scholarly journals An English for Research Publication Purposes Course: Gains, Challenges, and Perceptions

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 198-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Giraldo
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Positive Perception ◽  
Research Publication ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Considerable Research ◽  
Depth Interview ◽  
Writing Course

Academic writing for scholars wanting to publish in English has gained considerable research attention in academic writing circles. This article reports the findings of a case study on the gains, challenges, and perceptions about writing in English that a group of scholars had while taking an academic writing course. Two questionnaires, an in-depth interview, and a teacher-researcher’s journal were used for data collection. The findings emphasize gains emerging from genre-based pedagogy as a holistic approach to academic writing and usefulness of teaching strategies for writing. The study reports time, discipline, and language proficiency as challenges to overcome. Finally, the participants report differing views towards peer feedback and a predominantly positive perception of English as the language for scientific writing.

scholarly journals Innovating Selection and Use of Online Writing Resources for EFL Students: A Systemic Functional Linguistic Perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (09) ◽  
pp. 136
Author(s):  
Xiaodong Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Systemic Functional Linguistic ◽  
Writing Course ◽  
Urban University ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
On Line ◽  
On Line Learning ◽  
Writing Resources

This study reports on how teachers’ systemic functional linguistics (SFL)-based selection and use of on-line writing resources impacted students’ perceptions of on-line resources and their writing performance. Through a case study of students from one academic writing course in an urban university in China and primarily qualitative analysis of interviews with students, written artifacts, and students’ reflections, it was found that the selection and use of on-line learning resources, guided by the teacher’s SFL perspective on writing as a meaning-making process, facilitated students’ transition. That is, students gained a principled perspective on the use of on-line resources and were able to use pertinent knowledge in producing effective academic writing. The study concludes that the pedagogical use of on-line resources, when supported by SFL, could transform students’ perception of the value of on-line materials and improve their self-efficacy as academic writers.

scholarly journals Students' Perceptions of Collaborative Summary Writing

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 700
Author(s):  
Noura Nasser Muhammad Alawaji
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Collaborative Writing ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Summary Writing ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Writing Course

Writing is one of the four main language skills that are given emphasis in Second Language Learning. Summary writing is often viewed as a difficult and a challenging skill in learning a second language, which may result in negative attitudes forming, both toward summary writing and to writing in general. The main purpose of this study is to investigate students’ perceptions and problems related to collaborative summary writing in a university in Saudi Arabia. The study involved five undergraduate EFL Saudi female students as a case study and who were exposed to writing course participated in this study. The students were given different collaborative writing tasks during the semester and completed one summary writing task collaboratively for the purpose of this study. Then their views about the task were recorded via semi-structured interview. The findings suggest that most of the participants express positive attitudes toward collaborative writing and consider it beneficial for improving different aspects of writing skills, second language proficiency, and confidence. Several problems occurred during the process of collaboration, and these are also identified and discussed.

scholarly journals Students’ Voice on Their English Teacher’s Teaching Techniques: A Case Study at A Private Indonesian Junior High School

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bambang Widi Pratolo ◽  
Ani Susanti ◽  
Indriani Indriani
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Standard Deviation ◽  
Junior High School ◽  
Junior High ◽  
Descriptive Statistics ◽  
Positive Perception ◽  
Teaching Techniques ◽  
Depth Interview ◽  
Strongly Agree

This study is aimed to know the students’perception toward the English teacher’s teaching techniques. This study was conducted in grade eight of two EFL classes of a junior high school in Indonesia. The instruments to collect the data was a Likert-scale questionnaire with five options of strongly agree to strongly disagree, while to analyze the data the researcher used descriptive statistics by finding means, standard deviation and frequency. An in-depth interview was also conducted to nine out of 60 students to scrutinize the students’ voice on their English teachers’ performance. The result of the analysis showed that the teacher in this study performed all the three techniques, controlled, semi-controlled and free technique. The finding also showed that the most frequently used technique was controlled technique, followed by a semi-controlled and free technique. Meanwhile, most of the students have positive perception toward their English teacher’s teaching techniques.

Exploring the Nature of Teaching for Transfer in EAP: A Case Study

RELC Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 003368822097410
Author(s):  
Heon Jeon
Keyword(s):  
Instructional Practices ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Qualitative Case Study ◽  
Writing Teachers ◽  
Undergraduate Level ◽  
Reading And Writing ◽  
Writing Course ◽  
The Us ◽  
Nature Of Teaching

This qualitative case study explored the nature of teaching for transfer of one EAP writing teacher who taught an undergraduate-level academic writing course in the US. The findings of this study revealed that the teacher believed in the importance of teaching for transfer and addressed various dimensions of transfer, such as (a) transfer between reading and writing, (b) transfer across major writing tasks, and (c) transfer beyond a course. However, in terms of actual instructional practices, the teacher was not yet fully prepared to handle the various dimensions of transfer in an effective way. Implications for EAP writing teachers are discussed.

scholarly journals Pengajaran Penerjemahan dalam Kelas Penulisan Akademis (Academic Writing) di Universitas Multimedia Nusantara

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 66
Author(s):  
Niknik M Kuntarto
Keyword(s):  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
Communication Technology ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Writing Class ◽  
Writing Course ◽  
Human Autonomy ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Linguistic Phenomenon

As information and communication technology grows wider and more influential in shaping the training of translators recently, the needs to reformulate translator’s competences are also increasing. By combining some necessary traits and characteristics of good translators coming from the field of linguistics with critical pedagogy fostered in Academic Writing course, the author will argue that translation teaching within the framework of Academic Writing class, yields creativity and more promises on the spirit of keeping humanization alive which is at the same time challenged by the ascent notion of machine translation. The growing dependence on using google translate, for most of the students observed in this case study, highlights the importance to embrace both familiarity with the logic and limitation of MT as well as rootedness within the discourse which empowers human autonomy, thus didactic translation. In this respect, the lecturer plays dual role in becoming role-model for students in translation as well as critical evaluator for their imperfect results of translating text on plagiarism seen from the linguistic phenomenon.

scholarly journals The impact that Turnitin® has had on text-based assessment practice*

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Malcolm Rees ◽  
Lisa Emerson
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Academic Staff ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Deterrent Effect ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Assessment Practice ◽  
Copy Detection ◽  
The Impact

This article explores the extent to which the use of the copy detection software Turnitin has impacted on, or transformed assessment practice at Massey University. Staff at Massey University have had access to Turnitin since 2004 and during that time they have, to varying degrees, developed a greater understanding of the issues of; authenticity, academic writing skills and subsequently assessment design. It was hoped that the use of Turnitin would have challenged academic staff to think more creatively about approaches to text-based assignments. Structured interviews were conducted with nine staff who have been using Turnitin for some time and who have a good understanding of its capabilities. They were thought to be the most likely to have made changes to their assessment practice. The findings from the interviews show that a strong reliance on detection and the "deterrent effect" has remained. Few staff have considered that alternative or other creative approaches to assessment are a better way of minimising plagiarism. Two cases studies where alternative approaches have been explored and where improvements have been demonstrated are discussed in detail: Case study 1 involves enhancing the value of formative assessment by using some of the advanced assignment options in Turnitin namely; resubmission of assignments and students viewing their own reports online. Case study 2 describes subtle changes to the wording of the summative assessment in a Communications in sciences course that requires students to apply the theory to practice rather than simply reproducing the literature. The second component is the use of the information map or i-map (Walden & Peacock, 2008) which documents the research process that students have used to construct all their assignments. The paper concludes that to effect a substantial shift in attitude amongst faculty in relation to plagiarism would require more than a single workshop on Turnitin, and that both professional development units and tertiary institutions as a whole need to consider a more holistic approach to issues around plagiarism, assessment and student writing.

scholarly journals Assessing learning transfer and constraining issues in EAP writing practices

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abebe Yitbarek Wubalem
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Learning Transfer ◽  
Disciplinary Writing ◽  
Content Area Writing ◽  
Writing Processes ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
Depth Interview ◽  
Writing Course ◽  
Thinking Strategies ◽  
Carry Over

AbstractThe aim of this study was to investigate what learners carry over from a general academic writing course to disciplinary writing settings and the variables constraining the quality of the outcome. Seven EFL university writing teachers and 58 students were selected using purposive and stratified sampling techniques. Data were generated using in-depth interview and document analysis. Thematic analysis and non-parametric statistical tools were employed to analyze the data. The findings showed that the students made limited learning transfer from the writing course to their writing settings across academic discourses. While surface level knowledge of grammatical features show better transfer, skills of discourse level writing processes, thinking strategies and vocabulary showed very poor transfer. A number of reasons are identified for the failure of learning transfer in the study setting. Among others, EAP teachers’ failure to bridge the EFL writing and content area writing practice contributed to this problem. The other variable causing this problem is students’ failure to make significant moves to adapt skills of writing processes and thinking strategies to new situations. Based on these evidences, alternative ways of improving the carryover impact of such courses have been put forward.

EMBEDding the CEFR in academic writing assessment

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Haines ◽  
Nicole Schmidt ◽  
Petra Jansma ◽  
Wander Lowie
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Training ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Writing Assessment ◽  
Standardization Procedure ◽  
Consistent Assessment ◽  
The University ◽  
Assessment Activities

The CEFR is increasingly being used as the framework of choice for the assessment of language proficiency at universities across Europe. However, to attain consistent assessment, familiarization and standardization are essential. In this paper we report a case study of embedding a standardization procedure in writing assessment activities at the University of Groningen. The project shows the value of standardization procedures within the CEFR and reports on the difficulty of finding consistently assessed ‘flat’ samples. Moreover, it reports on the desirability to scaffold teacher training sessions using flat samples with less ‘even’ samples.

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