A Multimodal Approach toward Teaching for Transfer: A Case of Team-Teaching in ESAP Writing Courses

Abstract

This paper presents a detailed examination of learning transfer from an English for Specific Academic Purposes course to authentic discipline-specific writing tasks. To enhance transfer practices, a new approach in planning writing tasks and materials selection was developed. Concerning the conventions of studies in learning transfer that acknowledge different learning preferences, the instructional resources were designed to be multimodal to engage all participants in construing the principles of academic writing. To promote the relevance of writing practices and their transferability to future professional settings and to ensure the success of the multimodal presentations, a practice of team-teaching between the English Language and content lecturers was rigorously embraced. A sample population of 28 postgraduate medical students from Jondi Shapur University of Medical Sciences in Ahvaz participated in this research. The data were collected through interviews and writing samples throughout a whole semester and were subsequently analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively based on James' (2009) checklist of writing outcomes. The results indicated that the instruction did stimulate transfer from the course to the authentic tasks notably in the skills associated with organization and language accuracy; however, the transfer of some outcomes appeared to be constrained particularly the use of punctuation marks. Implications of the findings for theory, practice, and future research in discipline-specific writing practices are discussed.