characteristic features of classroom discourse and provides ample opportunity for practising how to make effective use of intonation, voice, turn-taking devices, and lexico-grammatical means to interact successfully in teaching contexts. Richter also stresses the course’s emphasis on mediation, particularly in relation to facilitating understanding and communication between others, which includes processes such as managing interaction, supporting collaboration, and encouraging conceptual talk.

The remaining chapters in Part I describe two standardised language tests developed and administered in-house. Sweeney-Novak presents the rationale behind the Vienna English Language Test (VELT), a test designed to ensure that students have a minimum level of linguistic competence before entering the ELC programme. Sweeney-Novak’s contribution clearly reflects the basic tension between the validity of testing a relatively narrowly defined construct using multiple-choice items, on the one hand, and the practical need to test several hundred students per semester in an efficient way, on the other. Martinek and Berger then outline the specifications for the Common Final Test (CFT), a reading and writing test taken by all students at the end of ILSS 2. After describing the test purpose, the test construct, and the test methods, the authors address issues of test development and validation. In particular, they consider rating scale validation, rater training, and benchmarking to be important measures of quality assurance. Both tests serve an important gatekeeping function, ensuring high levels of proficiency and achievement. The CFT also has positive washback effects on teaching and learning, which is remarkable given that the resources allocated to language testing, as is often the case in tertiary language education, are extremely limited.

What this brief summary of the chapters in Part I of the volume shows is that the ELC programme is horizontally and vertically aligned so as to assure consistent quality standards and allow for coherent progression through the programme. The horizontal dimension refers to the vast range of (communicative) activities, strategies, and competences, as well as declarative and academic knowledge, deemed relevant in our department; the vertical dimension comprises the ascending sequence of courses representing progress in those categories. Broadly speaking, advancedness is expressed in terms of progression along both dimensions: Advanced students are able to perform a growing number of activities in increasingly sophisticated ways. More specifically, the curricular progression towards more advanced levels of language competence can be summarised along several other continua: Firstly, the programme reflects the tendency that, as proficiency advances, the focus shifts from linguistic aspects such as accuracy, range, and appropriateness to communicative impact and effectiveness. This tendency is reflected both within and across the course modules, most directly in the assessment criteria. For example, the lower bands of the rating scales used in the final oral examinations in PPOCS 2 and ASSET largely refer to linguistic appropriateness, errors, planning, and repair, whereas the higher bands mostly pertain to the skilled use of language and the communicative effect, as expressed by traits such as consistent control, automaticity, ease, flexibility, and skilful use of communicative means (see Berger, 2020). This kind of progression can also be seen across the course modules: LA and GIU have a strong focus on the formal aspects of grammar, ILSS centres on the form and structure of argumentation, while LIU and EPCO revolve around the implications and effects of specific linguistic choices.

Secondly, progression in the ELC programme is associated with a shift of focus from reception and production to interaction and mediation, both within and across the course modules. Whereas the foundation courses ILSS 1 and 2, for example, address advanced-level reading and essay writing skills, EPCO and MAGNET concentrate on text transformation and strategies to adapt texts for different audiences or purposes. The course module in between, LIU, marks the transition from text analysis to text transformation. This progression seems logical and intuitive, with receptive and productive processes being a prerequisite for mediation.

Another continuum along which advanced-level language learners develop throughout the programme stretches between academic skills and academic identity. In relation to writing, for instance, the lower-level courses such as ILSS tend to follow a skills-based approach, helping students to develop the required writing skills to produce coherent, cohesive, and focused texts typical of academic settings, including, for example, paragraphing, presenting facts, integrating other people’s opinions into one’s own argument, and citing. Higher-level courses such as EAP, by comparison, foster a richer and more holistic view of academic writing as a social practice, with a strong focus on the role of identity and voice as academic writers (see Rieder-Bünemann & Resnik, this volume).

Finally, within the strong text-based teaching paradigm in the ELC programme, another dimension of growth is what Byrnes (2012, p. 511) terms an “evolving genre-based literacy.” In an effort to foster a multicompetent literacy foregrounding the humanistically oriented objectives of tertiary foreign language programmes, she proposes a genre-based curricular progression in advanced foreign language writing development from (1) recounting, reporting, and narrative genres in real-life situations to (2) genres that focus on more metaphorical construals of life, characterised by a higher degree of lexical density and syntactic complexity, where the actors involved engage with public and institutional matters taking comparative and contrastive stances, and (3) genres which involve both human and abstract entities in textual spaces, presenting logical arguments in ever more varied and sophisticated ways in a wider range of disciplinary and content areas (Byrnes, 2012, pp. 511–512). Broadly reflecting this trajectory, the sequence of genres produced and/or analysed in the ELC programme includes an opinion essay about general-interest topics on the basis of the writers’ own ideas, knowledge, and experience in ILSS 1; an opinion essay integrating data and views from various external sources in ILSS 2; speeches, advertisements, and reviews in LIU 1; more complex (persuasive) literary and non-literary texts in LIU 2; highly specialised texts from different professional domains in EPCO and MAGNET; and academic texts relevant to the humanities and social sciences in EAP. A similar upward trajectory can be seen in relation to the oral presentation genres used throughout the programme: In ILSS 1, students give short presentations on a topic relevant to their peers, for example finding resources in Vienna that can help students practise their English; in ILSS 2, students typically give a group presentation discussing divergent views on a controversial topic of general interest; in PPOCS 2 and ASSET, where there is a distinct focus on genre-specific presentation skills and impact strategies, students give a short academic presentation on a topic related to communication, critically evaluating theoretical concepts or definitions, the findings of a research paper, the findings of their own original research, or the results of their analysis of a speech, performance, or text; in EPCO, students present an academic poster on the results of their genre-analysis project carried out in groups; and in EAP, finally, students deliver a fully fledged academic presentation on an analysis of an academic text type, followed by a question-and-answer session. As pointed out by Byrnes et al. (2010), whereas a lack of appropriately sequenced progressions may severely limit the potential for growth, principled progressions such as the ones outlined above can greatly facilitate the development of writing and speaking competence.

1.4.2 Pedagogical Practice

What the brief summary of the chapters in the first part of the volume also shows is that no single one of the common approaches that have informed the teaching of English as a foreign language can adequately capture the ELC concept. For example, the approach underlying ILSS could be summarised as outcomes- and competence-based. Key syllabus documents and practices alike are informed by criterion-referenced learning outcomes in relation to the writing of cohesive and coherent essays, high-level reading comprehension skills, and awareness of appropriate, context-sensitive language use. This outcomes-based conceptualisation of the syllabus is linked to the concept of constructive alignment (Biggs, 2003), a three-step process of describing the intended learning outcomes and success criteria, engaging learners in activities that are likely to produce the intended outcomes, and assessing whether and how well the learners meet the criteria. While the predefined learning outcomes are the glue that holds the pedagogical practice in ILSS together, such an approach is less suitable for a syllabus that aims to develop students’ understanding of how people actually communicate in a wide range of contexts. LIU and EPCO, therefore, favour a text-based approach, where the concepts of text and genre form the starting point for tasks, activities, and assessments. The two modules aim to develop the students’ control of the features and patterns of various text types so as to participate effectively in these texts, both receptively and productively (see Feez, 1998). The strong textual basis in LIU and EPCO is counterbalanced by a focus on other real-life tasks in PPOCS 2 and ASSET. These two courses are informed by the CEFR’s action-oriented approach in that the syllabi are constructed around carefully selected language functions, reflecting the idea that communication is a purposeful social activity and language learners are social agents who have to accomplish certain tasks “in a given set of circumstances, in a specific environment, and within a particular field of action” (Council of Europe, 2001, p. 9). Whereas the action-oriented approach foregrounds the real-world communicative needs in different domains, it does not adequately capture a range of additional abilities deemed characteristic of advanced language learners in our context, namely to analyse, interpret, and transform discourse. Such competences, together with the ability to reflect on how discourse is constructed and how it relates to the culture that gave rise to it, feature more prominently in what is commonly subsumed under the heading of literacy-based language teaching. ELC courses follow a literacy-based approach in the sense that they place great emphasis not only on knowing the language, but also on knowing about the language, the use of metalanguage, form-function relationships, and metacommunicative awareness – characteristic features of literacy-based language teaching (Kern, 2012). The framework presented above can now be extended to include the main pedagogical approaches underlying the ELC programme.

As can be seen in Fig. 1.3, the ELC approach is an integrated approach to language teaching. It combines various pedagogical models and methodologies, including EAP, ESP, genre theory, text-based, literacy-based, outcomes-based, competence-based, and action-oriented language teaching. Accordingly, the programme is not based on one specific set of assumptions or paradigm; instead, it integrates various approaches which interact in the setting of a tertiary-level language programme. While some might consider the absence of a unified theoretical model to be a weakness, describing the approach as atheoretical or not sufficiently principled (e.g., Leki et al., 2008), such an eclectic approach offers the pragmatic flexibility that is necessary for being responsive to the specific needs of the local context. (A third version of this framework, which specifies the interplay between design, practice, and research, is given in Fig. 29.1 in the concluding chapter of this volume.) 

Fig. 1.3

An extended framework for developing advanced English language competence

The examples of pedagogical practice presented in Part II of the volume offer a snapshot of the programme’s diversity in teaching methods, activities, and materials. Although the programme is horizontally and vertically aligned, the lecturers are used to and proud of their individual agency. The contributions illustrate how individual teachers apply the principle of freedom of teaching within a standardised curriculum. The contributions are grouped according to the communicative activities they target: written reception and production, spoken production and interaction, and text analysis and mediation. Each chapter is organised into (1) a contextualisation, (2) objectives, (3) the procedure, and (4) an evaluation.

The first three contributions address written reception and production. Nazarenko presents a learning tool that helps students gain a fuller understanding of written texts. This tool guides the reading process, activates top-down processing, and draws the students’ attention to features that often go unnoticed in a more superficial reading of the text. Prillinger, in turn, provides an account of a creative approach to teaching essay structure by drawing an analogy between argumentative essays and detective stories, thereby successfully curbing the tendency of less advanced students to prioritise form over communicative function. Finally, Savukova describes a coherent way of teaching a linguistic competence that normally receives little attention: punctuation. She explains how she helps her students understand the inherent links between punctuation, sentence structure, and the development of ideas across sentences, using a thoughtfully scaffolded bottom-up approach that gradually shifts from deductive to inductive methods.

The next three contributions in Part II are related to spoken production and interaction. Richter discusses another issue which usually receives little attention in language teaching but may greatly affect students’ grades in oral examinations, namely the fear of public speaking. She presents a sequence of activities designed to make students experience stage fright in a controlled setting, reflect on it, and find ways of alleviating it. Savukova and Richter then describe two consecutive teaching sessions on advanced interaction skills, including effective turn-taking and producing longer persuasive turns, especially in spontaneous, unplanned discussions. Roth and Weitz-Polydoros present a procedure for practising ad-hoc speeches on different topics, which aims at fostering students’ awareness of academic writing by drawing on some similarities between oral presentation and writing tasks.

The remaining contributions in Part II focus on text analysis and mediation. Nazarenko describes a lesson on the notion of audience, using texts that are all related to the same information but differ in terms of how the information is presented to varying target groups. Müller-Lipold gives an account of how she integrates parody into her teaching, encouraging students to imitate an author’s style in one of the writing assignments. Finally, Bruno-Lindner outlines a number of tasks aiming to raise students’ awareness of the differences between specialist and non-specialist texts. The focus there is on mediation strategies such as explaining a concept to a new audience and simplifying a text.

1.4.3 Teacher Research

Besides programme design and pedagogical practice, the third cornerstone of the ELC approach is teacher research. In fact, one motivation for compiling this volume was the growing need and desire for teachers in tertiary language education to engage in research, thereby reconceptualising their traditional role and identity. While some writers have made a strong case for increased teacher engagement in development, scholarship, and research (e.g., Borg, 2013), remarkably little has been written from the practitioners’ perspective, either theoretically or practically (Ding & Bruce, 2017). This is particularly true in relation to teacher involvement in programme management and research activity: Curriculum design is usually considered to be the responsibility of programme managers, and research is typically associated with researchers rather than teachers (Coombe & Sheetz, 2015). However, the identity and agency of university language teachers is changing, given the social, political, and economic influences on tertiary language education in recent years. In addition to their core activity of teaching, practitioners are increasingly being encouraged to engage in additional academic and managerial responsibilities, a form of practitioner development which is considered vital for both individuals and the profession as a whole (Ding & Bruce, 2017). We therefore contend that a publication from the perspective of practitioners addressing the interplay between programme design, language teaching, and their own research is long overdue.

Our working definition of teacher research is based on Borg (2015), who describes it as “systematic inquiry conducted by teachers, individually or collaboratively, in their own professional contexts, which aims to enhance teachers’ understandings of some aspect of their own work, and is made public in some way” (p. 105). The contributions in Part III of the volume subscribe to this understanding, reflecting the overall aim of the research to yield insights that are socially useful, either because they help our students to develop advanced English language competence or because they are beneficial to other practitioners in similar contexts. Part III contains different types of studies: teacher research relevant to day-to-day classroom practice, studies on learner beliefs, validation research on testing and assessment procedures, and a study relating to programme design. Methodologically, the research is inclusive, encompassing the range of both qualitative and quantitative approaches that is typical of teacher research (e.g., Borg, 2015).

Adopting a contextual, student-centred approach, Rieder-Bünemann and Resnik investigate advanced learners’ conceptions of academic L2 writing in English. Using guided reflections and questionnaire data, they identify students’ perceived challenges of academic writing prior to attending the EAP course, compare them to the students’ impressions about academic writing in the first language, and observe changes in perception at the end of the EAP course. The authors show that even advanced learners of English face considerable challenges when it comes to academic writing, supporting the view that learning to write academically in a foreign language is similar to learning another language within the language. At the same time, the results show that targeted input and support can change learners’ perceptions significantly and help students become more competent and confident members of the academic community. Such studies are highly useful for students and teachers alike, underlining the importance of aligning pedagogical practice with learner needs and beliefs.

Schiftner-Tengg explores an aspect of L2 writing which was perceived as a major challenge in Rieder-Bünemann and Resnik’s study, namely rhetorical structure. More specifically, taking a discourse-sensitive approach, Schiftner-Tengg addresses the question of whether and how connectives contribute to the coherence of student writing produced in the context of ILSS. Her analytical framework is innovative in that it combines three layers of analysis: global coherence ratings, the connectives used, and a text’s coherence structure. The findings show that it is not so much the number as the type of connectives that contribute to the perceived coherence in a learner text, and whether relations are marked in a text depends on the type of relation, which suggests that the use of connectives is secondary to the underlying meaning relations. These results have important implications for teaching not just in ILSS but especially in contexts where there is a tendency to teach connectives either as the main means of indicating relational structure or dissociated from the meaning relations they signal.

Heaney investigates the perceived effectiveness of a learning tool used in ILSS and LIU, the so-called vocabulary log. The idea of this tool is for students to keep an individualised written record of some of their work on learning unfamiliar vocabulary items. Students are encouraged to experiment with new strategies for planning, discovering, recording, and consolidating vocabulary knowledge. Heaney presents the results of an online survey, showing that the lecturers generally have a higher opinion of the utility of this tool than the students. She suggests that raising students’ awareness of the purpose of individual tasks and a more efficient use of diagnostic tools could further improve the vocabulary learning component. Heaney’s contribution is a notable example of how teacher research employs student feedback to evaluate and improve the teaching instruments used in the programme.

In another study related to vocabulary, Ghamarian offers a diachronic perspective on vocabulary development throughout the ELC programme. She analyses written performances of students as they progress from ILSS 1 to ILSS 2 and EAP. Employing corpus analytic methods, she determines the distribution of academic, high-frequency, technical, and low-frequency vocabulary. The findings show that students’ use of academic and technical language generally increases as they progress through the programme. At the same time, there are individual differences in developmental patterns. As the results of this small-scale study defy generalisation, Ghamarian calls for more longitudinal corpus research on vocabulary development to support students in their efforts to increase lexical range and control.

Berger’s research is concerned with advanced-level speaking assessment. It is a comparative study of two types of rating scales designed for PPOCS 2: One distinguishes between the scale bands by means of interdependent, abstract qualifiers (e.g., some, many, most); the other one uses independent, concrete performance features to differentiate the bands. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are employed to determine the effectiveness of the scales. Many-facet Rasch analysis shows that although raters are able to develop a shared understanding of abstract descriptor formulations, concrete performance features can be interpreted more easily. Retrospective group interviews with raters confirm the superiority of concrete distinctions over abstract ones. Such studies offer valuable insights into our assessment procedures; they are part of important validation research which language programmes, if professionalism is taken seriously, should routinely perform.

In her contribution on foreign accent and the role of identity in the adult EFL pronunciation classroom, Richter addresses an issue that has long been acknowledged as an influential factor in advanced L2 learning, exploring the relationship between identity perceptions and achievement in pronunciation learning in the context of PPOCS 1. The findings indicate that the link between identity and achievement in pronunciation learning is not as strong as one could assume in the light of much of the literature. Trying to approximate a model accent seems to extend rather than change the learners’ identity. However, as Richter aptly points out, the focus of the study is highly specific, involving a non-representative group of learners; generalisations are therefore hardly possible. In terms of teaching, Richter suggests that learners could use specific role models rather than a number of different native speakers of English.

Berger’s second contribution is situated in the context of designing the course syllabus for ASSET, which conceptualises teacher language proficiency as a specialised set of language abilities required in addition to general communicative ability. The survey study explores the perceived needs of pre-service teachers of English in relation to speaking ability for classroom purposes. The results show that learning needs seem to exist particularly in relation to three areas: giving feedback, mediating, and scaffolding. The study was instrumental in designing the ASSET syllabus; it also offers possible implications for characterising teacher language competence more generally.

Taken together, the chapters in Part III reflect the trend in higher education towards research-informed language teaching as well as the growing conviction that teachers are not just passive consumers of research done by others but active producers of expert knowledge in the areas of teaching, research, and programme design.

1.5 Relevance of the Book

To conclude this introductory chapter, a final word should be said about the relevance of this book. The volume represents a curricular and instructional approach to developing advanced English competence at the intersection of programme design, pedagogical practice, and teacher research. The curricular, pedagogical, and research activities are linked to a specific group of teachers catering to a special group of advanced EFL learners in a particular university context. However, although the ELC approach is highly situated, it has relevance beyond the bounds of the local context. In fact, the setting of a specific tertiary-level language programme provides an ideal locus for revealing and exploring the symbiosis between programme design, teaching, and research in advanced language education. It also provides a concrete basis for understanding the dynamics, interactions, and complexities of a system in action, and the implications of the programme for students, teachers, and programme managers can be revealed. In this view, the holistic and in-depth characterisation of the curricular concept, the illustrative examples of pedagogical practice, and the presentation of programme-specific teacher research can benefit other university language programmes regardless of any conceptual or contextual differences. The volume presents a unique, but possibly not uncommon, perspective on some key issues in tertiary language education by (1) establishing a clear relationship between programme design, pedagogical practice, and teacher research, (2) making curricular thinking, pedagogical practice, and assessment criteria transparent, (3) providing a descriptive definition of curricular progression, (4) operationalising this progression through pedagogical practice and assessment, (5) demonstrating horizontal and vertical alignment across programme modules, (6) illustrating pedagogical practice in a programme that encourages standardisation without uniformity, (7) addressing challenges for both students and lecturers as well as suggesting future directions, (8) extending the roles of language teachers to curriculum designers and module coordinators, and (9) redefining teacher identities by integrating teacher research into a programme where teaching-only contracts are the norm. All this seriously challenges a commonly held view that language competence programmes merely function as auxiliary units within larger departments and accords such programmes the scholarly status they deserve. Viewed in that light, the ELC approach has wider currency not although but because it is highly situated. By presenting a local approach, the volume contributes to developing a more comprehensive and contextualised view of English language education worldwide. I would like to conclude with Byrnes’s (2012, p. 516) assertion that clear, context-sensitive, and transparent links between the curriculum, teaching, and assessment practices are the basis for an articulated educational philosophy, which in turn provides a basis for developing advanced L2 competence.