JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES Identifying the needs of postgraduate students: The first step of academic writing courses (original) (raw)
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Identifying the needs of postgraduate students: The first step of academic writing courses
Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, 2020
Academic writing practices constitute central processes through which students learn the conventions of their disciplines to meet the expectations of their academic communities. Therefore, academic writing courses should touch on the specific dimensions of it. One of the most prominent requirement of these courses is to identify the needs of students and to implement a program based on the negotiation between the needs of students and the expectations of academic communities. The present study aimed to explore the academic writing needs of post-graduate students attending at departments related to English language. The analysis revealed that the participants (30 postgraduate students of English) obtain a clear idea of the disciplinary conventions and the importance communication with readers in academic genres but they did not seem to develop an awareness of building stance in academic genres. There was not a statistical difference between MA and PhD students’ academic writing needs...
Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 2018
In EAP contexts, attaining a desired level of competence and fluency in academic writing is important for students majoring in English-medium undergraduate programs because their academic achievements are determined by the texts they produce in English. Undergraduate students in Turkey are observed to experience difficulties with academic writing as they try to accommodate their existing writing knowledge to the requirements of the new discipline-specific writing and learning situation of tertiary level education. Placing the students at the core of inquiry, the study explored factors influencing students' academic writing practices in English. The participants of the study were nineteen English major undergraduate students studying in Istanbul. The main data were obtained from background questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, document analysis, and were qualitatively analysed. The findings revealed that undergraduate writing is influenced by an array of interrelating educational and contextual factors: (1) the amount and nature of L1 and L2 pre-university writing instruction and experience, (2) students' perceptions about academic writing and disciplinary-specific text genres, (3) prolonged engagement with the academic context and discourse, and (4) expectations of faculty members. The insights gained from the study provide important implications for reconceptualization of writing instruction in Turkey.
Students’ Needs for Academic Writing at the English Education Department
English Language Teaching Educational Journal
There are some demand and facts on English teching and learning that made the research conducted. They are the teaching and learning in the academic writing class, the feedback from lecturers on the students language performance, the students’ weaknesses in writing, the students’ expectation for the materials, and the requirement on publishing scientific articles. The study, then, reveals the students’ needs for academic writing at the English Education Department of Ahmad Dahlan University and their problems in academic writing. The aspects investigated were teaching materials, learning activities, skills and learning resources. The data were obtained by a questionnaire to describe whether the stated items very interesting/very important – not very interesting/not very important. The number of population is 370. Krejcie and Morgan table was referred for the sample. An open question was responded to enable respondents to share more feedback on their academic writing skills and probl...
Needs Analysis: A study into academic writing needs of undergraduate students
2011
"This book focuses on the academic writing needs of first year undergraduate students in the Faculty of Agriculture at Egerton University, Kenya. The rationale for focusing on academic writing was: a) It is an important activity by which students' eventual success in university education is judged (see for example Horowitz 1986). b) It is an area in which a lot of research was being focused on all over the world ( see for example Robinson 1988, Leki 1991, Raimes 1991 and also section 2.2 below) c. Both CS and subject specialist lecturers in Kenyan universities had expressed the need for the teaching of writing (Oduol 1991) d. Research in second language writing (see for example Zamel 1983, Kroll 1990) has shown that second language learners have rather special problems with writing in an academic context. This was also borne out from my own personal experience as a CS teacher. This research is not only be a contribution to this practical endeavour, but a useful contribution to the research base of academic writing in the Kenyan context. The starting point was the identification of those writing activities that students were required to do and what requirements the writing involved. Judged against their initial writing competence it would be possible to see where communication problems arose for the students. Thus, with respect to writing needs, the previous questions (section 1.6) were re-framed to reflect the research-aims and objectives of this study as follows: a) What aspects of written language use, sub-skills, fields of interest and genres were demanded of the students by their lecturers in the course of their undergraduate programmes? b) How was the students' academic writing evaluated by their lecturers in their subject areas? c) What was the nature of the students' writing competence at the start of their academic careers and how was it related to the demands of the discourse community's judgment of appropriate writing competence? d) What communicative problems did students encounter in their writing when judged against what the university academic discourse community expected of them? e) What implications would the answers to these questions have for second language research, theory and teaching/learning of Communication Skills? f) What theory/theories of writing could best be used to identify all these aspects that need to be considered?"
The significance of the teaching and learning of academic writing (AW) in higher education can hardly be disputed. For one thing, students' written production is taken as evidence for the mastery of disciplinary knowledge, i.e. it is assessed to evaluate student performance. Also, engaging students in AW promotes their ability to reflect on academic content and develop a critical stance by arguing and defending positions in their academic field. Furthermore, the mastery of AW enables students to meet the conventions of communicating research, which is particularly important in theses writing. Mastery of AW is therefore a prerequisite to become a member of a disciplinary community. In spite of its relevance, AW "is often an invisible dimension of the curriculum" (Coffin, et al., 2003, p. 3) rather than taught explicitly. This study examined instances of AW courses in postgraduate ELT (English language teaching) programmes in terms of implementation, course content and selecting staff. Additionally, reasons for the absence of courses and, if any, provided compensation or perceived needs were investigated. Interview questions were sent by email to academics (heads of department and course lecturers of AW courses in ELT departments offering postgraduate programmes). The results indicate that AW is not usually offered explicitly in ELT postgraduate programmes. As a tendency, AW is taught over a text-based approach aiming at preparing students for thesis writing at the expense of introducing the disciplinary conventions of AW.
AN ASSESSMENT OF ACADEMIC WRITING NEEDS OF GRADUATE STUDENTS
AN ASSESSMENT OF ACADEMIC WRITING NEEDS OF GRADUATE STUDENTS
This study mainly aimed at investigating the academic writing needs and writing self-efficacy beliefs of graduate students studying at an English-medium university, Ankara. Furthermore, such areas that have a crucial role in determining writing needs as the frequency of writing tasks, usefulness of written sources, perceived importance of academic writing, and role of Turkish while writing were explored. In this study, quantitative data via “Academic Writing Needs Assessment Survey for Graduate Students” were collected from 213 graduate students enrolled at Graduate School of Social Sciences. Descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, and multiple regression analyses were employed to analyze the data. The results of descriptive statistics indicated that the graduate students need a wider vocabulary repertoire in order to cope with the challenges of academic writing and they are mostly assigned longer research papers. In addition, using journal articles published in the area of specialization during writing was the most common method and more than half of the graduate students stated that when stuck with finding the right word, they first look for a Turkish word first. The exploratory factor analysis produced two factors and the regression analyses were carried out. The results yielded that the predictors accounted for 24% of the variance in productivity-related academic writing needs, and 22% of the variance in accuracy-related academic writing needs. For the productivity-related academic writing needs, writing self-efficacy and academic status made a significant contribution and for the accuracy-related academic writing needs, writing self- efficacy and English proficiency exam score were significant.
Journal of History Culture and Art Research, 2015
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.
From generic writing skills, the teaching of academic writing has moved on to value socialisation of university students into academic norms and practices. However, the development of academic literacies is dependent upon the students' prior knowledge of academic writing and the inculcation of awareness of academic writing norms peculiar to the discipline or field. The study examined students' preparedness for academic writing at university by surveying the kinds of writing done in secondary school in the Malaysian education system. The specific aspects examined were the prevalent types of academic writing in secondary school, the focus of teacher feedback to essays written in English, and the nature of academic writing required in university writing assignments. The survey of school writing involved 235 students enrolled in English courses in two Malaysian universities and the analysis of university writing tasks was across faculty in the universities. The results indicated that the main types of writing done in school were expository writing and narratives whereas the university writing encompasses expositions, explanations and classification essays. In addition, the emphasis in school essays was grammatical accuracy and general writing skills rather than shaping of text content to suit the communicative purpose and the context in which the language is used. The survey highlights the conceptualisations of academic writing that needs to be addressed before dealing with the particularities of contextual and social meanings in academic writing.
This study examined the types of writing emphasised in secondary school and university. The specific aspects studied were the genres that students write best, genres frequently written in school, and genres frequently required in written coursework assignments in university. The data on school writing were obtained from questionnaires distributed to 235 students enrolled in English courses in two Malaysian universities whereas the data on university coursework assignments were obtained through interviews with lecturers in the two universities. The results showed that there is a mismatch between types of writing emphasised in school and university. Students frequently write recount and discussion in school but university coursework frequently requires assignments to be written in the form of research articles and explanations. In view of the different emphases in school and university writing, students entering university have difficulty coping with academic discourse. The findings suggest that it is beneficial to sensitise university students to textual conventions of commonly used academic genres at university to speed up their learning of academic discourse.
Yaşadıkça Eğitim
The importance of academic writing is prevalent especially for the students taking English-medium instruction (EMI). After the intensive language lessons in the School of Foreign Languages, students must reach a certain level (B2) in order to pursue their academic studies in English. In addition to their departmental courses, freshmen in some EMI departments are offered “Academic Writing” course while some others do not have this opportunity. Thus, this study has tried to determine the efficiency and the benefits of this course for the freshmen in this university. For the purpose of the study, 5 freshmen that took “Academic Writing” course in the spring semester and 6 other freshmen who were not offered this course were assigned to write an academic essay on a given topic by the researcher. After the submission of their papers, the researcher had semi-structured interviews with each participant. Data were analyzed qualitatively via manual coding. It was found that the students who t...