Abstract:
Academic Literacy (AL) is not only the subject matter knowledge and the fluency of
four English language skills in the context, but also the ways of behaving in
particular disciplinary contexts that are acceptable within specific groups of people.
Currently, AL is gaining wide attention in the global higher education context. The
two main theoretical understandings of AL - autonomous and ideological - influence
the AL practices in English Medium Degree Programmes (EMDPs). Mainstreaming
AL which is ideological in its philosophy is well-known as the most advanced and
influential practice in current global higher education. The main objective of this
study is to find out the existing AL practices of nine faculties - science, management
and social sciences/ humanities - of three state universities in Sri Lanka. A qualitative
study design has been employed to achieve the objective and data collection has been
done through lecturer interviews and official documentation in the form of curricula
and pedagogical practices. The data have been analyzed through Qualitative Content
Analysis (QCA) and three major themes have been identified: teaching English as a
discrete course in EMDPs, subject lecturers’ pedagogy in EMDPs and signs of
mainstreaming academic literacy. The first theme discusses the strong call for
teaching English as a discrete course in EMDPs. The second theme converses the
subject lecturers’ pedagogy in English Medium Instruction (EMI) in the nine
faculties. The third theme - mainstreaming academic literacy discusses the signs of
mainstreaming academic literacy practices in EMDPs. This study concludes that the
commonest practice of English language courses is the stand-alone English courses
in EMDPs but this practice does not allow students to transfer their acquired English
language proficiency into the particular disciplinary context as expected and serves
little to develop academic literacy in EMDPs. Further, subject lecturers do not gain
EMI-specific pedagogical trainings as part of their professional development and
there are no prominent signs of mainstreaming academic literacy practices found in
EMDPs in the nine faculties. Hence, this study calls for attention on academic
literacy development in EMDPs through staff, student, curriculum and institutional
development
