scholarly journals Specifying Learners’ Professional Needs in Academic Writing

2022 ◽  
Vol 30 (12) ◽  
pp. 102-109
Author(s):  
E. S. Chuikova

The article examines the controversial procedure of analyzing the learner’s professional needs. Needs analysis is generally regarded as an invaluable tool for constructing a course syllabus. It might be really informative if the target situation analysis and present situation analysis are combined. Speaking about academic writing teaching for Russian non-academic students at the Bachelor Degree level, one should admit that students have no or limited experience of functioning in an academic area in English. Consequently, their responses to the questionnaires as one of the frequently used methods of target situation analysis are merely assumptions; and the answers could not be taken as objective and valid. The author presents a system of analyzing students’ needs within the framework of Academic Writing course: namely, distinguishes the stages that precede or follow teacher-student talks about their expectations, provides more objective practice of examining learners’ needs, and discusses ways of improving question-answer sessions/ interviews. Needs analysis practice that develops learners’ professional needs involves task-based learning, reflexive activities, and teaching to ask good questions. Bringing into life the analogy between customer development theory in management and needs analysis practice in education, it is possible to work out a fruitful strategy. Conducting needs analysis pertains equally to specifying and developing students’ needs in academic communication.

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Ali Ghufron ◽  
Mursid Saleh ◽  
. Warsono ◽  
Ahmad Sofwan

<p>This study aimed at designing a model of instructional materials for Academic Writing Course focusing on research paper writing. The model was designed based on the Curriculum at the English Education Study Program, Faculty of Language and Art Education of IKIP PGRI Bojonegoro, East Java, Indonesia. This model was developed in order to improve students’ skill in writing research paper which is one of the prerequisite tasks before graduating from university. The steps of this research and development consist of needs analysis, document analysis, model design, model development, and model experimentation. The researchers conducted needs analysis to the fifth semester students and three academic writing teachers, in order to generate information dealing with the students’ needs in academic writing course materials. The needs analysis and documents analysis were dug up through questionnaire, interview, and discussion among students and academic writing teachers. The documents analyzed in this study were syllabus, lesson plan, and the existing textbook. The model design used is derived from Borg and Gall (1983) and Sukmadinata (2008), in which there are four steps, i.e. (1) exploration phase; (2) model development phase; (3) model experimentation phase; and (4) dissemination and model implementation phase. The results of needs analysis questionnaire reveal that students need to be taught how to write academic writing in terms of journal article since it will be the final project of the students at the end of their study in university. Instructional materials with different strategies focused on research paper writing are needed by the students.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. p21
Author(s):  
Fiona Kwai-peng SIU

This study aims to investigate the usefulness of a deductive-cum-process writing approach to raise native Cantonese-speaking ESL students’ awareness of the inappropriate use of informal language in academic writing. Achieving tone formality by incorporating appropriate syntactic and semantic elements poses great difficulties to freshmen at the City University of Hong Kong. Furthermore, the effectiveness of using a deductive approach to teach word usage has been inconclusive despite numerous studies on this issue (e.g., Alzubi, 2015; Tammenga-Helmantel, 2014; Vogel et al., 2011). In the current study, seven types of informal language expressions and corresponding formal alternatives were first taught, followed by peer review and individual teacher-student consultations to reinforce the teaching.The experimental group consisted of 19 students taking an academic writing course in the summer semester 2017-2018. The end-of-course writing examination showed that the experimental group used significantly fewer informal expressions than did the control group in three measures—the total number of informal expressions and two component measures (p?0.05). Questionnaire findings confirmed the usefulness of the current teaching approach, as perceived by the majority of the participants. Qualitative analysis revealed several types of informal expressions that were most difficult for the participants to identify and to make correction.


2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 342-358
Author(s):  
Hao Chen

AbstractIt is noticeable that the academic papers written by Chinese English learners are lacking in academic features largely due to their poor ability to use nominalization. Therefore, the instruction of nominalization in an academic English writing course is badly needed. The author conducted one-semester-long instruction of nominalization to 90 non-English majors under the guidance of the production-oriented approach (POA). This research demonstrated how to apply POA, specifically, the enabling procedure to the teaching of nominalization. By triangulating the data of students’ interviews, learning journals and written output, and the data of 4 teachers’ class observations and interviews, this study found that the accurate application of the three criteria of effective enabling contributed to the improvement of the quantity and quality of nominalization in academic writing.


2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 41-43
Author(s):  
Yu.V. Lysanets ◽  
O.M. Bieliaieva ◽  
L.B. Slipchenko ◽  
K.H. Havrylieva ◽  
H.Yu. Morokhovets

The article discusses the features of academic writing in English based on the recommendations from the British Council in Ukraine in the framework of the “Researcher Connect” project, aiming to facilitate the transition to academic standards of English and improve the academic discourse produced by non-native language users. The authors outline major tendencies in the modern English language as pertains to written discourse and provide recommendations for rendering academic writing persuasive. It is a well-established fact that academic writing in English possesses unique features, which must be respected and taken into account. Hence, a transfer of academic norms from a person's mother tongue to English can be a challenge, which may impair the quality of academic writing. Presenting the research results without consideration of academic norms, grammar, and lexical features of English academic writing can lead to mistakes and misunderstanding, and result in a written work of poor quality, even if the research findings are valid. The mechanisms of improving the academic writing skills during the study of English for Academic Communication with due account for relevant grammar and lexical peculiarities have been explored. Therefore, the major challenge for researchers is the difficulty in transition to academic standards of a foreign language. The article discusses the surface and the deeper purposes in any academic writing; the significance of understanding one’s audience; the concepts of persuasion, clarity, and conciseness, as well as grammar and lexical means for achieving them. Developing the communication skills of Ukrainian scientists is crucial for successful international communication and cooperation. The study of potential difficulties, which the Ukrainian medical professionals may face in the process of academic writing in English, is important for developing the guidelines to eliminate possible mistakes and avoid misunderstanding in a medical setting. Further study of the peculiarities of academic writing in English will contribute to the optimization of international professional communication, the expansion of inter-institutional dialogue, and the integration of Ukraine into the world community.


Author(s):  
Neill Wylie

Maastricht University (UM) has a distinct global perspective and a strong focus on innovation. UM offers an array of PhD courses to distance and campus based students who have access to elective, credit bearing modules and the language needs of these students are catered for by the Language Centre. Many PhD candidates choose to take an academic writing course in their first or second year of their degree. In recent years, demand for a more student focused, flexible academic writing course has grown. In line with UM’s policy of supporting innovative teaching practices, the Language Centre’s face-to-face PhD academic writing course, PhD Writing 1, has been transformed into a fully online course containing eight interactive webinar sessions named Online PhD Writing, which runs in addition to the face-to-face rendition. On the back of the success of this course, coupled with increased demand for a follow up course, this author was tasked with creating an advanced online PhD academic writing course to cater for global students with diverse time zones and schedules. This paper evaluates the challenges posed and the advances made in constructing both online courses and explores the technologies used in implementing them.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2019 (1) ◽  
pp. 443
Author(s):  
Guy Smith ◽  
John Peloghitis

In the last two decades, interest in cognitive biases has rapidly grown across various fields of study. The research so far has shown that cognitive biases have significant and sometimes adverse effects on decision making. Thus, it is increasingly being argued that classroom teaching of critical thinking needs to include instruction and training that help students understand cognitive biases and reduce their negative effects on judgment and decision making. Teaching students to be aware of biases and to develop and maintain strategies to reduce their influence is known as debiasing. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of cognitive biases and a framework for debiasing proposed by Wilson and Brekke (1994). Two approaches, modifying the person and modifying the environment, are discussed to help teachers introduce activities and strategies to mitigate biases. 認知バイアスへの関心は、この20年で様々な領域で急激に高まってきた。認知バイアスが、意思決定に対し有意な影響、時には逆効果を及ぼすことが、これまでの研究で明らかになった。そのため、教室で批判的思考を教える場合も、学生の認知バイアスへの理解に役立ち、認知バイアスが判断力や意思決定に対して及ぼす、時には有害な影響を弱める思考法を教える練習ないし訓練を組み込む必要があるのではないだろうか。学生がバイアスを認識し、その影響を払拭ないし弱める思考法を身につけてそれを維持するよう教えることは、デバイアスという名称で知られている。本稿では、認知バイアスとWilson and Brekke (1994) が提案するデバイアスのプロセスを概観する。教師がバイアスを和らげるための活動と戦略を紹介できるように、人間を修正し、環境を修正するという二つの取り組みについても検討する。


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