In this talk, I outline the potential and limitations of taking a case study approach to researching pedagogies aimed at supporting the scholarly research writing of plurilingual scientists living outside centres of knowledge production.
The past decades have seen an intensification of the expectations for English language scholarly publication by global scholars across disciplines and global regions (Amaro, Sutherland & Gonzalez-Vejo, 2016; Curry & Lillis, 2019; Flowerdew, 2019; Hyland, 2019; Ware & Mabe, 2013). Research into the experiences with writing for publication of plurilingual scholars using English as an additional language – their perceptions, challenges, strategies, etc. – has led to a burgeoning field of English for Research Publication Purposes (ERPP). ERPP scholarship has included not only the individual responses of scholars to increasing expectations for publishing their work in English but also the development and implementation of particular pedagogical initiatives to support scholars' research writing outcomes (e.g. Bazerman, Keranen & Encinas, 2012; Burgess, Martin & Balasanyan, 2019; Corcoran, 2017; Englander & Corcoran, 2019; Li &Cargill, 2019). Drawing on experiences employing a case study approach to better understand the (perceived) impact of a pedagogical initiative at Mexico University (a pseudonym), this presentation outlines the potential and limitations of this methodology in better understanding the experiences of plurilingual EAL scholars, including the impact of pedagogical initiatives on their research writing outcomes, practices, and beliefs. I conclude by highlighting the ability for case studies of pedagogical interventions to better understand the lived experiences of various context-specific stakeholders (scholars; curriculum designers; instructors; policy makers) while also suggesting the need for methodologies that can better account for the longer term impact of such interventions on plurilingual EAL scholars' dynamic, evolving, plurilingual writing practices.
