On 26–27 June, we had the pleasure of welcoming a wonderful community of educators and researchers to the 2nd Disciplinary Literacy Symposium, held at Royal High School Bath and the University of Bath. It was deeply rewarding to see our vision come to life: a dynamic space to explore how language shapes learning across disciplines that fosters meaningful exchange between practical pedagogy and theoretical insight.
Teaching-focused sessions such as Cheers and colleagues’ “Towards a Disciplinary Literacy Approach” and Chen and colleagues’ “Transforming Disciplinary Literacy” were described as “inspiring and essential” by attendees. These presentations offered valuable strategies for embedding disciplinary literacy into classroom practice.
Equally compelling were the research-led talks. Nesi and Gardner’s “Five Educational Purposes Identified from the BAWE Corpus” and Matruglio’s “Deconstructing Disciplinary Disadvantage” demonstrated how corpus linguistics and systemic functional linguistics can shed light on the complexities of academic language and educational equity.
The symposium wasn’t just about presentations—it was a space for dialogue, collaboration, and new connections. Attendees left with fresh insights, practical tools, and a renewed sense of language and its role in disciplinary literacy.
We extend our warm thanks to all speakers, attendees, assistants, and school staff who made the event such a success. The BAWESS team is already looking forward to welcoming you to the 3rd Disciplinary Literacy Symposium in 2026.
Coming soon: We’ll be sharing presentation slides and video highlights on this website. In the meantime, you can view the abstracts below. We are also excited to report that the Language and Literacy in Education Network (LLEN) headed by Bev Derewianka and colleagues is due to be launched shortly, with the goal of advancing “literacy and learning achievements of all students throughout the years of schooling and beyond”. More details can be found at their website.
***** Don’t forget, your school can sign up to participate in the BAWESS project and contribute to this landmark research. Full details can be found at the website information page here. You can register via the online form here, or email the team at bawess@bath.ac.uk for more details.*****
