Challenges of teaching academic writing to ukrainian esl students

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Challenges of teaching academic writing to ukrainian esl students

Olena Kotys

Анотація

Англомовне академічне письмо - одне з важливих інструментів спілкування українських науковців зі світовою науковою спільнотою. Більшість університетів України долучили цей предмет до навчальних планів. В інституті іноземної філології Східноєвропейського національного університету імені Лесі Українки «Академічне письмо» вивчають студенти-магістри. На основі досвіду викладання цього навчального курсу в 2016 році розглянуто основні труднощі, з якими стикаються українські викладачі. До першочергових проблем належать: калькування шкільних підходів при написанні академічних есе; нерозуміння типів есе та їх призначення; невміння коротко й предметно описувати візуальну інформацію (графіки, діаграми тощо); проблеми із застосуванням синонімів і перефразувань; невміле використання узагальнень при передачі інформації; помилки при написанні анотацій та рефератів.

Ключові слова: академічний стиль, англійська мова, письмо, виклики, методика викладання, Східноєвропейський національний університет імені Лесі Українки, інститут іноземної філології, перефразування, узагальнення, синоніми, академічне есе.

Аннотация

Англоязычное академическое письмо является одним из важных инструментов общения, которое дает возможность украинским ученым быть услышанными в мировом научном сообществе. Большинство университетов Украины внедрили этот предмет в учебные планы. На факультете зарубежной филологии Восточноевропейского национального университета имени Леси Украинки «Академическое письмо» изучают студенты-магистры. На основе опыта преподавания этого учебного курса в 2016 году рассмотрены основные сложности, с которыми сталкиваются украинские преподаватели. К основным проблемам относятся следующие: заимствование школьных подходов при написании академических эссе; непонимания типов эссе и их предназначения; неумение кратко и конкретно описывать визуальную информацию (графики, диаграммы и т. п.); проблемы с использованием синонимов и перефразирования; неумелое использование обобщений для передачи информации; ошибки при написании аннотаций и рефератов.

Ключевые слова: академический стиль, английский язык, письмо, вызовы, методика преподавания, Восточноевропейский национальный университет имени Леси Украинки, факультет иностранной филологии, перефразирование, обобщение, синонимы, академическое эссе.

Formulation of a research problem and its significance. In recent years the pro-European education system of Ukraine has been oriented towards raising awareness of Ukrainian scholars in the field of academic writing in English. The importance of academic literacy is somewhat evident due to the fact that scholars, teachers as well as students are encouraged to publish scientific works in international journals and take part in conferences abroad to make their voices heard. What concerns students, during their university life they are exposed to various text types and genres (literature reviews, summaries, essays, research papers, etc.). They are expected to be able to not just successfully learn and comprehend new material, but also reflect, synthesize and verbalize the gained knowledge in oral and written form. It has been evident that quite profound level of conversational English does not guarantee as good academic writing skills.

It could have been caused by several reasons including the absence of academic writing as a subject on an undergraduate curriculum (even for students of foreign philology), general tendency to use such forms of written communication as short text messages, e-mails, etc. and also by the fact that students do not always realize why they need to be academically literate. American educationalists [2] claim that "too many students appear daunted by [...] challenges, particularly in tasks requiring skills in both reading and writing". The latter is stated in a Statement of Competencies Expected of Students Entering California's Public Colleges and Universities. The main target audience of the colleges and universities are Americans or at least English-speaking students.

If this problem is clearly stated in America, what can we expect in Ukrainian context? It is also said that "on average, English-language learners can require five to seven years of academic study and dual-language education before they acquire sufficient proficiency in academic language to transition successfully into regular courses -- and yet most English-language learners, such as those in English-as-a-second-language programs, do not receive this level of dual-language instruction and support" [1]. At the moment Ukrainian universities cannot boast of having a four-year course of academic English on their undergraduate curriculum. Having taken this into consideration, academic writing instructors have to devise programs that would ensure fast and effective learning.

The research is targeted at highlighting the greatest challenges that instructors of academic writing in English might face when teaching the subject to ESL students.

Analysis of the research into this problem. Academic discourse has been investigated from many perspectives, special attention being paid to academic writing instruction for ESL students. Coffin, Curry, Goodman, Hewings, Lillis and Swann devised a toolkit for teachers involved in academic writing, paying special attention to giving effective feedback [7], Hinkel [11] concentrates the studies on the importance of correct grammar and vocabulary, Leki [12], Olivas and Li [15] emphasize the psychological factor instructors should be aware of when teaching academic writing. Troia [18], Mc Guire, Lay and Peters [13] highlight the importance of reflexive writing in their works. Some authors (Mac Arthur [14], Stein, Dixon, Isaacson [17]) investigate the needs of students with learning disabilities, others provide the results of case studies, directed onto learning about the challenges that ESL students (Arabic (Al Fadda [3]), African (Banda [6]), Ukrainian [20] etc.) face when undertaking writing assignments.

The goal and the specific tasks of the article. This article attempts to analyze the main errors that occur in writing assignments of Ukrainian ESL students of Foreign Philology Department at Lesia Ukrainka Eastern European University, Lutsk.

Statement regarding the basic material of the research and the justification of the results obtained. The research was conducted in 2016 and is based on the written assignments of MA students of Lesia Ukrainka Eastern European University. The course is based on the book by S.Bailey [5] and covers four modules: 1) the introduction to the writing process; 2) elements of writing; 3) accuracy in writing and 4) writing models. Each module has the following topics for consideration: Module 1 (The introduction to the writing process): Background to writing. Writing foundations. Reading and note-making. Writing stages. Planning a text. Organizing paragraphs. Selecting key points. Summary writing.

Module 2 (Elements of writing): Cause and effect. Comparisons. Definitions. Examples. Generalisations. References and quotations. Visual information. Describing charts, graphs and tables.

Module 3 (Accuracy in writing): Grammatical peculiarities of academic writing. Modal verbs. Adverbs. Articles. Passive structures. Tenses. Time words and phrases.

Module 4 (Writing models): Writing summaries. Designing and reporting surveys. Essay writing. Comparative and discursive essays.

As the experience shows, these modules are quite an effective tool that can enable students to write academic texts showing good level of academic English. Nowadays we can observe the shift of emphasis from the main focus on writing as a product to writing as a process, which means that writing is seen rather as a means to make students think and synthesize knowledge than just a way of putting ideas in grammatically correct sentences. Moreover, writing is seen not as linear, but recursive process that except for the very process of creating an academic text presupposes preparation stage (pre-writing), proofreading and editing [8]. This part is often neglected even by hard-working students.

Notwithstanding the fact that the course program is well-designed, some challenges were observed and these should be considered in order to improve the teaching process. In this article we shall highlight the most frequent problems and mistakes that occurred in the written works of MA students in 2016.

To start with, we should state that students are not used to writing assignments. The tasks they are familiar with include compositions and short stories they are required to write during Conversational English classes. On the other hand, they are exposed to academic discourse during lectures and seminars, but these are mainly oral answers which cannot be compared to the creation of written texts which need a lot of patience and practice.

We already mentioned the tendency to spend very little amount of time on pre-writing and proofreading stages, which means students are not equipped with editorial abilities. This can be caused by an opinion that writing by itself is labor-intensive, time and effort-consuming process and does not seem very appealing to students.

Thirdly, students tend to stick to the rules they followed when writing school compositions in English, not paying attention to the style and register they should use when writing academic texts (students often use short forms and abbreviations, lexical units that do not belong to academic domain, etc.). This habit is very harmful and hard to get rid of, that is why students are often stressed out when they have to spend time controlling themselves and trying to avoid errors. From a student's perspective writing is rather laborious.

One more challenge that students usually face is inability to paraphrase ideas. This is caused by poor use of synonyms and various grammatical structures. The solution to this problem may be not just to encourage them to learn synonyms, but also to make them read more, because it is attentive and thoughtful reading that enhances writing competencies. Modern textbooks we use at Lesia Ukrainka Eastern European University suggest a wide range of academic vocabulary that can be used to express the same idea but in a different way. This can be done by [5] a) changing vocabulary (studies - research, society - civilization); b) changing word class (mountainous regions (ADJ+N) - in the mountains (N)); c) changing word order (Ancient Egypt collapsed - the collapse of Egyptian society began), etc. These transformations are quite easy to learn, but not all the students use them eagerly and successfully. Sometimes students are asked to assess writing of their peers which is also an effective exercise, because it encourages them to be more critical to their own texts when they are created. We should also mention that the role of a teacher is especially important at a stage of practicing paraphrase - we have to control students and make sure they employ appropriate vocabulary. Two - three classes and self-work at home is enough to ensure that students can produce texts free of lexical errors.

Next challenge worth mentioning is difficulty in understanding the difference between types of academic essays (argument-led essays vs. thesis-led essays). Argument-led approach is useful when there is a need to discuss advantages and disadvantages of something; thesis-led approach should be applied when you are asked to express a clear opinion on a topic. These types of approaches are the basic ones, but there also are essay tasks that may include hidden argument(s), e.g. ... To what extent do you agree?

When reporting ideas expressed by scholars they refer to, students often struggle with generalizations. It is easier for them to quote than to synthesize knowledge. They also have problems with using cautious style and realizing when it should or should not be used. For example, instead of writing English pronunciation is often confusing, they write English pronunciation is confusing. Caution may be expressed by several means [5]: a) modal verbs (may, might, could); b) adverbs (frequently, often, generally); c) verbs and phrases (tends to, there is a tendency). For example, we should write Poor education can / frequently / tends to lead to crime, not Poor education leads to crime.

Of course, ability to use cautious language may not be expected in academic texts written by first-year students, but it is rather desirable for senior students.

Describing visual information (charts, graphs and tables, etc.) is one of academic concerns as well. Students are rarely successful in performing this task. It is worth mentioning that it is vocabulary (not grammar) that is the most challenging. Describing tendencies and trends requires knowledge of a wide range of nouns (decline, fall, drop, decrease, etc.) and verbs (dropped, fell down, decreased, rose, increased, grew, climbed, etc.) which inexperienced students fail to remember and use effectively.

Finally, an error that should not be left without attention is one that can be observed in the process of summary writing. Most students believe that this is the easiest writing assignment, but it is not so. Many of them try to retell the text they have read and paraphrase some ideas they consider important. Notwithstanding the fact that summarizing is a flexible tool, there is a challenge not to distort the message expressed in the original text. In some cases students fail to understand which facts and ideas are important for the summary. Moreover, a common mistake is that some students add their own ideas on the topic in the end of a summary thus almost turning a summary into a composition.

Conclusions and prospects for further research. Academic writing is a very powerful tool. If used effectively, it can help voices of Ukrainian scholars to be heard. ESL students are thought to have more difficulties in academic writing than native speakers, but many textbooks and toolkits have been created to ensure effective learning. The research based on an Academic Writing course (2016) at Lesia Ukrainka Eastern European National University shows that the common challenges that students of foreign philology face are mostly of lexical character (problems with paraphrase and finding synonyms). Some students struggle with types of academic writing and text layout. Special attention should be paid to specific tasks like describing visual information and using cautious language. The latter can be learnt by practicing and consistent training. Further research will be directed onto the methodological aspects of teaching academic writing and suggesting more effective tools that can be used to improve academic writing competencies of Ukrainians.

english philology academic writing

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