UNIVERSITY STUDENTS� NEEDS OF WRITING COURSE MATERIALS: A CASE OF INDONESIA

The aim of this study is to explore the target needs (i.e. necessities, lacks and wants) of the students to inform academic writing courses materials. A case study design was employed as this design to provide in-depth data information. To collect the data, questionnaire and interviews were used. Twenty-three undergraduate students of English department at a private university in Mataram West Nusa Tenggara who take academic writing course in the 2019-2020 academic year participated in the study. The result of the study showed that the students need to learn the types of writing texts, vocabulary and construct sentences into paragraph, have good skills in writing different genres since they are lack of grammar knowledge and vocabularies, and improvement on the aspect of teaching writing. This finding may promise implications for updating the current curriculum and materials as practiced for tertiary level English department students in an attempt to keep up with the latest changes in the methodologies of English language teaching. This study recommends that lecturers and universities should conduct a need analysis regularly and updated the curriculum with such insightful needs.

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Exploring Academic Writing Needs of Indonesian EFL Undergraduate Students

10.31235/osf.io/g9y7r ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Ratnawati ◽

Didih Faridah ◽

Syafiul Anam ◽

Pratiwi Retnaningdyah

Keyword(s):

Undergraduate Students ◽

Academic Writing ◽

Private University ◽

Writing Courses ◽

Need Analysis ◽

Writing Course ◽

Efl Students ◽

General Skills ◽

Students Attitudes ◽

The University

Academic writing is noteworthy competence to be accomplished for English as a foreign language (EFL) students to fulfill their academic needs at the university. To do so, Indonesian tertiary universities accommodate and foster this competence using academic writing course. The study, therefore, sought to look into: 1. what undergraduate EFL students’ perceptions of the importance of academic writing to their current study and future career, 2. what the students’ perceptions of the difficulties of academic writing, 3. what the students’ attitudes towards their previous and future academic writing courses. The present study investigates students’ needs emerging in academic writing during classroom practices to gain insightful and profound perspectives for forthcoming needs of the course. Data were collected through a five scaled questionnaire of need analysis distributed to thirty-four EFL students from a private university, and a focus group interview involving nine participants. Results indicate 61% (Mdifficulties=3.05) of students faced difficulties in both general skills and language problems of academic writing and a new course was expected to provide moves/steps for writing the sections in a research article. The present study then suggests that e-database resources are needed for academic papers models and references hence its efficiency and flexibility in prospective academic writing.

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NARRATING THE SELF AND THE OTHER(S): BRAZILIAN UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS’ RESPONSIVENESS TO ENGLISH, ELT AND LITERACY PRACTICES IN LEARNING AUTOBIOGRAPHIES

Trabalhos em Linguística Aplicada ◽

10.1590/010318135891015912020 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 59 (1) ◽

pp. 213-239

Author(s):

Paula Tatianne Carréra Szundy

Keyword(s):

Undergraduate Students ◽

Academic Writing ◽

English Language ◽

Language Ideologies ◽

Literacy Practices ◽

College Education ◽

English Language Teaching ◽

Writing Course ◽

In The Beginning ◽

Interpersonal Level

ABSTRACT This article draws on constructs of the discursive dialogic analysis designed by the Circle of Bakhtin, on the notion of language ideologies and on a transgressive view of Applied Linguistics to interpret how undergraduate students majoring in English and Portuguese from a public university in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, position themselves in relation to English, English Language Teaching and literacies in written learning autobiographical narratives. The learning autobiographies were produced by students in the beginning of their college education as future English and Portuguese teachers in an academic writing course. Parting from the assumption that what we come to identify as our thoughts, beliefs and “truths” is constructed in the interpersonal level before becoming “ours” (Voloshinov 1929 [1986]) and aligning myself with an ideological view of literacies (Street 1984, 1995 [2014], 2009), I analyze the ideologies about languages and literacies taking into consideration both the micro-context in which the autobiographies were produced and the macro societal levels that influenced how the selves and the others are positioned in the narratives.

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A Discourse Analysis: Cohesion of the Introduction Section of Research Article

Journal of English Language Teaching and Linguistics ◽

10.21462/jeltl.v4i1.173 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 1

Author(s):

Anis Firdatul Rochma ◽

Sulis Triyono

Keyword(s):

Undergraduate Students ◽

Academic Writing ◽

English Language ◽

English Language Teaching ◽

Research Articles ◽

Semantic Meaning ◽

Lexical Cohesion ◽

Research Article ◽

English Academic Writing ◽

Writing Competence

As an effort to give contribution to the existing knowledge, it is expected for the undergraduate students to compose an engaging research article in order to convince the readers about the importance of the research article. However, there is only a little attention given to the articles written by the undergraduate students although it is considered very critical to examine whether the exposure of English academic writing has significantly enhances the writing competence of the students. Furthermore, as it is also very crucial to build a meaningful semantic meaning among the sentences in order to disclose the worthiness of the research article, it is essential to analyze the cohesion of the research article written by the undergraduate students. Henceforth, the present research is projected to investigate the cohesion of the research articles written by the undergraduate students of English Language Teaching. As the introduction section of research article is likely to be an area to portray the logical explanation of the research, the present research solely focuses on examining the cohesion of the introduction section of research article. By adopting a qualitative design and involving several steps to analyze the introduction section, it is revealed that the grammatical cohesion is considered to be the most utilized type of cohesion in writing the introduction section. Still, the lexical cohesion is also necessary to build an eloquent semantic meaning about the topic as well the importance of the research article.

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Indonesian EFL Students’ Proficiency in Writing and Ability in Speaking across Personality Learning Styles

Studies in English Language Teaching ◽

10.22158/selt.v4n2p168 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 4 (2) ◽

pp. 168

Author(s):

Bambang Yudi Cahyono ◽

Ira Mutiaraningrum

Keyword(s):

Learning Styles ◽

Undergraduate Students ◽

English Language ◽

English Language Teaching ◽

Essay Writing ◽

Cause And Effect ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Writing Course ◽

Scoring Rubrics ◽

Efl Students

This research aimed at examining Indonesian EFL students’ proficiency in writing and ability in public speaking across personality learning styles: extroversion and introversion. It involved 74 undergraduate students who took an Essay Writing course in the English Department of Universitas Negeri Malang, one of the leading universities in Indonesia. The students were distributed into three classes. They were taught how to write essays. Then, the students were made aware that they had to complete two tasks: writing and presenting a cause and effect essay on topics related to English language teaching. The students’ cause and effect essays were scored to know their proficiency in writing and their presentation was assessed to know their ability in speaking. Two scoring rubrics were used and two raters were involved in the scoring process for interrater reliability. The results of the research showed that the Indonesian EFL students’ proficiency in writing is strongly related to their ability in speaking for both groups of students. In addition, the Indonesian extrovert EFL students’ proficiency in writing is strongly related to their ability in speaking. The Indonesian introvert EFL students’ proficiency in writing is also strongly related to their ability in speaking. However, there is no significant difference of the proficiency in writing and ability speaking between the extrovert and introvert students.

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A Systematic Review of the Challenges and Solutions of ESL Students‟ Academic Writing

International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology - Regular Issue ◽

10.35940/ijeat.e1164.0585c19 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (5C) ◽

pp. 1169-1171

Keyword(s):

Academic Writing ◽

Teaching Methods ◽

English Language ◽

Writing Skills ◽

English Language Teaching ◽

Teaching Writing ◽

Esl Students ◽

Learning Collaborative ◽

Cognitive Approach ◽

Malaysian Students

Research studies on ESL writing are more interested in providing operational writing strategies for academic writing. However, there are not many studies on challenges faced by students and their solutions. The main aim of this paper is to provide a systematic literature review of academic writing studies which focused on investigating students’ academic writing challenges and their solutions. The papers used in this study were published from 2010 until 2019. A systematic search of literature proposed in this paper employs the exploratory approach for identifying and evaluating twenty-seven articles published in the authentic Journals. The themes of the review are divided into two categories, one which is related to ESL Malaysian students and another category is regarding non-Malaysians, this is due to the context of the study which will be conducted in Malaysia and therefore a review of studies done on Malaysian student academic writing is justified. The review shows there is a broader context of ESL students’ academic writing challenges and factors influencing students’ academic writing skills. In addition, as mentioned above, the review clearly shows the highlight of previous studies was on strategies which help improve students writing skills. As a conclusion, the review signifies that there are three major enormous challenges faced by ESL students in academic writing, such as teaching methods, students’ attitude towards English, and language ability. And the solutions to the challenges are to employ active learning English language teaching methods, for example, Task-Based learning (TBL), Blended learning, Collaborative learning and cognitive approach, in teaching writing.

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Rhetorical styles of Introduction in English language teaching (ELT) research articles

Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics ◽

10.17509/ijal.v10i2.28593 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 304-314

Author(s):

Anis Firdatul Rochma ◽

Anita Triastuti ◽

A. Ashadi

Keyword(s):

Undergraduate Students ◽

Academic Writing ◽

English Language ◽

Undergraduate Research ◽

Language Education ◽

Sampling Technique ◽

English Language Teaching ◽

Research Articles ◽

Linguistic Resources ◽

Major Factors

Research articles have been considered as the primary media of knowledge production. Nevertheless, for some undergraduate students, writing a research article can be a challenging task since they need to be aware of its rhetorical styles. Even though previous studies have been conducted to reveal the rhetorical styles of scientific papers, yet tend to focus more on research articles obtained from well-established journals. Hence, this study aims to reveal the rhetorical styles and draw the rhetoric pattern from the introduction section of 73 research articles written by the undergraduate students of English Language Education (ELE) at a state university in Yogyakarta. This is a qualitative investigation whose data were collected by random sampling technique and went through Safnil’s (2013) four analysis stages. As the primary framework for analysis, the modified CARS (Create a Research Space) model (Swales Feak, 2004) was adopted. The results show that Step 2: Making topic generalization in Move 1 and Step 1B: Indicating a gap in Move 2 are the obligatory steps in writing the introduction section. Nevertheless, the results reveal that mostly undergraduate research papers lack 1 step in Move 1, 2 steps in Move 2, and 3 steps in Move 3. The omission of steps in the CARS model by these student-authors seems to happen due to two major factors, namely the scarcity of control over the writing process and linguistic resources, hence suggesting pedagogical implications for academic writing courses.

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Voices from EFL Thai learners towards English writing

Cypriot Journal of Educational Sciences ◽

10.18844/cjes.v15i6.5293 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 15 (6) ◽

pp. 1495-1507

Author(s):

Chutamas Sundrarajun

Keyword(s):

Undergraduate Students ◽

Academic Writing ◽

English Language ◽

Structured Interview ◽

Educational Organizations ◽

Business English ◽

English Writing ◽

Writing Course ◽

Language Writing ◽

Written Assignments

English language writing is seen as one of the most difficult skills for undergraduate students. When composing a piece of writing, students usually face various problems ranging from grammatical aspects to expressing ideas and opinions. To answer the research questions, this study employed a mixed method of both qualitative and quantitative approaches to identify the students’ perceptions towards Business Article Writing Course, as well as to pinpoint their challenges when working on the written assignments. The intensive data were collected from 20 fourth year students majoring in Business English via the use of questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. The findings give teachers, course designers, and educational organizations an insight into students’ problems in learning English language writing. It also highlights the need to integrate different genres of writing to enhance students’ writing skills so that they can use such techniques to overcome any struggles when composing a piece of writing. Keywords: Academic Writing, EFL, Writing Strategies, Peer Feedback

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Saudi Arabia EFL university students’ voice on challenges and solution in learning academic writing

Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics ◽

10.17509/ijal.v8i3.15276 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (3) ◽

pp. 576 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Mohammed Abdullah Alharbi

Keyword(s):

Foreign Language ◽

Undergraduate Students ◽

Academic Writing ◽

The Self ◽

Self Report ◽

Efl Writing ◽

Writing Courses ◽

Writing Improvement ◽

Writing Course ◽

Before And After

The present study aims to investigate the difficulties faced by 74 English as a foreign language (EFL) undergraduate students in developing a well-written paragraph in academic writing by designing a writing course based on the students’ voices. The self-report survey (5-point Likert scale) was used as the pre- and post-questionnaire, and pre- and the post-tests task was used to track students’ writing improvement before and after taking a writing course. Pre-questionnaire and pre-tests showed that participants had difficulties in using the mechanics of writing (punctuation, spelling, grammar, topic sentences, and supporting sentences). The majority of the students’ responses in the post-survey shows that they believed their writing improved and encountered fewer difficulties in writing as compared to their views in the pre-questionnaire. The result of the post-tests indicates improvements in students’ writing samples. The study concludes that EFL writing courses should be designed on the basis of challenges faced by the students in order to get the best outcome from the course.

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An Error Analysis of Research Project Abstracts Written by Thai Undergraduate Students

Advances in Language and Literary Studies ◽

10.7575/aiac.alls.v.11n.4p.13 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (4) ◽

pp. 13

Author(s):

Wirada Amnuai

Keyword(s):

Error Analysis ◽

Language Learning ◽

Undergraduate Students ◽

Academic Writing ◽

English Language ◽

Writing Skills ◽

Word Choice ◽

Writing Ability ◽

Writing Courses ◽

Sentence Level

Errors in writing are unavoidable while students are trying to develop their writing skills. There have been several studies on identifying writing problems or errors in students’ writing. It is believed that identifying students’ written tasks is an effective tool to explore the difficulties involved in learning language. This helps teachers’ awareness of the serious problems which occur in students’ writing and allows them to pay closer attention to their errors. The aim of the present research study is to pinpoint writing errors in English abstracts written by Thai undergraduate students. Forty abstracts of research projects were collected and analysed. The error analysis was conducted at the sentence level, word level, and mechanics aspect. The five most frequent error types ranking from the most frequent to least frequent were word choice, preposition, sentence construction, singular or plural forms and quotation marks. The findings of the present study have shed light on the students’ writing ability and give an insight into what the problems students face when writing their abstracts. Also, the errors found in the abstracts in the present study have pedagogical implications concerning English language learning, particularly with writing courses. The findings will be helpful for teachers to develop teaching materials to assist their students from committing errors when writing English abstracts and to improve academic writing skills.

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PROJECT-BASED LEARNING TO DEVELOP STUDENTS' ABILITY AND CREATIVITY IN WRITING NARRATIVE STORY

Indonesian EFL Journal ◽

10.25134/ieflj.v5i1.1627 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 85

Author(s):

Eva Fitriani Syarifah ◽

Raynesa Noor Emiliasari

Keyword(s):

Creative Thinking ◽

English Language ◽

Project Based Learning ◽

Narrative Text ◽

Team Work ◽

English Language Teaching ◽

Teaching Writing ◽

Story Line ◽

Narrative Story ◽

Writing Course

In English language teaching, project-based learning is not only able to optimize language skills but also other skills such as critical and creative thinking. This study tries to investigate the use of project-based learning to develop students� abilities and creativity in writing narrative text and the students� perception towards the implementation of project-based learning in writing course. This study employed a qualitative approach by involving second semester students who take writing course. The results of this study indicated that project-based learning can help the students to develop their ability and creativity in writing narrative text in several point including their understanding of the topic, their knowledge about narrative genre namely social function, structure of text, and language feature. In addition, the students also showed their creativity through creating their story line and designing the illustration of the story. Furthermore, the students gave positive views toward the implementation of project-based learning. They mentioned that they learned networking, collaborative learning, and team work through PBL. Thus, project-based learning can be one of alternative ways to teach writing in higher education.Keywords: narrative text; project based learning; student creativity; teaching writing; writing skills.

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