Developing and sustaining new pedagogies: a case for embedding language, literacy and academic skills in vocational education curriculum

This paper reports on a collaborative project aimed at addressing the learning challenges faced by non-traditional students at the interface of TAFE and Higher Education. Our pedagogy is informed by engagement with a critique of competency-based education that espouses 'bringing knowledge back into' the curriculum (Wheelahan, 2010a) and a critique of progressivist language pedagogy that calls for explicit instruction about the distinctive language features of disciplinary knowledge (Martin and Rose, 2008). We describe how we have used the concepts of 'discourse community' and 'discoursal identity' to construct a pedagogy that enables students: 1) to learn the 'knowledge' and 'language' of their course, both for work and further study; and 2) to begin to develop a critical perspective on the discourse community into which they are being inducted. We also illustrate why close collaboration between discipline teachers and teachers with language and learning expertise is intrinsic to the successful design and enactment of this pedagogy.