Code meshing: Online bilingual tutoring in Higher Education

Abstract

Students’ academic writing literacies are required to express their knowledge, as academic writing is the common mode of assessment in higher education. 28 isiXhosa-speaking first-year diploma students, who failed an academic literacies admission test evaluating the level of their academic writing literacies in the Business faculty, participated once a week over a period of eight months in a course including the practice of code meshing. In the June and November Tourism Communication tests, which also evaluated their academic writing literacies, there was a significant difference in the mean scores when compared to the admission test in the Business faculty.  Their academic writing had also improved, according to their assignment marks. The researcher in this project provides evidence that code meshing as a bi/multilingual strategy could be used to improve academic writing literacies in students.