Am I English Impaired? My Journey of Developing Academic Literacies

Abstract International students often aspire to academic success to achieve successful careers and lead enriching lives. The hope for a better future usually creates blind spots, hiding the challenges of acculturation in plain sight. There is a common notion that students who have been high academic achievers can remain successful in Australian higher education. This false narrative is not intentional; it is a sociocultural expectation that often disregards the possibility of alternate academic outcomes for hardworking students. This chapter aims to contribute to the existing literature on academic literacies adopting a hardiness and positive psychology approach, interpreting personal excerpts from my lived experiences during my master’s degree from an Australian public university. This chapter is a product of my academic struggles in navigating Australian academic standards and linguistic discourses. It is an account of my journey of developing academic literacy through persistence, consistency, resilience and optimism. It situates my academic stance to argue that individuals develop academic literacies as a result of the interaction of their personal, social and academic backgrounds, backed by their psychological capital.