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MultiConText: Academic writing in multilingual context

The International Writing Lab’s programme MultiConText has been supporting multilingual students in their academic writing processes since the summer of 2015. MultiConText is aimed at students of all subjects and fields of study. In workshops and individual writing consultations, we connect with students’ individual (writing) experience and resources from different academic and knowledge contexts, and we encourage them to use their multilingualism as a resource in their writing. The concept of MulitConText, the multilingual writing didactics behind it and the ideas for its implementation in teaching can be read from autumn 2022 in “Mehrsprachiges Schreiben im akademischen Kontext unterstützen, anleiten, begleiten” (Barczaitis/ Brinkschulte/ Grieshammer/ Stoian) published by UTB.

What one’s individual literacy biography has to do with academic writing processes can also be read in the chapter “Becoming aware of one’s own multilingualism” of the already above-mentioned book, and the concept can be tried out didactically. Biographical research is also an important basis in the field of academic writing for the development of tasks for the multilingual students, who are our target group in the ‘MultiConText’ programme. The ‘literacy biography’ or the ‘literacy autobiography’ offers students the opportunity to engage with their own experience in writing and reading in a reflective way in order to recognise their own resources so that they can consciously apply them in their writing.