Advanced literacy in Argentina

Points of contact with the teaching-learning of academic Spanish as L2

Abstract

In this paper I aim to make a contribution to knowledge of current academic literacy initiatives in Argentina. I contrast four reading and writing programmes which belong to different academic stages (pre-university and undergraduate) in metropolitan public universities with differentiated profiles: University of Buenos Aires (Semiology Workshop and Academic Genres Workshop) and National University of General Sarmiento (Reading and Writing CAU Workshop and PRODEAC). This account may help enhance the development of university reading and writing pedagogy and explore common issues in teaching and learning academic Spanish and Spanish for specific purposes as L2, an expanding field in Argentina. I contrast six variables: institutionalization, theoretical perspective, methodology, linguistic strata, pedagogic materials (including corpora) and tasks and evaluation. Qualitative and quantitative study covers working materials, institutional sources and interviews with writing programmes' teachers and directors. Results show that the National University of General Sarmiento -a smaller, newer, more geographically situated institution whose students allegedly have less cultural capital- includes writing programmes that reach more students and teachers and that, in the pre-university stage, focuses on overcoming learning deficits through scaffolded teaching and learning of basic linguistic strata. However, most similarities don't depend on institutional factors but on the academic stage and the perspective on writing that inform such programmes. Pre-university writing programmes aim at large numbers of heterogeneous students, are less based on reading and writing pedagogy theories, and are relatively isolated from undergraduate degrees' genres, epistemological frameworks and academic actors, although they attempt to gain access to the degrees through relevant content-oriented materials. Undergraduate courses invert these features. The same contrastive variables are useful to study -and to build bridges with- academic Spanish as L2 programmes, especially a perspective on academic literacy as entrance to relatively second and foreign cultures and languages that influences the undergraduate programmes in L1.