Call for Chapter Proposals:Pedagogical Innovations in Oral Academic Comm.

Oral Communication Edited Collection Proposals

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Call for chapter proposals for edited volume tentatively entitled

Pedagogical Innovations in Oral Academic Communication

Editor Megan M. Siczek, The George Washington University, Washington, DC

I invite collaborators for a newly proposed edited collection, under advance contract with the University of Michigan Press (ELT).

This edited collection targets a neglected area of scholarship on academic discourse socialization: oral communication. Its goal is to gather TESOL scholars and practitioners in exploring the principles and practices that both ground and help innovate the teaching of oral communication in a range of academic contexts in higher education.

It has already been established that writing is the most common curricular requirement across North American higher education, and many institutions have dedicated programs or courses for multilingual international students, both of which signal the value placed on written communication in institutional settings. Oral communication, on the other hand, remains relatively neglected despite being considered a key to students’ classroom success and a skill that is highly valued in both academic and professional settings. Being able to respond to communicative expectations across educational contexts is particularly important for multilingual international students who are new to our academic discourse communities.

It is extremely important for us to acknowledge that academic discourse socialization involves both written and oral communication, and we as TESOL specialists need to advocate for its value in our curricula and in our collective scholarship. As such, this volume creates a space for us to share our knowledge, pedagogical approaches, and relevant research results with others within our community and beyond.

This volume goes beyond traditional approaches to teaching oral academic communication in higher education, and the following themes/purposes will give focus to this book and ensure that its content is both current and forward-thinking:

• Exploring authentic contexts for oral academic communication

• Reflecting disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity in oral academic communication

• Promoting critical digital literacy, moving students from being knowledge consumers to being knowledge producers by drawing on multimodal forms of communication and reaching different audiences

• Building on genre-based pedagogies and exploring multimodal genres

• Giving “voice” to multilingual students’ experiences communicating in academic contexts and valuing multilingual voices

• Providing instructors inspiration and pedagogical models for innovating their Oral Communication Edited Collection Proposals

teaching of oral academic communication

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In line with these focal themes, chapter proposals could consider, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Oral communication as academic discourse socialization

• Principles and best practices for oral communication instruction

• Contexts for oral academic communication (e.g., across the undergraduate curriculum; within disciplinary and/or professional domains; institutional support outside the classroom)

• Genre- and task-based pedagogies for oral communication

• Oral communication to promote global and intercultural competence

• Multimodal approaches to teaching oral academic communication; producing multimodal genres

• Analyses of spoken discourse (including corpus-based)

• Research on multilingual students’ experiences speaking in academic contexts

Though this book will have relevance for stakeholders across institutions, for example, by opening new doors for curriculum development that values oral academic communication or as a means to ensure that students acquire communicative competencies for participation in a global community, its primary audience is TESOL scholars and practitioners in higher educational contexts. It will be of direct interest for those who teach—or want to teach—courses geared toward oral academic communication and are seeking new pedagogical approaches. I also envision this book as a resource for graduate students who are training to work with multilingual students in higher education, ensuring they have access to current best practices relating to oral academic discourse socialization. Finally, this book would be of value to researchers and scholars, who can examine the status of work in the field and advance scholarship on this important topic.

Chapter proposal abstracts

If you are interested in contributing a chapter, email msiczek@gwu.edu with a tentative title and a 400-word abstract that: (1) frames the proposal in relevant *literature; (2) provides an overview of the proposed chapter; and (3) explains the chapter’s significance and how it would contribute to the collection. Along with the 400-word abstract, please include a 30-word bio of all contributing authors and a brief bibliography listing *five references. Name the proposal file using the last name of the author(s), proposal, and date of submission (for example “Last name_proposal_12-1-19”). Feel free to direct any questions to the above email address.

Manuscript specifications

For authors invited to submit a full manuscript, please adhere to the following specifications: Oral Communication Edited Collection Proposals

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• Manuscripts should be approximately 15-20 pages inclusive of references, tables, and figures.

• A variety of methodological approaches are encouraged, but use of statistical analysis should be accessible to a general audience of educators

• The manuscript should be double-spaced using 12-point type with one-inch margins.

• Use APA citation format (6 th edition: https://apastyle.apa.org).

• Manuscripts should be sent in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) format; name the document file using the last name of the author(s), chapter, and date of submission (for example “Last name_chapter_6-1-20”).

Tentative timeline

• Abstract submissions due: December 1, 2019

• Notification of invitation to submit full manuscript: December 31, 2019

• Chapter manuscripts due for review: June 1, 2020 (followed by notification of the manuscript’s inclusion in the volume; after notification of acceptance, chapter authors will be expected to review one another’s drafts)

• Feedback on chapter drafts returned: no later than September 1, 2020

• Revisions due for chapters to be included in the volume: October 1, 2020

• Manuscript delivered to publisher: November 1, 2020