Negotiating meanings and scaffolding learning: writing support for non‐English speaking background postgraduate students

Abstract

Language and learning advisers and non‐English speaking background (NESB) postgraduate students negotiate complex territory when working together to improve students’ texts. However, the individual writing consultation is sometimes conceptualised one‐dimensionally by faculty as a form of editing. The writing consultation with NESB postgraduate students has also received only sporadic attention in the higher education literature. This paper provides a contextual, discourse analytical account of one writing consultation between a faculty‐based language adviser and a Master of Public Health NESB student. The findings show that the consultation was a dynamic exchange druing which a range of meanings were negotiated. The findings also show that the adviser scaffolded the student’s academic writing and learning in a number of ways. More research is needed in different teaching contexts and at various stages of students’ writing in order to provide a greater understanding of the writing support consultation to inform guidelines for providing individual language support to NESB postgraduate students.