Collaboration UdeS-Brazil around literacy skills of university students
The Quebec Office of the French language defines literacy as "the set of skills in reading and writing for a person to be functional in society," adding that the "knowledge threshold required to be functional changes over time and varies from one society to another. "
With fellow members of the collective research on the continuity of learning in reading and writing (KEY), Professors Olivier Dezutter and Christiane Blaser of the Faculty of Education and Françoise Bleys of the Faculty of Arts and Language Centre humanities are at the heart of a partnership research project with three universities in the state of Sao Paulo in Brazil.
Researchers are working on the specific literacy to university students. What are the pitfalls faced by students who have to produce texts in college? What resources are available to them to get there? Students here they are considering producing written in the same perspective as those in Latin America? Not only do we want to answer these questions but also provide a hand tool to help students improve their language skills and also to raise awareness among teachers of all disciplines to the need to support the learning of students in this field.
"We never stop learning to write!"
Olivier speaks with verve Dezutter the premise of the work he led: "We are interested in development of reading and writing skills at all stages of schooling, including to university. We must get out of a vision that deplores gaps among students and rather recognize that we never stop learning to read and write. Even at the university, we have a responsibility to train students to write according to the kinds of texts they are asked, and which vary studied disciplines. "In this regard, the Language Centre of UdeS offers allophone students courses in academic writing genres and institutional Carrefour writing and effective communication (CIRCE) developed courses tailored to the needs of oral and written communication of specific programs, such as engineering, administration or work social. This approach has piqued the curiosity of researchers from the University of Sao Paulo (USP), who had set up a laboratory there to academic literacy. Three Brazilian trainees, students to master research, arrived at the UdeS last month thanks to a grant from the Emerging Leaders in the Americas Program. They note that the courses offered within UdeS some of the training programs are an inspiring example in relation to projects that develop in them. "The collaboration between the teacher of a discipline that works in partnership with the language teacher can create structured lessons. It's one of the things we would like to offer too. With us, however, services are offered on a voluntary basis outside the academic path, "says Jaci Brasil Tonelli.
Beyond school cultures
For three years, the team associated KEY collective initiated under the supervision of Professor Dezutter, a collaboration with Brazilian colleagues including Professor Eliane Lousada, of the Faculty of Arts of the USP, research associate at the KEY. The project aims to support the development of reading and writing skills of university students, and better understand the challenges faced by those students who have to produce texts of specific forms to their studies.
"We started by making a student survey to find out what kinds of texts he had the habit of writing in high school and new types of texts they should write to university. It was also questioned about the requirements expected when they arrive at university and what they use as resources. "This study highlight some differences between" school culture "of Brazil and Quebec. "Here, the most important to the students seems to be the normative dimension - the idea of not making mistakes.In Brazil, this premium is to produce a text suitable to a communication situation or a specific recipient, "says Prof. Dezutter.
Common concerns are also evident, mainly regarding the need to be guided to produce specific types of writings. The project objective is to provide, by 2017, online tools which can refer students and their teachers to support the production of specific writings.
The collaboration started with the University of São Paulo (USP), and is extended to with the addition of two other institutions of the Brazilian metropolis: the Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp) and the University São Francisco.The Department of International Relations of Quebec, the Future Leaders of the Americas Program of the Government of Canada and the Agence universitaire de la francophonie financially support the project.
Electronic tools that change the situation
The current project is carried out in the wake of a previous project that involved partners from Mexico, Lebanon and Belgium, which has recently led to the on-line site Site Scriptur @ the (end link text). This project was interested specifically in the learning of French second or foreign language in a university context, and use of technology related to the production of writings (checkers, online dictionaries, translators, etc.).
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