Enhancing Literacy in a Large First-Year Accounting Course

Linda M. English
Department of Accounting HO4
University of Sydney NSW 2006
Australia

Teaching Context

The teaching environment at the University of Sydney is quite unlike the teaching environment in the USA. In Australia we follow the UK model of large lectures supplemented by smaller group teaching. The majority of students entering the first-year accounting course at the University of Sydney arrive straight from high school and have not studied accounting previously. The course is available to local students and foreign fee-paying students. As many as forty-five percent of the total student body are from non-English speaking backgrounds. For these students English is a second language.

The innovation nominated for the AAA Innovation in Accounting Education Award is primarily concerned with the enhancement of literacy skills in a large 1st year accounting course via the tutorial component of the course. Each week there are two lectures to introduce new material delivered to over 250 students at a time; one workshop containing about 70 students and a self-taught computer component to reinforce technical competence. To help students grasp content, interactive lecture notes are prepared to reduce the amount of student note-taking and increase the time spent by the lecturer explaining the material and answering questions. The purpose of the weekly tutorial is to enable consideration and discussion of underlying principles and the application of theory to practice. It is the site in which the development of literacy skills, takes place. Tutorials contain a maximum of 20 students. It is in the tutorial program that the curriculum redesign includes the subject of the nomination, takes place. First year accounting is a two semester course.

I am the lecturer-in-charge of the two-semester first-year accounting course. As such I have overall responsibility for determining course objectives, the development of teaching materials, the teaching and assessment of students, the training of faculty and the overall administration of the course. Between 1990-1998 enrolments have increased from 400 to over 900. The course is also taught at two other campuses: Kolej Antrabangsa, Penang and at the Universal Education Centre in the centre of the city, Sydney. Of the fifteen faculty at the main Sydney campus in first semester 1998, all but four are casuals. The fact that the course has been successfully taught on two external campuses is an indication that the innovations nominated here are able to be replicated by other institutions.

Email: linda@abacus.econ.usyd.edu.au
Fax: 61 2 9351 6638
Phone: 61 2 9351 3900

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