Enhancing Student Support in Higher Education A Subject-Focused Approach

This book is about supporting students in Higher Education using language, and specifically using a combination of written text based linguistic approaches alongside and with other non-text related languages. The authors call this a beyond-text subject based approach and argue that this can more effectively help students. The book first outlines and describes a ‘paradigm of linguistics’ that sees support as being only possible through linguistics written text approaches. It then describes how the authors have found through their own research studies that such approaches do not go far enough to best support students. They offer alternatives and justify them theoretically and empirically, and also suggest ways in which others can use similar approaches to best support students in HE. This book will be of interest to practitioners, students, teachers and researchers in the fields of Applied Linguistics, TESOL, English Medium Instruction (EMI), EAP and language education policy.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Nick Pilcher is a lecturer at Edinburgh Napier University, UK. He is based in the Business School and has a range of interests. He has worked on pieces published in journals such as Qualitative Research, Teaching in Higher Education, the Journal of Cleaner Production, and Maritime Policy and Management.

Kendall Richards is a lecturer at Edinburgh Napier University, UK. His research focuses on addressing academic support, retention, progression and widening access. He has presented globally and is published in journals including the International Journal of Qualitative Studies, Power and Education, and Teaching in Higher Education.