Literacy practices and business education: Pedagogic intentions for teacher training

  • Carina Georgina America Stellenbosch University
Keywords: Business education, content literacy, critical literacy, economic and management sciences, literacy practice

Abstract

The importance of literacy and literacy practices as an instrument of conceptual and cognitive development is well documented. Reading and writing skills have an integral role in higher education, yet the application of these skills is normally the domain of language specialists or academic support programmes and not the focus of subject lecturers. This article reports on business education student teachers’ reflections of a small-scale ‘read-talk-write’ project. I argue that introducing a disciplinary  literacy component in business education may infuse a critical-reflective approach in business education teacher training to encourage habits of reading, writing, speaking and reasoning with the intention to cascade it to school level.  Data was collected by means of open-ended survey questions using content analysis. Findings suggest that content literacy instruction in business education can be applied by introducing deliberate and consistent literacy practices for students to become critically aware of and confident in interrogating disciplinary content in business. 

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Author Biography

Carina Georgina America, Stellenbosch University
Dr Carina America is a lecturer in business education in the Department of Curriculum Studies at Stellenbosch University. She holds an MCom degree in management sciences and a PhD in educaton. Her research interests are business education, sustainable development, business ethics, teacher training and curriculum development. Email:  camerica@sun.ac.za
Published
2015-02-02