Communication skills for global contexts: Accommodating diversity in curriculum design

Increasing numbers of students from non-English speaking backgrounds attending Australian tertiary institutions are challenging educators to adopt strategies of internationalisation for accommodating and taking advantage of linguistic and cultural diversity. In contemporary educational contexts, teaching and assessment of communication skills, in particular, are requiring transformations that promote participation in local and international discourse communities. Local academic and professional contexts and practices currently inform curricular design. Yet, it will be argued in this paper that accommodating the various linguistic, cultural and educational experiences of students is necessary for the development of a curriculum that equips students with the appropriate skills for participating at both personal and professional levels in local as well as international contexts. An approach towards developing communicative competencies in a linguistically and culturally diverse undergraduate student population at the Victorian College of Pharmacy will be discussed. The college is implementing a multi-faceted strategy for intergrating communication skills training across the curriculum by coordinating programmes in: 1) identification of at risk students, 2) course teaching and assessment, and 3) language and learning support. Formal and informal methods of assessment help to not onyl identify students in need of communication skills remediation but also inform the design and delivery of communication skills teaching and assessment across faculty programmes. Ongoing discussions between Faculty, students and curriculum designers are integral to facilitating participation in responding to both professional practice requirements and student needs and in developing a curriculum sensitive to local and global educational contexts.