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Students' Perceptions of EAP Writing Instruction and Writing Needs Across the Disciplines
Abstract
As English for academic purposes (EAP) writing instructors and writing curriculum planners, we need to know the degree to which ESL writing courses have been successful in gauging and providing for ESL students' writing needs across the university curriculum. However, making this determination is difficult because many academic writing requirements may be implicit in the curriculum of the disciplinary course and thus not amenable to ready description by the outsider. Furthermore, we also need to know how much carryover from ESL writing courses occurs with ESL students—that is, what elements of their ESL writing instruction have they found useful and available to them as students in content courses? This article reports on a survey of former ESL students now in university-level content courses that is designed to investigate students' perceptions of the relationship between the writing instruction the students received in ESL writing classes and the actual writing tasks they found in courses across the disciplines. The results of the survey include indications of which writing skills taught in ESL writing courses students found most useful in dealing with the writing demands of other content courses. In their answers to open-ended survey questions, ESL students also described their perceptions of their ongoing writing needs beyond the ESL writing curriculum.
... To date, no research has directly investigated ways in which EAP instructors think transfer climates can be (un)supportive. However, research has produced findings that are relevant such as investigations of challenges EAP students can face in transitioning to discipline courses (Leki & Carson, 1994;Harlkau, 1994;LoCastro, 1997;Leki, 2006;Evans & Green, 2007;Nelms & Dively, 2007;James, 2010;Gaffas, 2019). These challenges include EAP students and discipline instructors perceiving: a lack of opportunity to transfer EAP skills in disciplines courses (Leki & Carson, 1994;Harlkau, 1994;Nelms & Dively, 2007; James, 2010); a lack of support from discipline instructors to transfer EAP skills in disciplines courses (Evans & Green, 2007;James, 2010;Gaffas, 2019); and a lack of support from discipline course peers to transfer EAP skills in disciplines courses (LoCastro, 1997; James, 2010). ...
... However, research has produced findings that are relevant such as investigations of challenges EAP students can face in transitioning to discipline courses (Leki & Carson, 1994;Harlkau, 1994;LoCastro, 1997;Leki, 2006;Evans & Green, 2007;Nelms & Dively, 2007;James, 2010;Gaffas, 2019). These challenges include EAP students and discipline instructors perceiving: a lack of opportunity to transfer EAP skills in disciplines courses (Leki & Carson, 1994;Harlkau, 1994;Nelms & Dively, 2007; James, 2010); a lack of support from discipline instructors to transfer EAP skills in disciplines courses (Evans & Green, 2007;James, 2010;Gaffas, 2019); and a lack of support from discipline course peers to transfer EAP skills in disciplines courses (LoCastro, 1997; James, 2010). ...
... The first relevant finding is that EAP students can perceive a lack of opportunity to transfer EAP skills (Leki & Carson, 1994;Harlkau, 1994;James, 2010;Demirkol et al., 2021). Referring to an EAP education study in the university context by Leki and Carson (1994), students were asked to rate how well EAP course prepares them for discipline courses based on the challenges they face. ...
This study examines the nature of the transfer climate in an English for academic purposes (EAP) education setting specifically from the perspectives of EAP instructors. The transfer climate refers to the nature of the target context of instruction and the support for learning transfer perceived by a learner in that target context. Therefore, in the case of the EAP education context, the target context of instruction is the discipline courses to which students transition to or take concurrently with EAP courses. These discipline courses may be supportive or unsupportive towards students' transfer of EAP skills. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 EAP instructors. The interview transcripts were analyzed using a process of de-contextualizing and re-contextualizing. Firstly, with decontextualizing, a chunk of text is identified as a unit of analysis and is taken out of context from the transcript. Secondly, all the units can be re-contextualized when transferred from the interview transcript to a single category of units that contribute to a similar pattern towards the research question. The findings revealed that EAP instructors perceived both supportive and unsupportive aspects of different components of the EAP transfer climate [opportunities (lack of) in the course structure, support (lack of) for EAP transfer from discipline instructors or peers in the disciplines]. This study’s findings also build on existing conceptualizations of transfer climate. Practical implications, implications for future research, and limitations are outlined.
... Tesis, seperti yang terdapat di perpustakaan universitas, menunjukkan kurangnya kesadaran mahasiswa tentang praktik kutipan dan sikap buruk pengawas terhadap kutipan yang tepat (Yugianingrum, 2008). Leo (2010) (Arnold, 1995;Brown & Bailey, 1984;Leki & Carson, 1994 (Roig, 1999). Namun, para dosen memandang bahwa akses mudah di lingkungan belajar internet dapat bermakna jika dosen menunjukkan kesadaran akan kejujuran akademik dalam penulisan akademik tugas mahasiswa (Austin & Brown, 1999 Penerapan kriteria mengarah pada penilaian keunggulan (Sadler, 2005). ...
... Dosen bahasa Inggris merasa bahwa mengungkapkan ide dalam bentuk tertulis berdasarkan tata bahasa standar tidak menarik bagi mahasiswa (Leki & Carson, 1994 Mengekspresikan ide bentuk tertulis untuk memenuhi standar akurasi tata bahasa tidaklah luar biasa (Leki & Carson, 1994). Tata bahasa dianggap sangat kompleks dalam penulisan akademik. ...
... Dosen bahasa Inggris merasa bahwa mengungkapkan ide dalam bentuk tertulis berdasarkan tata bahasa standar tidak menarik bagi mahasiswa (Leki & Carson, 1994 Mengekspresikan ide bentuk tertulis untuk memenuhi standar akurasi tata bahasa tidaklah luar biasa (Leki & Carson, 1994). Tata bahasa dianggap sangat kompleks dalam penulisan akademik. ...
Buku ini memberikan gambaran pentingnya literasi informasi untuk menghindari menjiplak. Menelusuri sumber informasi yang valid dan melakukan sintesa gagasan merupakan wujud integritas akademik menghindari tindakan menjiplak. Penulis buku ini bermaksud mendorong kesadaran integritas akademik untuk melahirkan gagasan baru dari setiap hasil penelusuran informasi. Buku ini diharapkan dapat mendorong dosen untuk meningkatkan upaya menyediakan waktu umpan balik untuk meningkatkan kualitas pembimbingan skripsi/tesis/disertasi. Sikap mahasiswa terhadap tindakan menjiplak tentu akan sangat dipengaruhi oleh sikap dosen pembimbingnya sendiri. Berkembangnya berbagai aplikasi yang memungkinkan mudahnya mahasiswa melakukan tindakan menjiplak mengharuskan dosen juga meningkatkan kualitas dirinya dalam hal literasi informasi. Semoga buku ini memberi kontribusi nyata terwujudnya kesadaran akan pentingnya menjaga integritas akademik demi meningkatkan kualitas gagasan tertulis dengan tetap kreatif tanpa terjebak melakukan tindakan menjiplak.
... One significant factor influencing these difficulties is the disparity in proficiency levels among students. Non-native English speakers often encounter challenges related to grammar, sentence structure, and vocabulary usage, which can impede their writing skills [12]. Similarly, native English speakers may struggle due to their limited exposure to formal writing conventions, leading to difficulties in expressing themselves effectively in writing [11]. ...
... This allows them more opportunity for language processing -that is thinking about the language -whether they are involved in study or activation. When thinking about writing, it is helpful to make a distinction between writing-for-learning and writing-for-writing [12]. In the case of the former, writing is used as an aide-memoir or practice tool to help students practice and work with the language they have been studying. ...
Writing is essential for academic and professional success. This descriptive study aimed to investigate the challenges faced by Ethiopian university students. It focused on 680 regular undergraduate students at Mizan Tepi University selected through simple random sampling. Researchers employed tests, questionnaires, and interviews to collect data from students and EFL instructors. Data collection methods included student essay analysis, a structured questionnaire, and instructor interviews to gain insights into students' writing proficiency and perceptions. Statistical analysis was used for quantitative data, while content analysis was applied to qualitative data. Findings revealed that most students have average writing proficiency, are motivated to write in English and view writing as a process during activities. Many also reported engaging in writing outside the classroom. Vocabulary and grammar were highlighted as the most challenging aspects, alongside concerns over insufficient time to learn writing skills. Based on the study's outcomes, recommendations are proposed to enhance writing proficiency among undergraduate students. These include dedicating more time to writing instruction, raising awareness of essential writing elements, implementing regular assessments for monitoring progress, and possibly integrating a dedicated reading module. Emphasizing flexible teaching approaches and encouraging diverse writing practices beyond the classroom is crucial for improving overall language proficiency among students.
... Some studies (Casanave & Hubbard, 1992;Currie, 1993;Leki & Carson, 1994Santos, 1988) have enhanced the awareness of the importance of the academic contexts, the writing tasks that students are required to perform, and students' typical writing problems. However, research shows that there is a large mismatch between the tasks and texts practiced in ESL or EAP classes and those required in real academic disciplines (Horowitz, 1986a;Leki & Carson, 1994. ...
... Some studies (Casanave & Hubbard, 1992;Currie, 1993;Leki & Carson, 1994Santos, 1988) have enhanced the awareness of the importance of the academic contexts, the writing tasks that students are required to perform, and students' typical writing problems. However, research shows that there is a large mismatch between the tasks and texts practiced in ESL or EAP classes and those required in real academic disciplines (Horowitz, 1986a;Leki & Carson, 1994. Furthermore, most studies based on EAP approaches used surveys or questionnaires for data collection. ...
The purpose of this paper is to help understand South Korean graduate students’ L2 writing difficulty and thus facilitate their socialization into their target discourse communities. Given that South Korean graduates’ linguistic, cultural, and educational differences affect their academic writing practices in a North American academic setting, these factors must be explained to examine their influence on students’ writing. This paper will briefly describe the linguistic, cultural, and educational backgrounds of South Korean L2 graduate students in terms of both their L1 and L2 writing. Second, it will scrutinize the previous research that focuses on how L2 students in general become socialized in North American university settings. Last, based on the discussion, suggestions will be made for deeper investigation of how L2 students in general and Korean students in particular become better socialized, focusing on their access to resources.
... For example, Leki and Carson (1997), who interviewed students several years after they had completed their EAP courses, reported that the students described their courses across the curriculum as "completely different worlds" compared to their experiences in the EAP program. In their 1997 study and an earlier one (Leki & Carson, 1994), students reported feeling ill prepared especially for complex and demanding writing assignments that involved writing from multiple sources. ...
... The CATESOL Journal 30.2 • 2018 • 21 present study combined several elements of the previous research: It both asked students to give opinions as to how well the program had prepared them for later courses and asked them to share their reactions to specific elements of the program itself. As Leki and Carson (1994) put it: ...
Research on teaching and learning in TESOL has incorporated student opinions and student voices in a variety of ways. However, it is relatively rare to see studies that query students after they have exited a language program and can reflect more objectively on their experiences. The survey described in this article was sent to university second language (L2) students who had completed a required English for Academic Purposes (EAP) program for 1st-year multilingual students 1 to 3 years earlier. Students were asked to evaluate their experiences with the EAP program in general, to comment on specific elements of the program that they had enjoyed or that they felt needed improvement, and to assess whether, in their opinion, the EAP classes had helped them succeed in subsequent writing classes (or classes that involved substantial writing). In this article, I describe the program, curricular features that were being evaluated, the survey responses (N = 355), and changes to the EAP program that are already under way as a result of the findings. I also discuss how the evaluation process we undertook can be valuable to other language and writing programs wishing to assess their own effectiveness.
... Studies have consistently demonstrated that a lack of vocabulary is what makes writing in a foreign language most difficult (e.g. Uzawa & Cumming, 1989;Raimes, 1985;Leki & Carson, 1994), and that vocabulary proficiency is perhaps the best indicator of overall composition quality (e.g. Santos, 1988;Astika, 1993). ...
... Language learners are aware of the significance of vocabulary, and they often consider a lack of knowledge of vocabulary to be the cause of deficiencies in their writing skills. In a survey of ESL students' perceptions of training in writing English for Academic Purposes (EAP), Leki and Carson (1994) found that knowledge of vocabulary was the most frequently mentioned L2 knowledge that students wanted. ...
this thesis explores the relationship among literal and semantic translation methods and writing tasks on vocabulary levels of learners
... One significant factor influencing these difficulties is the disparity in proficiency levels among students. Non-native English speakers often encounter challenges related to grammar, sentence structure, and vocabulary usage, which can impede their writing skills [12]. Similarly, native English speakers may struggle due to their limited exposure to formal writing conventions, leading to difficulties in expressing themselves effectively in writing [11]. ...
... This allows them more opportunity for language processing -that is thinking about the language -whether they are involved in study or activation. When thinking about writing, it is helpful to make a distinction between writing-for-learning and writing-for-writing [12]. In the case of the former, writing is used as an aide-memoir or practice tool to help students practice and work with the language they have been studying. ...
Writing is essential for academic and professional success. This descriptive study aimed to investigate the challenges faced by Ethiopian university students. It focused on 680 regular undergraduate students at Mizan Tepi University selected through simple random sampling. Researchers employed tests, questionnaires, and interviews to collect data from students and EFL instructors. Data collection methods included student essay analysis, a structured questionnaire, and instructor interviews to gain insights into students' writing proficiency and perceptions. Statistical analysis was used for quantitative data, while content analysis was applied to qualitative data. Findings revealed that most students have average writing proficiency, are motivated to write in English and view writing as a process during activities. Many also reported engaging in writing outside the classroom. Vocabulary and grammar were highlighted as the most challenging aspects, alongside concerns over insufficient time to learn writing skills. Based on the study's outcomes, recommendations are proposed to enhance writing proficiency among undergraduate students. These include dedicating more time to writing instruction, raising awareness of essential writing elements, implementing regular assessments for monitoring progress, and possibly integrating a dedicated reading module. Emphasizing flexible teaching approaches and encouraging diverse writing practices beyond the classroom is crucial for improving overall language proficiency among students.
... In the fields of teaching (e.g., Chan et al., 2015;Leki & Carson, 1994Plakans & Gebril, 2012) and assessing (e.g., British Council et al. 2022;Pearson, 2022;ETS, 2022;ISE, 2022) English for academic purposes (EAP), there has been a distinct shift in preference from integrated tasks to independent tasks given that the former are believed to replicate more effectively the processes engaged by actual target language use domain tasks characteristic of a variety of educational settings, specifically tertiary education. The composition process elicited by integrated tasks is discourse synthesis, the conceptualization of which has evolved through several theoretical and empirical studies (Nelson, 2008;Nelson & King, 2022;Plakans, 2009Plakans, , 2010Plakans, , 2013Spivey, 1984Spivey, , 1990Spivey, , 1991Spivey & King, 1989) that investigated it in relation to integrated task types, the composition processes they elicit, the assessment construct redefinition and scoring problems they pose, assessment task design issues they raise, and their pedagogical implications. ...
... The task was designed to reflect changes in the field of academic English skills development in tertiary education, where integrated tasks have been reported to occur as course assignments with increasing frequency (Chan et al., 2015;Leki & Carson, 1994Plakans & Gebril, 2012, 2017. This is most likely due to the knowledge-transforming feature (Bereiter et al. 1988) of the language use activities characteristic of the domain. ...
... Considering that undergraduate students in the U.S. will likely engage in various writing tasks throughout their academic life, educators in EAP and composition studies find it crucial to explore different levels and types of expertise required for academic writing across the curriculum and to observe the ways in which students switch writing practices for specific purposes in diverse disciplinary contexts (Herrington & Curtis, 2000;Prior, 1991;Russell, 1991). A large amount of research had been conducted to investigate students' writing practices across the curriculum at university with a focus on how they cope with institutional and sociocultural demands in different academic contexts (Currie, 1993;Harklau, 2000;Leki, 2001Leki, , 2003Leki, , 2007Leki & Carson, 1994Spack, 1997). More recently, scholars have started to pay particular attention to whether and how prior knowledge facilitates learning of a new writing task across contexts. ...
... Studies focusing on international and multilingual students' learning transfer (Casanave, 1990;Currie, 1993;Leki, 1995Leki, , 2001Leki, , 2007Leki & Carson, 1994 had illustrated the students' perception of different writing demands across the curriculum and the strategies they developed to meet those needs as well as expectations in disciplinary writing. For example, Leki (1995) identified various writing strategies that international and multilingual students employed for writing tasks across contexts, e.g., relying on past writing experience, taking advantage of first language/culture, looking for models, using feedback, and accommodating teachers' demands. ...
Learning transfer with regard to academic literacy in higher education has drawn more and more researchers’ attention in recent years (Baik & Greig, 2009). However, only a small number of transfer studies are pertinent to international and multilingual students or second language (L2) writing instruction. Situated in the area of English for Academic Purposes (EAP), this research investigates international and multilingual undergraduate students’ writing practice and development within and across the disciplines. Specifically, it looks into six Chinese international students’ learning transfer from their First-Year Writing (FYW) course to disciplinary writing in the college years. Drawing upon the theoretical framework of adaptive transfer proposed by Depalma and Ringer (2011), this study redefines transfer in L2 writing and expands the research scope of transfer studies. It examines writing transfer from a new vantage point by including writers’ creative and/or strategic transformation of learned knowledge. Using the case study methodology, this research documents detailed processes of how international and multilingual undergraduate students adapt and transform prior writing knowledge and experiences to construct discipline-specific literacy. The findings have captured a series of writing practices cutting across those students’ approach to language, rhetoric, and genre and identified the factors that contextualize their writing practices.
... This claim is supported by Ur (1996), who states that teachers who use a process approach to teaching writing should assist students in composing and revising their drafts utilizing input from various sources rather than focusing on fixing their mistakes. As Leki (1994) points out, this may be accomplished by having other students comment on the teacher's evaluation. She notes that students are increasingly participating in reacting to writing, so the instructor is not the only one who responds to or assesses students' texts. ...
The main objective of this study was to investigate first-year students’ perceptions about feedback provision and their performances of writing at Ethiopian Defense University. For the study, the researcher used an explanatory sequential mixed method design. The data were collected form first-year students and English language instructors. The responders were selected from the university’s Engineering and Resource Management colleges. As a consequence, 108 students completed a questionnaire to find out their perceptions about feedback provisions in writing, and the same number of students took a paragraph writing test to identify the level of their writing performances. Eight students and six English language instructors participated in semi-structured interviews. The findings demonstrated that although the students had positive perception on feedback provision, their writing performance was below average. Furthermore, the correlation analysis's findings demonstrated a negative relationship between the students' perceptions about feedback provision and their writing performances, however, this relationship was not statistically significant. Finally, bridging English language trainings should be given, English courses and modules should be updated, raising awareness of the detrimental effects of traumatic past experiences on writing, offering additional writing resources that consider the requirements of military students in particular were suggested.
... Jiang et al. [20], for example, surveyed 200 Chinese international students in Malaysia and found that inadequate grammar, limited vocabulary, and difficulty using accurate academic language significantly hindered their academic writing performance. Grammatical errors and lexical inaccuracies are especially common among non-native English writers, as consistently highlighted in numerous studies [21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. Particularly, the accurate application of academic vocabulary emerges as a persistent difficulty for non-native authors [28][29][30][31]. ...
This study investigates the linguistic challenges encountered by Chinese academics in science and engineering when writing for English-language scholarly publications. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the research draws on survey responses from 732 participants and insights from semi-structured interviews with 13 interviewees. Sentence construction emerged as the most significant challenge, followed by issues with vocabulary selection, cohesive devices, coherence, and grammar, with notable variation across academic ranks. Common strategies to address these challenges include utilizing online tools, seeking peer support, and employing professional editing services. The findings offer actionable recommendations for tailored academic writing training, institutional support, and the integration of advanced technological tools, aiming to enhance publication success rates among non-native English-speaking scholars.
... The majority of the studies focusing on learners' beliefs about language learning have attempted to collect data quantitatively through surveys, questionnaires, interviews and reports (Leki & Carson, 1994;Slimani, 1989;Zimmerman, 1997). Yet, exploring language learners' beliefs by learnerproduced metaphors is left unexplored. ...
Learners might hold strong ideas about how learning and teaching should be
prior to starting a course at any educational level and setting. A reason for this
is that they bring their earlier practices, information and opinions on teaching
and learning into the classroom. These preconceptions often function as a lens
through which learners judge the efϐiciency and efϐicacy of teaching and
learning processes. Thus, in the case of foreign language teaching and learning,
examining and recognising students’ perceptions are crucial to designing
effective practices. In this light, this research aims to examine the students’
perceptions of the concept of language learning through metaphors. The study
presents language learning perceptions of students at a state university in
Türkiye.
... EGP classes seek to improve students' overall language skills, resulting in more accurate and fluent English communication in everyday contexts, whereas, according to Hutchinson and Waters (1987, p.19), ESP is a language teaching technique that prioritizes the learner's motivation for learning when making judgments about material and methods. Even if both EGP and ESP courses aim to meet students' language learning needs at the tertiary level, they have been criticized for underperformance, dissatisfaction, and frustration (Chia et al., 1999;Derwing et al., 1978;Leki et al., 1994;Littlewood & Liu, 1996;Yang, 2006). Furthermore, we have provided an overview of the methodologies utilized in both EGP and ESP instruction, including the activity-oriented, skill-oriented, genreoriented, and task-oriented approaches. ...
... Qualitatively, Leki and Carson (1994) and Evans and Green (2007) surveyed how to evaluate and support ESL learners' academic writing better. They all found that language issues, vocabulary, and grammar are particular concerns and major obstacles to ESL learners' writing. ...
Academic vocabulary plays a critical role in L2 argumentative writing. Recent studies have specifically examined the importance of academic vocabulary and academic word lists for EAP and ESP learning and research. However, it is unclear how English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners perceive academic vocabulary and the challenges they face using this vocabulary in university argumentative essays. The present study adopted a case study approach to investigate Chinese university EFL learners’ perceptions of, and problems with, academic vocabulary in an argumentative writing task. Five fourth-year advanced EFL learners were assigned to write an IELTS essay before participating in a one-on-one interview. The results indicated that while participants had a heightened awareness of the importance of academic vocabulary, they lacked a comprehensive understanding of this construct. More specifically, they knew little about the academic register, and their academic vocabulary size was small. Consequently, various problems arose in relation to the use of academic words in their argumentative writing, including word choice and the over-reliance on Chinese word meaning and word spelling knowledge. The EFL learners also reported that the biggest challenge to their academic writing was the lack of academic collocation knowledge. These findings have pedagogical implications for understanding the academic lexical problems facing Chinese EFL learners in their academic writing.
... Up to a point, the technique of using L1 vocabulary in the earliest drafts may be beneficial as it helps students keep the flow of the composing process going. Less desirable is the effect of limited vocabulary on ESL students' rate of writing; they draft very slowly as they search for the right word to express what they are thinking (Leki & Carson, 1994;Raimes, 1985), leading in many cases to serious problems in timed writing situations. Limited vocabulary may also lead to "avoidance" of complex ideas for fear of being unable to express these ideas (Scholfield, 1998 discusses this tendency in EFL students). ...
Th is article addresses the important connections between lexical knowledge and second language writing. Based on a review of the literature, it enumerates the eff ects of limited lexical knowledge on student writing and presents evidence that immigrant students in college and university ESL writing programs are in particular need of strategies and tools for increasing their knowledge of vocabulary. In addition to outlining relevant goals for ESL lexical study, the author suggests a range of useful activities such as the use of learners’ dictionaries and lexical journals, the integration of grammar and vocabulary study, and ways in which lexical issues can be foregrounded throughout the various stages of the writing process.
... The everyday ESL skill-based program focuses on everyday proficiency whereas the academic program aims to develop literacy particular to the educational environment students will be immersed in. The addition of an academic program to our offerings was triggered by the realization that most of our ESL students were academically bound but were not receiving the specific instruction needed to prepare them for academic content classes (see Horowitz, 1986a;Johns, 1981;Leki & Carson, 1994Santos, 1988). ...
This article discusses how the ESL program at an ethnically/linguistically diverse community college (between San Diego and the Mexican border) moved from a general, grammar-based ESL curriculum to a content-based instruction (CBI) curriculum. The move was designed to better prepare 1st- and 2nd-generation immigrant students for freshman composition and mainstream content classes. The article describes the author’s challenges and successes in implementing this new curriculum in her classrooms, particularly with beginning-level immigrant ESL students. The author provides a close look at 6 portfolios by students with whom that author worked for 3 semesters. The chapter ends with reflections on how this experience can help other instructors whose programs and classes undergo major curricular changes.
... SCMF can be implemented through different means, including chat rooms, video conferencing, and instant messaging. Several studies have focused on investigating the effectiveness of such tools in helping ESL students improve their writing skills (Hamp-Lyons & Condon, 2000; Leki & Carson, 1994). Many advantages of SCMF were reported in research, indicating that the immediate and interactive nature of teacher feedback on ESL learners' written assignments allowed for immediate clarification of doubts and resulted in enhanced revision and overall writing performance (Lee, I. 2013). ...
... Collaborative writing is one such strategy that can be used in pairs or groups and has been shown to be useful in resolving students' writing problems. Even though some teachers are ignorant of it, collaborative writing has various benefits, as proved by studies by (Kessler & Greek, 2012), (Leki & Carson, 1994). As a result, using collaborative writing as a way of teaching writing can improve students' writing abilities and serve as a great reference for teachers looking to improve their students' writing skills, because students can follow each stage of the writing process more easily and flexibly. ...
Writing is the ability to articulate and express ideas or emotions that arise in the mind in the form of words, phrases, and paragraphs. Throughout the writing process, some students have expressed that learning to write feels tedious and unimportant to them. When teaching writing, there are numerous strategies that must be employed to promote written communication among students. Collaborative writing is a strategy that can be employed in pairs or groups and has been proven to be effective in addressing students' writing challenges. A short story is a type of concise fiction, considering the events portrayed, the content of the story, the number of characters, and the word count used. This research aims to determine the influence of the collaborative method using short stories on the improvement of students' writing skills in one of the the SMK PGRI in Tangerang Kota. The variables in this research are the collaborative short story method and writing skills. This research falls under the Quasi-Experimental category and employs a quantitative approach. In this study data was collected from a sample of 70 students. The research hypothesis was tested using the Wilcoxon test, and the conclusion drawn is that there is a influence of the collaborative short story method on students' writing skills. Key Words: Collaborative Method, Short Story, Teaching Writing
... First, in the contexts of novice students in a higher education institution replete with hegemonic rules and expectations about academic communication in English, students' discursively constructed practices and socialization processes are undoubtedly determined by these contexts and cultures, and in relation to the writing genres they are required to produce (Duff, 2010;Lea & Street, 1998;Street, 2004). Participants' membership in the ALC academic discourse community is indeed short-lived (Leki & Carson, 1994), but it is not without major struggles, not only when it comes to the ALC classes but also in the transition to writing in different disciplines either after the course (Leki, 1995;Leki & Carson, 1997) or concurrently. ...
During the rapid shift to remote teaching and learning that came with the COVID-19 pandemic early in 2020, for many students and instructors, important interactions and collaborative learning took place via online platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Our study focuses specifically on the impacts of remote learning on students who speak and write English as an additional language (EAL) taking academic literacy/writing courses during their first year of study. For these students, the shift from face-to-face to remote learning environments had major impacts on their ability to interact and collaborate with peers, key factors for successful academic literacy development and success in their studies. We present selected data from a one-year study at a university in the Vancouver Metropolitan area, specifically, interviews with EAL students about their experiences in remotely-taught academic literacy classrooms. Our analysis is informed by the theoretical lenses of academic literacies and academic discourse socialization in higher-education contexts, while also considering recent literature on remote learning in higher education. When asked about their experiences in interviews, participants described challenges related to interacting and collaborating with peers, making friends, and developing competence in English language and academic literacy. We conclude by discussing the lessons we can bring forward into the post-remote teaching era. Dans le contexte du virage rapide vers l’enseignement et l’apprentissage à distance qui a accompagné la pandémie du COVID-19 au début de l’année 2020, les interactions importantes et l’apprentissage collaboratif ont eu lieu sur des plateformes en ligne telles que Zoom et Microsoft Teams pour de nombreux étudiants et enseignants. Notre étude examine l’impact de l’apprentissage à distance sur des étudiants de première année de l’anglais en tant que langue additionnelle (ALA) qui suivent des cours de littératie académique et d’écriture. Pour ces étudiants, le passage d’un environnement d’apprentissage en personne à un environnement d’apprentissage à distance a eu un impact majeur sur leur capacité à interagir et à collaborer avec leurs pairs, des facteurs clés pour un développement réussi de la littératie académique et pour la réussite dans leurs études. Nous présentons des données sélectionnées issues d’une étude plus large menée au cours d’un an dans une université de la région métropolitaine de Vancouver, à savoir des entretiens avec des étudiants ALA sur leurs expériences dans des cours de littératie académique enseignés à distance. Notre analyse s’appuie sur les théories des littératies académiques et de la socialisation au discours académique dans les contextes de l’enseignement supérieur, tout en tenant compte de la littérature récente sur l’apprentissage à distance dans l’enseignement supérieur. Interrogés sur leurs expériences lors des entretiens, les participants ont décrit les défis liés à l’interaction et à la collaboration avec leurs pairs, à se faire des amis et au développement de leurs compétences en anglais et en littératie académique. Nous concluons en discutant des leçons que nous pouvons mettre de l’avant dans cette ère qui suit l’enseignement à distance.
... Apart from writing motivation, exploring the students' writing perceptions is also crucial because it helps instructors prepare for what students want in their writing classes (Leki & Carson, 1994). To understand students' needs, researchers have undertaken studies to explore EFL students' writing perceptions. ...
Background: Researchers have integrated cross-cultural communication (CCC) with writing to examine students’ writing performance, motivation, and perceptions in EFL classrooms. However, the exploration of how authentic CCC with students from different cultural backgrounds benefits lower-proficiency students’ English writing competence and motivation remains underexplored. Purpose: This mixed-methods study, employing pre-test and post-test designs, examined the effects of asynchronous CCC on EFL university lower-proficiency students’ writing performance, motivation, and perceptions to determine whether asynchronous CCC facilitated EFL lower-proficiency students’ writing competence and motivation and to elucidate its impact on their writing performance. Method: Twenty-nine freshmen, who were non-English majors, were divided into lower-proficiency (N=15) and higher-proficiency (N=14) groups. Data were collected from the writing tests and Writing Motivation Questionnaires (WMQ) completed in the pre-test and post-test. The questions in the writing tests were identical in both tests, while the WMQ comprised 33 five-point Likert-scale questions and an open-ended question aimed at exploring the students’ motivation and perceptions regarding writing in this study. Results: The results indicate that the features of social interaction and cross-cultural engagement within asynchronous CCC significantly developed lower-proficiency students’ writing performance and mitigated their negative writing motivation. Utilising asynchronous CCC, which facilitated feedback exchange and collaborative writing with higher-proficiency peers, notably bolstered lower-proficiency students’ writing proficiency. Additionally, the integration of meaningful, intriguing, and authentic asynchronous CCC activities contributed to reducing negative writing motivations among lower-proficiency students. However, delayed responses from online peers and a sense of demotivation while collaborating with lower-proficiency peers may have contributed to the insignificant development observed among higher-proficiency students. Conclusion: Engaging EFL university lower-proficiency students in asynchronous CCC to exchange cultural and linguistic knowledge could enhance their writing performance and reduce their negative writing motivation. This is because the features inherent in asynchronous CCC render English writing meaningful, intriguing, and authentic.
... a particularly significant aspect to delve into is Sa within academic writing, an indispensable skill in higher education. Given the prevalent use of written assignments, essays, and theses as primary assessment tools, enhancing students' capability to self-assess their writing proficiency becomes imperative (leki & Carson, 1994;Paltridge, 2018). this warrants a closer examination of the influences impacting students' ability to self-monitor in the context of academic writing, especially in essay composition, considering its paramount importance across diverse academic disciplines. ...
The increased emphasis on self-directed learning has sparked significant interest in self-assessment (SA) within essay writing over recent decades. While prior research has predominantly examined the role of instructional tools like rubrics and checklists in guiding learners through the SA process, this study seeks to delve deeper into the various factors that might impact the utilization of these tools. Specifically conducted in a higher education (HE) setting, this study aimed to comprehend how pedagogical resources for SA are perceived, put into practice, and evolved by both students and educators, thereby offering insights into enhancing learner self-monitoring. The findings revealed that students effectively engaged in SA when utilizing criterion-referenced pedagogical aids, comprehending their application, receiving teacher support, and acknowledging the significance of SA. These outcomes underscore the necessity of addressing all these influences comprehensively to empower students in conducting autonomous self-assessment.
... Throughout students' academic lives, the ability to write well is essential to success. For example, in U.S. higher education, Leki and Carson (1994) refer to the great emphasis placed on writing stating that many university courses "evaluate students through some form of written text (e.g., essay exams, short-answer essays, research papers)" and that the "[a]bility to write well is necessary both to achieve academic success and to demonstrate that achievement" (p. 83). ...
... Supervisors' decision to comment on weaknesses in a direct, straightforward manner rather than an indirect way can be attributed to the fact that even though indirect feedback is meant to expand preservice teachers' cognitive effort, it could adversely affect function, as it consumes too much working memory (McCutchen, 1996). Student frustration arises when they know that an error has occurred but are unable to address it appropriately (Leki & Carson, 1994), and hypothesized corrections can take time to be veri ed. However, this nding contradicts previous research, which suggested that such feedback could result in feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, and low self-esteem (e.g., Sumru & Sibel, 2010;White, 2007). ...
Practicum supervisory feedback is widely regarded as a valuable source of knowledge and professional development for preservice teachers and contributes significantly to the practicum experience. This mixed-methods study examined the content and linguistic features of supervisory written feedback (SWF) within the context of English Language Teaching (ELT) practicum supervision. It also examined preservice teachers’ perceptions regarding the feedback to determine whether the feedback aligned with their perceptions. We considered data from 1,981 SWFs collected from 27 ELT practicum supervisors, along with preservice teachers’ responses to a questionnaire and semi-structured interview. The analysis revealed some congruity between the level, focus, and wording of the SWF and preservice teachers’ perceptions of the given feedback. Most feedback provided was on task performance, specifically evaluative. The study highlights the importance of language in SWF, showing that using words expressing cognitive meaning can promote students’ deeper thinking and, consequently, positive perception.
... Extensive sampling of language cannot be divorced from its social or disciplinary target use contexts. Language teachers, however, are frequently poorly versed in the disciplinary language that their students need [44]. Language technology provides a possible series of solutions to situate language learning more accurately in its context. ...
... Undergraduates' writing difficulties in English have been intensely researched abroad, both in English-speaking countries (Al-Asadi, 2015;Ene, 2014;Leki & Carson, 1994;Robertson Et Al., 2000;Wingate, 2012) and in non-anglophone contexts (Camps, 2004;Davoudi, Nafchi & Mallahi, 2015;Evans & Green, 2007;Ntereke & Ramoroka, 2015;Pessoa, Miller & Kaufer, 2014). Graduate students' difficulties writing in English have also been frequently investigated, either from the students' perspective (Lavelle & Bushrow, 2007;Phakiti & Li, 2011;Plakans, 2009;Zhang & Mi, 2010), from professors' (Carrió-Pastor & Mestre-Mestre, 2014;Casanave & Hubbard, 1992;Cheng, 2008;Huang & Foote, 2010;Raymond & Des Brisay, 2000;Zhu, 2004) or from both (Bitchener & Basturkmen, 2006;Huang, 2010). ...
... Articles, by Leki and Carson (Leki, 1995;Leki & Carson, 1994, ...
... These studies have looked at three aspects. The first of these is the relationship of students' writing ability to their academic achievement or career success (Ismail, 2011;Jenkins, Jordan, & Weiland,1993;Johns, 1991;Leki & Carson, 1994;Santos, 1988;Zhu, 2004); the second is the writing challenges confronting ESL/EFL learners at the tertiary level, considered mainly from three perspectives: the students, the language instructors, and the subject faculty (Flowerdew, 2003;Greasley & Cassidy, 2010;Huang, 2010;Jackson, 2005;Sawir, 2005;Zhu, 2004;Zhu & Flaitz, 2005). A final perspective, pertinent to this study, is the role of assessment and support services for writing in the university sector (Cheng, Myles & Curtis, 2004;Knoch, 2012;Murray, 2010;Read, 2008). ...
This article describes undergraduate English language support in the context of universities in Hong Kong, with reference to early academic writing needs and support. It focuses specifically on the writing needs of post-entry year 1 students as reported in a series of Hong Kong based studies, and on the recent outcomes of a project funded by an Education Research Grant (ERG): The Diagnostic English Language Tracking Assessment (DELTA) – The Writing Assessment. These studies have revealed that many undergraduate students, whilst obtaining university mandated minimum entry levels for English, are challenged by the demands of academic writing when studying in Hong Kong EMI (English medium instruction) universities. This article reports on this situation and positions DELTA as a desirable post-entry assessment instrument, arguing that it is a critical part of a multilayered approach to addressing the poor English language levels of novice Hong Kong undergraduate students.
... However, language teachers who are not members of the technical profession have been warned that they are, "not qualified to help students think and write like historians, engineers, agriculturalists or economists"; instead, teachers should look at "the writing demands" that the "students will face after they leave" and to consider how to "help to prepare them for those demands" [10]. ...
... Initially, students will be expected to acquire foundational understanding of the subject in order to establish the groundwork for mastering the subject's other higher level skills later on in the course. To earn the title of English master, students must first pass through a series of stages that are comparable to those found in other courses, such as grammar and vocabulary (Leki & Carson, 1994). ...
Print media representation of Islam and Muslims is far from being neutral especially post 9/11 and 7/7. A war of words has become a prominent feature in media discourses about Islam and Muslims. Highly politicized language is used for positive self and negative other representation. Negative othering of Muslim women along with Muslim men is new emerging trend observed in print media discourses of American newspapers. Similarly, the present research critically decodes the discourse of articles of an American newspaper ‘The Washington Post’ to find out representation of Muslim women at Discoursal level. The time span for data collection for the present research ranges from June 2019 to December 31, 2019. The articles related to the coverage of Islam, Muslims were selected, and afterward the screening of the data was done to further delimit the study. The articles related to representation of Muslim women were singled out for analysis. The data has been analysed by employing Fairclough’s (2003) model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The analytical categories used in the mentioned research model include representation, metaphor, lexicalization, number game, inclusion, exclusion and otherisation. The analysis of the data reveals that 100% negative representation of Muslim women has been observed. The study contends that like Muslim men Muslim women have also been represented involved in terrorist activities against America. Though they are prisoned for their violent activities, yet even in prison they train other Muslim women to inflect injuries to the American and western people. The adjectives used for Muslim women include oppressed, vailed, mysterious and terror mothers. Moreover, the research illustrates that print media discourses are one of the influential sites to invest ideology about Others and US accordingly.
... Initially, students will be expected to acquire foundational understanding of the subject in order to establish the groundwork for mastering the subject's other higher level skills later on in the course. To earn the title of English master, students must first pass through a series of stages that are comparable to those found in other courses, such as grammar and vocabulary (Leki & Carson, 1994). ...
The research is about the use of pictures and realia to improve students’ vocabulary Mastery of fourth grade students. This research is Classroom Action Research (CAR). It is performed in two groups. The researcher takes position as an observer who observes the whole thing that happens in the class while the teacher plays CAR for the students. The numbers of the participants in this study are 40 . The writer makes use of test to accumulate the data. Realia is a word which tells us that use of real material or authentic material in the classroom action research to teach the students. It explains the actual situations in which learner are living. Realia gives life to the vocabulary of new words. It is helpful for the students in learning new vocabulary. It has variety of ways which support improving English vocabulary. There are a lot of things which we will use as a teaching aid to improve students’ vocabulary mastery. Realia is a coaching aid in teaching vocabulary to the students. It motivates the students and will increase their interest of aid. Use of realia offers stimulation and learning the vocabulary of the student memorable and strong.
... The text-/content-responsible tasks situated on one end of the continuum require an effective demonstration of source comprehension, hence requiring a high level of skill integration. This task category can be further categorized into text-responsible (Leki & Carson, 1994) and content-responsible tasks (Carson & Leki, 1993). In text-responsible tasks, such as the summarization and the TOEFL iBT listening-reading-comparison tasks, the content is primarily taken from the source. ...
Integrated writing has gained importance in both tertiary and secondary learning contexts. However, assessment tasks at secondary schools have received little attention. To obtain evidence of skill integration, a task-defining feature for integrated writing, we developed a comprehensive questionnaire study of an understudied task used in the secondary EFL context, namely, the story continuation writing task. An exploratory factor analysis of 258 secondary students' responses to a self-generated questionnaire and a confirmatory factor analysis of another 470 responses to a revised questionnaire revealed a correlated structure of planning, writing, grammar, and a secondary-order factor reading-to-connect comprising "reading and selecting" and "transformation". The structure model showed that writing affected test performance directly and positively, and grammar and reading-to-connect mediated the impact of planning on writing. The findings indicate that the story continuation writing task is a content-responsible task tapping heavily into writing. The skill integration continuum is proven to be a useful framework for understanding the integrated writing construct.
... In addition, it has been put forward that lexical structures are among the most problematic aspects in second language learning (Carrió-Pastor & Mestre-Mestre, 2014). The lexicon is even more important in academic writing as academic achievement requires a rich vocabulary knowledge (Laufer & Nation, 1995;Leki & Carson, 1994). Lexical errors and errors in lexical items are also important in terms of text quality since using proper and correct lexical items is a sign of expertise a writer has in the scientific discipline (Kasperavičienė & Motiejūnienė, 2013). ...
Many academic institutions worldwide have compelled academicians to publish their works in high-impact international journals as a part of institutional hiring, promotion and reward. Besides, at many universities around the world publishing in international indexed journals has even become a prerequisite for doctoral students to obtain their degree. In this sense, the number of academic members and research students, willing to secure publication in international arena which is overwhelmingly dominated by English, are increasing. However, many scholars experience a number of troubles and difficulties in writing for publication processes. Therefore, in order to help them improve both the quantity and quality of their cientific outputs, it is very important to identify the problems scholars face in their
publication process. This study aims to investigate the linguistic problems experienced by Turkish scholars in their writing for publication process. For this reason, The Multidisciplinary Corpus of Writing for Publication was compiled as a part of this study. It consists of 216 unedited research articles written by Turkish scholars from five disciplines: communication, economics, education, engineering, and medicine. In addition, a reference corpus, consisting of 163 published research articles written by Native Speakers of English was compiled for the comparison of the Turkish corpus. Three linguistic dimensions were examined: lexical diversity, syntactic complexity, and errors they made in their manuscripts. Lexical diversity was investigated using three different measures: type/token ratio, standardized type/token ratio, and moving average type/ token ratio. In the analysis of syntactic complexity, Lu’s (2010) L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer (L2SCA) was used.
Finally, grammatical errors were investigated using Louvain Error
Tagging Taxonomy in which grammatical errors were analyzed in 8 broad categories which were broken down into 54 subdomains.
... Previous research on writing has been concerned with learners' views and satisfaction (Abbas, 2018;Basturkmen & Lewis, 2002;Leki & Carson, 1994;Storch & Tapper, 2009). For instance, the findings obtained in Abbas's (2018) study about the strengths and weaknesses students identified in a blended-learning programme were key for the accommodation of the curriculum. ...
Writing proficiency in a foreign language has been increasingly demanded in the workplace due to the value of multilingualism; thus, it cannot be neglected in the English classroom. ICTs have gained momentum in the development of competences in the target language as a motivational asset, not least writing skills. In that sense, this paper seeks to inspect the effects speech recognition tools have in terms of motivation and written production. This study was conducted at a Spanish university with 55 first-year Translation and Interpreting undergraduates who were surveyed about the applicability of the dictation tools available in Microsoft Word® and Google Docs® to compose a written text. Results suggest that, despite its limitations, speech recognition can prove useful for learners and can result in a motivational innovative strategy to engage them in the writing process.
... In this case, learners of various levels make the error, and it appears to be a striking age for university students of second language learners, in this case, lexical are made their way to be charged with an error. According to Leki and Carson (1994), the main concern of second language vocabulary learners is a lack of vocabulary. ...
This study is aimed to determine EFL student attitudes towards the use of Google Classroom in writing. It was conducted at the SMPN 14 Kendari. This study's participants are four students from class IX2. Purposive sampling was used to choose study participants depending on the criteria required by the researcher. The design of this study was based on case study methods. Data collection was done through an interview. The results showed that there were five student affective attitudes toward using Google Classroom in writing, namely: 1). Usefulness: students can write sentences in English in Google Classroom, but students cannot write sentences in English in Google Classroom. 2) ease of use: students find it easy to do writing assignments in English in Google Classroom; 3) accessability: students feel the process of learning in Google Classroom is easily accessible, and students find the learning process in Google Classroom difficult to access. 4) Engagement: students are actively engaged in the writing process when using Google Classroom, as it provides interactive features and tools that enhance their learning experience. Additionally, students may feel less motivated to participate in writing activities if they encounter technical difficulties or limitations within the platform. 5) Collaboration: Google Classroom allows for seamless collaboration among students, enabling them to work together on writing assignments and provide feedback to one another. However, some students may struggle with collaborative tasks or feel hesitant to share their work with peers.
This paper reports the findings of an investigation of lexical errors in the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) students' writing at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). The study made use of tagged sample essays to find out the frequency and types of lexical errors in different registers of guided writing administered to randomly selected 300 and 400 level students undergoing the BA English programme in the university. These categories of students were selected because the university regulation stipulates that all their examinations have to be manually written. The findings of the study reveal that ODL students in the BA English programme in NOUN committed lexical choice errors more than lexical form errors. Lexical choice includes individual and combined choice of lexical items. Lexical form involves derivational errors and spelling errors. There are broadly two kinds of errors including interlingual errors and intralingual errors. Transfer errors mean a failure to keep a conceptual separation between L1 and L2. They represent interlingual errors. Transfer errors are different for each L1-L2 pair, while intralingual errors are the result of inadequate knowledge of the second language. The study postulates that simplification and overgeneralization errors might be made by any language learner based on low L2 proficiency. It then concludes that lexical errors are a natural and a necessary phenomenon in language teaching and learning and they benefit learners immensely, especially as they will try to avoid committing such errors in subsequent writings. Indeed, teachers/facilitators should not prevent students from making errors but should always find ways to identify and correct them in the ODL classroom.
Introduction
This research analyzes the importance of academic writing in Albania and suggests introducing it as a mandatory course in all fields of study. The study aims to identify students' perceptions of academic writing and the importance of clear structure and guidelines in academic writing templates. The research collected data through 253 online questionnaires from students of private and public HEIs (Higher Education Institutions) in Albania, revealing that students lacked adequate skills in primary writing forms and were unaware of the steps required to use resources.
Methods
253 Albanian university students participated in a study on academic writing abilities and methods. The study used a structured questionnaire with 23 closed-ended questions related to statements relevant to the concepts provided by the Literature Review on the issues of writing skills, methodology, and the required steps of academic writing.
Results
The study found that over half of the students surveyed did not study academic writing, which was mainly offered as an elective course for the undergraduate level. Less than half of the students confirmed that their universities offered a template for them to guide themselves through the studying process. The research also found a connection between the lack of academic writing in the curricula and academic integrity.
Discussion
The Ministry of Education and HEIs should provide theoretical and methodological guidelines for designing academic writing courses in Albanian. Academic writing programs in Albanian and English should be offered to faculty members and researchers. Academic Writing should be mandatory for every study program, collaborating with disciplinary professors and linguistics to improve the existing curricula and creating opportunities for students to express their critical thinking through writing skills.
Limitations
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this research faced limitations in accessing the syllabi of some faculties and restricted student gatherings. Therefore, the questionnaire was delivered online, and the results presented in the paper refer to the respondents' self-regulation while answering online.
Conclusions
The survey revealed that students from public and non-public higher education institutions lack basic writing skills, prefer internet guidance over professor's assistance, struggle with paraphrasing, summarizing, and referencing, and lack academic integrity. However, students showed a high interest in academic writing as a mandatory course in higher education institutions.
The article discusses the academic writing difficulties that the university students of the faculty of philosophy usually struggle with. The quantitave data is presented in the paper against the backdrop of the analysis of the relevant research that might suggest why the learners may encounter the mentioned challenges. On the level of content, the most common problems are related to the usage of complex philosophical terms, as well as to the correct syntactical construction of the text. On the level of form, a problematic area is that of the correct referencing and failure to paraphrase the sources that the learners use. These challenges are usually rooted in the lack of the proper knowledge about the rules of academic writing, as well as of the lack of sufficient practice aimed at these problematic areas that should be provided in the classroom.
This study examines how learners’ perceptions of their academic writing difficulties changed over the course of a four-week intensive English for Academic purposes (EAP) programme at a British university. The participants of this qualitative study were 14 Chinese undergraduate students who engaged in interviews and completed learning journal entries. The results of the thematic analyses indicate that vocabulary which constituted the biggest perceived challenge in Week 1 was no longer mentioned in Week 4 as a source of writing difficulty. Another finding is that after four weeks, students felt they had a better understanding of argumentation in a UK academic context and were not facing major difficulties with using sources and the understanding of argumentation in a UK academic context; they also reported that they were not facing major difficulties with using sources and understanding plagiarism in written assignments. Upon completion of the EAP course, students also reported that they tended to experience noticeably fewer challenges with academic reading. This qualitative study provides insights into the contribution of pre-sessional programmes in the development of learners’ writing as they transition into the academic community.
This quantitative correlational study investigates the relationship between lexical diversity (LD) and writing competence in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) among 66 Hungarian and 64 Jordanian university students, balanced for gender and English proficiency and all enrolled in English studies programs. Participants completed a Bilingual Language Profile (BLP), providing information about their English use, proficiency, and attitudes, and then crafted narratives following a silent film. Lexical diversity, assessed using Text Inspector (an online software), was measured through VocD and MTLD. Writing competence was evaluated using the holistic scoring approach. The study revealed a significant positive correlation between writing competence scores and LD measures VocD and MTLD in both groups, with slightly higher scores for Hungarians. The Hungarian group, predominantly at the C1 level, showed higher proficiency compared to B2-level-dominant Jordanians. Although gender differences in LD and writing competence were observed, they were not statistically significant. This research highlights the practical implications for educators, emphasizing the correlation between writing competence and Vocabulary knowledge in an EFL context.
The study investigated how teacher encouraged junior high school student’s vocabulary knowledge by using semantic maps on writing skills and examined what vocabulary knowledge could be promoted by semantic mapping through students' report text writing. This study used a qualitative method, with the research participants being 35 students of SMPN 28 Surabaya consisting of 17 boys and 18 girls. The instruments used in this study were field notes and students’ report text writing. Field note was used to find out how the teacher implemented semantic mapping to encourage students' vocabulary knowledge in writing skill. At the same time, Student writing was used to answer how students' vocabulary knowledge is in the report text and what vocabulary knowledge was promoted by semantic mapping. The outcome of this study showed that the teacher implemented semantic mapping through several stages, such as introducing brainstorming, categorizing, personalizing, and writing. Furthermore, semantic mapping engaged students' attention to always focus on the learning process, assisted them to prepare ideas and information before writing a report text, explored and connected their vocabulary knowledge to the topic. In addition, based on the results of student report text analysis, which was done in groups, semantic mapping helped them to encourage vocabulary knowledge, classified vocabulary according to its categories and facilitated students to use vocabulary according to the context in the report text. Semantic mapping encouraged three students' vocabulary knowledge: word recognition, word grouping, and word context. By having good vocabulary knowledge, students could produce appropriate report text writing.
As an important aspect of second language learning, vocabulary has traditionally been the focus of foreign language writing instruction. However, since the introduction of positive psychology into the field of second language acquisition, research on learners’ writing vocabulary strategies from this perspective has not been abundant. The purpose of the present study is to explore the relationship between high school students’ foreign language writing enjoyment and writing vocabulary strategy. The results show that there is a significant positive relationship between senior high school students’ foreign language writing enjoyment and their writing vocabulary strategy, and that two factors: teacher appreciation and personal enjoyment have significant predictive effects on their writing vocabulary strategy. This suggests that positive emotions of both teachers and learners themselves can help to improve learners’ vocabulary application.
Phraseological or multi-word-pattern corpus-driven analysis of language in use has offered significant insights in recent years into how linguistic discourse can vary. This variation has been researched across genres, registers, disciplines, and native or non-native differences. However, very few studies have presented the gender-based analysis of academic research discourse within the EFL/ESL perspective. The current study explored the use of lexical bundles practiced by male and female researchers working in the EFL/ESL academic context within KSA. Corpora comprising almost 300,000 words including 68 research articles, 36 by female and 32 by male researchers were collected and run through Lancsbox 6.0 software package. The analysis was based on the frequency and structural patterns across the selected data. For the critical analysis of structural patterns, the structural taxonomy framework offered by Gezegin-Bal (2109) adapted from Biber et al. (1999) was employed. As established by the findings of the study, prepositional and noun phrases remained overwhelmingly more frequent and common in both corpora. There were no significant gender-based differences in the use of lexical bundles found which reflects that both male and female researchers practiced similar expressions in their use of the English language.
In the context of cross-cultural classrooms, the exchange of feedback between teachers and students holds significant importance as a channel for dialogic communication. This study examined how international students interpreted and responded to formative feedback during their revision processes. It had two objectives: evaluating the efficacy of hedged comments in facilitating successful revisions by L2 writers and exploring students' interpretation and comprehension of hedges delivered within formative feedback. Data was collected through students’ draft and revision writing, along with retrospective interviews. The findings indicated that implicit feedback lacking clarity posed challenges, resulting in low rates of successful revisions. Students initially reacted critically to the feedback, leading to diminished confidence, motivation, and self-esteem. They also reported differences in feedback delivery compared to their previous experiences. These results emphasize the importance of writing teachers recognizing the fundamental differences in students’ academic cultures and reconstructing feedback practices for more effective communication. By adopting culturally sensitive and contextually appropriate feedback approaches, teachers can better support students in their writing endeavors and create a more conducive learning environment.
This final chapter integrates the findings presented throughout the book and offers research and pedagogical implications. Rather than looking at grammatical or lexical development, we focus on multilingual writers’ development of agency, audience, and identity across languages, as realized through rhetorical text features. The results shed new light on how these three aspects of writing are interconnected and how they contribute to individual writers’ overall developmental paths, from novice to advanced levels. The findings also deepen our understanding of the complex and nonlinear nature of multilingual writing development; the relation between merged knowledge and dynamic transfer; and the construction of writer voice or identity across languages. Future researchers can build on our analysis to confirm and go beyond our understanding of the concepts presented. Two other areas include exploring the role of motivation in multilingual writing development and multilingual writers’ creative abilities to construct innovative texts across languages. Writing teachers can use the findings to determine where their students are in their developmental paths and develop practical pedagogical materials at intermediate or more advanced levels. Specific suggestions include raising consciousness of writers’ agency, audience, and identity; encouraging the use of translanguaging in writing classes; and teaching voice-related text features.
This research study analyzed the Introduction chapters of PhD theses in education that were available on the Higher Education Commission (HEC). Pakistan repository website to find out the level of academic writing skills and organizational abilities of the scholars. Eight PhD theses in the field of education were chosen at random from Pakistan's three provinces and the capital city, and two supervisors were interviewed for triangulation. To give voice and meaning to the academic work, qualitative content-document analysis was used. Create a-Research-Space (CARS) framework developed by Swales (1990) was deployed as the basis of data analysis. Introduction chapters were examined in relation to the thesis as a whole to study the CARS moves and steps used by the scholars. In addition, two colleagues who were teaching at prestigious universities and also supervised PhD scholars were interviewed to verify and triangulate the trends that had emerged through the content analysis. The data show that the sparse moves and steps utilized in few of the eight theses have an impact on the quality of academic writing, thesis production, and on the worth of the research. The findings will assist supervisors as well as research students in the region to understand and implement suitable moves during the supervision process and engage in long-term academic writing.
Vocabulary is now well recognized as an important focus in language teaching and learning. Now in its third edition, this book provides an engaging, authoritative guide to the teaching and learning of vocabulary in another language. It contains descriptions of numerous vocabulary learning strategies, which are supported by reference to experimental research, case studies, and teaching experience. It also describes what vocabulary learners need to know to be effective language users. This new edition has been updated to incorporate the wealth of research that has come out of the past decade. It also includes a new chapter on out of-classroom learning, which explores the effect of the Internet and electronic resources on learning. This vital resource for all vocabulary researchers shows that by taking a systematic approach to vocabulary learning, teachers can make the best use of class time and help learners get the best return for their learning effort.
In the interest of finding ways to help their students succeed in university studies, college-level L2 writing researchers and teachers have endeavored for years to define the nature of academic writing tasks. The effort to determine what academic writing is and what ESL students need to know in order to produce it has led to the development of a number of different approaches to the teaching of writing. Most recently, this effort has led to a problematic trend toward having teachers of English, including teachers of freshman composition, teach students to write in other disciplines. This trend has emerged in response to criticism of previous writing programs, analyses of surveys of academic writing tasks, and movements such as Writing Across the Curriculum and English for specific purposes. This article reviews studies of L1 writing programs in which students learn to write in various disciplines, discusses the implications of the researchers' findings, and argues that (a) the teaching of writing in the disciplines should be left to the teachers of those disciplines and (b) L2 English composition teachers should focus on general principles of inquiry and rhetoric, with emphasis on writing from sources.
The American Language Institute, University of Southern California, recently conducted a study of their students' assessments of both what academic skills they expected to need in order to successfully complete their studies, and a self-assessment of their success in using English in varied social and business settings. The study revealed: There is a clear distinction between the academic skills needed by graduate and undergraduate students; many students were concerned over their inability to read complex academic material; some of the skills assessed were major-specific and, although students felt quite comfortable in some language settings, their confidence decreased sharply in those settings requiring creative language skills.
The study reported in this article investigated the reactions of 178 professors to two 400-word compositions, one written by a Chinese student and the other by a Korean student. The professors, 96 of whom were in the humanities/social sciences and 82 of whom were in the physical sciences, were each asked to rate one of the two compositions on six 10-point scales, three of which focused on content (holistic impression, development, and sophistication) and three of which focused on language (comprehensibility, acceptability, and irritation). The results were as follows: (a) Content received lower ratings than language; (b) professors found the errors highly comprehensible, generally unirritating, but academically unacceptable, with lexical errors rated as the most serious;(c) professors in the humanities/social sciences were more lenient in their judgments than professors in the physical sciences; (d) older professors were less irritated by errors than younger professors, and nonnative-speaking professors were more severe in their judgments than native speakers. The results suggest the need for greater emphasis on vocabulary improvement and lexical selection.
This retrospective analysis seeks to explain why a group of children who had been matched for English proficiency and socioeconomic status (SES) when they started a school year, and who were subsequently taught and tested through the medium of English, differed in their school achievement at the end of that year. Factors considered include relative productive competence in English morphology, syntax, and vocabulary; verbosity; patterns of social interaction; first language performance; and personality factors. Extensive intra-group variability is reported, but several generalizations are drawn which have relevance for ESL curriculum organization and instructional practice: vocabulary knowledge is the single most important area of second language (L2) competence when learning content through that language is the dependent variable; grammatical accuracy is of little importance to students' immediate academic needs; communicative competence in social interaction does not guarantee communicative competence in academic situations; and the use of the first language (L1) enhances conceptual development, even when it is tested through the medium of the L2.
This study is part of a larger project which examines faculty response to the written errors of students who are non-native speakers of English. The particular study described here was designed to determine which sentence-level errors are judged to be most serious by an academic community and to discover what factors may influence this judgment. A survey was conducted to measure how a cross-section of faculty at Iowa State University respond to certain common ESL writing errors. The 164 respondents ranked the relative gravity of 12 typical ESL written errors occurring in 24 sentences. Results indicate that most respondents did not judge all errors as equally grievous; rather, their judgments generate a hierarchy of errors. The study also suggests that both the age and academic discipline of faculty members may be important factors in predicting their response to certain ESL student writing errors.
An Academic Skills Questionnaire was distributed at San Diego State University to 200 randomly selected faculty from all departments in order to determine which skills (reading, writing, speaking or listening) were most essential to non-native speaker success in university classes. The receptive skills, reading and listening, were ranked first by faculty teaching both lower division and upper division/graduate classes. The faculty of all departments but Engineering ranked General English above Specific Purposes English. This study concludes with implications for testing, literacy requirements and curriculum development.
Surveys of academic writing have an important role to play in providing a more complete picture of writing than the “process” approach has given us. However, previous academic writing surveys have not satisfactorily answered the question of just what kinds of academic writing tasks are typical. Without such information, creating realistic writing tasks in the English-for-academic-purposes (EAP) classroom remains largely a matter of guesswork. The present study attempts to fill this gap, taking as its data the actual handouts in university classes. The tasks were classified into seven categories, which are described. The implications of the controlled nature of many of the writing tasks are discussed, and ways to put these findings into use in the EAP classroom are suggested.
In content-based academic writing instruction, writing is connected to study of specific academic subject matter and is viewed as a means of promoting understanding of this content. A rationale is presented for adopting content-based instruction to meet ESL composition goals; it is argued that such instruction develops thinking, researching, and writing skills needed for academic writing tasks and does so more realistically than does traditional instruction that isolates rhetorical patterns and stresses writing from personal experience. Five approaches for structuring content-based writing instruction are defined and exemplified: topic-centered “modules” or “minicourses,” content-based academic writing courses (reading and writing intensive), content-centered English-for-special-purposes courses, composition or multiskill courses/tutorials as adjuncts to designated university courses, and individualized help with course-related writing at times of need (through faculty in writing-across-the-curriculum programs, tutors, and writing center staff).
This article reports on a study done to determine how nonnative English speakers studying in U.S. colleges and universities perceive their language learning experiences and how they use English in academic settings. Open-ended interviews, using a structured set of topics, were conducted with 80 students. Areas investigated included the value of the U.S. language training program, how the program addressed specific skill areas, how out-of-class experience contributed to language learning, what teacher qualities were valued, and how English was used in the academic setting. In general, students supported the design of most intensive ESL training, but they raised questions about some skill-area emphasis. A strong desire for more interactive instruction was expressed as well as an appreciation for personality, rather than technical, qualities of teachers. Students indicated the importance in academic work of the receptive skills of reading and listening over the productive skills of speaking and writing.
The central thesis of this paper is that a cognitively and academically beneficial form of bilingualism can be achieved only on the basis of adequately developed first language (L1) skills. Two hypotheses are formulated and combined to arrive at this position. The “developmental interdependence” hypothesis proposes that the development of competence in a second language (L2) is partially a function of the type of competence already developed in L1 at the time when intensive exposure to L2 begins. The “threshold” hypothesis proposes that there may be threshold levels of linguistic competence which a bilingual child must attain both in order to avoid cognitive disadvantages and allow the potentially beneficial aspects of bilingualism to influence his cognitive and academic functioning. These hypotheses are integrated into a model of bilingual education in which educational outcomes are explained as a function of the interaction between background, child input and educational treatment factors. It is suggested that many evaluations of bilingual education programs have produced uninterpretable data because they have failed to incorporate the possibility of these interactions into their research designs.
Questionaire responses from faculty members in 190 academic departments at 34 universities were analyzed to determine the writing tasks faced by beginning undergraduate and graduate students. In addition to undergraduate English departments, six fields were surveyed: electrical engineering, civil engineering, computer science, chemistry, psychology, and master of business administration programs. Results indicated considerable variability across fields in the kinds of writing required and in preferred assessment topics.
ABSTRACT The work of researchers like Zamel (24) and Krashen (12) on the effectiveness of teacher feedback on second language writing does not support a focus on surface error to help students improve their writing. However, students of English as a Second Language (ESL) may come to U.S. institutions of higher education with a notion different from that of their teachers here about what kind of teacher responses will help them improve their writing. This paper presents the results of a survey of 100 ESL students in freshman composition classes, asking the students to analyze their sense of what kinds of paper marking techniques help them the most to improve their writing, which kinds of corrections they even read, which corrections they feel they retain best, and what reactions they have to positive and negative comments on both the form and the content of their writing. The results of this preliminary study suggest that these students equate good writing in English with error-free writing and, therefore, that they want and expect their composition teachers to correct all errors in their written work. This paper argues that a given teacher and class of students must agree about what constitutes improvement in writing and suggests that students' expectations may need to be modified if students are to profit from teacher feedback on their compositions.
Two hundred eighty-four essay examination prompts from 15 academic departments at Western Illinois University were classified into four main categories and a number of subcategories on the basis of the type of response they required. Specific content was then removed from each prompt, leaving organizational “frames” that correspond to each prompt type. These “frames” are listed and suggestions for using the typology in the classroom are given.
Although previous research in both first and second language composition has called for the examination of the various intellectual or conceptual activities required for university content courses, this call has gone largely unanswered. This article presents the results of a study of one introductory university course in Organizational Behaviour, a subcommunity or “forum” within the academic community of business studies. It analyzes the conceptual activities the students were required to carry out in order to write their weekly assignments and shows how these activities determined the nature of the expected discourse. The article argues that learning how to carry out such activities can be profitably transferred from the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classroom to university content classes. It suggests that nonnative-speaking (NNS) students can use these activities to explore their own disciplinary communities and thus facilitate their initiation into those communities. The results of this study also offer important implications for first and second language writing pedagogy as well as for course design and teaching assistant (TA) preparation in academic content classes.
Although studies of instructor response to student writing are numerous in both L1 and L2 contexts, the literature on student reaction to those comments is small in L2 research. Partly for this reason, we have examined ESL students' own preferences and views on feedback. We surveyed the attitudes of 59 students in four ESL-oriented classes. Our questionnaire elicited their opinions on the usefulness of various types of comments, the scope of teacher markings, responsibility in error marking and correction, and revision. Eight students were then selected for interview (either audio- or video-taped). The respondents can be divided into three categories, primarily according to their degrees of acceptance of revision and of teacher intervention in providing input: Receptors (46%), Semi-resistors (41%), and Resistors (13%). The survey revealed that as students progress from English language learners to apprentices in their chosen discipline, the more restricted is the role they assign to the language teacher.
The increasing number of science and technology graduate students in ESP writing courses has encouraged debate about the timing, content, and proper locus of such courses. This article analyzes questionnaire data from faculty at six engineering schools to determine the role of writing in graduate engineering programs and its implications for the design of writing courses. Attitudes and beliefs of the faculty about the importance of writing skills, and their practices to ensure that graduate students become proficient writers were compared, and pedagogical implications discussed.
This is the first book-length study of the status of composition in English studies and the uneasy relationship between composition and literature. Composition studies and institutional histories of English studies have long needed this kind of clarification of the historical and political contexts of composition teaching, research, and administration. Susan Miller argues that composition constitutes a major national industry, citing the four million freshman-level students enrolled in such courses each year, the 50 million in teacher salaries. But this concrete magnitude is not expressed in political power within departments. Miller calls on her associates in composition to engage in a persistent critique of the social practices and political agenda of the discipline that have been responsible for its institutional marginalization. Drawing on her own long experience as a composition administrator, teacher, and scholar, as well as on a national survey of composition professionals, Miller argues that composition teachers inadvertently continue to foster the negative myth about compositionâs place in the English studies hierarchy by assuming an assigned, self-sacrificial cultural identity. Composition has been regarded as subcollegiate, practical, a "how-to," and has been denied intellectual rigor in order to preserve literatureâs presentations of quasi-religious textual ideals. Winner of three major book awards: The Modern Language Associationâs Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize The Conference on College Composition and Communicationâs Outstanding Book Award The Teachers of Advanced Compositionâs W. Ross Winterowd Award
ESL authors: Reading and writing critical autobiography Reading in the composition classroom: Second language perspectives (pp. 247-257) The psychology of written composition
- S Benesch
Benesch, S. (1993). ESL authors: Reading and writing critical autobiography. In J. G. Carson & I. Leki (Eds.), Reading in the composition classroom: Second language perspectives (pp. 247-257). Boston: Heinle & Heinle. Bereiter, C., & Scardamalia, M. (1987). The psychology of written composition. Hills-dale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Fostering writing expertise in ESL composition instruc-STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF WRITING INSTRUCTION tion: Modeling and evaluation Academic writing in a second language: Essays on research and pedagogy
- A Cumming
Cumming, A. (in press). Fostering writing expertise in ESL composition instruc-STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF WRITING INSTRUCTION tion: Modeling and evaluation. In D. Belcher & G. Braine (Eds.), Academic writing in a second language: Essays on research and pedagogy. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Literature and critical thinking in the composition classroom (pp. 197-217)
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Gajdusek, L., & vanDommelen, D. (1993). Literature and critical thinking in the composition classroom (pp. 197-217). In J. G. Carson & I. Leki (Eds.), Reading in the composition classroom: Second language perspectives (pp. 247-257). Boston: Heinle & Heinle.
Student beliefs about language learning
- E K Horwitz
Horwitz, E. K. (1987). Student beliefs about language learning. In A. Wenden & J. Rubin (Eds.), Learner strategies in language learning (pp. 119-129). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
A genre-based developmental writing course for undergraduates Academic writing in a second language: Essays on research and pedagogy
- S Jacoby
- D Leech
- C Holten
Jacoby, S., Leech, D., & Holten, C. (in press). A genre-based developmental writing course for undergraduates. In D. Belcher & G. Braine (Eds.), Academic writing in a second language: Essays on research and pedagogy. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Using classroom and authentic genres: Student initiation into academic writings Academic writing in a second language: Essays on research and pedagogy Extending writing in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts
- A M Johns
Johns, A. M. (in press). Using classroom and authentic genres: Student initiation into academic writings. In D. Belcher & G. Braine (Eds.), Academic writing in a second language: Essays on research and pedagogy. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Keller-Cohen, D., & Wolfe, A. (1987). Extending writing in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts: Report of afaculty survey. Unpublished manuscript, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Academic writing: Techniques and tasks
- I Leki
Leki, I. (1989). Academic writing: Techniques and tasks. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Redefining task: Academic writing in six graduate courses
- P Prior
Prior, P. (1992, March). Redefining task: Academic writing in six graduate courses. Paper presented at the 23rd Annual TESOL Conference, Vancouver, Canada.
Exploring through writing
- A Raimes
Raimes, A. (1992). Exploring through writing (2nd ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press.
Thinking and writing in college. Urbana, IL: NCTE. Erratum In Michael Busch's Research Issues contributionUsing Likert Scales in L2 Research: A Researcher Comments
- B E Walvoord
- L Mccarthy
Walvoord, B. E., & McCarthy, L. (1990). Thinking and writing in college. Urbana, IL: NCTE. Erratum In Michael Busch's Research Issues contribution, "Using Likert Scales in L2 Research: A Researcher Comments," which appeared in Volume 27, Number 4, the following sentence on page 735: In practice Likert-type scales in language learning could safely operate