Perceptions of academic literacy courses in a postgraduate programme in Israel

This study reflects on students' and instructors' evaluations of an embedded literacies course in a Master's program in Teaching & Education in Israel. The main goal of the study was to explore the academic justification for embedding a compulsory academic literacies course, taught in the mother tongue (Hebrew), at the outset of the M.Teach. Using questionnaires and interviews, students and instructors' perceptions were sought with reference to the necessity, contribution and suitability of the course in a Master's degree. Unlike their instructors, students were not persuaded of the need or utility of the course they had completed. The interviews suggested that they saw it as irrelevant, at their level of study, and irrelevant to their work in the M.Teach. While implementing such a course is complicated, involving many considerations, the main conclusion is the need to share with students the course' aims - beyond study skills and language proficiency - of acculturating students to the academic discourse in general and to Education as a discipline in particular. This should diminish the gaps between students' and instructors' perceptions and motivate the students towards the course. Although the study took place in the local context of Hebrew-speaking students, it has wider applicability wherever students - including local students - need a better understanding of the demands of writing for their higher degree.