Enhancing Academic Writing Proficiency among English as a Second Language Users at the Undergraduate Level: A Comparative Analysis of Student-Lecturer Perspectives and Strategies (original) (raw)
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Even though writing as a language skill takes a back seat especially with reference to the natural order hypothesis, appreciation of writing in academic settings propel learners to challenge the validity of this order. It is not surprising therefore that writing deserves a higher priority in academic settings due much to its immediate practical application in a variety of academic tasks such as examination questions, essays, research reports, dissertation thesis and so on. In line with this constant practice with writing, English majoring students are quite usually subject to production of texts in the academic essay genre and desire to position themselves in academic discourse community through following the desired academic conventions. However, a considerable number of students fail to achieve the desired proficiency; cultural variations intrude into the language classrooms and differences in meaning learners attach to the writing activities are evident, which makes it necessary to explore students' perceptions from academic writing courses. To this end, questionnaires on students' writing efficacy were distributed to the freshman students enrolled in Academic Writing class, and interviews were carried out to have a broader understanding of the expectations from the course. Data from the questionnaire were analyzed using the SPSS and content analysis was employed to analyze the interviews.
Academic writing difficulties of ESL learners , 2015
This small-scale survey investigated the academic writing challenges of ESL learners. It aimed at answering two questions which are what are the academic writing difficulties encountered by ESL learners and what are the factors that may cause these difficulties? The subjects were 20 postgraduate students of four nationalities studying at a university in Australia. Two questionnaires were used to gather the data of this study. Questionnaire 1 contains closed questions. To support the quantitative data collected from the first questionnaire, 2 subjects were asked to complete a similar questionnaire and it mostly contains open-ended questions. The results suggest that the subjects tend to have similar difficulties in academic writing regardless of their previous educational contexts. The most common one is related to language use as well as coherence and cohesion. Others are related to writing own voice, finding relevant topics and sources; and the last and less problematic one is referencing and citations. Another conclusion which can be drawn is that a variety of factors may contribute to those difficulties. The main factor is the lack of previous experience and knowledge about the conventions of academic writing and the expectations of the institution they are studying at.