scholarly journals ‘Tutoring Is Not Proofreading’. Exploring the Perceptions of Writing Tutors at University Writing Centres, Saudi Arabia: An Exploratory Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Rehab Alowayid
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Academic Language ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Writing Proficiency ◽  
Individual Interviews ◽  
Writing Tutorials ◽  
Interpretive Inquiry ◽  
Writing Tutors

Academic discourse is highly complex and requires writers to follow specific writing conventions. Many Saudi university students have underdeveloped writing skills (Al-Khairy, 2013). One way to assist second language (L2) learners and develop their academic writing skills is through academic language support offered by writing centres. The challenge for writing centre tutors lies in the predominant belief among many L2 students that tutors’ only role is to fix students’ mistakes. Although there has been significant growth in writing centres in Saudi universities, the perceptions of writing tutors concerning tutoring non-native students are still under-researched. This study uses thematic analysis to explore the role of writing tutorials as perceived by writing centre tutors in Saudi settings. Data were obtained using an interpretive inquiry through individual interviews of two tutors. The main findings of the interviews were that tutors perceived proofreading requests, low writing proficiency of tutees and tutees’ understanding of tutors’ role as influencing their tutorial practices. The implementation of this study may help regulate the role of tutors in writing centres in Saudi universities by highlighting new avenues that can improve writing tutorials, especially in Saudi Arabia.

Serving Nontraditional Students

2015 ◽  
pp. 106-128
Author(s):  
Dianna L. Newman ◽  
Meghan Morris Deyoe ◽  
David Seelow
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Adult Learners ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Skills Transfer ◽  
Content Areas ◽  
Writing Tutorials ◽  
English Speaking

The role of technology and educational media in supporting nontraditional adult learners is growing. One key area in which more research and development is needed is the improvement of writing, especially writing that is related to formal education. This chapter presents findings related to the use of online writing modules developed to support English as a Second Language and nontraditional English speaking college students. Participants reported improved content-specific writing skills, transfer of writing skills to other content areas, and increased self-efficacy in writing. Differences continued to be noted by key student characteristics. The study has implications for continued development and use of digitally supported writing tutorials for nontraditional adult learners.

Enhancing and supporting the role of academic tutors in developing undergraduate writing skills: Reflections on the experiences of a social work education programme

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Hughes ◽  
Sue Wainwright ◽  
Caroline Cresswell
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Academic Support ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Education Programme ◽  
Independent Study ◽  
Learning Needs ◽  
Consistent Manner ◽  
Effective Use ◽  
Work Education

Whilst approaches to the development of undergraduate academic writing skills vary between disciplines and institutions, academic tutors are consistently presented as playing an important role. One aspect of this role is supporting students to engage effectively with feedback in order to develop consciousness and competence regarding academic writing. This article reports on the use of a form, which was designed to encourage students to use feedback in a structured and consistent manner and to support subsequent tutor-tutee dialogue. Students and tutors who used the form suggest it encouraged students to reflect on their learning needs and identify priority issues for discussion with the tutor. However, barriers to its effective use remain. In particular, there was resistance amongst students to accessing academic support, due to anxieties that staff would look negatively upon those who seek help. Students expressed concern that tutors would perceive those seeking support as failing to cope with the demands of independent study, a set of skills they perceive that they were required to have on arrival at university, rather than to acquire during the course of their studies with the help and guidance of their academic tutor.

scholarly journals International Postgraduate Students’ Perception of Challenges in Academic Writing in Malaysian Public Universities

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
pp. 191
Author(s):  
Sedigheh Shakib Kotamjani ◽  
Arshad Abd Samad ◽  
Mehrnaz Fahimirad
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Public Universities ◽  
Academic Language ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Critical Thinking Skills ◽  
Postgraduate Students ◽  
English Medium Instruction ◽  
Lexical Phrases

The purpose of this study is to investigate international postgraduate students’ perceptions of difficulty with academic writing in Malaysian public universities. A survey was used to collect students’ perceptions of difficulties and challenges in general academic writing skills and language-related skills. The results revealed that students perceived greater difficulty in language-related problems than general academic writing skills. In terms of language-related skills, they ranked writing coherent paragraph, summarizing and paraphrasing, applying appropriate lexical phrases, utilizing proper academic language and vocabulary respectively as the most difficult areas in writing. However, with respect to general academic writing skills, they perceived the most difficulties in reviewing and criticizing the literature, writing introduction and research gap. The results of this study implied that international postgraduate students who graduated from non-English medium instruction universities should be supported in terms of English for Academic Purposes (EAP), critical thinking skills and language-related skills to become self-directed in learning to write.

scholarly journals Teaching Writing in EAP Contexts

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viorica Condrat
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Process Development ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Teaching Writing ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Discourse Community ◽  
State University ◽  
Efl Students

Academic writing is a particular type of scholarly interaction which signals the writer’s affiliation to a specific discourse community. Developing academic writing skills should become a priority for higher education. This paper describes a small-scale study which investigates the role of blogging in developing academic writing skills in undergraduate students. Blogging is viewed as a platform where the scholarly interaction between members of the same discourse community can take place. The paper is based on the survey data and observation during the experiment conducted at Alecu Russo Balti State University of Moldova. It reports on how EFL students reacted to the use of blogs for academic writing tasks. The findings suggest that students seem to have a positive attitude to blogging pointing out to such benefits as: enhanced self-efficacy, awareness of the writing process, development of reader awareness, increased responsibility for the quality of the writing. We argue that blogging can yield significant improvement in undergraduate students’ academic writing.

scholarly journals MEMBANGUN BUDAYA LITERASI MELALUI MATA KULIAH BAHASA INDONESIA SEBAGAI MEDIA REVOLUSI MENTAL GENERASI PRODUKTIF

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 158
Author(s):  
EVELINA SATRIYA SALAM
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Phones ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
National Language ◽  
Reading And Writing ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
Language Courses ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Bahasa Indonesia

In the era of highly advanced communication as it is today, the role of sophisticated mobile phones and tablets replaced many of the roles of the book. As the result, students are more interseted in spending time with gadgets than reading and writing books. Moving from the phenomenom, the culture of literacy is sustained in the Indonesian language course. The Indonesian course as an MPK emphasizes the skills of using Indonesian as the national language and national in a good and correct way to master, apply, and develop science, technology, and art as the embodiment of love and nationality to the Indonesian language. The title raised in this paper is “ to build a culture of literacy through the Indonesian language as a medium of productive generation of mental revolution”. Importan issues that will be the author of lift, namely: How to build a culture of literacy through the Indonesian language as a medium of productive generation of mental revolution. The theory used, taht is mentally related to the mind. Mentality is related to the way of thinking. Indonesian language courses serve as a medium of mental revolution of productive generation. By presenting the substance of the term revolution of the study should be incorporated into the activities of using the Indonesian language through listening, speaking, reading and writing skills with focused academic writing skills so as to train or familiarize the mental revolution with the productive generation.

scholarly journals The role of information literacy competence and higher order thinking skills to develop academic writing in Science and Engineering learners

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Kranthi Kumari
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
Teaching Writing ◽  
Rhetorical Situation ◽  
Entry Level ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Raising Awareness ◽  
Writing In Science

<p>The English syllabus for learners pursuing engineering courses includes teaching writing as one of the objectives. Learners who enroll for these courses are not equipped with the general writing skills that they should have mastered at the entry level. In this context, a study was organized to develop academic writing skills of the undergraduate learners who are pursuing engineering courses.  The study focused on raising awareness in the learners of the nature and characteristics of academic texts in order to develop academic writing skills. The study also emphasizes that involving the learners in the cognitive processes of writing that include defining the rhetorical problem, identifying the rhetorical situation, the audience and setting goals for writing, planning for the text by generating and organizing ideas is necessary. The study further suggests that discussions between learners and teachers regarding the construction of a text and the way language works in various text types facilitates better writing.</p>

scholarly journals EMPOWERING ACADEMIC WRITING SKILLS IN MILLENNIAL ERA: THE ROLE OF ENGLISH PROGRAM FOR BIDIKMISI STUDENTS

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sri Wahyuningsih
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Academic Literacy ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
State Institute ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
English Program

This study aims at exploring how BIDIKMISI students at the State Institute for Islamic Studies (IAIN) Kudusperceive the empowerment of their academic writing skills through English programs undertaken by the campus.The study anchors in a qualitative research. Personal interviews, observation and documentation were used togather data. The result reveals that the strategies and ways of empowering academic writing cover developingcognitive skills of students by giving them academic literacy, activities of problem solving, and innovation thatwill attract them to use writing as systems of representation and communication. Another way of empoweringacademic writing done by lecturers is by collaborating to other English lecturers particularly those who teachReading in enhancing the academic writing skills of students at IAIN Kudus. Thus, the role of English programsis considerably meaningful for the acquisition of English language skills of BIDIKMISI students particularly inacademic writing skills. Furthermore, they are able to elicit a number of materials and information related toacademic writing including writing foundations, writing stages, writing elements, accuracy in writing, researchingand writing, academic reality, and articles publication. Interestingly, they are pursued to do a research and writejournal articles. This study suggests that lecturers should actively use technology and social media in millennialera such as Facebook, Blog, Instagram, and Youtube to engage students in the process of teaching academicwriting.

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