Specifying Learners’ Professional Needs in Academic Writing

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.

The Digital-Forward Writing Course

First-year writing and composition courses can be major roadblocks for students as their success in later courses often hinges on their abilities to construct a quality written document. Students enter composition courses with broad variation in their abilities and yet must all meet the same standards of completion. In order to address this inequity, greater opportunities for writing and in receiving feedback are paramount. Yet such opportunities would place a high burden on writing instructors in a traditional course. This chapter proposes the digital-forward writing course that draws on a combination of a number of digital tools and pedagogical strategies that can increase writing opportunities while maintaining or even reducing instructors' time commitment. This information is drawn from a workshop held in 2020 that asked writing instructors, instructional designers, developers, and other educators to ideate on meeting the challenges of the entire student writing journey. Specific tools and a discussion of the value of adaptive courseware are included.

Developing Writing Module “Retisa de Rikayat” South Sumatera

This research and development is motivated by the desire and hope of materializing learning materials that have relevance to the learning and psychological needs of Indonesian Language Education students, especially giving the effect of a writing culture embedded in students. The long-term goal is the formation of independent, creative, and productive student literacy characters in an effort to empower themselves to explore the ability to write literary works, especially folklore. The modules are developed based on the Rowntree development model. The procedure is divided into three main stages, namely needs analysis, developing draft modules, and evaluating expert lecturers. The subjects of this study were students of Indonesian Language Education FKIP, PGRI Palembang University who took the Literature Writing course. To measure the level of validation of the writing module, Retisa de Rikayat in supporting the mastery of the ability to write literary works was evaluated by expert lecturers in the field of Indonesian language. The writing module of Retisa de Rikayat is quite effective as an alternative complementary teaching material for writing literary works, especially learning to write folk tales. This is in accordance with the results of the assessment, this module has an average score of 76.8 from expert lecturers which is in the good category and is arranged according to the analysis of student needs.

Challenges, feelings, and attitudes towards writing in ERPP in semi-periphery countries

This paper addresses writing in ERPP for graduate students matriculated in a Mexican Public University where the medium of instruction is Spanish. The students who were involved in our study registered for an academic writing course in ERPP, and submitted a draft research article in English as part of the admission requirements. Following a mixed-method approach, through a survey and a semi-structured interview, we aimed to explore the various ways in which students use English for research and publication purposes, the discursive and non-discursive challenges they perceived while drafting the article, and their feelings and attitudes towards writing in ERPP. The findings suggest that the discursive and non-discursive challenges perceived were aggravated by the lack of critical-pragmatic approaches, the poor English writing skills developed for academic purposes, and the lack of support for editing their papers in English, particularly from thesis supervisors. This led them to experience feelings of anxiety, frustration and discomfort about writing in English. We would argue that this additional burden and pressure for graduate students to publish in English in semi-periphery countries translates into a lack of confidence and feeling of disadvantage in comparison with their counterparts located in anglophone research communities in centre countries.

Teaching and assessing students of information literacy in a single session—The case of the University of the West Indies Mona library

Assessing the performance of information literacy (IL) students can be a daunting task for librarians globally. Most IL sessions are taught in 1 to 2 hours where any meaningful assessments are difficult to achieve. This research demonstrated how this feat was achieved in an active learning environment through the use of Google Forms. This mixed method study shows how this was effectively achieved to test both lower and higher order skills in a 2 hour session to one hundred and seventy-two foundation writing course students.The research tested a rarely examined feature of Google Forms which is the tool’s effectiveness in enabling comprehensive assessment, facilitating active learning, and identifying instructional errors in an IL instruction session. The findings show that Google Forms can be used to teach and administer a quiz using both multiple-choice as well as open-ended questions to assess both low and higher order learning skills in IL. Students were able to actively respond to questions while they were being taught, the data gathered and analyzed and used to inform future library instruction. It also showed that Google Forms are useful not simply to administer multiple-choice quizzes at the end of teaching but can be used in executing real-time assessment and support active learning. Because Google Forms support the easy creation of charts and downloading/exporting of statistics, results of assessments can be shared among librarians, faculty, and students to motivate and encourage digital pedagogy. It allows for greater collaboration with faculty in the cooperative teaching of students in single sessions where there is usually difficulty in having dialogue with faculty once a session ends. This case study is based on a limited number of students; thus, the findings of this research may not be generalized but the methodology and some skills in teaching the concepts encountered by librarians may be replicated.

Syllabus Design for Writing Course: EFL Learners’ Needs

Analyzing English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ needs in writing courses is an important thing that should be done by teachers. This is done in order to meet what EFL learners needs for writing course, and what should be planned and written in the syllabus. The purpose of this research is to analyze EFL learners’ needs for writing course especially in terms of learning materials, learning strategies, learning supports, and mastery of writing aspects. The design of this research was descriptive research. 50 EFL learners in Universitas Lancang Kuning were involved in this study as respondents of this research. To collect the data, a questionnaire was used with 20 statements available. The data from the questionnaire was analyzed descriptively by giving deep explanation towards the data. The result showed that most EFL learners were chosen response “agree” from the questionnaire. It means that the EFL learners very need good and acceptable learning materials, learning strategies, learning supports, and good competence in terms of writing aspects. In conclusion, the EFL learners’ needs for writing course are varied, but in general, the EFL learners expect good learning environment for writing course such as utilizing appropriate technology, attractive teaching media, and acceptable learning materials.

Critical Thinking in University through a Curriculum-wide Reading and Writing Project

Critical thinking has gained popularity in the English as a foreign language (EFL) educational arena of late in Japan due to the Ministry of Education (MEXT) updating its requirements of English education to include logical thinking. This has caused the need for educators in Japan to quickly adapt to the inclusion of logical thinking, and by extension, critical thinking in their curriculum (MEXT, 2011) from 2013. Even though MEXT has required critical thinking to be included in the classroom, it seems very little has been done to include true critical thinking into textbooks and institutions’ curriculum designs. One crucial component of the language teaching curriculum is the ability to think rationally, objectively, and deeply about a topic, or in other words, to think critically. Critical thinking has been shown to foster students’ abilities to analyze, evaluate, and judge the value of the information presented to them both inside, and outside, the classroom (Lund, 2016). Critical thinking also helps students to make their own decisions related to their academic, and future employment, success (Nold, 2017). In a university-level reading and writing course in Japan, for example, students must create manuscripts at beginner to advanced levels that somewhat adhere to the expectations of academic English communities (Fang & Schleppegrell, 2010) when it comes to topic development and utilizing source information. In order to reflect on, and thereby judge the veracity of, the information presented to them either by their textbook in the classroom or by external sources, critical thinking skills allow students to deconstruct, reflect upon, and assign value to information sources. This also allows them to construct their own content on two levels, one, projecting their creativity as independent thinkers, and two, linguistically as writers who can think about a topic more deeply. The purpose of this paper is to share the planning, design, and implementation of a critical thinking reading and writing project which was introduced into the second-year EFL reading and writing focused courses at Tokai University from the spring and fall semesters of 2019. The reading and writing course, named Academic English (AE), was split into three levels depending upon the students’ performance in their first-year English courses. Each level of the AE course had a project book that was individualized for their corresponding textbook and level. The project’s focus, for all levels, was to develop critical thinking skills through the introduction of reflective thinking, logical fallacies, and research skills. At the end of the project, students were asked to apply their critical thinking skills to their textbook and research the veracity of the information presented to them in one of their required readings during the course. The overall reception of the project by the students was positive and results of a post-project questionnaire showed that students felt they had gained some mastery over critical thinking on subjects both in the classroom and in their lives. The project has seen success in allowing students to become learners who are more independent in their thinking, more critical in their reception to information provided to them, and better writers who are able to think on a topic more deeply and logically.

Innovative Pedagogy to Overcome Student Struggles with Plagiarism

Plagiarism is a problem that affects English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learner all over the world. Rather than simply labelling students who plagiarize as “offenders,” finding solutions to guide them away from it is of primary importance. Ten instructors teaching a 30-week EFL academic writing course at a large urban university in Japan were interviewed about their methodologies to do so. Two academic writing classes (N=40) were asked to write reflections on what they were learning and how it was being taught to them. The student reflections and instructor interview transcripts were coded and analysed, instructor strategies to deal with plagiarism proactively in this context identified, and student responses to these strategies explored. The strategies were largely found to be a combination of existing methods with one notable exception, which is introduced in detail here. It is based on Rubin’s Four Tendencies personality framework, which is a method that relies on instructors recognizing learners as responding to expectations in one of four ways and harnessing this to help them achieve. This personalized instruction can be seen as one of the modern approaches to facilitate learning and engagement outlined by Owens and Kadakia (2016). Student responses to it were positive, and the instructor using it felt that it both reduced stress and improved relationships with students. As such, the method has been added to the departmental pedagogy for the next intake of students.

Investigating face-to-face and computer-mediated out-of-class collaboration in an English for Technical Writing course in Malaysia

<p>With the recent shift of emphasis to social learning and the proliferation of new technologies, collaborative writing and computer-mediated collaborative writing are gaining prominence in the second language learning context. Research has shown that collaborative writing leads to improved written outcomes as well as opportunities for language learning. However, few studies have investigated how learners collaborate and what the factors that foster effective collaboration are. These aspects of collaboration are especially important for longer-term tasks carried out in out-of-class contexts, where the instructor’s supervision is minimal. Similarly, research on the process of, and factors affecting, computer-mediated collaborative writing is still scarce. Using a qualitative approach, this study closely examines the process of face-to-face and computer-mediated out-of-class collaboration to identify both the features present in different modes of collaboration and the factors that affect the learners’ collaboration. Over the course of a 14-week semester, in the context of an English for technical writing course, two groups of learners collaborated in the face-to-face mode while another two groups of learners collaborated in the computer-mediated mode to complete an out-of-class writing task. Data were collected from multiple sources, including for the face-to-face groups: the groups’ self-recorded meetings, their numerous drafts of the task, and multiple interviews with individual group members; for the computer-mediated groups: the groups’ detailed ‘revision history’ of Google Docs, the chat histories of their synchronous interactions’ applications, Google Hangout and WhatsApp, as well as individual interviews with the group members about their experiences. The findings provide comprehensive insights into the intricate process of collaboration among the learners in both modes, specifically the interplay of different features and factors in shaping the collaboration of each group in each mode. In particular, although the groups in both modes of collaboration shared a number of common collaborative features, such as co-construction of task and peer assistance, a side-by-side examination revealed subtle but significant differences in the details and depth of the features of both modes. This leads to a clearer distillation of the affordances and constraints of each mode on out-of-class collaboration. The immediacy and physical presence of the face-to-face mode were found to encourage greater depth in discussion and peer support. On the other hand, the computer-mediated mode promoted peer editing and cultivated a stronger sense of joint ownership among the learners. Further, the findings also show the varying influences of other factors, such as the learners’ attitudes, their proficiency, and the role played by each group member in influencing the collaboration process. This study provides further understanding of the underexplored area of out-of-class collaboration, and the emerging area of computer-mediated collaborative writing. In addition, the findings of the study have many pedagogical implications for educators, especially in terms of preparation for learners, and consideration of other factors such as context and assessment, if they are looking to implement the collaboration approach beyond the confines of the classroom or in a computer-mediated mode.</p>