I, a Girl who is New to the World of English Academic Writing

Writing narrative on learning academic writing in English

THE EFFECTS OF TYPES OF FEEDBACK ON STUDENTS' REVIEWING PROCESS IN AN ONLINE SCAFFOLDED PROCESS WRITING CLASSROOM

There has been growing evidence that the lack of academic writing skills among university students who learn English as a Second Language (ESL) affects their overall academic performance. Higher education ESL students often find writing academic essays a complex process and hence struggle with academic writing convention issues. However, in order to encourage these students’ to be autonomous in their English academic writing, explicit and supportive instruction is necessary on the teacher’s part. This study aims to investigate thirty Foundation students’ revision activities pre- and post-intervention and whether there are any changes in their reviewing activities after being exposed to the intervention for twelve weeks. The reviewing activities were categories and analysed for inter-correlations. It is found that the students’ revision activities at first seem to concentrate mostly on Surface Changes-Meaning Preserving Changes activities. However, this changes in the second half of the intervention period where they seem to perform more Meaning Changes-Microstructure Changes and the least is Surface Changes-Formal Changes.

Determining English Language Lecturers’ Quality of Marking in Continuous Assessment through Rasch Analysis

English language lecturers at matriculation colleges are generally equipped with assessment criteria for marking students’ written assessment. However, these criteria are normally susceptible to lecturers’ interpretation and understanding, which threatens quality marking. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the severity and consistency of English language lecturers’ marking of English academic writing (EAW) in continuous assessment. The participants were five English language lecturers and 50 matriculation students. Each lecturer selected ten EAWs randomly from 318 matriculation students. The five-part EAW was marked first by the class’s lecturer and later, it was marked by pre-assigned peer moderators who did not teach the students. The total data set collected was 250 (5 lecturers x 10 EAWs x 5 parts of EAW). The data were analyzed with Many-Facets Rasch Measurement (MFRM) application. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with both lecturers and students for triangulation purposes. Findings revealed that four out of five lecturers were lenient in marking but the marking was found to be internally consistent with infit and outfit mean squares for each lecturer ranged between 0.5 and 1.5. From interview responses analyzed, students perceived their lecturers as fair but strict in awarding marks. These responses were consistent with most lecturers’ responses on their strict adherence to assessment criteria. Discussion of findings is centered on the issue of severity and consistency of the assessors. This study could offer a practical solution in providing evidence for quality marking of written assessment and, consequently, aid in developing remedial measures for misfit assessors in educational institutions.

Development and validation of the questionnaire on EFL students’ perceptions of authorial stance in academic writing

Studies on academic writing of EFL students have found that they have been less successful in presenting an effective stance. It has been assumed that how they perceive authorial stance may influence their stance deployment. Yet few studies have been conducted to assess student writers’ perceptions of stance. To fill the gap, this research intends to develop and validate an instrument, the Perceptions of Authorial Stance Questionnaire (PASQ), for assessing EFL students’ perceptions of authorial stance and further exploring their relationships with stance deployment and the overall quality of English academic writing. Taking a dialogic perspective, we designed the research with two studies in it. In Study 1, exploratory factor analysis with 197 respondents and subsequent confirmatory factor analysis with another sample of 191 respondents produced results of a 17 item scale with two-factors: dialogic contraction and dialogic expansion. In Study 2, scores for the two subscales of the PASQ were examined in relation to the frequencies of various stance types and writing scores. Results show that scores for the two subscales of perceptions were positively correlated with the frequencies of different stance types. However, no significant relationship was detected between students’ perceptions and their writing scores. Possible reasons of the findings and their pedagogical implications are discussed.

Grammar Mistakes in English Written Academic Discourse

Grammar is an important component of written academic discourse. Knowing the grammatical basis of a sentence avoids grammatical errors. The purpose of the study is to reveal the peculiarities of making grammatical errors in English-language written academic discourse. Results of research. As practice shows, most often in English-language written academic discourse the following grammatical errors occur: errors that occur in the process of matching the subject and predicate in a sentence; errors that occur when using the right time in verbs and / or adverbs; errors that occur in the use of articles. The reasons for non-compliance with the requirements for the use of articles are: the use of the noun "author (s)" without the specified article; use of the specified article "the" without grounds; frequent neglect of the inability to use a computable noun in the singular without an article. Regarding the incorrect use of prepositions, in the phrase "practical research is aimed at the system" the preposition "at" should be used instead of the preposition "to". A grammatical error, which consists in using the adjective "own" without a possessive pronoun, occurs in the following phrases: "the search for directions of own activity", "formation of own strategy of activity". Grammatical error related to non-compliance with the requirements for the use of specific and temporal forms of the verb: in today's conditions, in order to solve personal problems, some people use illegal acts. There are cases when in the translation of the English text instead of the noun complex definitions or a number of such definitions are used. An example of incorrect construction of a sentence structure is the expression of a predicate in a sentence in the passive form of a verb. A compound noun is not used in English. In English, the error is quite common when the infinitive is used after the verb "allow". Also a grammatical error is the frequent use of the noun "readiness" in articles of psychological and pedagogical direction. According to the results of the research, the peculiarities of grammatical errors in the English-language written academic discourse are revealed; features of English-language written academic discourse in the context of the analysis of the programs of educational disciplines developed by the leading institutions of higher education of Ukraine are considered; the parameters according to which the evaluation of academic written texts is carried out are revealed; features of English-language academic writing are analyzed. It is noted that as an option to avoid grammatical errors in English written academic discourse, you need to use modern information technology, including programs to check English academic writing for grammatical errors. Based on the results obtained during the study, the prospects for further research are seen in a comprehensive study of the features of English-language academic discourse.

A contrastive study of grammatical metaphors in abstracts of Chinese MA theses and expert academic writing

As a significant indicator of College students’ ability in academic English communication, academic papers, especially their condensed abstracts require various writing techniques among which the use of grammatical metaphors (GMs) is typical. To improve the English academic writing level of Chinese postgraduate students, it is significant to compare their use of GMs with that in expert research articles. On the basis of Halliday’s reclassification of GMs, this study aims to compare the characteristics of GMs in abstracts of MA theses and expert research articles (RAs). It is found that there is universal use of nearly all GM types in both groups. The two groups are similar in that they share the top five most frequently used GMs, and there are no significant differences in the use of more than half of the GM types. However, the overall GM frequency of expert RAs is significantly higher than that of MA theses. Significant differences are also found in the use of six GM types. Furthermore, some correlations between certain GM types found in expert RAs are missing in MA theses. Reasons for these differences may include the limited understanding of GM, the underdeveloped cognitive ability, the genre differences and the first language differences. Based on these findings, implications for teaching and learning are discussed.

Foregrounding learner voice: Chinese undergraduate students’ understanding of paraphrasing and source use conventions for English research paper writing

We examined how a group of Chinese undergraduate students understood paraphrasing and source use conventions for research paper writing in English. Prior scholarship has generated valuable insights about novice second language (L2) writers’ unconventional source use practices, but little is known about how these writers interpret and understand source use expectations for English academic writing. We followed a group of nine Chinese undergraduate students for an academic term as they learned to paraphrase and write with sources for their research paper assignments. Drafts of students’ papers were collected and rounds of text-based interviews were conducted where students were asked to explain their source use decisions. Findings showed that the students actively and constantly referenced their source use knowledge of Chinese essay writing to help make sense of source use expectations for English academic writing, although their understanding of English academic source use as well as their rendition of culture may likely be viewed by expert academic writers as ‘insufficient’ or ‘inadequate’. We conclude by highlighting the importance of foregrounding learner voice and acknowledging the legitimacy of the interpretations of novice L2 writers as intercultural informants in the teaching of English academic source use.

Students’ Metacognitive Strategy Pattern in English Academic Writing Learning Using Zoom

Students have a different pattern in using the learning strategy. It is seen in their activity when they do the writing. The objective of this research was to observe the students’ pattern using metacognitive strategy in English Academic Writing learning through an online zoom application. The method used descriptive qualitative research. The data is taken from observation and survey from 20 participants who got the English academic writing subject in 2019/2020 academic years at English Program Study Universitas Bina Sarana Informatika. Analysis procedures include observation of activity patterns, identifying learning strategy patterns, categorizing, and strategy learning pattern analysis. The results showed that the students used metacognitive strategy in the academic writing process with different patterns. It can see from activity steps of the metacognitive strategy that is implemented in the class. Students’ activity pattern is planning, identifying, correcting errors, revising, rereading, monitoring, and evaluating. Metacognitive strategies had used by students to consciously control the writing activity because each segment of one’s stored world knowledge help students to create the story. The study's implication is managing students’ activity patterns when the teacher used the strategy learning. It has to be appropriate to students’ needs.