EATAW 2015 8th Biennial Conference of the European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing Academic Writing in Multiple Scholarly, Socio-Cultural, Instructional and Disciplinary Contexts: Challenges and Perspectives Conference Programme
15–17 June 2015 Language Centre Tallinn University of Technology Estonia
This Programme Book accompanies the EATAW Conference 2015 in Tallinn University of Technology, 15–17 June View the Programme Book online at: www.issuu.com/eataw2015 Edited by: Ivi Kääramees Gyla Pesur Ulvi Renser Mare Roes Kärt Rummel Hele Saar Katrin Sune Special thanks to: Katrin Toompuu The Faculty of Social Sciences of TUT Disainiosakond OÜ
Copyright: Language Centre, Tallinn University of Technology, 2015 ISBN 978-9949-23-786-9
EATAW 2015, Tallinn University of Technology
Contents Welcome to EATAW Conference 2015! 5 About EATAW 2015 7 Conference Presentation Formats 8 Eataw 2015 Registration Fees 8 Schedule of Events 9 Conference Programme 10 Monday 15 June 10 Tuesday 16 June 12 Wednesday 17 June 14 Keynote Speakers 16 Dr Ulla M. Connor 16 Dr Jim Donohue 20 Dr Caroline Coffin 21 Dr Terry Myers Zawacki 24 Abstracts 27 A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction 27 B – Writing and Writing Instruction in Different Academic Contexts 79 C – Writing in and across Disciplines 103 D – Writing Centre Development 137 E – Socio-Cultural Context of Writing 151 F – Writing and New Technologies 167 H – Writing for Publication 183 Social Programme 192 Destination Tallinn 193 EATAW 2015 Committees 194 The Language Centre of Tallinn University of Technology 195 Index by Authors 196 Practical Details 198
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Welcome to EATAW Conference 2015!
Welcome to EATAW Conference 2015!
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to EATAW Conference 2015 in Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia. With your participation and enthusiasm, the conference will become an exciting and rewarding event full of inspiring talks and discussions on academic writing in a wide variety of teaching and learning contexts. Indeed, with 160 presentations scheduled in the programme and 270 delegates from 40 countries registered for the conference, it truly embodies the best practices of research and teaching of academic writing both in Europe and elsewhere. Thank you for your interest in the activities of EATAW – the European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing.
Kärt Rummel
Co-Chair of EATAW 2015 On behalf of the EATAW Board and EATAW 2015 Organising Committee Head of Language Centre Tallinn University of Technology
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EATAW 2015, Tallinn University of Technology
EATAW 2015: Academic Writing in Multiple Scholarly, Socio-Cultural, Instructional and Disciplinary Contexts: Challenges and Perspectives Following successful conferences in Groningen 2001, Budapest 2003, Athens 2005, Bochum 2007, Coventry 2009, Limerick 2011 and Budapest 2013, the European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing (EATAW) is pleased to announce its 8th biennial conference, hosted by the Language Centre of Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia. The theme of EATAW 2015 is "Academic Writing in Multiple Scholarly, Socio-Cultural, Instructional and Disciplinary Contexts: Challenges and Perspectives", which should allow for an extensive interpretation of the various developments of academic writing in the rapidly changing and technologizing world of the 21st century, and foster discussion across writing research and instruction traditions located in diverse higher educational settings and contexts across Europe and beyond. EATAW 2015 has attracted a significant number of delegates who all share professional interest in academic writing and its development, including teachers, academic writing researchers, writing centre staff, administrators and policy makers in higher education, and faculty members from academic disciplines regardless of their native language. The talks and discussions will be delivered in seven thematic threads in a variety of subthemes and formats, which can be viewed in more detail on the following pages of the Conference Programme. The three days of comprehensive and stimulating activities of the conference will be brought together in a Closing Panel that every delegate can contribute to by raising exciting issues for further reflections on academic writing.
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Conference Presentation Formats
Conference Presentation Formats Paper presentations: presentations on original knowledge by one or more authors within a 30-minute period, including 20 minutes for the presentation and 10 minutes for questions and discussion. Workshops: 60- or 90-minute delegate-centred sessions that should engage the audience actively in writing activities, discussion and exchange of knowledge and experiences. Poster presentations: oral presentations of specific topics or descriptions of projects or research work still in progress by one or more authors. Each author in a poster session will present his/her poster in a 5-minute open plenary (preferably Power Point) in the order given in the Conference Programme, followed by a total of 30-minute session of each presenter introducing their poster individually to delegates. Poster stands will be provided in the room of presentation. Electronic poster presentations (e-posters): presentations of software, websites, and other computer-based projects in an environment that allows face-to-face interaction with the audience. E-poster presenters will use computer lab equipment (or their own laptops) to display their projects while the audience walks around, watching demonstrations and asking questions. Symposia: 90-minute sessions with 3–4 contributors presenting related subjects from multiple perspectives in a 15-20-minute presentation each. The presentations are followed by a 30-minute open discussion moderated by a discussant/discussants and the chairperson. Round-table discussions: stimulating conversations and networking opportunities among delegates on shared research topics or projects still in progress under the guidance of a chairperson. Within 90 minutes, 3–4 presenters in turn (or an expert, a research group or project team) address their research topic in a 5-minute (20-minute) presentation followed up by an extended whole group discussion. Research group or project meetings: 90-minute professional meetings for those who wish to promote and discuss special interest, research or project-related issues with other participants. The topic is presented in 45 minutes, followed by a 45-minute discussion and questions session.
Eataw 2015 Registration Fees EATAW 2015 registration fees include attendance at conference sessions; conference bag with a full programme; name badge; tea and coffee breaks; lunches; visit to Mektory on 16 June. Registration fees do not include Conference Festive Dinner and Old Town Tour.
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Schedule of Events
Schedule of Events Monday 15 June 08.30–17.00 09.00–09.30 09.30–11.00 11.00–11.30 11.30–12.00 12.10–12.40 12.50–13.20 13.30–14.30 14.40–15.10 15.20–15.50 16.00–16.30 16.30–17.00 17.10–17.40 17.50–18.35
19.00–22.00
Registration Opening Session Keynote Address by Ulla Connor Tea/Coffee Break Parallel Sessions 1 Parallel Sessions 2 Parallel Sessions 3 Lunch Parallel Sessions 4 Parallel Sessions 5 Parallel Sessions 6 Tea/Coffee Break Parallel Sessions 7 Estonian Culture and Language Classes Tour of Library Tour of Language Centre Festive Dinner
Tuesday 16 June 08.30–17.00 09.00–10.30 10.30–11.00 11.00–11.30 11.40–12.10 12.20–12.50 13.00–14.00 14.00–15.30 14.00–14.30 14.40–15.10 15.20–15.50 16.00–16.45
Registration Keynote Talk by Jim Donohue and Caroline Coffin Tea/Coffee Break Parallel Sessions 1 Parallel Sessions 2 Parallel Sessions 3 Lunch Workshop by Ulla Connor Parallel Sessions 4 Parallel Sessions 5 Parallel Sessions 6 EATAW Meeting and Elections Estonian Culture and Language Classes Tour of Library Tour of Language Centre 17.00–18.30 Visit to Mektory Wednesday 17 June 08.30–17.00 09.00–10.00 10.00–10.30 10.40–12.10 10.40–11.10 11.20–11.50 12.00–12.30 12.30–13.10 12.30–13.30 13.40–14.10 14.20–14.50 15.00–15.45 15.45–16.15 16.15–16.45 17.00–19.00
Registration Keynote Talk by Terry Myers Zawacki Tea/Coffee Break Workshop by Jim Donohue and Caroline Coffin Parallel Sessions 1 Parallel Sessions 2 Parallel Sessions 3 Meeting of the new EATAW Board Lunch Parallel Workshops 4 Parallel Workshops 5 Closing Panel: Ulla Connor, Jim Donohue, Terry Myers Zawacki, Magnus Gustafsson Closing Ceremony Tea/Coffee Break Old Town Tour
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14:30
13:30 → U01 Dining Hall
12:50 RömmerNossek Towards a New Cognitive Theory of Writing Processes
11:30 → SOC-209 Mason Capturing the Struggle: Understanding the Metacognitive Strategies for Academic Writing of Work-Based Learners at University 12:10 Thomas, Armstrong “Looking Away”: Private Writing Techniques as a Form of Transformational Text Shaping
11:00
9:30
9:00 → Festive Hall
Franzky, Krämer, Kohl Plagiarism in 70 Types of Inter textual Error Patterns
Taylor Plagiarism as Practice in a Graduate Academic Writing Course
de Glopper Writing Beliefs and Writing Approaches of University Students: An Interview Study among Master Thesis Writers and Their Supervisors
Williams Knowing Where They’ve Been: Engaging Students’ Attitudes and Dispositions Toward Academic Writing
Corr Beyond Formal Conventions – Talking About Academic and Scientific Writing in an Interdisciplinary Context
Dorang “Talking My Way Out of the Ivory Tower”: International Junior Researchers Meet Interdisciplinary Audience
Eriksson A., Gustafsson, Hommerberg, Malmström, Maricic, Pecorari, Shaw PROFILE (Professional Literacy in English) – A Study of the Relationship between English as the Medium of Instruction and the Development of Professional English Literacy Bergman The Research Circle as a Resource in Challenging Academics’ Perceptions of How to Support Students’ Writing in Higher Education
Girgensohn Learning Writing through Researching Writing: Students Investigate How Students’ Papers Progress
→ SOC-222
Harbord The Securiti sation of Plagiarism
Hasanen, Freede Do We Know What They (Think They) Need? Comparing Student and Faculty Perceptions of Writing in an English Studies Program
Clughen, Hardy Supporting Writing in the Disciplines – Into the Contextual Vortex
→ NRG-226 → NRG-131
→ SOC-219
Monday, 15 June 2015
Huemer, Deroey, Lejot Writing Support in a Multilingual Context: What Do Staff and Students Need?
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Miller, Wilson The Challenges of Developing and Evaluating an English Academic Writing Website for Use in Different Instructional Settings
Rolinska Crossing the Bridge – Bridging the Gap
Bloch Digital Storytelling in the L2 Academy Writing Classroom: Expanding the Possibilities of Expression and Learning
Göpferich Writing Centres as the Driving Force of Program Development: From Add-On Study Skills Courses to Content and Literacy Integrated Tertiary Education
Janse van Rensburg Plagiarism Rehabilitation as Catalyst in the Successful Growth of the Writing Centre Environment
→ SOC-213
→ SOC-221
¦
Jorgensen, A. H. Why Should I Write about My Teaching? On Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Brinkschulte, Stoian, Borges, Barczaitis Natural Scientists’ Translingual Practice for Writing Scientific Publications
WORK SHOP Frei Diversity- Oriented Teaching of Academic Writing
WORKSHOP Wolfsberger Feminist Writing Practice? Texts, Wounds, Wishes
Kochanska Academic Writing Competence in the Light of Multilingualism – Tracing Special Needs and the Development of Competence
SYMPOSIUM Leijen, Käsper, Türk, Põiklik, Kruse, Jürine, Lepajõe Analysing Academic Writing Practices at the University of Tartu: A Multifaceted Perspective on Languages, Teaching, and Traditions
→ SOC-214 → SOC-211A
→ SOC-211C
→ SOC-218
Lappalainen Enhancing Publication Productivity among Doctoral Student – A Case Study from Aalto University
SYMPOSIUM Bromley, Scott, Bonazza Transatlantic Perspectives on Writing Centers: Surveying Institutions and Sharing Practices to Develop Situated Writing Support
→ SOC-210
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→ SOC-217
Keynote Address by Ulla Connor
Opening Session
Mo
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Tour of Library
→ LIB
Nathan A Genre-Based Study of Case Response Writing on an MBA Programme
→ SOC-213
Monday, 15 June 2015
22:00
17:50 → SOC Tour of Language Centre 19:00
17:10 → SOC-214 Hughes, Minning Interactive Editing: A Strategy for Supporting Professors at a German Technical University
16:30
→ NRG-226 14:40 → SOC-220 Nuzha POSTER PRESENTATIONS Teaching and Alas Assessing Academic Writing: Bittner What Does EAP Kasparkova Stand for? McIntosh Kotkas, 15:20 Rannula, Salumets Mossman Developing a Shared Understanding of Expectations of Written Assessment: A Programme Level Approach to Teaching Academic Writing in the Disciplines 16:00 Kearns, Turner Weighing What Matters: A Generative Schema for Writing Assessment
Gartland Diligent Student, Caring Practitioner or Expert Scientist? The Discursive Construction of Identity by MSC Health Sciences Students Writing a Review Paper
Vode, von Rautenfeld Autonomous Academic Writing Groups for Undergraduate Students
Estonian Language Classes
→ SOC-213
Ofte Outsiders/Insiders: Students Negotiating Their Position(s) in Academic Discourse Using Dialogue Journals
Delahunt, Everitt Reynolds, Maguire Writing and Identities in Transition: The Relationship between Authorial Identity and Emerging Professional Identities in Nursing and Midwifery Undergraduates
→ SOC-211A
Chi Constructing Writers’ Identities through Critical Reflections
De Wachter, Heeren, D’Hertefelt Stimulating Weak First-Year University Writers’ Writing Strategies through Observational Learning and Collaborative Writing
→ SOC-211C
Paynter, van Leeuwen Confined by Conventions? Exploring L2 Students’ Sense of Ownership in Scientific Writing
→ SOC-222
O'Sullivan Student Perspectives on the Value of Training in Collaborative Writing
→ SOC-209
Nicholls, Wrigglesworth Synthesising Dilemmas in Academic Writing: A Learner Specific Discipline Approach
→ NRG-131
¦
Mokgwathi Using a Writing Centre to Enhance the Writing Skills of Students for Whom English is Not a First Language in a Technical University: A Case Study
Bräuer, Doleschal “WRILAB2”: Developing an On-Line Reading and Writing Laboratory for L2 Students
Broido, Rubin A Working Alliance: Framing the Tutor-Tutee Relationship
→ SOC-221
Mo
Johnson Anticipation: Raising Aspiration as the Path to Success
→ NRG-226
WORKSHOP Klein, Kirschbaum Logic in Academic Writing
→ SOC-211C
Festive Dinner at Glehn Castle
Harvey, S., Stocks The Trans disciplinary Turn: Challenges and Opportunities in Academic Writing
→ SOC-209
Petrić, Ono Literary Quotes: L1 English Writers’ Use of Direct Quotations in Literature PhD Thesis Introductions
Braidwood, McAnsh Disciplinary Differences in Constructing Cohesion and Coherence in Research-Paper Abstracts
Parry Genre Analysis of Pharmacy Journal Articles and Its Application to EAP Teaching
→ NRG-131
RömmerNossek, Kuntschner, Zwiauer Rapid Implementation of Academic Writing Services
→ SOC-222
ROUNDTABLE Anson, Moxley, Leijen, Finnegan, Wärnsby, Kauppinen Theorizing Community Rubrics: Limits, Research, and Case Studies
→ SOC-210
Zimmermann, Rickert Improving Feedback Quality in Online Forums
→ SOC-217
WORKSHOP Mullin, Gustafsson, Zawacki, Ganobcsik- Williams, Ball Expanding or Limiting Access? Re-Visioning the Calls for and Affordances of International English- Medium On-Line Publications
→ SOC-211A
WORKSHOP Lazar From the Micro to the Macro: Embedding Support for Academic Writing across an Academic School/Faculty
→ SOC-213
Barbosa-Trujillo, Keranen The White Worsted Thread: Third Space Encounters in English L2 Writing – An Examination of Research Writing for Publication in English in a Physics/Mathematics Public University Faculty in Central Mexico
→ SOC-210
WORKSHOP Voigt When Tutor Meets Tutor
→ SOC-214
EATAW 2015 Conference Programme
Ryvitytė Voices of Reviewers: Expression of Evaluation in English and Lithuanian
→ SOC-219
ROUNDTABLE Muir, Patel Harnessing Disciplinary Backgrounds to Enrich Writing Pedagogies
→ SOC-218
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Honegger, Altorfer Writing and Shame
Kirchhoff, Jeszke Self- Efficacy and Motivation
13:00 → U01 Dining Hall
12:20
11:40
11:00 → NRG-131 Christoph What’s Personal about Academic Writing?
10:30
9:00 → Festive Hall
Banzer Lecture, Notes and Peer Feedback Enhance the Learning Taking Place in Lectures and Induce Higher-Order Thinking Skills
Albachten Challenges and Opportunities Teaching English Academic Writing to Socio-Culturally Diverse Non-Native Students: A 670-Subject Study with Implications for Teaching and Curricula
McConnell Bridging the Gap – Motivation and Equal Opportunities Versus Academic Credibility in the East End of London. How Wide Is Widening Higher Education?
Zenger The Visuality of Written Texts: Multilingual Writers Making Design Choices
Breuer Peer Feedback in an FL Context – Who Helps Better: An L1 or an FL Peer?
Stahlberg, Mosler, Schlüter Written Peer Feedback: Initiating Processes of Thinking and Learning in a Mathematically- Oriented Course for Process Engineers
→ SOC-209
→ NRG-226
Tuesday, 16 June 2015
Pate Using Wikis to Develop Academic Writing Skills: Affordances, Constraints and Feedback Practices
Bianchi, McElwee, Entzenberg What Makes a Text Well-Written? Scriptor: A Tool to Develop Academic Writing Skills
Cruz-Soto, Keranen Using Screen Capture Technology in Graduate Level Writing Feedback – What Do Students Do with the Feedback and Does It Impact Writing?
→ SOC-221
WORKSHOP Gebril Assessing Academic Writing in Higher Education: Challenges and Opportunities
→ SOC-214
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WORKSHOP Koppelt, Poloubotko, Brown Language as a Higher Order Concern: Enhancing Feedback within Writing Groups Using a Multilingual, Multi-Faculty, and Multi-Degree Level Construct
→ SOC-220
¦ → SOC-211A
WORKSHOP Brodersen, Grote, Solheim, Steiner Writing Center – The Norwegian Way. The Establishment of the Bergen Writing Center and Experiences after the First Year in Business
→ SOC-222
WORKSHOP Glogarová, Kasparkova “We Learn from Mistakes” – The Most Frequent Difficulties Czech Students Face When Writing in English: An Analysis of Essays Written by Students of Philosophical Faculty
Keynote Talk by Jim Donohue and Caroline Coffin
Tu ROUND-TABLE Manderstedt, Palo Teaching University Lecturers How to Teach SubjectSpecific Writing
→ SOC-210
PROJECT MEETING van Genugten, Ouwendijk Is It Possible for Non-Writing Specialists to Review Writing Skills of Firstyear Students
→ SOC-213
SYMPOSIUM English, Fernando, Rummel, Sherazi, Thomas, Tuck What Does Academic Literacies Do for Us? Pedagogising Theory and Theorising Pedagogy
→ SOC-211C
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Estonian Language Classes
→ SOC-213
GanobcsikWilliams Exploring the Directory of Academic Writing Provision: UK Higher Education
Malmström, Gustafsson, Pecorari Using Voca bulary as an Indicator of Development of Academic Literacy and Academic Success
Tuesday, 16 June 2015
18:30
17:00
16:00 → Festive Hall EATAW Meeting and Elections
15:20
14:40
Green Genre as Social Practice: Re-Assessing the Relationship Between Genre and Process, with Implications for Academic Literacy Pedagogies
→ Festive Hall → SOC-209
14:00 Workshop by Ulla Connor
Tour of Library/ Language Centre
→ LIB
Sevier Student Response to Instructor Feedback on Writing: A Case Study
Northcott, Gillies, Caulton Feedback on Feedback. Improving Postgraduate Academic Writing Ability
Kam To Have Your Darlings Killed: The Influence of Psychological Ownership on the Processing of Feedback in Writing Groups
→ SOC-226
Tour of Language Centre
→ SOC
Hansen The Challenges of Academic Writing for Students from Contexts of Residual Orality with Special Reference to the Thought of Walter Ong
Yoder Utilizing Knowledge of Students’ Previous L1 and English Written Rhetoric Instruction to Inform Instruction of Written Rhetorical Styles in English
Uysal Global Spread of English in Academia and Its Effects on Writing Instruction in Turkish Universities
→ SOC-222
Kaufhold Postgraduates’ Genre-Knowledge Development in ‘New Disciplines’
Eriksson, A-M. Operationalizing Epistemic Practices: Negotiating the Textual Formation of Issues of Sustainable Development
→ SOC-221
Emde, Hock Success and/or Failure of Written Feedback
Yallop, Leijen Reanalysing Revision in the 21st Century
→ SOC-214
Tu
Visit to Mektory
Anderson A Transformational Approach for WAC/WID: Case Studies in Tuning and Progressive Development of Student Writing Abilities
McGlade, Farrell, Maguire A Tale of Two Campuses: Exploring WID, WAC and WID in Different Context in Irish Higher Education
Harvey, A., RussellMundine Discipline Knowledge, Academic Literacy and Cultural Competence: Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Support of Students’ Critical Reflective Writing
→ NRG-131
Jahić Publishing and Presenting in English: The Experiences of Scholars from Bosnia and Herzegovina
Hamp-Lyons Assessing Writing and Journal of English for Academic Purposes
→ SOC-210
Mokgwathi Using Portfolios as Teaching and Assessment Tools in a Technical Writing Course: A Case Study
→ SOC-220
WORKSHOP Clughen ‘Writing Is Physical Too’: Explorations of Writing as an Embodied Act
→ SOC-211A
WORKSHOP Spielmann Makertext as Multimodal Writing Assignment
→ SOC-412
WORK SHOP Lahm, Anderson US-U Is Not German U (and Vice Versa): Considering Context in Integrating Writing into Curricula
→ SOC-213
EATAW 2015 Conference Programme
ELECTRONIC POSTER PRESENTATIONS Hauptfeld Rienecker Mudoh Metzdorf, Kaib, Willumeit
→ SOC-408
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13:10
12:30 → Festive Hall Meeting of the new EATAW Board
12:00
11:20
10:40 → SOC-213 Workshop by Jim Donohue and Caroline Coffin
10:00
9:00 → Festive Hall
McNeil Clearing the Way for Successful Writing Pedagogies in a Teacher Education Program
Mulholland, Lind, McNeil Multiple Ways to Make Writing Public: Making a Critical Turn in Writing Pedagogy in a Teacher Education Program
Gomez Impact of Masters’ Theses on EFL Teachers´ English Writing Development
→ SOC-214
Wednesday, 17 June 2015
Majchrzak, Salski, Molenda Becoming Better Writers – on the Use of Authentic Reading Materials in Teaching Second Language Writing
Berggren, McGrath, Mežek Reading for an English Academic Writing Course: What Novice Students Do
Freedman ‘Close Reading’ as a Course Theme in a Multilingual Classroom
→ SOC-211C
Wrigley Embedding Writing Instruction in a Postgraduate Degree Programme: A Case Study
Bernard Using Cbi, Sfl and Ceap to Integrate Content and Language Learning in a Higher Education Context
Lawrence English as the Cornerstone of Sustainable Technology and Research (Ecostar)
→ NRG-131
¦
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Ball, Anstey Creating a Writing Curriculum for Architecture and Design Doctoral Programs
Kaduk, Lahm Change from inside out – Initiating Curriculum Reform by Departmental Self-Reflection
→ SOC-209
Karaca, Inan A Measure of Possible Sources of Demotivating Factors in L2 Writing: Scale Development and Preliminary Validation
Alagöz-Bakan, Linguri Multilingualism as a Key for the Improvement of Academic Writing
Aiken ‘Balbh I Dhá Theanga’, Speechless in Two Languages: The Search for an Academic Voice among Bilingual Irish-English Speakers
→ SOC-219
Keynote Talk by Terry Myers Zawacki
We
Jeszke, Sonntag Online Videos as a Tool for Writing Instruction
Lister Providing Feedback on IELTS Academic Writing for Large Numbers of Students: Fostering Learner Autonomy through Emporium-Style Engagement with Output
Wilson Clasby Multimodal Praxis in the Writing Classroom: Fostering Creative Critical Discourse on Digital Identities through Autoethnography
→ NRG-226
WORKSHOP Pitak Alternative Progress Assessments
→ SOC-222
PROJECT MEETING James, Maxwell The Sharing of Practice and Research Across International Boundaries Via a Database
→ SOC-211A
SYMPOSIUM Dreyfürst, Girgensohn, Liebetanz Implementing Writing Fellow Programs at Two German Universities: Impressions, Challenges and Research Results
→ SOC-210
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Bloch The Challenges and Opportunities of New Literacy Spaces: How MOOCS and Flipped Classrooms Have Impacted Second Language Composition Teaching
Raedts, Van Steendam, De Grez, Hendrickx The Effects of Explicit and Implicit Strategy Instruction in an Academic Writing Video Tutorial
→ SOC-211C
Wednesday, 17 June 2015
19:00
17.00
16:15
15:45
15:00 → SOC-219
14:20
13:40 → SOC-219 Dalessandro, Dieter Cloud-Based Text Processing Tools in Academic Writing: Potential Benefits and Difficulties
Wette Making Learning Visible: The Value of Concept Mapping in Academic Writing Instruction
van Kruiningen, de Boer, Grit Meta writing and Professional Writing in a ‘Real-World’ Project
→ SOC-218
Mundelius, Stierwald, Djahani The Students’ Perspective on the Writing Fellow Program
Jónsson, Birgisdóttir Gender-Balance in the Writing Center
→ SOC-210
Harvey, A., James, Szenes, Kim, Stevenson The Theoretical Shaping of Sustainable Embedded Writing Instruction
Clughen Two Approaches to Contextualising Writing Support Within the Disciplines: Project LISA (Learning in Specialised Areas) and Dialogic Lecture Analysis
→ SOC-209
French "Conditions and Processes": Understanding Professional Academic Writing as a Social Practice in Higher Education
→ SOC-222
WORKSHOP Oncul Teaching Argumentation: The Toulmin Model at Work
→ SOC-221
Old Town Tour
¦
Closing
Closing Panel Discussion Ulla Connor, Terry Myers Zawacki, Jim Donohue, Magnus Gustafsson. Moderator: Kärt Rummel
Charles "Like a Blessing for International Students": Independent Long-Term Use of Do-It-Yourself Corpora
Ek Challenges and Solutions in the International Upper-Division Writing Classroom: Student Perspectives
→ NRG-226
WORKSHOP Rienecker, Jorgensen, P. S. Article Writing Workshops for College Faculty
→ SOC-214
We
WORKSHOP Vicary, Brewer Developing Specificity in the Writing Classroom
→ SOC-211A
WORKSHOP StetsonTiligadas Scaffolding Academic Writing through Wikis
→ SOC-213
EATAW 2015 Conference Programme
It has been wonderful to have you with us at Tallinn University of Technology! See you at the next EATAW Conference!
Russell Multiple Contexts and the Pheno menology of Academic Writing: Rethinking Miller’s Genre as Social Action
Molinari An Archaeology of Academic Writing(s): Using History to Understand the Present and Future of Academic Writing”
→ NRG-131
Conference Programme
Keynote Speakers
Keynote Speaker – Dr Ulla M. Connor Ulla M. Connor, Ph.D. is the Barbara E. and Karl R. Zimmer Chair in Intercultural Communication, Chancellor’s Professor of English, and Director of the International Center for Intercultural Communication at Indiana UniversityPurdue University Indianapolis. Dr. Connor received her B.A. and M.A. in English philology from the University of Helsinki, an M.A. in English literature from the University of Florida, an M.A. in comparative literature and Ph.D. in English linguistics from the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Connor has held academic positions at the University of Florida, University of Wisconsin, George Mason University, Georgetown University, Purdue University, and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. She has also held guest and visiting professor positions in linguistics and applied linguistics with Temple University in Japan, Lund University in Sweden, Åbo Akademi University in Finland, and Leon University in Spain. She is an elected member of the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters. Dr. Connor has authored and co-authored 10 books and over 100 articles and book chapters, including Contrastive Rhetoric (Cambridge U. P., 1996), and Intercultural Rhetoric (U. of Michigan P., 2012). In her research on writing and intercultural communication, Dr. Connor combines theories and methods from both linguistics and rhetoric. Results of her intercultural rhetoric research have been applied in ESL and EFL, intercultural business communication, and, most recently, the language of health care among U.S. immigrant populations.
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Keynote Speakers
Keynote Address
INTERCULTURAL RHETORIC IN EAP/ESP EDUCATION Ulla Connor Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, USA Intercultural Rhetoric (IR), originally Contrastive Rhetoric (CR), examines issues in written English discourse between and among individuals with different cultural backgrounds. Intercultural rhetoric includes crosscultural studies (comparison of the same concept in culture one and two, e.g., academic research papers) as well as studies of interactions in which writers from a variety of linguistic, cultural, and social backgrounds negotiate meaning through speaking and writing (e.g., coauthoring research papers). In this presentation I will examine the history of IR and how it has evolved from its beginning as CR. With this background, I will then describe the basic concepts of IR, namely a look at cultures as dynamic and complex, and texts as social actions and how they are best studied and translated into practice in EAP/ESP teaching. Perhaps most important to the concepts and theories of IR is the topic of culture. As we examine culture, we will discern between small cultures (e.g., disciplinary cultures) and large cultures (e.g. national and ethnic) and the effects of hybridization of large and small cultures in the production and consumption of texts. Through this deeper, multi-layered look at culture it will become evident why the topic of IR is relevant in the field and should and will be given a larger focus of inquiry, especially in this multi-cultured age of increasing global migration and the extensive use of English as a global lingua franca. In order to illustrate texts as social interactions, I will emphasize the importance of using multiple methods of analysis, such as computerized text analysis and ethnographic approaches in solving intercultural issues. Examples from a variety of EAP/ESP teaching scenarios will be used to illustrate the importance of intercultural rhetoric – considering cultures and texts in their full complexity – as we plan and conduct EAP/ ESP instruction.
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Keynote Speakers
Workshop RESEARCH METHODS FOR INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION STUDIES Ulla Connor Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, USA Although textual analysis and qualitative methods such as ethnographic annotations to supplement the textual analysis have been and continue to be the most common methods in intercultural rhetoric research, corpus linguistics is a new, powerful method of analysis. When applied in a contextually and culturally sensitive manner, corpus linguistics allows examining huge amounts of authentic language use data, making it possible for IR studies to be far more evidence-based than ever before. Therefore, following the keynote speech, in this workshop, we will get acquainted with corpora and some corpus-based analyses and tools that can be applied to intercultural discourse analysis. Key issues in corpus design will be covered: definitions, sizes, and representativeness. We will work through samples of cross-cultural or parallel corpora and learn to use some basic functions of corpus tools to help in this type of analysis. Emphasis in the workshop will be on specialized, cross-cultural corpora and their practical applications for the EAP/ESP teacher/researcher.
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Keynote Speakers
Workshop for Doctoral Students of TUT
ACADEMIC WRITING FOR PUBLICATION IN ENGLISH Ulla Connor Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, USA The Academic Writing for Publication in English is designed to assist English as a Second/Foreign Language post-graduate students increase skill in the production of academic and scientific articles for publication. The first section of the workshop will be devoted to reviewing the schematic structure of academic articles with a strong focus on raising rhetorical consciousness, building on Swales’ genre-based approach to research writing (Swales, 2004; Feak & Swales, 2009). This section will focus on the significant aspects of putting together an academic article, including the use of appropriate language features. Participants are encouraged to bring samples of published materials and/or drafts for mini analysis of language and discourse in their specific fields, which will be carried out in both large and small group discussions. The second portion of the workshop, also the highlight of the event, will delve deeply into the actual process of getting published in international journals, offering invaluable insights into how current publishing practices influence the various aspects of academic text and knowledge production. Important milestones in the publishing process will be examined, including how to find a journal in which to publish, how to respond to editors, and how much negotiation should take place during the process. Participants will leave the event with confidence of the next steps they should take in publishing their academic work(s).
Further Readings
Swales, J. M., & Feak, C. B. (2000) English in today's research world: A writing guide. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Lillis, T. M. & Curry, M. J. (2010) Academic writing in a global context: The politics and practices of publishing in English. London: Routledge. Connor, U. N. (1999) Learning to write academic prose in second language: A literacy autobiography. In G. Braine (Ed.), Non-native educators in English language teaching (pp.29–42) Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Li, G. (2012) Getting published and doing research. In R. Kubota & Y. Sun (Eds.), Demystifying career paths after graduate school: A guide for second language professionals in higher education (pp. 151–162) Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc.
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Keynote Speakers
Keynote Speaker – Dr Jim Donohue Between 2006–14, Jim Donohue was Head of Open English Language Teaching in the Department of Languages at The Open University UK. OpenELT produces online and distance courses in English for Academic Purposes and collaborates with faculties across the university to develop language-based approaches to teaching and learning. Jim now works at Queen Mary, University of London, as a member of the Thinking Writing team within Learning Development, promoting awareness of the role of writing in higher education. He has researched extensively in the fields of academic and professional communication using systemic functional linguistics approaches and drawing on many years spent applying Paulo Freirean perspectives in adult and community education settings. He is particularly interested in how linguistics can be used to enhance learner-centred and experiential learning. He is currently secretary of the committee of the European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing. Jim is co-author of A language as social semiotic-based approach to teaching and learning in higher education ((Wiley-Blackwell, 2014, with Coffin) and Exploring Grammar: From Formal to Functional (Routledge, 2009, with Coffin and North). He has published in the Journal of English for Academic Purposes (and was co-editor with Coffin of the special issue, English for Academic Purposes: contributions from Systemic Functional Linguistics and Academic Literacies), Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice, English for Specific Purposes, and Writing & Pedagogy.
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Keynote Speakers
Keynote Speaker – Dr Caroline Coffin Caroline Coffin is Professor in English Language and Applied Linguistics at the Open University, UK and co-convenor of the Language and Communication Research Unit. Since the early 1990s she has been using a language as social semiotic approach to investigate the role of language in teaching and learning including in academic writing in higher education. Using the tools of systemic functional linguistics she has been particularly interested in investigating disciplinary knowledge making and how academic knowledge is taught, learned and assessed, including through digitally mediated writing. Her research into language, education and communication has been funded by a wide range of organisations including, in the UK, the EU, ESRC, HEA, DfeS, and, in Australia, the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Education, the NSW Education and Training Foundation, and the Department of Ethnic Affairs. From 2010 to 2013 she was honorary secretary on the Executive Committee of the British Association of Applied Linguistics (BAAL) and served on the UK Committee for Linguistics in Education. Published books include A language as social semiotic approach to teaching and learning in higher education (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014 with Donohue), Exploring Grammar (Routledge, 2009, with Donohue and North), Applied Linguistics Methods: A Reader (Routledge, 2009, with Lillis and O’Halloran), Historical Discourse: the language of time, cause and evaluation (Continuum, 2006) and Teaching Writing in Higher Education (Routledge, 2003, with Curry, Goodman, Hewings, Lillis and Swann).
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Keynote Speakers
Keynote Talk FROM COMMONSENSE TO UNCOMMONSENSE KNOWLEDGE: HOW LANGUAGE MAKES MEANING IN UNIVERSITY STUDY AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS IN DIVERSE INSTRUCTIONAL, DISCIPLINARY AND SOCIOCULTURAL CONTEXTS Jim Donohue1, Caroline Coffin2, Queen Mary, University of London, United Kingdom The Open University, United Kingdom.
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From childhood to adulthood, as students move through different educational contexts they are constantly learning new things through language and constantly learning to use language in new ways. In other words, they are learning language, learning through language, and learning about language (Halliday, 2004/1980). To date, however, disciplinary and language/writing specialists (and the higher education institutions within which they work) have yet to exploit the full potential of this major insight into the relationship between language and learning. In this presentation, we will argue that the changing environment of higher education makes it all the more important that universities do so. We are now in an era where there is growth in English medium education, expansion in local multilingual communities, and a multiplication of modes and media of communication. In the UK, widening participation agendas and the academicization of areas such as nursing and the caring professions are additional factors in creating a highly differentiated student body with diverse linguistic backgrounds and linguistic repertoires on which to draw in navigating the increasing demands of a complex curriculum. It is against this background that we will discuss our applied linguistic research and targeted educational and writing interventions in order to develop what we are calling a Language as Social Semiotic (LASS) approach to teaching and learning in higher education (Coffin and Donohue, 2014). Our aim is to bring together, build on and take forward different (though related) lines of research. These can be summarised as i) the linguistic analysis of disciplinary meaning making, ii) research into students’ predispositions towards meaning making – their ‘semantic orientations’ (Hasan 2011) and iii) research into the way in which language mediates meanings to the mind in teaching and learning interactions. In this latter process, referred to as ‘semiotic mediation’ (Hasan, 2011, Vygotsky, 1978), we are particularly interested in the value of what can be referred to as ‘metasemiotic mediation’. The meanings which are made in academic contexts, seen from a social semiotic perspective, can be referred to as ‘uncommonsense’ understandings of phenomena, in contrast with the commonsense understandings which are developed through more spontaneous engagements with the world (Halliday, 1998). Our paper presents the background to our collaborations with colleagues in understanding the role of written language in this movement from commonsense to uncommonsense knowledge.
References Coffin, C. and Donohue, J. (2014) A language as social semiotic-based approach to teaching and learning in Higher Education (Language Learning Monograph Series) Chichester, West Sussex; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Halliday, M.A.K. (2004/1980) Three aspects of children's language development: Learning language, learning through language, learning about language. In J. J. Webster (Ed.), The language of early childhood (pp. 308–326) New York: Continuum. Halliday, M. A. K. (1998) Things and relations. Regrammaticising experience as Technical knowledge. In J. R. Martin & R. Veel (eds), Reading science. Critical and functional perspectives on discourses of science (pp. 187–235) London and New York: Routledge. Hasan, R. (2011) Language and education: Learning and teaching in society. London: Equinox. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978) Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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Keynote Speakers
Workshop IMPLEMENTING A LANGUAGE AS SOCIAL SEMIOTIC APPROACH TO WRITING DEVELOPMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION Jim Donohue1, Caroline Coffin2 Queen Mary, University of London, United Kingdom The Open University, United Kingdom
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Coming from the perspective that Language is a social semiotic which fuses linguistic form and meaning, this workshop will offer participants the opportunity to grapple with this ‘troublesome’ (Meyer & Land, 2005) ‘threshold concept’. The workshop will explore what it means to shift the attention away from writing and language development to meaning development. The workshop will begin with an illustrative case study of work carried out at The Open University, UK, and then participants will be invited to share experiences of seeking to influence institutional strategy in relation to academic writing in their own institutions. Participants will then analyse two student texts from a meaning-making perspective and exchange perspectives on what the process tells us about influencing our institutions to recognise the centrality of academic writing in teaching and learning. The workshop will draw on concepts of semiotic mediation (Vygotsky, 1978), semantic orientation (Hasan, 2009) and language as a social semiotic (Halliday & Mathiessen, 2004).
References
Coffin, C. and Donohue, J. (2014) A language as social semiotic approach to teaching and learning in higher education (Language Learning Monograph Series) Chichester, West Sussex; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Also Language Learning 64 (Supplement 1) Halliday, M.A.K. & Mathiessen, C.M.I.M. (2004) An introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold Hasan, R. (2009) Semantic variation: Meaning in society and sociolinguistics. London: Equinox Meyer, J.H.F., & Land, R. (2005) Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher Education, 49 (3), 373–388 Vygotsky, L.S. (1978) Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
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Keynote Speakers
Keynote Speaker – Dr Terry Myers Zawacki Terry Myers Zawacki is an Emerita Professor of English at George Mason University, where she directed the nationally recognized Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) program and the University Writing Center. Prior to her retirement, Prof. Zawacki was the recipient of the David J. King award given annually to a faculty member who has made significant, long-term contributions to the overall educational excellence of the university. Her publications include the co-authored Engaged Writers and Dynamic Disciplines: Research on the Academic Writing Life and the co-edited collections WAC and Second Language Writers: Research towards Linguistically and Culturally Inclusive Programs and Practices, Writing Across the Curriculum: A Critical Sourcebook, and a special issue of Across the Disciplines on WAC and English L2 writers. She has published articles and book chapters on international English L2 writers’ experiences across the curriculum, writing assessment in the disciplines, writing fellows; and writing center support for thesis and dissertation writers (in progress). Her current research investigates the challenges faced by dissertation writers and their advisers across the disciplines. Additionally, she is lead editor for the book series International Exchanges on the Study of Writing and serves on a number of editorial boards and national professional committees, including chairing the CCCC Committee on the Globalization of Postsecondary Writing Instruction and Research and serving on the scientific committee of the International Society for the Advancement of Writing Research (ISAWR).
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Keynote Speakers
Keynote Talk ENGAGING CONVERSATION(S): FINDINGS FROM THREE MULTIMETHOD STUDIES OF STUDENTS AND FACULTY ON THE CHALLENGES OF WRITING ACROSS TEXTS AND CONTEXTS Terry Myers Zawacki Emerita Professor of English at George Mason University, USA In this presentation, I will describe findings from three mixed-method studies of student writers and faculty across disciplines on expectations for “good” writing, the challenges involved in meeting these expectations, and what these challenges imply for our instructional practices. The first two studies I will discuss concern advanced undergraduate English L1 and L2 writers, while the third concerns PhD dissertation writers, with the latter comprising the major focus of my talk. As I will explain, teachers’ expectations for their undergraduates’ school (or apprenticeship) writing derive from a complex, often unacknowledged, mix of variables. Moreover, the generic terminology they use to describe the characteristics of good writing in their disciplines and programs often hides basic differences in purposes, audiences, genres, and linguistic conventions. When expectations are not made explicit, student writers use various means to decode what their teachers want, often from the most minimal of cues. English L2 writers, in particular, are at an even greater disadvantage as they struggle to access the correct language along with the expected rhetorical, discoursal, and socio-cultural conventions. Turning to my current research on dissertation writers, I will next present a subset of survey, focus group, and interview data to explain that, although these students have had more sustained writing experiences in their doctoral studies, they still report many of the same challenges as the undergraduate writers, including challenges related to the generic or vague terminology their supervisors use to describe the writing they expect. As I will explain, the challenges described by the dissertation writers and supervisors who participated in this study have much to do with the cognitive, rhetorical, and linguistic demands of writing in the increasingly complex communities of practice of their doctoral programs, a point not always recognized by the supervisors. For many of the supervisors, the writing itself was transparent, something to be dealt with by a generalist editor or tutor, especially in the case of English L2 writers, rather than understood as integral to the analytic process. I conclude by describing what these findings suggest for me and my coresearcher as we work towards articulating a pedagogy of dissertation supervision.
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Keynote Speakers
Workshop for Doctoral Students of TUT WRITING IN ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC PUBLICATION Terry Myers Zawacki, Emerita Professor of English at George Mason University, USA In this workshop on writing in English for academic publication, participants will first discuss their experiences as academic writers in Estonian and English and any questions and discoursal and/or socio-cultural concerns they may have about writing in English, including what institutional support is available and what support they would like to have available for their writing. Responses to the latter point will be collated and given to the workshop organizer to inform future efforts. We will then turn to a discussion of what each participant would like to accomplish in the workshop and the project on which they intend to work. Together, we will look at sample submission guidelines for a scientific publication and discuss requirements for manuscript format, how to submit, language support, and peer review. Participants may also share their own experiences with submitting articles or book proposals or suggest other topics they would like to discuss. The major part of the workshop will be spent working in disciplinary pairs on a project the participant have brought with them. This may be a query letter or a book proposal with submission guidelines from the target publisher, or it may be a draft of a journal article with submission guidelines for the target journal. Because time is limited, participants should have clear goals for what they would like to take away from this peer review session. While participants are working together, the workshop leader will circulate among them to address individual questions and concerns. All participants should bring the following with them to the workshop: 1) a brief statement about what they want to accomplish in the workshop; 2) a draft of an article in progress or, if applicable, a query letter or a proposal for a book project; and 3) a copy of the submission guidelines for a publisher for books in their field or one or more of the journals in which they are interested in publishing (both English-medium), along with a list of questions they may have about these guidelines. The workshop will provide an overview of what to include in query letters and proposals and some information about how publishers, like Springer, for example, work with authors whose first language is not English. Participants should bring along a laptop to work on their writing.
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A Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation CONSTRUCTING WRITERS’ IDENTITIES THROUGH CRITICAL REFLECTIONS Feng-ming Chi National Chung Cheng University, Chia-Yi, Taiwan The process of learning academic writing could generate identity conflicts. However, while such conflicts can lead to new forms of participation in academic practice, and new relations among community members, the inability to claim ownership of writing that may arise from this could cause resistance and even nonparticipation. Using Ivanič’s (1998) three aspects of writer identities as an analytical framework, the autobiographical self, discoursal self, and self-as-author, this proposed presentation reports how a Taiwanese EFL (English-as-a-Foreign-Language) freshman student, Lynn, applied critical reflections to negotiate her writer identities from a submissive toward an inquiry self. This presentation particularly focuses on Lynn’s tensions and struggles that arose as she engaged in responding to different revision tasks with teacher comments, online peer feedback, and the author-chair. Lynn’s journal responses, and oral interviews with Lynn and her peers, were used as the major sources for data discussion, while Lynn’s written texts were used for data verification. The findings indicate that learning academic writing, for Lynn, means not only negotiating unfamiliar vocabulary, rhetoric, and writing conventions, but also acquiring new sociocultural norms. Lynn’s inability to negotiate ownership of her writing first caused her defensiveness and even resistance. However, as she was able to experience peer feedback via the author-chair as a resource and opportunity for sociocultural inquiry, she was empowered to exchange experiences, knowledge, and judgments with community members. Some pedagogical implications generated from Lynn’s case are also addressed.
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF TEACHING ENGLISH ACADEMIC WRITING TO SOCIO-CULTURALLY DIVERSE NON-NATIVE STUDENTS: A 670-SUBJECT STUDY WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING AND CURRICULA David R. Albachten Academic Writing Center and Graduate Writing Program, Istanbul Sehir University, Istanbul, Turkey Istanbul Sehir University, Istanbul, Turkey, is a young private English-medium university where all of the students are native speakers of other languages (85% Turkish and the remainder natives of over two-dozen languages). The vast majority of students enter the university with a suboptimal level of English skills, particularly writing. Therefore one or two years prior to entering their freshman year, students enrol in a separate university-operated English preparatory program (SEPP), where on average students’ writing improves 43% (Albachten & Balcioglu 2014). Additionally, once matriculated there are two mandatory English courses all students take (UNI 123 and UNI 124) to further enhance English receptive and productive skills. To date, 670 students have completed UNI 123 or both. This study investigates the entire body of writing production from all students who attended the freshman English courses to determine (1) common deficiencies, (2) learning transfer (James 2009), and (3) create statistically valid comparisons across groups. Using reliable and reproducible methods, covering grammar, mechanics, style, plagiarism, and compositional structure, we determine the issues among these students. These results alone are critical for improving academic writing teaching. Furthermore, student writing is compared along a variety of categories: native language, English competence, and academic achievement among others. Conclusions highlight the challenges and opportunities in teaching English writing to this socio-culturally diverse group of university students. Implications of the study suggest ways to alter teaching methods and curricula to best prepare multi-cultural non-native students for excellence in English academic writing.
References
Albachten, D. & Balcioglu, L. (2014) "Can Tracking and Error Identification Inform Better Teaching Methods and Build Better Writers? A Longitudinal Tracking of Turkish L1 University Preparatory Students Writing in English: A Two-Year Retrospective Study with Implications for Teaching and Curricula”, IATEFL Research SIG Conference, June 2014, Gediz University, Izmir, Turkey James, M. A. (2009) “‘Far’ transfer of learning from an ESL writing course: Can the gap be bridged?”, Journal of Second Language Writing 18, 69–84
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation ‘CONDITIONS AND PROCESSES’: UNDERSTANDING PROFESSIONAL ACADEMIC WRITING AS A SOCIAL PRACTICE IN HIGHER EDUCATION Amanda French Birmingham City University, Birmingham, United Kingdom This paper focuses on an under-researched aspect of the higher education writing debate, namely lecturers’ perspectives and experiences of academic writing and their own academic writing development. It argues that in the UK at least, despite the importance of academic writing to academic careers, university lecturers are rarely given any training or support around developing their academic writing, nor are they encouraged to see themselves as writing developers for their students (Lea and Stierer 2009). The theoretical stance taken draws on New Literacy Studies (Barton and Hamilton 2000) and locates academic writing and writing development within a critical and situated theory of practice. In the research used for the paper participant lecturers discussed the conditions and processes around academic writing that they experienced as undergraduates, postgraduates and in their post-doctoral careers as published academic writers. It is argued that these accounts embody an interesting paradox, namely that academic writing is often treated unproble matically as a measurable standard in higher education when actually it is very difficult to define (Ivanic 1998; Lillis 2001). The paper also explores theories of habitus and identity arguing that academic writing practices play a vital part maintaining and developing lecturers’ ‘professional’ identities in higher education (Archer 2008). The conclusion argues the case for a way of researching writing that is not about standards or best practice but which aims instead to explore new and innovative ways of thinking about how a more complex conceptualisation of academic writing can be understood and applied by lecturers and students.
References
Archer, L. (2008) Younger academics’ constructions of ‘authenticity’, ‘success’ and professional identity. Studies in Higher Education 33 (4), 385–403 Barton, D. & Hamilton, M. (2000) Literacy practices. In: Barton, D., Hamilton, M. & Ivanic, R. (eds.) Situated literacies: Reading and writing in context. Routledge: New York Ivanic, R. (1998) Writing and Identity: the discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. John Benjamins: Amsterdam Lea, M. R. & Stierer B. (2009) Lecturers’ everyday writing as professional practice in the university as workplace. Studies in Higher Education 34 (4), 417–428 Lillis, T. (2001) Student writing: access, regulation, desire. Routledge: London
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation MAKING LEARNING VISIBLE: THE VALUE OF CONCEPT MAPPING IN ACADEMIC WRITING INSTRUCTION Rosemary Wette University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand Gains in students’ ability to master complex academic genres are not always noticeable in the texts they are able to produce after a single course of instruction. However, a substantial body of research and scholarship in general education (e.g. Hay 2007; Nesbit & Adesope 2006), and a small number of studies in second language writing (e.g. Farrell 2009; Ferreira & Lantolf 2008) provide clear evidence that learner-generated concept maps are sensitive to changes as a result of instruction. The aim of this action research study was therefore to ascertain if students’ awareness (Johns 2008) of the genres of academic book review and literature review, and their ability to compose these types of texts, improved after instruction using concept mapping as a tool for reflection and learning. Concept maps were completed before and after units of genre- based instruction in two semester-long EAP writing courses as an adjunct to conventional assessments of graduate students’ (n=40) academic writing ability. A rubric was developed to score the quality of information, number, and organisation of nodes, number of hierarchical levels, and relationships between concepts. Students’ reflective commentaries were coded. There were discernible improvements in map quality (i.e. genre awareness), and a clear correlation with writing ability as measured on course grades. Findings affirm the value of concept mapping for helping students to reflect on and organise their developing understanding of academic genres, and that this instructional tool can also help students improve their written outputs.
References
Farrell, T. S. C. (2009) Critical reflection in a TESL course: mapping conceptual change. ELT Journal 63, 221–229 Ferreira, M. M., and Lantolf, J. R. (2008) ‘A concept approach to teaching writing through genre analysis’. in Sociocultural theory and the teaching of second languages. ed. by Lantolf, J. P. and Poehner, M. E. London: Equinox, 285–320 Hay, D. B. (2007) Using concept maps to measure deep, surface and non-learning outcomes. Studies in Higher Education 32, 39–57 Johns, A. M. (2008) Genre awareness for the novice academic student: An ongoing quest. Language Teaching 41, 237–252 Nesbit, J. C. and Adesope, O. O. (2006) Learning with concept and knowledge maps: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research 76, 413–488
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation READING FOR AN ENGLISH ACADEMIC WRITING COURSE: WHAT NOVICE STUDENTS DO Jessica Berggren, Lisa McGrath, Špela Mežek Centre for Academic English, Department of English, Stockholm University, Sweden Academic reading research tends to fall into three categories: large-scale quantitative surveys investigating trends in students’ reading habits, SLA experimental studies, and qualitative studies exploring metacognitive strategies used by small numbers of graduate students who are already enculturated into the discipline. Less is known about students’ reading when they first arrive at university, the difficulties they face, and how they can best be supported. Our project begins to address this gap by following 30 L2 students with high general English proficiency, training to be English teachers. The programme begins with a 5-week academic writing course which incorporates learning activities such as genre analysis, discussions and peer review. Students read three research articles as a basis for writing an argumentative essay on the theme of academic vocabulary learning. Students’ reading behaviours during the course were captured in a natural setting via an interval-contingent diary method (Bolger, Davis & Rafaeli 2003). Findings reveal that students rarely engaged with a text repeatedly, and that reading was hindered rather than supported by the use of technology. Furthermore, while some students adjusted their reading according to perceived task, the method selected was often unsuccessful. The study provides empirical evidence for the need to support new university students with academic reading, and highlights some specific difficulties that could be addressed through a planned intervention strategy.
References
Bolger, N., Davis, A., & Rafaeli, E. (2003) ‘Diary methods: capturing life as it is lived’, Annual Review of Psychology 54, 579–616
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation FEEDBACK ON FEEDBACK. IMPROVING POSTGRADUATE ACADEMIC WRITING ABILITY Jill Northcott, Pauline Gillies and David Caulton ELTC, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom This presentation will report research on an initiative to improve students’ abilities to write postgraduate assignments (essays and dissertations) by the provision of on-line academic writing courses run jointly by the English Language Teaching Centre and specific academic programme organisers for two different disciplinary groups. As feedback is considered to be central to student learning and academic achievement, providing effective online formative feedback to develop English academic writing skills for international students has become a crucial concern in the UK academic context. Whilst there is a general consensus that effective feedback is personalised, specific and timely (Busse 2013; Hyland 2013), studies into student and teacher perceptions of feedback effectiveness have sometimes produced conflicting results because the experimental design removes feedback “from the contexts in which it has meaning for students” (Hyland 2013: 182). This teaching and learning environment is, potentially, a very meaningful context for research in this area. Using a grounded theory approach (Silverman 2011; Northcott and Brown 2006) we focused on written texts and feedback, combined with written student evaluation of the feedback they received (feedback on feedback), to identify characteristics of effective feedback. Initial analysis indicates that it is the combination of a personalised, confidence building approach to providing consistent and principled corrective feedback with a focus on developing awareness of academic conventions within disciplinespecific contexts which results in effective feedback.
References
Busse, V. (2013) How do students of German perceive feedback practices at university? A motivational exploration. Journal of Second Language Writing 22, 406–424 Hyland, K. (2013) Student perceptions of hidden messages in teacher written feedback. Studies in Educational Evaluation 39, 180–187 Northcott, J. and Brown, G. (2006) Legal translator training: Partnership between teachers of English for legal purposes and legal specialists. English for Specific Purposes 25, 358–375 Silverman, D. (2011) 4th edn. Interpreting qualitative data. London: Sage
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Presentation DIGITAL STORYTELLING IN THE L2 ACADEMY WRITING CLASSROOM: EXPANDING THE POSSIBILITIES OF EXPRESSION AND LEARNING Joel Bloch Independent scholar (retired), Shawnee Hills Ohio, USA The implementation of multimodal literacies into the L2 composition classroom can foster alternative linguistic and rhetorical resources that can still be used in traditional academic writing assignments. These new literacies can be more inclusive for NNES by allowing them to utilize their technological skills, multiple forms of literacy, and personal experiences to better understand traditional forms of academic writing (Lea & Street 2006). I will discuss the challenge of implementing the various written, visual, and aural literacies incorporated in a multimodal digital story (Lambert 2012) into a traditional L2 academic writing class that focuses on questions of plagiarism and intellectual property usage. I will examine one digital story to explore the different skills connected to voice, textual borrowing, and argumentation associated with both print and multimodal contexts. I argue that this approach gave students a different perspective that could help them when using whichever form of literacy they used. Similar to using traditional academic literacies, creating digital stories incorporates transformative textual borrowing through remixing the voice of the author with both visual and aural texts. This “remixing” of these different forms of intellectual property (Lessing 2009) is not unusual in academic writing since all forms of academic writing explicitly interweave texts, transforming them into new texts by adding the author’s personal story about the research and the reasons supporting the research (e.g. Bazerman 1988). We have found that our students’ digital stories exhibit multiple forms of language while utilizing similar rhetorical skills found in traditional academic research, which we hoped promote translingual pedagogies through the use of the digital texts for more personal forms of expression (Hull & Nelson 2005).
References
Bazerman, C. (1988) Shaping written knowledge: The genre and activity of the experimental article in science, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison Hull, G. A. & Nelson, M. E. (2005) Locating the semiotic power of multimodality. Written Communication, 22, 224–26 Lambert, J. (2012) Digital storytelling: Capturing lives, creating community (3rd ed.), Center for the Study of Digital Storytelling, Berkeley, CA Lea, M. & Street B. V. (2006) The “academic literacies” model: Theory and applications. Theory into Practice 45 (4), 368–377 Lessing, L. (2009) Remix: Making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy, Penguin, New York
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Presentation THE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF NEW LITERACY SPACES: HOW MOOCS AND FLIPPED CLASSROOMS HAVE IMPACTED SECOND LANGUAGE COMPOSITION TEACHING Joel Bloch Independent scholar (retired), Shawnee Hills Ohio, USA Massive Open Online courses (MOOCs) and flipped classrooms are online classes that have become popular and controversial. MOOCs are pure online courses where sometimes thousands of participants can work together on a common subject. Flipped classrooms are hybrid, part classroom and part online classes, where many of the traditional classroom activities occur outside the classroom. They share technologies and pedagogies that need to be modified for the different contexts in which these courses are offered. Both incorporate videos, for example, to shift teacher lectures online so that students can watch them. They can also take advantage of traditional pedagogies, such as peer review in different ways. These approaches exemplify the latest evolution in technologically-enhanced composition teaching by creating new learning spaces for engaging students by exploiting the mobility and flexibility of the participants, so they can gain more autonomy over their learning experiences, which allows them to use various linguistic and rhetorical forms, creating a true multilingual environment. This paper examines the design of these two approaches, comparing their advantages and disadvantages for L2 composition teaching. First, I discuss my research on the first composition MOOCs and on my own flipped classrooms to show not only how the students and teachers negotiate these learning spaces but also how problematic practices could be remediated. Such research can help better understand these new directions for composition teaching as well as the impact of new technologies on the writing process.
References
Bergmann, J. & Sams, A. (2012) Flip your classroom: Reach every student in every class every day. Eugene, OR, International Society for Technology in Education Davidson, C. N. & Goldberg, D. T. (2010) The future of learning: Learning institutions in a digital age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Downes, S. (2012) Connectivism and connective knowledge: Essays on meaning and learning networks. available at http://www.downes. ca/files/books/Connective_Knowledge-19May2012.pdf. [15 January 2015] Krause S. D. & Lowe. C. (eds) (2014) Invasion of the MOOCs: The promise and perils of Massive Online Courses 156–166. Andersonville, SC: Parlor Press. available at http://www.parlorpress.com/pdf/invasion_of_the_moocs.pdf. [15 January 2015] Siemens, G. (2006) Knowing knowledge. Vancouver, BC: Lulu Press. available at http://www.elearnspace.org/KnowingKnowledge_ LowRes.pdf. [15 January 2015]
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation STUDENT RESPONSE TO INSTRUCTOR FEEDBACK ON WRITING: A CASE STUDY Marti Sevier Department of Linguistics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada Many writing instructors struggle with the issue of marking load vs student application of the feedback that has been so laboriously provided. Studies on feedback can echo this frustration. Duijinhouwer, Prins and Stokking (2012) found, for example, that incorporating strategy instruction and reflection questions into feedback had little effect on improvement. However, Ferris, et al. (2013) note that students’ attitudes to writing improved, simply by being part of a research study. So affective factors may be important variables in the enhancement of uptake. The presenter will summarize the results of a small project conducted with a group of lower-intermediate EAL learners in SFU’s Preparation in Academic Skills course, a pre-entry course for students aiming to attend the university. Bilingual pre-and post-questionnaires were administered in order to learn the type of feedback they found most useful and whether their attitudes toward feedback had changed over the research period. The research questions considered were: Do students apply instructor feedback to their writing? If not, why not? How well do students understand the feedback given? What do they think about it? (e.g. Is it threatening/trivial/helpful, etc.) How, if at all, do students USE feedback? Does feedback result in improvement in writing? Will students’ attitudes to feedback change as a result of participating in this project? While the question of uptake remains unanswered, other findings were somewhat surprising. Hopefully, this presentation will stimulate discussion on the need to account for learner attitude to feedback, and consider how this might be achieved.
References
Duijinhouwer, H, Prins, F., & Stokking, K. (2012) ‘Feedback providing improvement strategies and reflection on feedback use: Effects on students’ writing motivation, process, and performance’, Learning and Instruction 22, 171–184. available at <http://www.sciencedirect. com/science/article/pii/S0959475211000831> [12 November 2013] Fathman, A & Whalley, E. (1990) ‘Teacher response to student writing.’ In Second language writing Research insights for the classroom, (ed) B Kroll. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 178–190 Ferris, D. & Hedgecock, J. (2005) Teaching ESL composition: purpose, process, and practice. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, 203–297 Storch, N (2010) ‘Critical feedback on written corrective feedback research’. International Journal of English Studies 10 (2), 29–46 van Beuningen, C (2010) ‘Corrective feedback in L2 Writing: Theoretical perspectives, empirical insights and future directions’, International Journal of English Studies 10 (2), 1–27
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation INTERACTIVE EDITING: A STRATEGY FOR SUPPORTING PROFESSORS AT A GERMAN TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY Karl Hughes, Heidi Minning Technische Universität München, Germany Our institution, a technical university in Germany at which 30 of 90 Masters’ Programs are currently delivered in English, has committed itself to increasing this number to 100 per cent by 2020. The ‘focus-onthe-writer’ strategy practiced in writing centers around the world has not met with wide acceptance among university professors at our institution, who need to instruct students and publish in English despite not feeling confident of their command of the language (Tribble 2009; McDonough 2010). Instead, we have endeavored to package our writing support as an ‘interactive editing’ service with a focus on text production, but in which the author is not neglected. In this way, professors are encouraged to accept feedback with the long term strategy of becoming more autonomous writers, rather than being dependent on external editing services. One successful strategy has been to encourage clients to produce an initial text in English or failing that, a base translation in order to ensure maximum investment in their production. Our presentation will outline types of intervention involved in interactive editing and suggest ways in which the service could be further developed.
References
Tribble, C. (2009) Writing Academic English-a survey review of current published materials. ELT Journal 63 (4), 400–417. OUP McDonough, J. (2010) English for specific purposes: a survey review of current materials. ELT Journal, 64 (4), 462–477. OUP
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation GENRE AS SOCIAL PRACTICE: RE-ASSESSING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GENRE AND PROCESS, WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR ACADEMIC LITERACY PEDAGOGIES Simon John Green University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom This presentation takes a fresh look at the concept of genre, and re-assesses the relationship between text and context, the two traditional foci of genre studies and writing process. Although it has long been recognised that genre-based writing pedagogies need to be complemented by work on reading/writing process (e.g. Badger & White 2000) the models of genre that underlie such pedagogies, whether drawn from ESP, Systemic Functionalist or New Rhetorical traditions (Hyon 1996), invariably construct process as something external to genre; as an independent variable, relevant to, but in no way integral to the notion of genre (e.g. Tribble 2010). In my view this model obscures the inner connections between text and process, and I would argue that, in fact, genre is best conceived as situated social practice; social practice in which is implicated a triad of dialectically connected elements: text, context and process. In this presentation, I want, firstly, to develop such a model of genre as social practice and secondly to explore the implications of this model for academic literacy pedagogies. To do so, I will draw on qualitative data from a year-long longitudinal case study into the emergent writing processes of three novice undergraduate ESL writers (Green 2013). I believe that the presentation will offer a theoretical contribution closely related to the central concerns of professionals concerned with supporting students in the process of constructing their academic/disciplinary literacies, but specifically, academic writing teachers, materials writers and course planners.
References
Badger, R. and White, G. (2000) A process-genre approach to teaching writing. ELT Journal 54 (2), 153–160 Green, S. (2013) Novice ESL writers: A longitudinal case-study of the situated academic writing processes of three undergraduates in a TESOL context. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12, 180–191 Hyon, S. (1996) Genres in three traditions: implications for ESL. TESOL Quarterly 30, 693–722 Tribble, C. (2010) A genre-based approach to developing materials for writing. In: Harwood, N. ed. English Language Teaching Materials. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 157–178
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation KNOWING WHERE THEY’VE BEEN: ENGAGING STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES AND DISPOSITIONS TOWARD ACADEMIC WRITING Bronwyn T. Williams University of Louisville, Louisville, USA Much research in literacy and writing studies in recent years has focused on the social and institutional factors that shape literacy practices, but paid less attention to questions how students’ previous experiences of writing shape their current attitudes and dispositions toward writing. Students’ responses to academic writing situations are shaped not only by what takes place in the classroom, but also by their experiences of writing both in and out of school that influence whether students perceive themselves capable of engaging a given writing situation with confidence and skill. In this presentation I draw on observations and interviews with university students in the UK and the US to explore how their dispositions toward writing have developed both in and out of the classroom, and the implications of these dispositions for how students perceive a sense of agency. I examine the influence such perceptions have on how students respond to academic writing assignments and argue that attending to such dispositions can help us design writing assignments and respond to student writing more effectively as well as foster a greater sense of agency in student writers. Although student perceptions of agency are shaped by many forces, including power, technology, rhetorical awareness, and material conditions, I will focus on how emotional dispositions created through embodied experiences influence students’ understanding of their abilities to engage in writing. I conclude by suggesting that considerations of emotion and agency can challenge our understanding of the dynamics of writing in university settings and I address implications of this awareness for writing pedagogy.
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation PEER FEEDBACK IN AN FL CONTEXT – WHO HELPS BETTER: AN L1 OR AN FL PEER? Esther Breuer Cologne University, Cologne, Germany One of the major goals of Bologna was to foster intercultural exchange by making student exchange easier. However, L2 students often meet the problem of having different views on academic genre than is practiced at their guest universities (Siepmann 2006). Since they tend to stay inter alia, they often get feedback to their academic texts exclusively from other L2 students. This is not negative per se (see Hülmbauer 2007) but L2 peers may not be able to evaluate texts in an appropriate way because their language competencies are not good enough, or because they are not profound in the target audience’s understanding of the academic genre themselves (Horowitz 1986; Keh 1990). In order to analyse whether there are differences in the type and effect of feedback given in different settings, we set up a case-study and compared the feedback that L2 writers received from either an L1 peer tutor, an L2 peer tutor or an L2 group of peer students. We found that the best feedback constellation was L2–L2 in that a real discussion came up about topic, content and style, whereas the other settings concentrated on language (L2 peer group) or linguistic and formal matters (L1 peer) due to the different understandings of the participants’ roles in the different conditions. As a result, revision also was also most successful in the L2–L2 condition. This means that peer tutors in writing centres need to be trained to adjust their feedback to the special demands of L2 students in order to help them effectively.
References
Horowitz, D. M. (1986) What Professors Actually Require: Academic Tasks for the ESL Classroom. TESOL Quarterly 20 (3), 445–462 Hülmbauer, C. (2007) ‘You moved, aren’t?’: The relationship between lexicogrammatical correctness and communicative effectiveness in English as a lingua franca. Vienna English Working Papers 16 (2), 3–35 Keh, C. L. (1990) Feedback in the writing process: a model and methods for implementation. ELF Journal 44 (4), 294–304 Siepmann, D. (2006) Academic Writing and Culture: An Overview of Differences between English, French and German. Meta L1 1, 131–150
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation TO HAVE YOUR DARLINGS KILLED: THE INFLUENCE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL OWNERSHIP ON THE PROCESSING OF FEEDBACK IN WRITING GROUPS Angeniet Kam Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands Writers often experience psychological ownership towards their text (Spigelman 2000; Pierce and Jussila 2011). A negative effect of this psychological ownership may be that suggestions for improvement are not adopted (Baer and Brown 2012). This may explain why it is difficult for beginning academic writers to adopt the feedback on their texts, a problem many teachers of academic writing share (Spigelman 2000; Duijnhouwer 2010). This presentation will show the results of a study into the relation between psychological ownership and revision of texts in writing groups. Two questionnaires were conducted about giving and receiving feedback among second year Aerospace Engineering students of Delft University of Technology (n=218). The results show that there is a moderate but significant statistical relation between psychological ownership and the quality of feedback. Furthermore, a qualitative text analysis is currently performed in which three hypotheses are investigated: (1) writing groups with a high score on textual ownership adopt fewer suggestions for deletion than writing groups with a lower score on textual ownership; (2) writing groups with a high score on textual ownership adopt fewer points of feedback on higher order concerns than writing groups with a lower score on textual ownership; (3) a high amount of feedback and/or very detailed feedback has a negative effect on the adoption of feedback by writing groups with a high score on textual ownership. If these effects can be shown, it may be necessary to address this in writing pedagogy, to help academic writers to kill their textual darlings.
References
Baer, M. and Brown, G. (2012) Blind in one eye: How psychological ownership of ideas affects the types of suggestions people adopt. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 60–71 Duijnhouwer, H. (2010) Feedback effects on students’ writing motivation, process and performing. Utrecht: ICO Pierce, J. L. and Jussila, I. (2011) Psychological Ownership and the Organizational Context. Cheltenham/Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing Spigelman, C. (2000) Across Property Lines. Textual Ownership in Writing Groups. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation “LOOKING AWAY”: PRIVATE WRITING TECHNIQUES AS A FORM OF TRANSFORMATIONAL TEXT SHAPING Peter Thomas¹, Thomas Armstrong² ¹Middlesex University, London, United Kingdom ²University of St Gallen, St Gallen, Switzerland Despite the relatively long history of the private writing techniques of “journaling” and “generative writing”, their potential remains largely underexploited in the field of academic writing instruction. They tend to be seen as forms of pre-writing, particularly within approaches such as process writing and writing to learn (e.g. Britton 1970; Elbow 1973; Emig 1977; Zinsser 1989). Drawing on Derrida’s characterisation of drawing as “looking-away” (Saltzman 2006: 5) and Vygotsky’s conception of “inner language” (Vygotsky 1962), this presentation throws new light on these private writing techniques. We argue they are transformational due to the space they allow writers for self-reflection and looking away from their public-facing outputs. The paper discusses instructional interventions in different disciplinary contexts (art/design & natural science) with writers of different levels of expertise/competence (undergraduates and doctoral candidates) in L1 and L2 contexts. We argue that techniques like these can be effective in a range of settings. In the case of the artist/designer-writers the private writing took the form of iterative, generatively written explorations of conceptual elements of their future public-facing output (pieces of visual art/design work). For the natural scientists the private writing took the form of writing journals in which novice scholars recorded their personal thoughts, evolving insights and reflections on the doctoral writing process, which helped shape their public-facing research outputs. In both cases, we found that these private writing techniques were transformational beyond writing, providing significant motivational benefits and helping to shape our students’ sense of “self as author” (Ivanic 1998: 32).
References
Britton, J. (1970) Language and Learning. London: Allen Lane Emig, J. (1977) ‘Writing as a Mode of Learning’. College Composition and Communication 28 (2), 122–28 Ivanic, R. (1998) Writing and identity the discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. Amsterdam: Benjamins Saltzman. L. (2006) Making Memory Matter: Strategies of Remembrance in Contemporary Art. London/Chicago: Chicago University Press Vygotsky, L. S. (1962) Thought and Language. Boston MA: MIT Press
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation USING VOCABULARY AS AN INDICATOR OF DEVELOPMENT OF ACADEMIC LITERACY AND ACADEMIC SUCCESS Hans Malmström¹, Magnus Gustafsson¹, Diane Pecorari² ¹Division for Language and Communication, Department of Applied IT, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden ²Department of Languages, Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden In many university contexts around the world, students’ mastery of English academic vocabulary is considered necessary if they are to be properly socialized into academic discourse, and therefore succeed in their academic endeavors. This study is part of the PROFiLE-project (a project concerned with English Medium Instruction and the development of academic literacies) and is among the first to draw on the new Academic Vocabulary List (Gardner & Davis 2013) to conduct empirical research regarding students’ knowledge of academic vocabulary. Using a 750,000-word corpus of written course work from students’ first and second year of study in MSc programs in four different disciplines, and by relying on a methodology of lexical profiling, we investigate students’ productive knowledge of academic vocabulary. Three research questions provide direction for the study and address some widespread assumptions regarding academic words from the research literature: (i) How much and what type of academic vocabulary do MSc students use when writing in English during their first and second year of study? (ii) Is there a positive development of students’ productive knowledge over time such that second year written assignments contain more academic vocabulary, and/or academic vocabulary of a different kind? (iii) Is it possible to predict academic success on the basis of students’ productive knowledge of academic vocabulary, i.e. do students who obtain good grades use more academic vocabulary and/or academic vocabulary of a different kind as compared to students who obtain lower grades? The results have implications for teachers of academic writing and for teachers and administrators in English Medium Instruction.
References
Gardner, D., & Davies, M. (2013) A new academic vocabulary list. Applied Linguistics, Advance Access published August 2, 2013. doi:10.1093/applin/amt015
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A â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Workshop MAKERTEXT AS MULTIMODAL WRITING ASSIGNMENT Daniel Spielmann Writing Center at Goethe University, Frankfurt / Main, Germany Digital technologies offer a wide variety of possibilities for the development of new writing assignments that can be used to foster both writing competencies and digital literacies (Hicks 2013). A makertext is a writing assignment that invites a group of writers to collaboratively co-create a multimodal text in a relatively short period of time. This workshop seeks to introduce the audience to this kind of assignment and to discuss its potential and possible drawbacks. After a short introduction describing some practical experience with the assignment in the context of writing instruction, the audience will be invited to jointly work on an online document and to assemble a piece of text in response to a given writing prompt. The audience will then share their first-hand experience with synchronous online writing and discuss possible adaptions and applications of the makertext writing assignment for individual academic contexts and research and teaching purposes. For this workshop, each participant will need to have access to a networked computer and an up to date browser.
References
Hicks, T. (2013) Crafting Digital Writing: Composing Texts Across Media and Genres. Portsmouth: Heinemann
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation STIMULATING STRUGGLING FIRST-YEAR UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ WRITING STRATEGIES THROUGH OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING AND COLLABORATIVE WRITING Lieve De Wachter, Jordi Heeren, Margot D’Hertefelt KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium The aim of our project is to develop effective writing tutoring for struggling writers at the start of their first year at the university. This presentation will focus on two teaching methods: observational and collaborative writing. In both methods the students’ main focus is on their peers while the teacher has an important coaching function. The main aspect of observational learning is modeling, in which students learn a skill by observing the activities and thoughts of a model (Rijlaarsdam et al. 2008). Hence, writers can focus on their learning process instead of combining the actions of ‘writing’ and ‘learning-to-write’ (Rijlaarsdam 2005). In the workshops, students analyze a video with a strong and a weak writer who think aloud while writing their text, providing an insight into their metacognitive processes. After the observation, students write in groups of two or three, also called co-writing (Saunders 1989) or reactive collaborative writing (Lowry, Curtis & Lowry 2004). The preceding observation gives them the metacognitive framework to discuss their strategies with each other. Both a qualitative and a quantitative study have been carried out to measure the effect of intervention. The qualitative study indicates that the majority of students perceive the workshops as useful. A one-group quantitative study shows that the texts significantly improve on higher order concerns such as text structure and academic style. We will focus on the design and implementation of both methods and will briefly discuss the effect of the workshops as a whole.
References
De Wachter, L., Heeren, J., Marx, S. Huyghe, S. (2013) Taal: een noodzakelijke, maar niet de enige voorwaarde tot studiesucces. De correlatie tussen de resultaten van een taalvaardigheidstoets en de slaagcijfers bij eerstejaarsstudenten aan de KU Leuven. Levende Talen Tijdschrift 14(4), 28–36 Lowry, P. B., Curtis A. and Lowry M. R. (2004) Building a Taxonomy and Nomenclature of Collaborative Writing to Improve Interdisciplinary Research and Practice. Journal of Business Communication 41, 66 Rijlaarsdam, G. (2005) Observerend leren. Een kernactiviteit in taalvaardigheidsonderwijs. Deel 1: Ontwerpadviezen uit onderzoek verkregen. Levende Talen Tijdschrift, 6(4), 10–28 Rijlaarsdam, G., Braaksma, M., Couzijn, M., Janssen, T., Raedts, M., Van Steendam, E., et al. (2008) Observation of peers in learning to write. Practice and research. Journal of Writing Research, 1 (1), 53–83 Saunders, W. M. (1989) Collaborative writing tasks and peer interaction. International Journal of educational research, 101–112
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation THE EFFECTS OF EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT STRATEGY INSTRUCTION IN AN ACADEMIC WRITING VIDEO TUTORIAL Mariet Raedts, Elke Van Steendam, Luc De Grez, Jef Hendrickx KU Leuven, Brussels, Belgium Observational learning through modelling has proven to be an effective instructional approach for different writing tasks and for students of different ages (see Rijlaarsdam et al. (2008) and Rijlaarsdam et al. (2011) for an overview). In order for observational learning to be successful, four constituent processes are needed (Bandura 1986): (1) attention to the crucial elements in the displayed behaviour, (2) retention of these elements in the form of mental representations, (3) successful reproduction of the modelled behavior, and (4) the motivation to learn and perform the task. We tested Bandura’s assumptions in an introductory academic writing course with 165 first-year business students for which we developed two versions of a tutorial video. In both videos a male peer model (motivation enhancing element) demonstrated a five-step writing strategy for writing up a synthesis of multiple research studies. In the implicit-strategy-instructionvideo students saw the peer model tackling the academic writing task. In the explicit-strategy-instructionvideo we added extra slides on which the model’s five-step-strategy was made explicit by a five-letter word mnemonic (attention and retention enhancing element). Post hoc tests revealed that students in the explicitlearning-condition had a more accurate representation of the new writing task compared to students in the implicit-strategy-condition. Additionally, students in the explicit-strategy-condition wrote cognitively more complex summaries; for example, they identified and explained contradictions in the research results more often. Making the model’s writing strategy explicit thus had a positive impact on first-year students’ task knowledge and writing performances in a widely used academic genre.
References
Bandura, A. (1986) Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall Rijlaarsdam, G. C. W., Braaksma, M. A. H., Couzijn, M. J., Janssen, T. M., Raedts, M., van Steendam, E., Toorenaar, A. and van den Bergh, H. (2008) ‘Observation of peers in learning to write: Practice and research’. Journal of Writing Research 1(1), 53–83 Rijlaarsdam, G., Van den Bergh, H., Couzijn, M., Janssen, T., Braaksma, M., Tillema, M., Van Steendam, E. and Raedts, M. (2011) Writing. In: Harris, K., Graham, S. and Urdan, T. (eds), APA Educational Psychology Handbook. vol. 3. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 189–227
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation “LIKE A BLESSING FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS”: INDEPENDENT LONG-TERM USE OF DO-IT-YOURSELF CORPORA Maggie Charles Oxford University Language Centre, Oxford, United Kingdom This paper reports on the long-term effects of a course on academic writing, in which students built individual ‘do-it-yourself’(DIY) corpora of research articles in their field and used them to explore the discourse of their own discipline (Lee and Swales 2006). I first give details of the 6-week, 12-hour course and then report 5 years of questionnaire data on 144 respondents who took the course between 2009 and 2013 and were surveyed one year later. Participants were graduates from many different socio-cultural backgrounds, studying in a wide range of disciplinary contexts. The aim of the study was to investigate the nature and extent of independent corpus use and the attitudes to corpus consultation that prevailed over the longer term. Results showed that 91 students (63%) continued to use their corpus one year after the end of the course and 52 users (56%) consulted their corpus frequently (once per week or more). The vast majority of users, 83 (91%), considered that using their corpus improved their academic writing. These data indicate that students see their corpus as a valuable resource that they can access independently to support their writing. The use of DIY corpora thus helps satisfy not only the immediate, but also the on-going writing needs of international students, which often continue long after the end of their EAP courses. I conclude by arguing for the greater use of DIY corpora in academic writing classes, where they offer a freely available technological resource of great benefit.
References
Lee, D., and Swales, J. (2006) A Corpus-Based EAP Course for NNS Doctoral Students: Moving from Available Specialized Corpora to Self-Compiled Corpora. English for Specific Purposes 25 (1), 56–75
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation CAPTURING THE STRUGGLE: UNDERSTANDING THE METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES FOR ACADEMIC WRITING OF WORK-BASED LEARNERS AT UNIVERSITY Sacha Mason Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln, United Kingdom This presentation explores the struggles and challenges that learners on a work-based Foundation Degree (FdA) in Applied Studies encounter when undertaking academic writing during their first year on the programme. The experiences of first-year FdA undergraduates are investigated in a small scale qualitative study where the processes that learners engage with related to their academic writing are discussed. Data were gathered from individual feed-forward tutorials, reflective e-journals to record their academic writing progress and the assessment grade for the final module of the FdA programme. The feed forward tutorials were analysed, along with participants’ e-journal entries, for the identification of metacognitive awareness of writing strategies evident from the participants’ reflections. The findings focus on the processes of writing and emerging concepts of authorial identity, writing voice and professional practice. Many of the participants spoke of their concerns about their writing, of a disturbance in their ways of being in any one of their multiple roles of professional learner, practitioner, mother, partner, writer, for example. The participants’ conscious awareness of such disturbances, which Archer describes as a modus vivendi (2003: 16), or cognitive dissonance (Festinger 1957) suggests reflexivity (Archer 2003).
References
Archer, M. (2003) Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Festinger, L. (1957) The relationship between behaviour and cognition. In Contemporary approaches to cognition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. A Symposium held at University of Colorado Stierer, B. (2000) Schoolteacher as students: academic literacy and the construction of professional knowledge within master’s courses in education. In B. Lea, & B. Stierer, (Eds.), Student writing in higher education: New contexts. Buckingham: Open University Press
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation WRITTEN PEER FEEDBACK: INITIATING PROCESSES OF THINKING AND LEARNING IN A MATHEMATICALLYORIENTED COURSE FOR PROCESS ENGINEERS Nadine Stahlberg, Stefan Mosler, Michael Schlüter Hamburg University of Technology, Hamburg, Germany In engineering, students commonly write very little compared to other disciplines. However, writing has to be seen as an important component of learning processes (Britton et al. 1975; Emig 1977; NSSE 2008). Especially in the fields of engineering and sciences, we see a great potential to engage writing to consolidate subject-specific skills. Consequently, at Hamburg University of Technology, we aim at increasing writing assignments and using writing as a learning tool in various contexts. In our presentation we would like to share our ideas on how to enhance writing in engineering classes and develop mathematical thinking and understanding through writing. We will introduce you to a writing assignment that we designed for a mathematically-oriented course for process engineers. In a 2-hour Master's lecture “Computational Fluid Dynamics in Process Engineering”, we conducted a written peer feedback assignment. The assignment was based on mathematical exercises that were designed in a way that motivated students to write little texts rather than merely do computations. Also, we will present the results of students’ evaluation that we conducted at the end of term. What do engineering students think of implementing written peer feedback in a mathematically-oriented class? Was the assignment useful to them? Which impact did the assignment have on the students’ motivation to solve the math tasks? Finally, we will address the benefits as well as the difficulties of implementing writing in a mathematically-oriented course for engineers.
References
Britton, J. et al. (1975) The development of writing abilities. London: Macmillan Education Emig, J. (1977) Writing as a Mode of Learning. College Composition and Communication 28 (2), 122–128. National Survey of Student Engagement 2008 (NSSE) [Online]. available at: http://nsse.iub.edu/ [13 January 2015].
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Workshop ALTERNATIVE PROGRESS ASSESSMENTS Alicja Pitak European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany Presentations, seminar papers, essays, lesson protocols, text summaries, exams, tests – these are well known and often applied forms of students’ knowledge assessment performed in academic writing assignments. We all know them both from the standpoint of a student and teacher. The traditional assessment methods are a relevant part of academic writing teaching. But are these the only possible assessment methods? Are there any other measurement instruments which allow to estimate whether learners have made progress in their knowledge or if their academic writing skill has developed? Which alternative writing assignments can be applied in various courses and what are the possible difficulties of their implementation? What are the potential benefits of alternative writing assignments? The answers to the above-mentioned questions will be delivered during the workshop regarding alternative writing assignments as a way to develop the writing skill. The aims of the workshop are to sensitize the participants to the fact that seminar papers, essays, lesson protocols or text summaries are not the only way to measure students´ knowledge and assess their academic writing skill as well as to encourage them to apply alternative methods. In order to reach these aims the participants will be confronted with exemplary seminars and lectures. Their task will be to search for new writing assignments which both allow to measure learning progress, trigger students´ interest and develop academic writing skill.
References
Bräuer, G. (2014) Das Portfolio als Reflexionsmedium für Lehrende und Studierende. Opladen [u.a.]: Budrich Bräuer, G. (2000) Schreiben als reflexive Praxis. Tagebuch, Arbeitsjournal, Portfolio'. Freiburg im Breisgau: Fillibach-Verl Frey, K. (1991) Die Projektmethode. Weinheim u.a.: Beltz Department Für Interaktive Medien und Bildungstechnologie (IMB): http://www.mahara.at/ [19 January 2015]. Krems: Donau-Universität Krems
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Workshop ASSESSING ACADEMIC WRITING IN HIGHER EDUCATION: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES Atta Gebril The American University in Cairo, New Cairo, Egypt Following the EATAW 2015 theme, this presentation discusses the challenges and opportunities associated with assessing academic writing in higher education. There has been recently a growing trend related to using integrated tasks as an assessment tool in academic writing settings. Integrated assessment refers to the synthesis of information from sources, whether written or oral, while writing a text. These practices are in line with the academic writing literature that has shown university writing tasks involving the use of discourse synthesis. This literature has also shown many benefits for integrated tasks, such as providing background knowledge for writers, and enhancing both test fairness and authenticity. However, integrated tasks come with a host of challenges related to task design and scoring. Instructors usually have a wide range of questions related to this task type: How are integrated tasks different from impromptu independent tasks? What skills do these tasks entail? Why should we use them? What external sources should we include in integrated tasks? What topics are more suitable for this task type? What if students use inappropriate textual borrowing from sources? How to discourage them from doing so? What are the criteria that teachers should use when scoring integrated tasks? What are the features that should be included in scoring rubrics mainly prepared for integrated tasks? How to train teachers for scoring integrated tasks? The presentation will attempt to answer these questions following a learning-oriented approach to writing assessment. Sample integrated writing tasks and scoring rubrics will be shared with participants.
References
Gebril, A. & Plakans, L. (2014) Assembling validity evidence for assessing academic writing: Rater reactions to integrated tasks. Assessing Writing 21 (2), 56–73 Plakans, L. & Gebril, A. (2013)Using multiple texts in an integrated writing assessment: Source text use as a predictor of score. Journal of Second Language Writing 22, 217–230 Gebril, A. & Plakans, L. (2013) Towards a transparent construct of reading-to-write assessment tasks: The interface between discourse features and proficiency. Language Assessment Quarterly 10 (1), 1–19 Plakans, L. & Gebril, A. (2012) A close investigation of source use in integrated writing tasks. Assessing Writing Journal 17 (1), 18–34 Gebril, A. (2009) Score generalizability of academic writing tasks: Does one test method fit it all? Journal of Language Testing 26, 507–531
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation STUDENT PERSPECTIVES ON THE VALUE OF TRAINING IN COLLABORATIVE WRITING John O'Sullivan Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands Although collaborative writing assignments have increased in popularity, they remain subject to debate. Discussion on co-writing seems to stem from either a product-orientated viewpoint, or a process-orientated approach. The product approach regards collaborative writing as a necessary competence for professional life. The process approach is often rooted in the Vygotskyan vision; adherents argue that group learning fosters reflection, insight and improved development. There are, however, challenges to the value of collaborative writing. From a product framework, concerns exist over equitable assessment, freeloaders and student motivation. It is also argued that co-writing is a coping strategy for increased student numbers, rather than a didactic tool. From a process perspective, critics also argue that co-writing is an ineffective educational tool, the reality being that tasks are divided up and crudely pasted into a final collage. Several writers have commented that the student voice in this discussion has been insufficiently heard. To address whether we should include more group writing tasks within our own writing training curriculum, we investigated student perceptions of the benefit of collaborative writing tasks. A group of undergraduate biomedical sciences students was surveyed on their experience of collaborative writing: participation, assessment, and educational value. A second group of PhD candidates, currently active in writing for publication, was surveyed on i) their experience of co-writing publications and ii) their perceptions of whether they had received adequate training as undergraduates. The study will be completed in May; during the presentation, results will be discussed in the context of the theoretical debate.
References
Storch, N. (2005) Collaborative writing: Product, process, and students’ reflections Journal of Second Language Writing 14, 153–173 Strauss, P. & U, L. (2007) Group Assessments: dilemmas facing lecturers in multicultural tertiary classrooms; Higher Education Research & Development 26 (2), 147–161 McCorkle, D. et al. (1999) Undergraduate Marketing Students, Group Projects and Teamwork: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly? Journal of Marketing Education 21 (2), 106–117 Livingstone, D. & Lynch, K. (2000) Group Project Work and Student-centred Active Learning: Two different experiences, Studies in Higher Education 25 (3), 325–345
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Electronic Poster Presentation “WHAT ARE WRITING STRATEGIES?” AN ANIMATED FILM AS AN EXAMPLE FOR USING NEW TECHNOLOGIES AT THE WRITING CENTER Birte Metzdorf, Alexander Kaib, Ariane Willumeit Writing Center at Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main, Germany In 2014, we (three peer tutors of Frankfurt’s Writing Center) produced a six-minute animated video in which a student meets with a peer tutor for a writing consultation session. (https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=nO_8YsJmZfk). The video describes some of the typical challenges during the writing process: How do I start best? What can I do when I get stuck? How can I structure my ideas? During their conversation, the tutor points out alternative writing strategies to the student. The idea of writing strategies is based on Hanspeter Ortner’s (2000) theoretical research, who is well known in the field of German-based writing didactics, but has yet to be introduced internationally. Based on his analysis of creative writers, four main writing types or strategies have evolved: The Adventurer who jumpstarts into the writing process without a definite structure or plan; the Squirrel who likes to gather lots of information and hops from one text fragment to the other; the Gold Digger who prefers a detailed outline before he/she sits down to write a text from A to Z; and the Decathlete who quickly writes several versions of a text, without the pressure of producing a ‘perfect’ draft right away. In our presentation, we will show the video and explain the didactical potential of modeling different writing strategies. We will also discuss the effects digital media and e-learning materials have on our work in the Writing Center. In our presentation, we will show the film and explain the didactical potential of the different writing and learning types. We will also discuss which effects service learning and e-learning materials have on our work in the Writing Center. Currently, the video is only available in German, but we provide an English translation of the dialogue.
References
Arnold, S., Chirico, R. and Liebscher, D. (2012) Goldgräber oder Eichhörnchen – Welcher Schreibertyp sind Sie? In: JoSCH - Journal der Schreibberatung 4, 82–94 Girgensohn, K. (2007) Schreibstrategien beim Stationen Lernen erweitern. Arbeitsmaterial für individualisierte Lernformen in Schreibseminaren. In: Zeitschrift Schreiben, http://www.zeitschrift-schreiben.eu/cgi-bin/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/girgensohn_ schreibstrategien-beim-stationen-lernen-erweitern.pdf Ortner, H. (2000) Schreiben und Denken. Tübingen Sennewald, N. (2014) Schreibstrategien. Ein Überblick. In: Dreyfürst, Stephanie; Sennewald, Nadja: Schreiben. Grundlagentexte zur Theorie, Didaktik und Beratung. Leverkusen, 169–190
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation WEIGHING WHAT MATTERS: A GENERATIVE SCHEMA FOR WRITING ASSESSMENT Judith Kearns, Brian Turner University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Canada Current theory assumes that all writing is embedded in and can therefore be appropriately evaluated only in terms of “complex social systems of activity” (Prior and Shipka 2003). Recent research suggests, however, that these contextualist assumptions may not be reflected in current practices of writing assessment (Behizadeh and Engelhard 2011; Dryer 2013). On the basis of his analysis of 83 scoring rubrics used in American writing programs, Dryer (2013: 26) concludes that “what is local, temporal, and contingent” is too often framed in writing assessment “as if it were generalizable, ahistorical, and definitive” (see also Osborne and Walker 2014). This presentation will describe a schema which the authors believe avoids this contradiction between theory and practice. Used over the past twenty years in diverse writing courses as well as in the assessment of professional writing, our schema – it may be thought of as a meta-rubric, or possibly even an anti-rubric – is designed not only to facilitate assessment of a wide range of written genres but also to serve as heuristic for students and teachers. Perhaps the greatest advantage of our schema is its portability; in addition to its pedagogical value, the schema has proved to be a reliable aid to invention when explaining to colleagues, administrators, and lay persons what it is that writing teachers “do.”
References
Behizadeh, N. and Engelhard, G. Jr. (2011) Historical view of the influences of measurement and writing theories on the practice assessment in the United States. Assessing Writing 16, 189–211 Dryer, D. B. (2013) Scaling writing ability: A corpus-driven inquiry. Written Communication 30 (1), 3–35 Osborne, J. and Walker, P. (2014) Just Ask Teachers: Building expertise, trusting subjectivity, and valuing difference in writing assessment. Assessing Writing 22, 33–47 Prior, P. and Shipka, J. (2003) Chronotopic lamination: Tracing the contours of literate activity. In: C. Bazerman and D. R. Russell, eds. 2003. Writing selves/writing societies: Research from activity perspectives. Fort Collins, CO: WAC Clearing House, 180–238
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Project Meeting THE SHARING OF PRACTICE AND RESEARCH ACROSS INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARIES VIA A DATABASE Bronwyn James¹, Judy Maxwell² ¹University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia ²RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia The sharing of practice and research across international boundaries is the theme of this research/project meeting. The Association for Academic Language and Learning (AALL) has a strong focus on writing and learning development in the Australian higher education context. As a way of sharing practice and research within this context, we have developed a database (http://www.aall.org.au/aalldb) that has many potential applications for both educators and administrators. The database provides a mechanism by which we are able to respond to the questions: ‘What do academic language and learning (ALL) educators do and what research is produced by and informs these practices’? The database is an outcome of two earlier projects funded by AALL. In 2008, RMIT University began the process of establishing a database for research conducted by ALL educators on topics related to ALL practice. This research is published in a number of places making it difficult to locate. In 2007, the University of Wollongong developed a practice website and database based on information provided by 33 of the 39 Australian universities. The two projects have been combined to create the current database, launched in 2013. It is user-friendly, updatable, and searchable by practice or research. Many of the current database fields appear to map neatly with the themes of this conference. In this research/project meeting, we begin with a discussion of the development and the outcome of the database project. We then invite participants to explore the relevance of the data fields to their own writing and institutional contexts in order to identify areas of commonality and divergence. Our intention in this meeting is to explore the following possibilities: What might be the benefits of extending the database to a broader international context? What changes would be needed to extend the AALL database so that it is reflective of an international context? Could the database be replicated within other national contexts with links established across these different databases? What funding exists to enable either option a or b? Can we establish an ongoing international working group to develop the database?
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Workshop TEACHING ARGUMENTATION: THE TOULMIN MODEL AT WORK Gamze Oncul School of Foreign Languages, Middle East Technical University Northern Cyprus Campus, Kalkanli, Guzelyurt, Northern Cyprus, Turkey Argumentation is one of the key skills in academic writing in any language context, L1 or L2, and Stephen Toulmin’s model of argumentation has always got something to offer for the theory of argumentation and teaching argumentative writing since it was published in his book, The Uses of Argument, in 1958 (Bizup, 2009). Although there are quite a good number of studies are addressing Whats, Whys, and Hows of the model, the discussion of its possible interpretations and practical uses for teachers of academic writing is either scarce or got lost behind the formal discussions of the topic. In an effort to help close this gap, this workshop will present Toulmin’s argument model at work in a sample setting – a freshman-level English for Academic Purposes course. Exploring its possible uses as a teaching, learning, and even as an assessment tool, we will examine how it works in teaching research, argumentation, planning and writing an argumentative paper and discuss possible ways to use it as a ground for peer- and self-evaluation, and formal assessment of the written work.
References
Bizup, J. (2009) The uses of Toulmin in composition studies. College Composition and Communication. [Online] 61(1), W1-W23. available at: http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/CCC/0611-sep09/CCC0611Uses.pdf. [19 January 2015]
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation AUTONOMOUS ACADEMIC WRITING GROUPS FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS Dzifa Vode, Erika von Rautenfeld Writing Center, Nuremberg Institute of Technology, Nuremberg, Germany Writing a Bachelor's thesis is a challenge for undergraduate students. Not only are they required to show content knowledge and writing skills, but they are also expected to develop an academic identity (Ivanic 1998), e.g. work independently, make decisions, and think critically. Often students tackle this challenge on their own. Research on doctoral students indicates, however, that participating in writing groups helps develop an academic professional identity and enhances productivity (e.g. Boud and Lee 2005; Aitchison and Lee 2006; Bosanquet et al. 2012). Girgensohn (2009) showed that students participating in autonomous writing groups – albeit when writing non-academic-texts – strengthen their writing motivation and identity as authors. Autonomous writing groups are not facilitated by faculty or writing center professionals. Instead participants work independently to support each other in their academic writing by giving each other text feedback and discussing challenges within the writing process. A systematic, empirical investigation of autonomous academic writing groups for undergraduate students has not yet been carried out. Our research investigates how students who participate in such groups develop academic identity and improve their writing skills. As a first step of this larger research project we present the results of a pre-study consisting of observations and interviews. It aims at answering two questions: 1) What can participants, faculty and writing specialists tell us about the benefits and challenges students experience in academic autonomous writing groups? 2) What development of student writing skills have they observed as a result of the participation in those groups?
References
Aitchison, C. and Lee, A. (2006) ‘Research writing: problems and pedagogies’. Teaching in Higher Education 11 (3), 265–278 Bosanquet, A. McNeill, M., Huber, E., Cahir, J. and Jacenyik-Trawoger, C. (2012) ‘Reflection, Speed Dating, and Word Clouds’. Compendium2 5 (1), 9–18 Boud, D. and Lee, A. (2005) ‘Peer learning’ as pedagogic discourse for research education’. Studies in Higher Education 30 (5), 501–516 Girgensohn, K. (2007) Neue Wege zur Schlüsselqualifikation Schreiben: Autonome Schreibgruppen an der Hochschule. VS Research, Wiesbaden Ivanic, R. (1998) Writing and identity: The discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. Amsterdam: Benjamins
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A â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation SYNTHESISING DILEMMAS IN ACADEMIC WRITING: A LEARNER SPECIFIC DISCIPLINE APPROACH. Karen Nicholls, John Wrigglesworth Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, United Kingdom This presentation reviews contemporary approaches to teaching academic writing and argues for a synthesis based on authenticity of individual student experience. Using authenticity (Van Lier 1996; Cruikshank 2006) as a yardstick, we offer a Learning Specific Disciplinarity (LSD) approach which offers a principled way of managing the compromises necessary when applying interdisciplinary research in a real world setting. In developing our argument we will touch on debates surrounding EGAP/ ESAP; academic genre; product, process and post-process (Bruce 2011), CLIL (Coyle, Hood and Marsh 2012); and academic literacies (Lea and Street 1998). For example, the apparent conflicts between EGAP and ESAP can be reconciled through a focus on authenticity of learning tasks rather than whole courses. Using data drawn from interviews with teachers and students on a pre-sessional language course in the UK, the paper looks at student understandings of discourse communities they hope to join, the relationship between writing and content knowledge, and the process of writing about unfamiliar topics. As a case in point, the strategies that teachers and pre-sessional students can employ to focus the scope and topic of an essay for an unfamiliar but specific discipline are discussed in the light of the interview data. We argue that enacting the recommendations of research about academic writing through the authentic experience of individual students is a fruitful way of approaching course development.
References
Bruce, I. (2011) Theory and concepts of English for Academic Purposes. London: Equinox Coyle, D., Hood, P., & Marsh, D. (2010) CLIL; content and language integrated learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cruikshank, K. (2009) EAP in Secondary Schools in Belcher (Ed) English for Specific Purposes in Theory and Practice. Michigan: University of Michigan Lea, M. and Street, B. (1998) Student writing in Higher Education: an academic literacies approach. Studies in Higher Education 23 (2), 157 Van Lier, L. (1996) Interaction in the Language Classroom: Awareness, Autonomy and Authenticity. Harlow: Longman
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Workshop ‘WRITING IS PHYSICAL TOO’: EXPLORATIONS OF WRITING AS AN EMBODIED ACT Lisa Maria Clughen Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, England Scholars from a range of disciplines – from linguistics to neuroscience, from education to Sports and Leisure – argue for the centrality of the body to effective learning environments. How, though, might the body relate to writing? This question has been the focus of my recent research (Clughen 2015, forthcoming), where I have explored the primacy of the body to writing, such that we might conceive of writing itself as an embodied act. My research is situated within my own disciplinary context of literary and feminist theory, but works alongside that of writing theorists, such as Peter Elbow, who are alarmed by the alienation of the body from literacy cultures, an absence so alarming that, to some, it may even appear that there is ‘a plot against (…) the human body’ (Elbow 2012: 6–7). Drawing mainly on feminist theories of the body and with reference to a series of writers from Virginia Woolf and Kierkegaard to Martin Amis and David Almond, I will welcome the body in this session and, with some urgency, argue that embracing the body is crucial for creating empowering environments for writing support. With ‘the body in mind’, in the second part of this session, I shall encourage discussions of the ways in which writing might relate to the body. Participants will be invited to explore the notion of writing as physical by considering their own experiences of writing and writing support; we will ask how different writing theories and disciplinary perspectives might contribute to our explorations; consider what ‘embodied writing’ might look like and debate the issues involved with its promotion within conventional academic writing cultures; finally, we will debate the implications of this perspective for an ‘embodied writing support’. The main intention, then, is to theorise the idea that writing is an embodied act and to stimulate creative ideas about how the burgeoning field of ‘embodied writing support’ can be developed. Given the often hidden status of the body in writing cultures, the paper essentially asks that we foreground it as we examine our attitudes, values and beliefs towards writing and as we develop our writing pedagogies.
References
Clughen, L. (2015, forthcoming) ‘Embodied writing support’: the Importance of the Body in Engaging Students with Writing’. Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, Bristol: Intellect Elbow, P. (2012) Vernacular Eloquence: What Speech Can Bring to Writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation DO WE KNOW WHAT THEY (THINK THEY) NEED? COMPARING STUDENT AND FACULTY PERCEPTIONS OF WRITING IN AN ENGLISH STUDIES PROGRAM Johanna Hasanen, Lauren Freede Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany As language instructors in an English Studies department at a German university, we are investigating whether there are discrepancies between our Anglophone perceptions of student experience, skills and needs in this particular E(S)AP environment and students’ own perceptions (Benesch 1996) as well as those of content instructors within a German-language discourse culture (Clyne 1987). This comparative writing needs analysis study reports on a survey of 150 undergraduate students in an English Studies program in Germany and a parallel survey of the needs perception of the program’s faculty members who teach content courses in English without an explicit focus on language instruction. Many academic writing studies involving needs analyses and learner perceptions focus on generic academic writing needs at Englishmedium universities rather than the growing area of individual programs delivered in English in an EFL setting (Leki and Carson 1994). Moreover, student and teacher beliefs are frequently viewed separately (Petric 2002) or with little acknowledgement that their perceptions run counter to each other (Butler et al. 2014). This study triangulates student, subject- and language-teaching faculty perceptions of student written English needs. Preliminary results not only reveal significant perception differences but also highlight a common set of unmet language needs relevant for instructors in higher education dealing with similarly contradictory expectations.
References
Benesch, S. (1996) ‘Needs Analysis and Curriculum Development in EAP: An Example of a Critical Approach’. TESOL Quarterly 30 (4), 723–738 Butler, D. B. et al. (2014) ‘Student and Teacher Perceptions of Academic English Writing in Russia’. Journal of Teaching English for Specific and Academic Purposes [online] 2 (2), 203–227. available at <http://espeap.junis.ni.ac.rs/index.php/espeap/article/view/132> [15 January 2015] Clyne, M. (1987) ‘Cultural differences in the organization of academic texts: English and German’. Journal of Pragmatics 11 (2), 211–241 Leki, I. and Carson, J. (1994) ‘Students’ Perceptions of EAP Writing Instruction and Writing Needs Across the Disciplines’. TESOL Quarterly 28 (1), 81–101 Petric, B. (2002) ‘Students’ Attitudes towards Writing and the Development of Academic Writing Skills’. Writing Center Journal [online] 22 (2), 9–27. available at <http://espeap.junis.ni.ac.rs/index.php/espeap/article/view/132> [14 January 2015]
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation MULTIPLE WAYS TO MAKE WRITING PUBLIC: MAKING A CRITICAL TURN IN WRITING PEDAGOGY IN A TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM Valerie Mulholland, Karen Lind, Barbara McNeil University of Regina, Regina, SK Canada For the past two years, a team of language and literacy professors in a Faculty of Education designed and delivered a cross-course assignment to provide an authentic forum for pre-service English teachers to develop as writers and as teachers of writing. Each week during the term, students selected one article from the professional literature (peer-reviewed, field-based) and posted a 500 word response (critique, analysis, interpretation) to an on-line forum. The instructors responded in writing to each student. In turn, students contributed feedback at least three times. What resulted is a lively digital “discussion” of multiple texts by multiple voices from multiple perspectives, hence the title of our research Multiple Ways to Make Writing Public. In course evaluations, students cited the assignment as being illuminating and useful. The authors’ theoretical framework for teaching writing aligns with socially and culturally contextualized theories of writing (Newell 2014) and Gee’s (2006) theory of discourse. Constructed as a self-study (Bass, AndersonPatton & Allender 2002), the purpose of the research is to improve the instructors’ practice of teaching pre-service teachers both to engage as professionals with ideas at work in the profession (Watson 2010), and to improve their teaching of writing prior to their 16 week practicum. Written as a bound case study (Stake 2005), the paper draws on the following data sources: written feedback generated by instructors and students; weekly debriefing sessions; and course evaluations. This study contributes to the “need for teacher education programs to improve the teaching of writing instruction” (Grisham 2011) with a successful process developed over two years of research.
References
Gee, J. P. (2006) What is literacy? in Relations, locations, positions: Composition theory for writing teachers, P Vandenberg, S Hum, & J Clary-Lemon, NCTE, Urbana IL, 29–39 Grisham, D. L. (2011) ‘Writing instruction for teacher candidates: Strengthening a weak curricular area’, Literacy Research and Instruction 50 (4), 348–364 Newell, G. E. (2014) ‘High school English language arts teachers’ argumentative epistemologies for teaching writing’, Research in the Teaching of English 49 (2), 95–119 Bass, L., Anderson-Patton, V. & Allender, J. (2002) ‘ Self-study as a way of teaching and learning: A research collaborative re-analysis of self-study teaching portfolios’, in Improving teacher education practices through self-study, in T Russel & J Loughran, eds, Routledge, London, 56–70 Stake, R. (2005) ‘ Qualitative case studies’, in The Sage handbook of qualitative research, 3rd ed, N Denzin & Y Lincoln, eds, Sage, Thousand Oaks CA, 443–466 Watson, D, (2010), ‘Teaching teachers to think: Reflective journaling as a strategy to enhance students’ understanding and practice of academic writing’, Journal of College Teaching and Learning 7 (12), 11–18
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation SUCCES AND/OR FAILURE OF WRITTEN FEEDBACK Maren Emde, Katharina Hock Goethe-University, Frankfurt, Germany How can we give precise and helpful feedback on students’ writing? How can students benefit from it when revising a text? As writing fellows at Goethe University we are constantly faced with these questions when accompanying a writing intensive courses in various disciplines. Writing fellows are trained peer tutors who give students written feedback on two smaller writing assignments during one semester (Hall & Hughes 2011). The students then revise their first drafts according to the suggestions in our feedback. At the end of the semester, the teacher receives both versions plus our written feedback. When we analyzed the revised texts after the last winter term, we noticed that there were differences in how the students understood our feedback and in the changes they had made (or not) for the second version. From relevant research one can safely assume that there are different types of writers (Crème & Lea 1997). We would like to argue that there are also different types of revisors. Furthermore, we want to trace how certain phrases or comments in our feedback triggered or prevented specific steps in the revising process of the students. In our outline, we will present our method of giving written feedback. First, we will describe how we normally proceed, and then we will demonstrate through specific examples how the first version of a text has (or has not) been revised. Afterwards, we would like to discuss our observations and hear about the audience’s experiences with written (peer) feedback.
References
Creme, P. and Lea, M. (1997) Writing at University: A guide for students. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press Hall, E. and Hughes, B. (2011) Preparing Faculty, Professionalizing Fellows: Keys to Success with Undergraduate Writing Fellows in WAC. The WAC Journal 20, 21–40
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Presentation TEACHING AND ASSESSING ACADEMIC WRITING: WHAT DOES EAP STAND FOR? Irina Nuzha National Research University Higher School of Economics, Saint Petersburg, Russia This presentation explores the ways of how academic writing should be taught and assessed to enable students to communicate successfully in the academic environment. Being the way to consolidate and demonstrate subject knowledge (Hyland 2011), writing seems to be in the center of university curriculum today and therefore is widely used as a major tool of assessment in higher education. However, the way knowledge is built, evaluated and shared, differs across disciplines (Martin 2011), which reflects on the academic language, discourse models and rhetorical practices used in different subjects. This means that academic writing should be taught and assessed in a disciplinary specific context. Although writing skills are considered central to academic literacy (Russel et al. 2009), it is often argued that the majority of students lack them, which might be caused by an ineffective approach to teaching with the greater emphasis on language work rather than core academic skills. To reach their goals, academic writing pedagogy, teaching/ learning practices as well as assessment tools should mirror the academic process. These issues are of high importance for Russian universities where writing is still considered peripheral and is either a part of an EFL or the Russian language course. The paper summarizes the results of a case study implemented at National Research University Higher School of Economics, which suggests some practical implications of using an integrated approach to teaching and assessing academic writing in a disciplinary context.
References
Cruse, O. (2013) Perspectives on Academic Writing in European Higher Education: Genre, Practices and Competences//Revista de Docencia Universitaria. Vol. 11(1) Eneoro-Abril, 37–58 Green, A. (2013) Exploring Language Assessment and Testing. Routledge: Introductory Textbooks for Applied Linguitics Hyland, K. (2011) Writing in the university: education, knowledge and reputation. Language Teaching. DOI:10.1017/S0261444811000036 Hyland, K. (2009) ‘Genre and academic writing in the disciplines’. In Chiung-Wen Chan g (Ed) Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on ESP and Its Teaching. Wuhan University Press, China Leki, I., Carson, J. (1997) “Completely different words”: EAP and the writing experiences of ESL students in university courses. TESOL Quarterly 31 (1), 39–69 Martin, J. (2011) Bridging troubled waters: interdisciplinarity and what makes it stick. In Frances Christie and Karl Maton (Eds.), Disciplinarity: Functional Linguistic and Sociological Perspectives. London: Continuum, 35–61 Russel, D., Lea, M., Parker, J., Street, B., and Donahue,T. (2009) Exploring Notions of Genre in “Academic Literacies” and “Writing across the Curriculum”: Approaches across countries and contexts// C. Bazerman, A Bonini& D. Figuiredo (Eds.), Genre in Changing World, 395–423
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Workshop LOGIC IN ACADEMIC WRITING Alma Klein, Anne Kirschbaum Writing Center of the European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany Major premise: Academic writing means argumentation. Minor premise: Argumentation needs logic. Conclusion: So, academic writing requires logic. The aim of this workshop is to examine, whether this conclusion fits the reality of academic writing practices. In any case, most writers would agree that academic texts consist of various components such as arguments, implications, premises, conclusions and more. Some texts when we read them, convince us, and some do not. If a text convinces us, one reason for that might be its logical structure. Moreover, when we produce our own texts we also employ logic intuitively. However, logic seems to be an underestimated writing-tool; one that is often used unconsciously. Due to this, a number of writers do not make full use of it to structure their texts. They fail to make deliberate use of logic and therefore end up having a hard time producing convincing argumentation. But logic does not only help to communicate one's opinion to the reader, it can also support the discovery of reasonable statements. That is why we aim to combine logic emerging from philosophy and writing pedagogies in this interdisciplinary workshop. We begin with a short introduction to the basics of logic and logical figures in sentences as well as in whole arguments. After this input, there will be an exercise aimed at recognizing logical constructions. We hope that participants will hereby increase their awareness of the use of these constructions and their implications and effects on the reader. Finally, participants will be encouraged to practice the knowledge acquired during the workshop in a short writing exercise.
References
Beckermann, A. (2011) Einführung in die Logik. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter Hoyningen-Huene, P. (1998) Formale Logik. Eine philosophische Einführung. Stuttgart: Reclam Kruse, O. (2013) ‘Schreiben und kritisches Denken. Systematische und didaktische Verknüpfungen’. in Writinig across the Curriculum at Work. Theorie, Praxis und Analyse. ed. by: Doleschal, Ursula et.al., Berlin/Zürich: LIT, 39–64 Weber, R. and Brizee, E. (2015) ‘Logic in Argumenative Writing’ The Purdue Online Writing Lab available at <https://owl.english.purdue. edu/owl/owlprint/659/> [25 January 2015]
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A – Innovative Methods and Practices of Academic Writing and Writing Instruction
Presentation BECOMING BETTER WRITERS – ON THE USE OF AUTHENTIC READING MATERIALS IN TEACHING SECOND LANGUAGE WRITING Ola Majchrzak, Łukasz Salski, Marek Molenda University of Łódź, Łódź, Poland In 2011 a new first-year writing course was started at the Institute of English, University of Łódź, Poland, whose aim is not only to develop students’ knowledge and skills but also to improve their attitude to writing as they come to university with little writing experience and negative attitude. In the first semester the students are required to write a description, narrative, and autobiography; these genres are practiced by reading excerpts from original literary works. The change in the students` attitudes towards writing is evident from previous studies on such aspects of the course as peer review and journal writing (Majchrzak & Salski, presented at FLOW 2013, EWCA 2014). The focus of the most recent questionnaire, which was conducted among all first-year students of English studies at the end of the winter semester 2014/2015, was on the use of authentic reading materials in teaching second language writing. The following issues were investigated: 1) the role of authentic texts in the process of learning to write, 2) the way in which the texts should be distributed (in-class work or homework assignment), and 3) whether students would like to use journals to jot down their reflections concerning the assigned texts or whether the topics of their journal entries should depend on the students. The preliminary analysis of the students` answers allows to state that the students did not expect that during writing classes they would be presented (and asked to discuss) excerpts from original literary works; still, they were positively surprised. They reported that the assigned texts had a positive effect on their own papers not only as an illustration of genre requirements, but also as inspiration. As the students confirmed, use of authentic reading materials helps improve attitudes towards writing.
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Presentation “TALKING MY WAY OUT OF THE IVORY TOWER”: INTERNATIONAL JUNIOR RESEARCHERS MEET INTERDISCIPLINARY AUDIENCE Monique (Chantal) Dorang Freelance Professor collaborating with Graduate Schools and Research Centres in Germany European Graduate Schools and Research Centres recruit doctoral candidates worldwide. In the STEM disciplines, these junior researchers are required to write in English, which is generally not their native language. This case study investigates workshops for Academic Writing that address international and multidisciplinary graduates and increase reader awareness by making deliberate use of cultural and disciplinary diversity. Concern about readers is frequently revealed through such questions as “How can I avoid oversimplifying matters when I do not know my readers?” Yet, in truth, when asked about readers, graduate writers often admit to never having imagined any other readers than their research supervisors. However, just as in storytelling, the audience can help the manuscript to evolve. Graduate writers should therefore be encouraged to visualize their readers. This applied research elaborates a didactic approach towards heightening reader awareness that follows Bakhtin’s dialogic principles. The investigated workshops facilitate writing through a strategy derived from ‘talk for writing’, during which peers from various cultures and disciplines prompt the graduate writer to reveal deeper insight into the research theme at hand through spontaneous, skilled, and critical questioning. By responding to this pluricultural and interdisciplinary curiosity, the graduate writer is, in fact, engaging with potential academic readers. The immediate results of venturing beyond the isolation of the ivory tower are evaluated by the graduate writer. As an outcome, the graduate writer specifies the angle of research more precisely or reformulates the research question.
References
Carter-Thomas, S. (2000) La Cohérence Textuelle: Pour une Nouvelle Pédagogie de l’Écrit. Paris: L’Harmattan Bakhtin, M. M. (2010) ed. by Holquist, M. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. trans. by Emerson, C. and Holquist, M. Slavic Series, Vol. 1. Austin: University of Texas Press Danow, D. K. (1991) The Thought of Mikhail Bakhtin: From Word to Culture. New York: St. Martin’s Press Elbow, P. (2012) Vernacular Eloquence: What Speech Can Bring to Writing. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press Wasson, B., Sølvi, L., and Dysthe, O. (2008) Transform: The Transformation of Productive Learning Practice. Oslo: The Research Council of Norway
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Presentation WRITING AND SHAME Monique Honegger, Erik Altorfer Writing Center, Zurich University of Teacher Education, Zurich, Switzerland 'Keine Angst vor dem leeren Blatt' – 'Don’t be afraid of the blank page' – is the title of a book by Otto Kruse. The purpose or our paper is to show how shame can be seen as a resource in writing processes. Although emotions and affects have an influence on writers and shape the way they experience their writing process, the topic has not yet been subject to empirical research. Shame works in an indirect and disguised way. Hilgers (2012) introduces the notion of the “fish face”, which can be seen on individuals, while they experience shame. Our presentation focuses on theoretical aspects showing how psychological concepts of affects, especially shame, can be used for the analysis of writing-processes in order to improve the quality of coaching/supervising writers. Although emotion, especially motivation (Hayes 1986 and 2000), has a central function in writing, there is hardly any research focussing on writing and affects. For the past two years we have been working in this area theoretically (Honegger 2015). Based on the results of a study concerning the “reluctance to share unfinished texts” (Honegger 2008), we combine psychological expertise from clinical work on affects with our own experience as coaches at a writing center (Honegger 2015). In the course of his or her writing process, every writer has to deal with emotions of shame. Writers are ashamed when they suffer from a writer’s block, when they think that they are not competent enough or when they feel a reluctance to share unfinished versions of texts with writing coaches or peers. In a first step, adopting an interdisciplinary theoretical perspective and with a focus on coaching aspects, this presentation shows which kind of notions of shame are predominant in writing; for instance, the feeling of inadequacy (i.e. not being competent enough, «Kompetenzscham»), the fear of losing one’s integrity («Integritätsscham») or of not meeting the required standards or the goals we aspire («Idealitätscham»). In a second step, we discuss whether becoming aware of shame can assist writers and coaches in their work. Our finding is: Shame is closely associated with writing. The gate of shame is a critical point in the writing process and, in a coaching context, it is therefore important to guide writers through this gate of shame.
References
Dreyfürst, S. and Sennewald, N. (2014) (Ed.): Schreiben. Grundlagentexte zur Theorie, Didaktik und Beratung. Leverkusen: Verlag Barbara Budrich Hilgers, M. (2012) Scham. Gesichter eines Affekts. Second Ed. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Honegger, M. (2015) (Ed): Schreiben und Scham. Wenn ein Affekt zur Sprache kommt. Giessen: Psychosozialverlag. (In Print) Honegger, M. (2015) Funktionen von Scham bei Schreiben. In: Honegger, M. (2015) (Ed): Schreiben und Scham. Schreiben und Scham. Wenn ein Affekt zur Sprache kommt. Giessen: Psychosozialverlag Honegger, M. (2008) Zeigeblockade. In: www.zeitschrift-schreiben.eu Kruse, O. (2000) Keine Angst vor dem leeren Blatt. Ohne Schreibblockaden durchs Studium. Frankfurt/Main: Campus Marks, S. (2010) Die Würde des Menschen. Oder: Der blinde Fleck in unserer Gesellschaft. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus.
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Presentation “CLOSE READING” AS A COURSE THEME IN A MULTILINGUAL CLASSROOM Leora Freedman Faculty of Arts & Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Recently, an initiative emphasizing “Close Reading” was implemented in a mainstream introductory theory course with a largely multilingual student population. This initiative is part of a broader collaboration between an academic department and an English Language Learning (ELL) specialist in a large research institution in North America. The intent of this intervention was to improve students’ academic reading and writing capability, as well as to combat high rates of plagiarism. The goal of the course is for students to become capable of reading challenging theoretical texts and applying the theories in analyses of literature and art as well as historical accounts. It was decided to support students’ reading comprehension as a path toward improving writing and analytical ability (Grabe 2001; Leki 2001). The course instructor developed a unique style of lecturing through modeling various approaches to reading closely and analytically. These approaches were documented by the ELL specialist so that other instructors can emulate the techniques. Students were also given a 12-step method for approaching texts independently, reinforced by discussions, quizzes, and an essay. Some students were still unable to generate an original analysis. However, many others demonstrated an improved grasp of critical thinking, and the rate of plagiarism dropped. Materials generated by this initiative have also been adopted by other departments. These results support the theory that multilingual students’ progress in English can be assisted through unobtrusive methods that also benefit native English-speakers (Hafernik & Wiant 2012).
References
Grabe, W. (2001) ‘Reading-writing relations: Theoretical perspectives and instructional practices’ in Linking literacies: Perspectives on L2 reading-writing connections, eds D Belcher & A Hirvela, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 15–47 Hafernik, J. J.and Wiant, F. M. (2012) Integrating multilingual students into college classrooms: Practical advice for faculty, Multilingual Matters, Toronto Leki, I. (2001) ‘Reciprocal themes in ESL reading and writing’ in Landmark essays on ESL writing, eds T Silva, T. & Matsuda, K. Hermagoras Press, New Jersey, 173–190
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Presentation THE ‘ORAL PRESENTATION SANDWICH’ EVALUATING A CURRICULUM INNOVATION FROM THE INSIDE Hania Salter-Dvorak Exeter University, Graduate School of Education, Exeter, England This paper argues that, in order to develop evidence based practice for teaching and assessing argumentation in L2 academic writing, curriculum innovations need to be designed, piloted and evaluated through action research. I present an example: the ‘oral presentation sandwich’ is a pedagogic and assessment model for EAP at a UK university which aims to develop discourse features of academic writing (particularly argumentation) through a process writing approach. The innovation introduces an oral presentation between the first and second drafts. Drawing on Stenhouse’s view that evaluation should serve ‘curriculum betterment’ (1975), and Crabbe’s construct of quality in ELT (2003), I discuss a constructivist evaluation of the oral presentation sandwich which involved triangulation of student questionnaires, a student focus group, interviews with lecturers, notes from staff meetings, and an ethnographic case study of one student’s experience of the model. Findings reveal lack of congruence between students’ and lecturers’ value systems: first, while lecturers viewed the oral presentation as a vehicle for developing argumentation, students viewed it as an end in itself; second, while lecturers focussed on argumentation in feedback on drafts, students focussed on accuracy in their revisions. I propose changes to the model in terms of pedagogy, materials and assessment.
References
Crabbe, D. (2003) The Quality of Learning Opportunities. TESOL Quarterly, 37 (1), 10–34 Stenhouse, L. (1975) An Introduction to Curriculum Research and Development. London: Hienemann
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Symposium WHAT DOES ACADEMIC LITERACIES DO FOR US? PEDAGOGISING THEORY AND THEORISING PEDAGOGY Fiona English¹, Weronika Fernando², Kärt Rummel³, Saima Sherazi², Peter Thomas4, Jackie Tuck5 ¹UCL Institute of Education, London, United Kingdom ²Queen Mary University, London, United Kingdom ³Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia 4 Middlesex University, London, United Kingdom 5 Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom Academic literacies has sometimes been thought of more as offering theoretical and critical insights rather than practical applications for writing at university. In other words, it is sometimes viewed as being more about research than teaching. In this symposium we want to challenge this view by showing how academic literacies as a field both shapes and has been (and continues to be) shaped by teachers working with students and their texts so as to understand the different practices and experiences that writing at university entails. We argue, as has been pointed out by Lillis and Scott that Academic Literacies (Ac Lits) is ‘a field which is constituted by teacher-researchers’ (2007: 22). Drawing on our different experiences in the field and following its strongly ethnographic tradition, the symposium offers personal stories from members of the Language in Higher Education Research Group (LIHERG) about what academic literacies has done for us. Three short presentations based on research-practice in three different contexts will each offer a different perspective on the generative and dynamic relationship between pedagogy and theory within an aclits approach (See individual abstracts below). These will be threaded together by Fiona English reflecting on how academic literacies has afforded her a theoretical home during her long involvement in literacies work with different institutional identities and in different institutional settings. This will be followed by a discussion from the floor based around the following questions: Who is academic literacies for (we practitioners, we researchers, our students, our disciplinary colleagues)? What can an academic literacies lens help us to do? Kärt Rummel and Saima Sherazi as discussants will then offer their own final reflections on the session.
Weronika Fernando
In the UK higher education research in the area of academic literacy has problematised focus on students’ "problem" with their ability to respond to academic writing requirements in their chosen disciplines (e.g. Lillis 2002; English 2011). My talk adds to the discussion by offering a critical account of institutional writing support as enacted in writing classrooms. Using Academic Literacies theoretical stance (Lea and Street 1998) and employing ethnographic methods of data collection and analysis (Bloome et al. 2004), I explore whether support available to students sufficiently prepares them for the demands of disciplinary writing. I discuss two "telling cases" (Mitchell 1984) of classroom enactment: 1) on how to write an essay, and 2) on how to write an exam answer. Micro-ethnographic data analysis of these cases provide evidence of pedagogic tensions that underpin the writing classes. The institutional support seems limited to surface text features and is characterised by the instrumental use of subject content which does not allow students for the engagement with the meaning making in their academic disciplines. These findings suggest that the problem of student writing is situated less in the students’ inability and more in currently available models of institutional support. The study challenges current pedagogic practices and shows how Academic Literacies can contribute to pedagogic and institutional change.
Peter Thomas
This presentation will contribute a personal reflection to the symposium, on the ways in which my developing understanding of Ac Lits has enabled me as an academic. The presentation will focus on the position I adopt in relation to lecturers with whom I collaborate on embedded academic writing and language interventions. In particular, it will reflect on discussions which form part of the preparation for taught embedded sessions, and on how an Ac Lits lens enables me to identify and occupy the position of insider/outsider in relation to my colleagues during these discussions. The presentation will draw on data from reflective meta-discussions, held with my collaborator-colleagues about our preparatory discussions. It will consider these data with particular reference to Lillis’s work on Bakhtin’s notion of dialogue-as-ideal (Lillis 2003) and Jacobs’s
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work on collaboration (Jacobs 2010). The presentation will attempt to unpack some of the ways in which the amalgamation of questions, priorities, theories and more that I have acquired since encountering Ac Lits has theorised (and empowered) my pedagogy.
Jackie Tuck
Within the larger framework of a symposium, this individual presentation is based on a study which "theorizes pedagogy", using an academic literacies lens to explore the perspectives and practices of academic teachers working with student writing in the disciplines (see e.g. Tuck forthcoming). Here, I focus on an analysis of "what’s going on" in a series of pedagogic encounters, captured through audio-recordings and participant observation, in the light of other data such as participant interviews and institutional and assessment documents. I then go on to explore the implications for "pedagogizing theory", arguing that the dynamic relationship between aclits informed theory and pedagogy, grounded in ethnographically-generated insights, is key to its combination of criticality and hope (Bozalek et al eds. 2014), and so to transformative outcomes for students, teachers and institutions.
References
Bloome, D., Carter, S. P., Christian, B. M., Otto, S., and Shuart-Faris, N. (2004) Discourse analysis and the study of classroom language and literacy events: A microethnographic perspective: Routledge Bozalek, V., Leibowitz, B., Carolissen R. and Boler, M. eds. (2014) Discerning Critical Hope in Educational Practices, London: Routledge English, F. (2012) Student Writing and Genre: Reconfiguring academic knowledge. London: Bloomsbury Jacobs, C. (2010) Collaboration as pedagogy: Consequences and implications for partnerships between communication and disciplinary specialists. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 28 (3), 227–237 Lea, M. R., and Street, B. V. (1998) "Student writing in higher education: An academic literacies approach." Studies in Higher Education 23 (2), 157–172 Lillis, T. M. (2002) Student writing: Access, regulation, desire: London: Routledge Lillis, T. (2003) Student Writing as ‘Academic Literacies’: Drawing on Bakhtin to Move from Critique to Design. Language and Education 17 (3), 192–207 Lillis, T., & Scott, M. (2007) Defining academic literacies research: issues of epistemology, ideology, and strategy.’ Journal of Applied Linguistics 4 (1), 5–32 Mitchell, J. C. (1984) "Typicality and the case study." Ethnographic research: A guide to general conduct, 238–241 Tuck, J. (forthcoming) ‘That ain’t going to get you a professorship’: discourses of writing and the positioning of academics’ work with student writers in UK higher education. Studies in Higher Education. Preview available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2014.99 9320
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Presentation WRITING BELIEFS AND WRITING APPROACHES OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: AN INTERVIEW STUDY AMONG MASTER THESIS WRITERS AND THEIR SUPERVISORS Kees de Glopper University of Groningen, The Netherlands University students’ beliefs about knowing, learning, and communicating and their approaches to academic tasks have been studied extensively. The existing body of research indicates that students’ beliefs and approaches are related to academic success and that they may change over time as a function of students’ learning experiences. Academic success and full membership of academic communities seem to require and promote (i) conceptions of knowledge as a tentative and constructed entity, and (ii) approaches to learning that are deep rather than shallow. Beliefs and approaches have also been studied in the context of academic writing, primarily by means of questionnaires (e.g. Baaijen, Galbraith & De Glopper 2014; Lavelle & Bushrow 2007; Lavelle & Zuercher 2001; Sanders-Reio et al. 2014; White & Bruning 2005). The outcomes of these studies correspond with those in other academic domains, but the number of studies is small, their outcomes vary, and there is limited evidence for the validity of the questionnaires used. This paper presents a study into the validity of some of the existing questionnaires. It reports on an interview study among 10 struggling or successful Master's thesis students and their supervisors. The interviews address (i) their interpretation of the items and constructs of existing questionnaires, (ii) their perception of the fit between these instruments and the beliefs and approaches they see as relevant, (iii) their perceptions of change, and (iv) their view on experiences and circumstances that have an impact on development. The interviews are subjected to qualitative analyses, both of their content and of the way students and supervisors talk about writing beliefs. The results and the practical implications of this ongoing study will be presented and discussed.
References
Baaijen, V. M., Galbraith, D., & de Glopper, K. (2014) Effects of writing beliefs and planning on writing performance. Learning & Instruction 33, 81–91 Lavelle, E., & Bushrow, K. (2007) Writing approaches of graduate students. Educational Psychology 27 (6), 807–822 Lavelle, E., & Zuercher, N. (2001) The writing approaches of university students. Higher Education 42 (3), 373–391 Sanders-Reio, J., Alexander, P. A., Reio, T. G., & Newman, I. (2014) Do students' beliefs about writing relate to their writing self-efficacy, apprehension, and performance? Learning & Instruction 33, 1–11 White, M. J., & Bruning, R. (2005) Implicit writing beliefs and their relation to writing quality. Contemporary Educational Psychology 30 (2), 166–189
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Presentation WHAT’S PERSONAL ABOUT ACADEMIC WRITING? Julie Nelson Christoph University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA, USA All academic writing is written by a person, but how do traces of that person (and, importantly, his/her intellectual biases) appear in academic writing? In the past decade, scholars have fruitfully explored this question (Bizzell, Hindman, Holdstein). In some disciplines, objective third-person writing is the ideal, whereas in others, scholars are encouraged to question objectivity and to be “embodied” in their academic writing. As academic writing becomes increasingly transnational and multicultural, questions about “the personal” and “embodiment” in academic writing become even more complicated. For my presentation, I report on my analysis of the published work by a diverse group of twelve well-known scholars in Rhetoric and Composition, including those who have published personal narrative academic essays and those who have published more traditional, non-narrative essays. I analyzed each writer’s corpus looking for “strategies of placement” (Christoph) and interviewed the authors themselves about what they perceive as personal to them about their own writing. These scholars report that what is personal in their scholarship is, often, not revealed through explicitly personal narrative but, rather, through such elements as citations and choices about style and diction. These non-narrative elements were confirmed, as well, by subsequent stylometric (Whitelaw) analysis. I argue that academic writing is fundamentally personal and that through becoming aware of the full range of ways that writers are embodied in texts, we can achieve a more complete understanding of our work as writers, readers, and teachers of the complex academic writings of the present.
References
Bizzell, P., Schroeder, C., and Fox, H. (2002) ALT DIS: Alternative discourses and the academy. Portsmouth: Heinemann Christoph, J.N. (2002) Reconceiving ethos in relation to the personal: Strategies of placement in pioneer women’s writing. College English 64 (6), 660–679 Hindman, J.E. (2003) Thoughts on reading “the personal”: Toward a discursive ethics of professional critical literacy. College English 66 (1), 9–20 Holdstein, D.H. and Bleich, D. (2001) Personal Effects: The Social Character of Scholarly Writing. Logan: Utah State University Press Whitelaw, C. and Argamon, S. (2004) Systemic functional features in stylistic text classification. Ms., Sydney Language Technology Research Group, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
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Presentation TOWARDS A NEW COGNITIVE THEORY OF WRITING PROCESSES Brigitte Römmer-Nossek Institute of Philosophy, University of Vienna, Austria The prevalent cognitive models of writing processes are viewing writing as problem solving (MolitorLübbert 1996). They remain firmly rooted in the cognitive sciences of the 1980s. After a major theoretical shift starting in the 1990s, cognition is now understood as embodied, situated, and extended. Its aim is no longer seen to be a faithful representation of the world, but viable behavior and sense-making in interaction with and in the world (Varela et al. 1999; Thompson 2009). The Extended Mind Hypothesis (Clark and Chalmers 1998) proposes to see cognition not as happening solely ‘in the head’, but as a process of coupling between an organism and artifacts to form an extended cognitive system. By augmenting the “ultimate artifact”, a language, the mind extends into the environment: through the writing process the scope of our thinking is being expanded, fleeting thought and speech are becoming a durable co-evolving artifact. This allows for a fundamentally different understanding of writing as an epistemic practice and the role of the “task environment”. Instead of blaming writing problems on working memory limitations, we can analyze the role of the environment in off-loading cognitive load. Constraints can be understood as enablers, and the role of the text-written-so-far as a constitutive part of the cognitive process. Feedback also provides social scaffolding in an enculturation process. Enactivism (Varela et al. 1999, in conjunction with Piaget’s concept of adaptation, provides a theoretical ground which allows for theoretically underlining the epistemic as well as developmental dimension of writing processes.
References
Clark, A. and Chalmers, D. (1998) The Extended Mind. Analysis 58, 7–19. doi:10.1093/analys/58.1.7 De Jaegher, H. and Di Paolo, E. (2007) Participatory sense-making. Phenomenol. Cogn. Sci. 6, 485–507 Molitor-Lübbert, S. S. (1996) Schreiben als mentaler und sprachlicher Prozeß, in: Günther, H. [Hrsg (Ed.), Schrift und Schriftlichkeit: ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch internationaler Forschung. de Gruyter, Berlin ua, 1005–1027 Thompson, E. (2009) Making Sense of Sense-Making: Reflections on Enactive and Extended Mind Theories. Topoi 28, 23–30. doi:10.1007/ s11245-008-9043-2 Varela, F..J., Thompson, E., and Rosch, E. (1999) The embodied mind: cognitive science and human experience, 7. print. ed. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mas
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Presentation LECTURE, NOTES AND PEER FEEDBACK ENHANCE THE LEARNING TAKING PLACE IN LECTURES AND INDUCE HIGHER-ORDER THINKING SKILLS Roman Banzer University of Liechtenstein, Vaduz, Liechtenstein Writing has long been associated with promoting learning. Mueller & Oppenheimer (2014) have recently investigated the benefits of writing lecture notes by hand over using laptops. They claim that laptop notes result in “shallower processing” of information and lower students’ performance on conceptual tasks. Despite their findings it can be assumed that any note-taking, no matter whether on laptop or longhand, predominantly requires the learning activity of “summarizing”, which is a lower-order thinking skill. In order to transgress this lower-order cognitive demand associated with note-taking, this paper aims to combine Mueller & Oppenheimer’s approach with peer feedback (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). It investigates whether and to which extent the integration of peer feedback in lectures can promote higher-order thinking skills. To investigate this question, we use the following method. Tested at University of Liechtenstein 2 groups of students, N= 80 One: take summaries of lectures Two: give peer feedback on lecture summaries. Expected findings: Peer feedback can enhance the learning taking place in lectures and induce higher-order thinking skills on levels of “analysis” and “evaluation” if the criteria and questions guiding feedback are directed towards these skills.
References
Hattie, J. & Timperley, H. (2007) The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research 77 (1), 81–112 Mueller, P. A. & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014) The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking. Psychological Science 25 (6), 1159–1168
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Presentation SELF-EFFICACY AND MOTIVATION Leonie Kirchhoff, Cordula Maja Jeszke Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany Students’ perceived “self-efficacy” is said to be an essential factor that can positively influence writing motivation and thus writing achievement (Troia, Schankland and Wolbers 2012; Gardner 1985). Difficulties which are encountered with writing tasks are often associated with greater anxiety which was determined to be a serious impediment to achievement and positive concepts of self-efficacy (Hill 1984; Berliner 1993). In Germany alone, 50% of the people who end their studies prematurely do so because of “major writing problems” (Bräuer 2004). Because writing difficulties can so adversely affect students' motivation, enhancing writing self-efficacy beliefs can greatly bolster their motivation and keep students from giving up on their studies. Indeed, several studies conclude that instructors who can enhance students’ perceived selfefficacy as a writer might eventually lead their students to successful writing (Graham 2007; Noels, Clement and Pelletier 1999; Ryan and Deci 2000; Schunk 2008; Troia, Schankland and Wolbers 2012). During the presentation, qualitative and quantitative data from surveys, which were distributed to a representative body of first-year students, will be discussed. This data supports the idea that improved writing skills can positively impact self-efficacy beliefs as well as levels of writing motivation. Effective tools for positively enhancing writing motivation such as enhancing a feeling of self-determination, giving informative feedback, setting clear goals and creating a relaxed atmosphere will also be introduced and discussed (Schunk 2008). The research will therefore demonstrate how writing instructors can promote students’ motivation by enhancing their self-efficacy beliefs.
References
Deci, E. L. & Ryan, R. M. (1985) “Intrinsic Motivation and self-determination in human behaviour”, Perspectives in Social Psychology Gardner, R. C. (1985) “Social psychology and second language learning: The role of attitudes and motivation”, The Social Psychology of Language 4 Pajares, F. (1996) “Self-Efficacy Beliefs in Academic Settings”, Review of Educational Research 4, 543–578 (online Sagepub.com) Schunk, D. H. (2008) “Factors Affecting Self-Efficacy”, Self-efficacy, adaptation, and adjustment: Theory Research and Applications, 285–293 Williams, J. D. & Takaku, S. (2011) “Help Seeking, self-efficacy, and writing performance among college students”, Journal of Writing Research 3 (1) 1–18
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Poster Presentation I KNOW WHAT I NEED TO TEACH/LEARN: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TEACHER AND STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF MASTER STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC WRITING DIFFICULTIES Ene Alas Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia The study proceeds from the principle expressed by Hu (2007) that ‘sharing curriculum development efforts can provide a valuable opportunity …to engage in effective curricular practices…that better cater for the academic writing needs of second language students’(68). The poster presentation will report on an empirical study that investigates academic writing challenges as reported by the participants of multicultural backgrounds in the TEFL Master’s programme at Tallinn University, comparing the needs outlined by the students to the perception of the same challenges as observed by graduation paper supervisors. The information obtained will allow a more informed approach to teacher education curriculum design in general and academic writing instruction in particular. The data were collected using Lickert-scale as well as openended questionnaires. The answers provided a taxonomy of student academic writing challenges as well as a need for more cooperation among the graduation paper supervisors for a more unified understanding of the requirements set for graduation (Master’s) papers.
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B – Writing and Writing Instruction in Different Academic Contexts
Presentation CLEARING THE WAY FOR SUCCESSFUL WRITING PEDAGOGIES IN A TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM Barbara Elaine McNeil Faculty of Education, University of Regina, Regina, Canada In an influential article, Bruinsma (2006) questioned whether pre-service elementary language arts teachers are being adequately prepared to teach writing in their teacher education programs. Bruinsma’s work along with Reid’s (2009) ideas about teaching writing teachers, contributed to a critical interrogation of our practices as a writing teacher. With the view that writing is an essential component of literacy that all elementary and many secondary school teachers are required to teach, I changed my courses to give writing an even more prominent place in our teacher preparation program. This paper is based on transformative pedagogical changes made in the teaching of writing over the last three years. Guided by Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory of learning, which suggests that writing is a social practice developed between people and with the support of more knowledgeable others, my students and I turned to the work of Gallagher (2006) and Romano (1987) to become more agentic in our teaching, strengthen students’ identities as writers, and empower them as emerging teachers of writing. This presentation addresses challenges and questions associated with clearing the way to: (1) provide daily in-class writing opportunities for students, (2) increase students’ understanding and critique of writing pedagogies, (3) implement writing workshop, (4) try a variety of writing strategies and text-types through group presentations, (5) respond to literature, and (6) to reflect on writing and on learning about writing.
References
Bruinsma, R. (2006) ‘Are they ready to teach reading and writing? The preparation of preservice elementary language arts teachers in Canadian universities’, Alberta Journal of Educational Research 52 (1), 99–102 Gallagher, K. (2006) Teaching adolescent writers, Stenhouse Publishers, Portland, ME Romano, T. (1987) Clearing the way: working with adolescent writers, Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH Reid, E. (2009) ‘Teaching writing teachers writing: difficulty, exploration, and critical reflection’, College Composition and Communication 61 (2), 197–221 Vygotsky, L. (1978) Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
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Presentation ANTICIPATION: RAISING ASPIRATION AS THE PATH TO SUCCESS Sarah Johnson Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, United Kingdom “‘Success’ means helping all students to become more engaged and more effective learners in higher education” (Higher Education Academy: What Works? Student Retention and Success Programme 2012). Given that students in the UK cite ‘academic issues’ as one of the primary reasons for considering withdrawing from their university, Nottingham Trent University Learning and Teaching Team (LTT) in collaboration with the Schools, College and Community Outreach Team (SCCO), are developing strategies to introduce pre-entry students to the rigors of the academic skills required in higher education. Research conducted at Nottingham Trent University (Foster et al. 2011) suggests that our understanding of students’ prior learning experiences can inform policy to manage and ease the transition into Higher Education, but it is hoped that new collaborations which seek to anticipate ‘academic issues’, such as new forms of pedagogy and more complex writing requirements (Ganobcsik-Williams 2010) will serve to alleviate this burden. In light of the ‘whole life-cycle’ approach to student learning then, (Ebdon 2014) which aims to engage students at an early age to raise aspiration and achievement, the LTT in collaboration with SCCO is currently developing a range of activities and resources to scaffold the development of academic skills from primary school Year 3 onwards. This presentation will offer an overview of the design, delivery and evaluation of the activities involved in this project.
References
Foster et al. (2011) Learning Developers Supporting Early Transition. In: P. Hartley, ed. Learning Development in Higher Education Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, ch. 6 Ganobcsik-Williams, L. (2010) 'Academic Writing in Higher Education: A Brief Overview'. [online]. available at https://curve.coventry. ac.uk/open/file/3864c712-580b-a0dc-c7c6-b1421e1a5dd0/1/Academic%20writing.pdf [16 January 2015] Office for Fair Access (2014) Office for Fair Access Annual Report and Accounts 2013-14 [online]. available at http://www.offa.org.uk/ wp-content/uploads/2014/07/HC-435-OFFA-annual-report-and-accounts-1314-rev.pdf] [16 January 2015] Thomas, L. (2012) Building student engagement and belonging in Higher Education at a time of change: What Works? Student Retention and Success programme. available at: https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/what-works-student-retention/What_Works_ Summary_Report [16 January 2015]
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Presentation DILIGENT STUDENT, CARING PRACTITIONER OR EXPERT SCIENTIST? THE DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY BY MSC HEALTH SCIENCES STUDENTS WRITING A REVIEW PAPER Sarah Gartland University of Roehampton, London, United Kingdom UCL Institute of Education, London, United Kingdom Identity is generally acknowledged to be important in academic writing (e.g. Ivanic 1997), and studies of professional formation (e.g. Baynham 2000) indicate that practitioners in training often experience some tension between their practitioner identity and the need to include more academic professionalised concepts in their writing. However, there appears to be little research on practitioners writing in academic contexts where the practitioner identity is side-lined or ignored. Therefore, this paper presents the findings from a small scale qualitative study of health professionals writing a scientific review paper for a module on an MSc Health Sciences programme. The review paper is an important genre in science as it synthesises and evaluates recent research findings on a particular topic (Noguchi 2006) in order to influence the direction of future research (Myers 1991). Hence, review papers tend to be written by research scientists engaged in research on the topic they are writing about. Taking an academic literacies perspective (Lea and Street 1998), this study investigated how participants negotiated the tension between writing (in theory) as experts for an academic journal whilst (in reality) pursuing their own interests as practitioners and writing as students for their lecturer. Findings from classroom observations, semi-structured interviews and textual analysis of participants’ review papers reveal how participants made strenuous efforts to conform to what they perceived their lecturers’ requirements to be, but at the same they subtly resisted lecturers’ attempts to position them as novice research scientists by emphasising professional practice in both their writing and the interviews.
References
Baynham, M. (2000) ‘Academic Writing in New and Emergent Discipline Areas’ in Lea, M. and B. Stierer (Eds). Student Writing in Higher Education: New Contexts. Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press Ivanič, R. (1997) Writing and Identity: The Discoursal Construction of Identity in Academic Writing. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company Lea, M. R. and Street, B. (1998) ‘Student Writing in Higher Education: An Academic Literacies Approach’. Studies in Higher Education 23 (2), 157–172 Myers, G. (1991) ‘Stories and Styles in two Molecular Biology Articles’ in C. Bazerman and J. Paradis (Eds). Textual Dynamics of the Professions. Madison: University of Madison Press, 45–57 Noguchi, J. (2006) The Science Review Article: An Opportune Genre in the Construction of Science. Bern: Peter Lang
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Presentation AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF ACADEMIC WRITING(S): USING HISTORY TO UNDERSTAND THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF ACADEMIC WRITING Julia Molinari University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom In this presentation, I reflect on what it means for writing(s) to be ‘academic’ in the 21st century. This is a question born of recent discussions in the literature relating to regenring (English 2011), including the extent to which multimodal discourses can be considered ‘academic’; to creativity (Besley and Peters 2013); to peripheral genres (Bennett 2014); and to risk-taking in the ‘contact zone’ (Thesen and Cooper 2013). Accordingly, my own experience of re-designing Nottingham University’s EAP (English for Academic Purposes) curriculum to reflect current academic social practices may also be of interest to other teachers. I will draw on the work of Bazerman (1998) - who has highlighted how academic genres have been shaped by the knowledge perspectives they embody - in order to reflect on what knowledge perspectives are shaping the genres we currently engage with and what knowledge perspectives could shape or be shaping emerging (peripheral?) genres. For example, what determines the length and focus of an academic article, or the grammar of a reflective essay, and why? I adopt a historiographic approach to knowledge (relying mainly on Foucault and Fayerabend) in order to conclude that our understanding of what makes a text ‘academic’ also depends on an awareness of its history, specifically the history of the knowledge(s) and social values that have shaped higher education. Such a historical approach may allow both researchers and practitioners to view academic writing through a different lens, a lens that highlights the contingency of academic genres, rather than their necessity.
References
Bazerman, C. (1988) Shaping Written Knowledge: the Genre and Activity of the Experimental Article in Science. The University of Wisconsin Press: Wisconsin Bennett, K. (2014) The Semiperiphery of Academic Writing: Discourses, Communities and Practices. Palgrave MacMillan: London Besley, T. and Peters, M. (Eds.) (2013) Re-imagining the Creative University for the 21st Century. Sense Publishers: Rotterdam English, F. (2011) Student Writing and Genre: Reconfiguring Academic Knowledge. Continuum Press: London Thesen, L. and Cooper, L. (Eds.) (2013) Risk in Academic Writing: Postgraduate Students, their Teachers and the Making of Knowledge. Multiligual Matters: Bristol
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Presentation OUTSIDERS/INSIDERS: STUDENTS NEGOTIATING THEIR POSITION(S) IN ACADEMIC DISCOURSE USING DIALOGUE JOURNALS Ingunn Ofte Sør-Trøndelag University College, Trondheim, Norway The act of writing involves interaction between writers and readers of texts. Interaction involves taking a stance in relation to the issues discussed, and to the other participants holding opinions on those issues (Hyland 2005: 175). This is referred to as “positioning”. Within academia, positioning entails mastering the culturally recognized ways of writing about and presenting disciplinary knowledge. Novice students adopt the practices and values acknowledged by the desired discourse community in an effort to position themselves as “disciplinary insiders” (Hyland 2005: 175). This presentation builds on a longitudinal study that investigates the role of metacognitive skills in the development of L2 written academic proficiency in higher education. Over a period of three semesters, Norwegian teacher-training students wrote dialogue journals about their experiences with writing academic texts in English, to which the tutor responded briefly. A total of 42 dialogue journals written by 18 students were analyzed. The presentation sheds light on the extent to which the students used the dialogue journals as a space to negotiate their position(s) in relation to and within the discourse community. The analysis shows that the students used the dialogue journals to voice insecurities and frustrations relating to L2 academic writing, evaluate and question the practices of the discourse community and suggest improvements to them, ask for tutor guidance, and so on. Consequently, the analysis indicates that the students used the dialogue journals as a space to negotiate their position(s) as outsiders and, to a certain extent, insiders in relation to the discourse community.
References
Hyland, K. (2005) ‘Stance and engagement: a model of interaction in academic discourse’. Discourse Studies 7 (2), 173–192
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Presentation UTILIZING KNOWLEDGE OF STUDENTS’ PREVIOUS L1 AND ENGLISH WRITTEN RHETORIC INSTRUCTION TO INFORM INSTRUCTION OF WRITTEN RHETORICAL STYLES IN ENGLISH Monique Yoder LCC International University, Klaipėda, Lithuania Teaching developmental academic writing in a multi-disciplinary context is a challenge. Adding an international, multicultural, and multilingual student body on top of this context in an English-medium institution provides further complications in that those not confident with L2 rhetorical forms attempt to transfer their L1 rhetorical styles (Carson et al. 1990; Leki 1995). Creating an effective plan of instruction becomes difficult, given the range of L1 backgrounds. A third layer of complication to this teaching environment is language learners’ previous writing instruction experiences, both in their L1 and L2. From this last point, 42 university freshmen enrolled in a developmental academic writing course at an international university in Lithuania were given a set of guided, self-reflection questions to describe their experiences in learning conventions of an academic essay in both their L1 and English while studying in secondary school in their home countries. Responses to these questions were then coded for common themes. This qualitative data revealed three major factors that influence learners’ ability to successfully write an academic essay in English: 1) the quality of writing instruction in both languages, 2) what is perceived to be valued in an essay; for instance, grammatical accuracy, lexical complexity, content, organization, word count, etc., and 3) the method of teacher feedback on writing. This paper aims to explore the results of this classroom research and offer suggestions on how knowing students’ writing instruction experiences can be used to shape effective writing instruction in English-medium higher education institutions with a diverse student body.
References
Carson, J., Carrell, P, Silberstein, S., Kroll, B. & Kuehn, P. (1990) ‘Reading-writing relationships in first and second language’, TESOL Quarterly 24 (2), 245–266 Canagarajah, A. S. (2006) ‘Toward a writing pedagogy of shuttling between languages: Learning from multilingual writers’, College English, vol. 68, (6) 589–604 Connor, U. (2002) ‘New directions in contrastive rhetoric’, TESOL Quarterly 36 (4), 493–510 Harbord, J. (2010) ‘Writing in Central and Eastern Europe: Stakeholders and directions in initiating change’, Across the Disciplines: A Journal of Language, Learning, and Academic Writing, vol. 7 available at: <http://wac.colostate.edu/atd/articles/harbord1020.cfm>. [05 March 2015] Leki, I. (1995) ‘Coping strategies of ESL students in writing tasks across the curriculum’, TESOL Quarterly 29 (2), 235–260
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Workshop FROM THE MICRO TO THE MACRO: EMBEDDING SUPPORT FOR ACADEMIC WRITING ACROSS AN ACADEMIC SCHOOL/FACULTY Gillian Lazar Middlesex University, London, United Kingdom Recent research into academic literacies has explored the efficacy of embedded support for developing academic writing within discipline-specific academic programmes. This approach means that writing specialists work alongside discipline specialists (Jacobs 2005), or that discipline specialists themselves integrate writing pedagogy into their programmes (Wingate, Andon and Cogo 2011), in order to focus on the typical genres and language of their discipline. While there are a number of case studies of this approach within specific subjects (see Ganobcsik-Williams 2006), little has been written on the advantages and challenges of implementing such an approach across an entire school/faculty. This practitioner-oriented workshop will provide a case study of faculty-wide implementation of embedded provision in a post-1992 university in north London within the School of Law, encompassing Law, Sociology, Criminology and Politics, and totalling 160 hours. The rationale for adopting an embedded approach will be presented, and the different kinds of embedding will be described. The range of materials used across the School to develop writing will be demonstrated. Workshop participants will then be invited to work in groups in order to find solutions to the many challenges facing such a project, ranging from institutional buy-in to some of the difficulties of collaboration between writing and disciplinary specialists. The workshop will conclude by pulling together recommendations as to how such a project can be further developed in order to address some of its present shortcomings, so as to make a stronger case for embedding the teaching of writing faculty-wide.
References
Ganobcsik-Williams, L. (2006) Teaching Academic Writing in UK Higher Education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan Jacobs, C. (2005) On being an insider on the outside: new spaces for integrating academic literacies, Teaching in Higher Education 10 (4), 475–487 Wingate, U., Andon, N. and Cogo, A. (2011) Embedding academic writing instruction into subject teaching: A case study, Active Learning in Higher Education 12 (1), 69–81
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Presentation PLAGIARISM IN 70 TYPES OF INTERTEXTUAL ERROR PATTERNS Tony Franzky, Sabina Krämer, Kerstin Eleonora Kohl University of Education, Freiburg, Germany Academic discussion of plagiarism focuses on scientific writing and publication strategies, with an emphasis on topics such as detection, prevention, and dealing with plagiarism, and the establishment of evidence-based academic writing courses for students. Many studies of the problems students face in correctly referencing texts rely heavily on statements made by the students themselves, which may not be sufficient for the development of a successful concept for writing instruction. Our study focuses on student-written texts, which allows us to draw conclusions about (a-)typical writing acts based on a typology of mistakes. This enriches academic discussion of scientific plagiarism, because so far it seems to be impossible to develop concrete criteria for determining the intertextual quality of a text. If individual instances of plagiarism are considered as a subset of all possible errors in the authors´ referencing system, then it is possible to use text corpus analysis to generate categories, which simplify the rating of the whole text, as well as determining the severity of individual errors or groups of errors. By means of a linguistic corpus analysis of texts from students studying a range of subjects and in various stages of their studies, we were able to identify five categories of referencing errors. We were able to further divide these into around 70 error patterns. This clustering and subsumptioning provides a sound typology of mistakes, which should be informative for developing effective didactic concepts for writing instruction. Assuming that prevention of plagiarism is best handled during the process of studying and writing as part of a didactic concept, our results offer a broad overview of both study-phase and subject-specific types of referencing errors which are useful for the teaching of scientific writing and academic integrity should provide a broad overview of both study-phase and subject-specific types of referencing errors.
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Workshop FEMINIST WRITING PRACTICE? TEXTS, WOUNDS, WISHES Judith Wolfsberger Writers´studio, Vienna, Austria In her 1928 speech to the first generation of female college students at Cambridge Virginia Woolf said that women need “a room of [their] own and 500 guineas a year” to be able to write. In her 1994 essay “A Room of One´s Own is not Enough” the US-American writing therapist Joan Bolker diagnoses an epidemic of writing blocks among female doctoral students. Women have trouble finding their voice in the “father tongue” of academic writing and feel they have to choose between connectedness and academic success in male oriented structures. In 2014 I was invited by a group of female doctoral students at the University of Weimar, Germany, to give a workshop on “Feminist Writing Practice”. We wanted to start thinking anew about what feminist writing practice could be and what it would need to flourish. After 1.5 days of writing about feminist texts on writing, and their own experiences and wishes, my students produced astonishing manifestos for a new feminist writing practice. In this workshop we will discuss the relation between women and (teaching) academic writing using quotes of Virginia Woolf, Joan Bolker, Donna Haraway and the new Weimar feminist manifestos. Then each participant will be invited to do a free-writing about her own experiences as a writer in the academia, to explore possible barriers, wounds, fears or angers. In the end, we will produce bits and pieces for further manifestos for strategies to support and promote women as academic writers.
References
Bolker, J. (1994) A room of one's own is not enough. Tikkun 9 (6). Reprinted in: Bolker, J. (ed.) (1997) The Writer's Home Companion: An Anthology of the World's Best Writing Advice, from Keats to Kunitz. New York: Henry Holt & Co) Haraway, D. (1988) Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective. Feminist Studies 14 (3) Wolfsberger, J. (2010) Frei geschrieben: Mut, Freiheit und Strategie für wissenschaftliche Abschlussarbeiten. 3. Aufl. Wien: UTB Böhlau Wolfsberger, J. (2014) A weekly dose of applause! Connectedness and Playfulness in the Thesis Marathon. In Aitchison, C. and Guerin, C. (eds).Writing Groups for Doctoral Education and Beyond: Innovations in practice and theory. Oxon and New York: Routledge Woolf, V. (2008) A Room of One´s Own, and Three Guineas (Oxford World's Classics) Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press
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Workshop LANGUAGE AS A HIGHER ORDER CONCERN: ENHANCING FEEDBACK WITHIN WRITING GROUPS USING A MULTILINGUAL, MULTI-FACULTY, AND MULTI-DEGREE LEVEL CONSTRUCT Diana Koppelt¹, Anja Poloubotko², Abraham Brown³ ¹Writing Center Europa-Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany ²Writing Center Leibniz University, Hannover, Germany ³Multilingual Writing Center, Leibniz University, Hannover, Germany Writing centers are important institutions which support students in different stages of the writing process, often based on the peer tutoring method. German Universities, as they continue to internationalize, are faced with the challenge of supporting students write in German and English as a foreign or second language. To address this issue, the Writing and Language Center at the Europa-Universität Viadrina started The Writing Group for Academic Writing in German in 2014. The focus is to concentrate on questions of academic writing and language throughout the writing process. Similarly, Leibniz University Hannover’s Multilingual Writing Center is offering a writing group with a twist that supports local and international students. The group will consist of students who are on different degree levels and from a variety of faculties and languages. Since there is little theoretical support for such a writing group construct, we plan on developing a research to ascertain the benefits that can be derived. In this workshop, we will start by introducing the theoretical background around writing groups in general, and then present our research question and hypotheses. Finally, we will discuss our learning experiences along with the positive and challenging aspects. Participants will be given the opportunity to discuss the relevance of such a group and how this method could be implemented in their institutions. Participants will not only become more familiar with writing groups, but will also be exposed to ideas and techniques that can be used to construct their own multi-lingual, multi-disciplinary, multi-degree level writing groups.
References
Gere Ruggles, A. (1987) Writing groups: History, theory and implications. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP Harris, M. (1992) Collaboration is not collaboration is not collaboration: Writing center tutorials vs. peer-response group. College Composition and Communication 44, 369–383 Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (1987) Learning together and alone: Cooperative, competitive, and individualistic learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Lange, U. (2012) Schreibgruppen für internationale Studierende – ein Plädoyer. Schreiben(d) lernen im Team. Ein Seminarkonzept für innovative Hochschullehre. Springer VS: Wiesbaden, 191–204 Nelson, G., & Murphy, J. (1993) Peer response groups: Do L2 writers use peer comments in revising their drafts? TESOL Quarterly 27, 135–141
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Presentation EXPLORING THE DIRECTORY OF ACADEMIC WRITING PROVISION: UK HIGHER EDUCATION Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams Coventry University, Coventry, England At present it is not clear to what extent UK universities have set up formal channels for student writing development. This presentation will introduce the ‘Directory of Academic Writing Provision, UK Higher Education’ research project and open-access resource. The project aims to investigate how UK universities provide structures for teaching and supporting academic writing and the nature of such structures (e.g. centralised, programmatic, strategic or ad hoc). Funded by the Royal Literary Fund and begun in 2014, the project is gathering data via a questionnaire distributed to senior managers responsible for teaching and learning and/or for the student experience at every UK university. The project’s goal, based on this research, is to set up an electronic database Directory featuring institutional profiles of academic writing provision. The Directory will enable UK universities to showcase the academic writing development provision they offer in support of the student experience and student learning. The Directory will also serve as a valuable resource for Writing Developers, academics and student support staff in universities who want to know more about the current practice in student writing development taking place in other institutions and to form networks promoting best practice for teaching and supporting writing. The presentation will outline the project’s findings and explore the significance of these provisions in terms of their institutional contexts. The presenter will then invite conference delegates to situate their own institution’s academic writing provision within the framework developed by the project.
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Round-Table Discussion THEORIZING COMMUNITY RUBRICS: LIMITS, RESEARCH, AND CASE STUDIES Chris Anson¹, Joe Moxley², Djuddah Leijen³, Damian Finnegan4, Anna Wärnsby4, Asko Kauppinen4 ¹NCSU, North Carolina, USA ²USF, Florida, USA ³University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia 4 University of Malmö, Malmö, Sweden In “Big Rubrics and Weird Genres: The Futility of Using Generic Assessment Tools Across Diverse Instructional Contexts,” Anson, Dannels, Flash, and Housley (2012) argue that "generic, all-purpose criteria for evaluating writing and oral communication fail to reflect the linguistic, rhetorical, relational, and contextual characteristics of specific kinds of writing or speaking that we find in higher education." In contrast, Moxley (2013) has argued use of a community rubric across genres, course sections, and courses may enable instructors in writing programs to grade students' work in equivalent ways; may provide a baseline measure of a particular group's reasoning and writing abilities; may enable WPAs to make evidencebased curriculum changes in response to real-time assessment results and then compare other cohorts' baseline performances; and may provide evidence regarding the development of transfer of writing and critical thinking competencies. This round-table explores the efficacy of using rubrics for assessing writing – particularly at the program level. More specifically, participants will explore the contexts in which common rubrics may and may not work. Round-table participants will explore how teachers negotiate use of a rubric across courses, genres, disciplines based on their experiences deploying rubrics in various contexts – a program in English for academic purposes, a first-year composition program, a program in communication across the curriculum, and a university-wide graduate course for graduate students on scholarly publishing. Speaker 1 (Chris Anson) will orient the panel by asking an overarching question: can generic rubrics effectively serve the purpose of assessing writing across contexts? To answer this question, he will consider the application of criteria across contexts based on how bounded the contexts are, how closely aligned their learning goals are, and how synchronously their disparate instructors align their courses within the curriculum. Community rubrics may work most effectively within highly bounded, goal-based, synchronous curricula, while more particularized rubrics may be required across contexts that do not share these features, as documented in his and his colleagues’ work studying writing and speaking genres in different disciplines. The presentation will result in a theoretical framework for considering the development and use of common community rubrics. Speaker 2 (Joe Moxley) will report on use of a community rubric (1) to assess 52,001 intermediate and final essays from 7,722 students spanning 2 courses, 7 terms, 3 years, and over 482 sections, and (2) to compare 107 instructors’ assessments of 16,312 papers and 5,857 students’ reviews of these essays – a total of 30,377 peer reviews in the first-year composition program at the University of South Florida. The speaker will report on a model of development – accounting for the joint effects of student competency, learning rate, and instructor bias on student development – that provides strong evidence of predictive validity for ratings. Although this method provides evidence that student development transfers, results raise questions regarding ways a quality-based community rubric and traditional grading practices may restrain student development. Regarding the analysis of 46,689 reviews (16,312 instructor reviews and 30,377 student reviews), speaker 2 will identify the crucial variables that impinge on quality peer review processes, especially as it relates to inter-rater reliability with instructors: (1) rater bias (the average rating assigned compared to how others rate the same or similar works), (2) rater discrimination (the variance of the scores assigned), (3) the quality of the rater’s writing as measured by average instructor ratings, and (4) the experience of the rater (the more peer reviews completed the better). Speaker 3 (Djuddah Leijen) will report on a study investigating the effectiveness of peer feedback in a web-based peer review environment among novice second-language chemistry writers. All 43 students participating in this study use peer feedback prompts and ratings using specific rubrics to assist them in providing effective peer feedback comments that focus both on higher- and lower-order concerns. Effectiveness is measured through the uptake of the comment in a student’s next draft. The study explores whether the prompts and ratings sufficiently support L2 writers to comment on higher-order concerns and whether these comments therefore also enhance the effectiveness, i.e. whether an uptake can be measured in a student’s next draft. In addition, comparisons are drawn to comments where the rubric specifically asks them to comment on or rate lower-order concerns. As these are L2 writers, the assumption is that lowerorder concern comments are likely to be more abundant and more effective, whereas comments focusing on higher-order concerns, guided by the prompts and rubrics, are less effective and cause greater ambiguity,
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hence resulting in fewer uptakes. Overall, the results provide a discussion of how rubrics within web-based peer review systems can be and should be used and adapted to accommodate for L2 writers. Speakers 4, 5, and 6 (Damian Finnegan, Asko Kauppinen, and Anna Wärnsby) will discuss the shift of focus from rubrics to commenting as the main facilitator for assessment. It has been put forward that community rubrics work best within bounded, goal-based, synchronous curricula and that more particularised rubrics are required in more particularised contexts. However, we argue that this focus on rubrics for purposes of assessing writing across contexts may be misplaced. The real question is: how are rubrics actually implemented in the assessment of writing; that is, how do we consistently detect in writing the features that the rubric is designed to address? Although there may be a high degree of agreement about the rubric categories, the realisation of these categories in commenting and assessment may remain inconsistent. We propose a shift of focus from rubrics in general to what we call targeted comments to complement rubrics. Targeted comments are aligned not only with the different rubric categories but also customised for designated assignments. Thus, the feedback can be calibrated more precisely to reflect specific course learning outcomes and different assignment aims. Across writing courses, the rubric may remain the same, while the targeted comments (targeted community comments or targeted particularised comments) concretise particular learning outcomes/goals through a common rubric. In this way, rubrics are less important as a tool for assessment but rather an instrument to categorise and focus the commenting to realise assessment.
References
Anson, C. M., Dannels, D. P., Flash, P. & Housley Gaffney, A.L. (2012) ‘Big rubrics and weird genres: The futility of using generic assessment tools across diverse instructional contexts’. Journal of Writing Assessment 5 (1) Retrieved from http://www.journalofwritingassessment. org/article.php?article=57 Moxley, J.M. (2013) ‘Big Data, Learning Analytics, and Social Assessment Methods’. Journal of Writing Assessment 6 (1)
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Presentation CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS IN THE INTERNATIONAL UPPERDIVISION WRITING CLASSROOM: STUDENT PERSPECTIVES Auli Anneli Ek University of California, Santa Barbara, USA The globalization of writing classrooms presents challenges to both writing instructors and students. Although literature exists on international students in First-Year Composition classes (Bauer & Picciotto 2013), the focus on upper-division writing classes – such as Business Writing, Writing in the Social Sciences and Writing for Global Careers in my study – is scarce (Sweeney & Zhu 2010). Most literature also focuses on the instructors’ perspective (Arkoudis & Tran 2010), while neglecting the international students’ own perspective. The interview-based study that this presentation draws on aimed at filling the two gaps: giving attention to the students’ experience and focusing on upper-division (advanced) writing classes. The study examined the international students’ experience on student interaction in collaborative writing that involved both native and non-native English speakers. The aim of the study was to find out the specific challenges international students experience. The main findings were two-fold: while the international students least proficient in English found collaborative writing in diverse groups supportive and the “diversity adding perspective,” the students with the highest English proficiency found working with international students stressful and “holding them back.” Based on the data, I have incorporated pedagogical practices that support all students through increasing awareness on global themes, different socio-cultural and learning practices, creating assignments easily accessible to international students, and avoiding ethnocentrism. My presentation offers vital, practical information for faculty development – to instructors who struggle with adjusting their curricula and pedagogy to meet the needs of international and multilingual students in their writing classrooms.
References
Arkoudis, S., & Tran, L. (2010) ‘Writing Blah, Blah, Blah: Lecturers' Approaches and Challenges in Supporting International Students,’ International Journal of Teaching & Learning In Higher Education 22 (2), 169–178. available at: Education Source. [23 July 2013] Baird, C. (2012) ‘Targeted, Timely, Learning Support For International Students: One Australian University's Approach,’ Journal of Learning Design 5 (1), 52–62. available at: Education Source. [23 July 2013] Bauer, H., & Picciotto, M. (2013) ‘Writing in America: International Students and First-Year Composition,’ Writing on The Edge 23 (2), 75–86. available at: Education Source. [12 March 2014] Ek, A. (2013–2014) ‘Study on the International and Multilingual Student Experience and Needs in the Upper-Division Writing Classroom,’ Unpublished Sweeney, E., & Zhu, H. (2010) ‘Accommodating Toward Your Audience: Do Native Speakers of English Know How to Accommodate Their Communication Strategies Toward Non-native Speakers of English?’ Journal of Business Communication 47 (4), 477–504
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Workshop DIVERSITY-ORIENTED TEACHING OF ACADEMIC WRITING Rosita Frei Eberhard Karls Universität, Tübingen, Germany Diversity has long been a reality in education, especially in universities. Coming from different sociocultural, ethnical, linguistic and disciplinary backgrounds, both students and lecturers bring along different experiences, values and attitudes. On the one hand, different backgrounds provide a tremendous potential to enrich university culture, but they may also lead to misunderstandings and prejudices in dealing with the new environment, on the other. The latter applies when neither students nor lecturers are aware of how their individual backgrounds influence many aspects of their academic lives. This includes their oral and written communication, their judgment of their own academic writing and that of others. This evokes the question: How can diversity-oriented teaching of Academic Writing be best provided? In dealing with this question, participants will be given examples taken from “every-day-work” at the University of Tübingen’s Diversity-Oriented Writing Center. The aim of this workshop is to raise awareness concerning the influence of individual backgrounds on Academic Writing, and to engage actively with this notion in order to learn how to deal with it consciously. To achieve this aim, the workshop combines theory and practice. It employs an interactive method, in which writing activities, self-reflection, group discussion and exchange of individual experiences among participants form the core of the workshop. In conclusion, the expected outcome is to win a broader perspective on Academic Writing which encourages participants to see individuality as an asset in the writing process, and to apply this notion in their teaching strategy.
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Poster Presentation COMMON TRANSLATION ERRORS IN ACADEMIC TEXTS ON THE EXAMPLE OF FINAL THESES IN TALLINN HEALTH CARE COLLEGE Ene Kotkas, Kateriina Rannula, Kalev Salumets Tallinn Health Care College, Tallinn, Estonia Students graduate from Tallinn Health Care College by writing a final paper in order to receive the professional higher education diploma. Diploma papers are academic texts written using English and sometimes Russian sources and translating them into Estonian. As quite a big number of students in Estonian higher education establishments are non-native Estonian speakers, writing academic texts in Estonian is very often problematic for them. Although various research has been conducted on translating in general, there is a lack of papers in Estonia to describe the types of errors in students´ diploma papers, therefore the emphasis of this study is on analyzing student papers in the light of translating difficulties. Suggestions are offered to better the academic writing skills of students in Tallinn Health Care College, which include a course in academic writing skills as well as e-learning objects for independent practicing. This presentation draws on the research published on qualitative research and translation together with academic language and translation. According to Jordan (1997) the study skills needed for writing academic texts are summarizing, paraphrasing, translating, and continuous writing in academic style, to name only a few. The main problems referred to are the use of appropriate vocabulary, style, and grammar (Temple et al. 2004). The focus of the presentation is on examining the choices and errors made in translating and writing academic texts using a text-based method. It explores three topics, including word order, agreement of verbs, and meaning loss in translating into Estonian.
References
Jordan, R.R. (1997) English for Academic Purposes. Cambridge University Press Temple, B. and Young, A. (2004) Qualitative research and translation dilemmas. SAGE Publications 4 (2), 161–178. available at http://coventry.ac.uk› [23 January 2015]
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B – Writing and Writing Instruction in Different Academic Contexts
Presentation WRITING AND IDENTITIES IN TRANSITION: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AUTHORIAL IDENTITY AND EMERGING PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES IN NURSING AND MIDWIFERY UNDERGRADUATES Brid Delahunt, Ann Everitt Reynolds, Moira Maguire Dundalk Institute of Technology, Dundalk, Ireland The development of new, academic identities is a key element of the transition to Higher Education. In the case of students on professional programmes, this is also linked to emerging professional identities. Academic writing plays an important role in this complex and dynamic process of identity construction. Of particular interest in this context is authorial identity, ‘..the sense a writer has of themselves as an author..’ (Pittam, Elander, Lusher, Fox & Payne 2009: 154) yet little is known about the development of authorial identity in Nursing undergraduates. We draw on eight in-depth interviews with students at different stages of their undergraduate Nursing/Midwifery programmes. Students were asked about their academic writing ‘journeys’ and we explored the transitions in which they positioned themselves in relation to their writing, particularly with regard to ‘voice’. In common with other work we found that these academic transitions often challenged existing identities but our participants seemed to actively welcome, rather than resist or reject, new academic identities. Authorial identity was expressed via an absence of the self from academic writing. In the first year this was generally the consequence of not knowing how to be present; however, as students progressed through their studies they developed resources that allowed them deliberately remove themselves from their writing. This absence reflected the privileging of their emerging professional identities and we explore the relationship between our participants’ authorial and professional identities.
References
Pittam, G., Elander, J., Lusher, J., Fox, P. & Payne, N. (2009) ‘Student beliefs and attitudes about authorial identity in academic writing.’ Studies in Higher Education 34 (2), 153–170
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Presentation THE STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVE ON THE WRITING FELLOW PROGRAM Patricia Mundelius, Mona Stierwald, Parvin Latifa Djahani Schreibzentrum Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Writing Fellow Programs have made a significant contribution to students’ improvement of writing skills (Hughes & Hall 2011; Regaignon & Bromley 2011; Severino & Knight 2007). Writing Fellows are specially trained peer tutors of a Writing Center. For one semester, they support writing intensive courses in various disciplines, acting as an intermediator between the students’ and the teachers’ perspective on academic writing. With their knowledge of writing processes, genre, and writing didactics, they provide students with written feedback on two smaller writing assignments (for the scaffolding concept see Gibbons 2002; Hammond & Gibbons 2005). Additionally, each student can address individual questions about his/ her writing in a writing consultation session. The presenters are currently working as Writing Fellows at Goethe University. Writing Fellow Programs were recently launched in Germany by two Writing Centers: Frankfurt (Main) and Frankfurt (Oder). We developed a questionnaire (qualitative and quantitative) that offers an insight into students’ perspective on the effects of the program (n=71). Since written peer feedback is a method most students are not familiar with, we expect that some students will have difficulties with accepting the role of writing fellows whose feedback focuses on argumentative structure, style, and clarity instead of disciplinary content (a role that remains with the teacher). At the end of our presentation, we will discuss the possible effect the results of this survey will have on the training of future Writing Fellows.
References
Gibbons, P. (2002) Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning. Teaching Second Language Learners in the Mainstream Classroom. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Hall, E. & Hughes, B. (2011) Preparing Faculty, Professionalizing Fellows: Keys to Success with Undergraduate Writing Fellows in WAC. The WAC Journal 22, 21–40 Hammond, J. & Gibbons, P. (2005) Putting scaffolding to work: The contribution of scaffolding in articulating ESL education. Prospect 20 (1), 6–30 Regaignon, D. R. & Bromley, P. (2011) What Difference Do Writing Fellows Make? The WAC Journal 22, 41–63 Severino, C. & Knight, M. (2007) Exporting Writing Center Pedagogy: Writing Fellow Programs as Ambassadors for the Writing Center. In: Macauley, W. J. & Mauriello, N. (eds.). Marginal Words, Marginal Work: Tutoring the Academy in the Work of Writing Centers. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 9–33
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Presentation CONFINED BY CONVENTIONS? EXPLORING L2 STUDENTS' SENSE OF OWNERSHIP IN SCIENTIFIC WRITING Eleanor Paynter, Anne van Leeuwen Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands Can the teaching of genre conventions go too far? As scientific writing instructors, we teach students to follow the conventions of scientific genres, but our aim is also to help them develop as critical thinkers and independent writers. We train our L2 students to use concise, impersonal, and formal language, but this focus on the “technical voice” (Carr 2013) may cause students to think that effective writing comes from following a set of rules. Instead, our goal is that they will become aware that effective and engaging writing involves making a series of choices within the established conventions. We believe that by recognizing and developing these choices, which compose their individual style, students will gain more ownership over their writing, thus becoming stronger writers (Hyland 2002). In an ongoing project, we have worked with a group of final-year biomedical Bachelor’s students as they compose their first independent study report. Through interviews, reflections and a writing exercise, we have investigated their perception of style and used this to reconsider how we might help them develop a sense of ownership in their writing. For example, we discussed choices they could make with regard to tone, sentence structure, cohesive devices, and vocabulary. In this presentation, we will share our experience with this project as the basis for a discussion about teaching genre conventions in a way that encourages students to find and develop their own style.
References
Carr, J.M. (2013) Using a Collaborative Critiquing Technique To Develop Chemistry Students’ Technical Writing Skills. Journal of Chemical Education. 90 (6), 751−754 Hyland, K. (2002) Options of identity in academic writing. ELT Journal 56 (4), 351–358
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Presentation MULTIPLE CONTEXTS AND THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF ACADEMIC WRITING: RETHINKING MILLER’S GENRE AS SOCIAL ACTION David Russell Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA How do students learn to write in a new discipline? In most contexts they do so without explicit instruction. And many are successful (though not enough of course) at mastering the new genres, often within a few years. Yet we know little about this common socio-cognitive process, as writing studies has focused on giving students explicitly defined “genre knowledge” or “genre moves.” Miller’s theory of genre as social action suggests an answer to this prior question of how uninstructed genre acquisition occurs: “writing without teachers.” It is based on Schutz’s concept of typification: humans respond to a repeated social situation by constructing generalizations (typifications) about what actions and motives are possible or appropriate, and develop (discursive) habits of action accordingly. Both the late Schutz and Merleau-Ponty, who influenced Schutz’s later concept of typification, argue that situations are the result of perception and not definition (which occurs after typification, if at all). Both call this process “harmonization” of one individual with others, and it has a bodily and affective core. Session participants will do a phenomenological exercise, in which they write about their own experience of learning a new discipline’s discourse. They will recall the ways they came to “harmonize” their discourse with that of their chosen field. The insights from this exercise can be applied to understanding how students appropriate genres and discourse tacitly, often unconsciously, from reading and listening to the discourse of a new discipline. Handouts with helps for leading students through a similar exercise will be provided.
References
Bazerman, C. (2013) A Rhetoric of Literate Action 2 Merleau-Ponty, M. (2012) Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Donald A. Landes. London/NY, Routledge Miller, C.R. (1984) Genre as social action. Quarterly Journal of Speech 70, 151–167 Russell, D.R. (2010) Writing in multiple contexts: Vygotskian CHAT meets the phenomenology of genre. Traditions of writing research, 353–364 Schutz, A. (1950) Language, language disturbances, and the texture of consciousness. Social Research 17, 365–394
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Presentation PLAGIARISM AS PRACTICE IN A GRADUATE ACADEMIC WRITING COURSE Laura (Jeannette) Taylor University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States European universities are increasingly implementing English-medium programs (Dearden 2014); however, with this internationalization come new issues of language proficiency. Graduate-level programs in particular demand advanced academic writing (AW) skills, including a sophisticated lexicon (Berman and Cheng 2001), discipline-specific knowledge and the ability to perform extended writing tasks (Cooper and Bikowski 2007). With a myriad of necessary skills, preparing these students can be daunting. Expertise in a skill, such as writing, is often achieved through deliberate practice, effortful and repetitive practice over time (Kellogg et al. 2013). Practice for non-native writers may consist of multiple drafts accompanied by teacher feedback; however, this becomes time-consuming if tasks are given frequently. Hence, the problem of this investigation: How can I provide students 1) daily writing practice that 2) models accurate, academic language 3) without requiring daily feedback and revision? The proposed solution was copywork, (i.e. daily copying of expert writing for an extended period). Though seemingly similar to plagiarism, this technique successfully addressed the three aspects of the problem. Pre-master’s students performed copywork almost daily for seven weeks, during which time very little explicit grammar instruction was provided. The aim was to improve students’ written accuracy, which was measured by comparing diagnostic and midterm writing samples. Preliminary results indicate that, while many students improved, this improvement may not be significant enough to support further use of the technique. However, future research should build upon and extend this investigation, for example by pairing copywork texts with learner objectives (e.g. grammar features, genres).
References
Berman, R. & Cheng, L. (2001) English academic language skills: Perceived difficulties by undergraduate and graduate students, and their academic achievement. RCLA, CJAL 4 (1–2), 25–40 Cooper, A. & Bikowski, D. (2007) Writing at the graduate level: What tasks do professors actually require? Journal of English for Academic Purposes 6 (2007), 206–221 Dearden, J. (2014) English as a Medium of Instruction – A Growing Global Phenomenon. [Online] Accessed from: http://www. britishcouncil.org/sites/britishcouncil.uk2/files/e484_emi_-_cover_option_3_final_web.pdf. [20 March 2015] Kellogg, R. T., Whiteford, A. P., Turner, C. E., Cahill, M. & Mertens, A. (2013) Working Memory in Written Composition: An Evaluation of the 1996 Model. Journal of Writing Research 5 (2), 159–190
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Workshop ARTICLE WRITING WORKSHOPS FOR COLLEGE FACULTY Lotte Rienecker¹, Peter Stray Jorgensen² ¹Higher Education Teaching and Learning Consultant, Copenhagen, Denmark ²Higher Education Teaching and Learning Consultant, Publishing Consultant, Copenhagen, Denmark College education is becoming research-based and college teachers increasingly do research and publish research and professional articles. This has created a need for both research and article writing support for new, yet very adult academic article writers. We have been on a nationwide “tour” of colleges with a very well evaluated article writing workshop. This workshop demonstrates examples of short scaffolding activities for article planning, writing and feedback, from our workshop activities with college teachers. Activities address the relation between article-in-progress’ intended audience, aims, intent, text types/speech acts and use for the article readers. We owe our workshop approach to rhetorical analysis and to the genre teaching of research articles (Swales 2004), to Ede’s concept of article sub-genres, as well as to the article workshop formats and activities, prompts etc. presented by Belcher (2009) and Murray (2013). We want to share and discuss with participants activities in teaching article writing within a genre and process approach and to exchange good practices in article writing workshops.
References
Belcher, W. L. (2009) Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks. A Guide to Academic Publishing Success. US, Sage Publication Ede, L. (2007) The Article Writer – A Brief Guide. Boston, Bedford St. Martins Murray; R. (2013) Writing for Academic Journals 3rd Ed. Maidenhead, Open University Press Rienecker, L., Jørgensen, P.S. and Gandil M. (2008) Skriv en artikel – om videnskabelige, faglige og formidlende artikler [Write an Article – Research, Professional and Disseminating Articles]. Frederiksberg, Samfundslitteratur Swales, J. (2004) Research Genres. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
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Presentation IMPACT OF MASTERS' THESES ON EFL TEACHERS´ ENGLISH WRITING DEVELOPMENT Julio Cesar Gomez Universidad Externado de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia Most EFL Master’s teacher education programs in Colombia and in many other countries require students to conduct an empirical study and write a thesis in English. The writing and research processes are difficult for most students, especially those who do not have linguistic tools or research backgrounds required for academic writing in English. The purpose of this study was to explore the process, and the perceptions and attitudes of students, graduates and teacher educators from several of these programs to understand the actual demands on students and supervisors. A mixed-methods approach was used in this study. In-depth interviews, focus groups, document analysis, and online surveys comprise the data sources. In the first part of the paper, the presenter will discuss the main findings through the lenses of sociocultural theory and situated learning and explain the implications for teacher education programs. These findings show how students’ development of academic writing skills is grounded on their initial general writing skills and is realized through the appropriation of the thesis genre. This development follows different paths according to students’ writing ability. Factors that contribute to this development at the personal, supervision, and program levels are explored as well as the impact on the individual, their teaching, and academic communities. At the end of the presentation, strategies and suggestions will be offered to structure the work with writing in a more comprehensive and progressive way in teacher education programs and other programs preparing EFL students to write academically.
References
Hyland, K. (2003) Second language writing, New York, Cambridge University Press Johns, A. M. (1997) Text, role and context: Developing academic literacies, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Lantolf, J., & Thorne, S. (2006) Sociocultural theory and the genesis of second language development, Oxford, Oxford University Press Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991) Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
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C – Writing in and across Disciplines
Presentation USING PORTFOLIOS AS TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT TOOLS IN A TECHNICAL WRITING COURSE: A CASE STUDY Tsaona (Seitsiwe) Mokgwathi Botswana International University of Science and Technology, Palapye, Botswana This paper discusses the merits and demerits of using a portfolio to teach and assess the technical writing course offered to engineering students at a technical university in Botswana. For a long time, a misconception was abound that portfolio creation is only relevant to practical courses, and cannot be used in the teaching and learning of a non-practical course such as Technical Writing. However, lecturers of this skill-based course at the Botswana International University of Science and Technology have embraced portfolio creation to coach and assess the writing skills of engineering students because through it, students demonstrate their writing capabilities through practical tasks they undertake during tutorials and outside the classroom. The conceptual framework of this study was derived from the co-constructivist approach by Klenowski, Askew and Carnell (2006). The study involved 160 second-year students enrolled in various engineering programmes. The qualitative research method was used to analyze the content of portfolios produced by the students in groups consisting of 5–6 students per group. The results showed that portfolio creation gave students an opportunity to showcase what they have learnt in the course, and that it was also an appropriate assessment tool of their writing. However, the setback was that since portfolios were produced as group work, students’ individual capabilities were not revealed. It is recommended that portfolio creation should become an integral part of assessing students’ performance in technical writing.
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Round-Table Discussion TEACHING UNIVERSITY LECTURERS HOW TO TEACH SUBJECT-SPECIFIC WRITING Lena Manderstedt, Annbritt Palo Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden Standards of student literacy are falling, due to an increased number of students described as non-traditional entrants not knowing how to write (Lea & Street, 1998). Extensive research into academic literacy practices has been carried out, including genre pedagogy (Martin 2009), the effectiveness of feedback (Hattie & Timperley 2007) and the role of assessment as a key to develop and improve student learning. Academic literacies models, including digital literacies, have been adopted and used in course design and in the design of writing instructions (Lea & Jones 2011; Wingate 2012). However, students still lack academic writing skills. Although Luleå University of Technology (LTU) set up a language lab in 2006, and the lab was appreciated by students, it is not the most efficient way to teach academic writing. Therefore, a pedagogical project, aiming to help students develop their academic writing proficiency, and to help subject teachers learn how to scaffold subject-specific academic writing started in 2014. The first part of the project, directed at students, took place in the autumn of 2014. The results pinpoint the importance of contextualizing and scaffolding subject-specific writing through deliberative discussions. Students also emphasised the need for subject-oriented writing in order to develop academic literacy. The second part of the project involved the design of a University Pedagogy course, based on research and on the outcome of the first part. The aim of the course is to teach university lecturers how to teach subject-oriented writing, by systematic training in contextualizing subject-oriented writing, designing instructions, and dialogues focussing texts within their respective disciplines. The course is to be taught in 2015 or 2016. The aim of this round-table presentation is to get valuable feedback on the planned course design. We wish to discuss examples of teaching subjectspecific writing in different fields, and how to frame the teaching thereof within the academic disciplines. Some problems addressed in the course design concern the use of teaching hours, the need for pedagogic training and the development of a meta language in order to teach and talk about writing.
References
Hattie, J. and Timperley, H. (2007) The Power of Feedback. In Review of Educational Research 77(1), 81–112 Lea, M. R. and Jones, S. (2011) Digital literacies in higher education: exploring textual and technological practice. Routledge. Studies in Higher Education 36 (4), 377–393 Lea, M. R. and Street, B. V. (1998) Student Writing in Higher Education: an academic literacies approach. In Studies in Higher Education 23 ( 2), 157–172 Martin, J. R. (2009) Genre and language learning: A social semiotic perspective. In Linguistics and Education: An International Research Journal 20 (1), 10–21 Wingate, U. (2011) Using Academic Literacies and genre-based models for academic writing instruction: A ‘literacy’ journey. In Journal of English for Academic Purposes 11(1), 26–37
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Presentation LEARNING WRITING THROUGH RESEARCHING WRITING: STUDENTS INVESTIGATE HOW STUDENTS’ PAPERS PROGRESS Katrin Girgensohn European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany This presentation will report about a German university seminar for master students of linguistics, based on the method of discipline-based inquiry learning. This approach includes that students work with real-world questions, develop research skills, solve problems, collaborate within and beyond the classroom, deepen their understanding of content knowledge and participate in the public creation of knowledge (Stephenson n.y.). The aim of this seminar was to foster students’ research competences as well as their writing competences. The problem that students had to solve was to find an evidence-based answer to the question if a former seminar in which students had to write excerpts and to revise those excerpts after getting peer feedback was a helpful setting to gain writing competences. Students had a database of 45 texts, including excerpts’ first version, excerpts’ second version and critical reflections. Additionally, they had access to the text basis for the excerpts and to the peer feedback comments. In small groups, students developed research questions, chose a methodology for their inquiry and conducted the research. Results were presented and discussed at an internal conference. Afterwards, the students published their results collaboratively in an academic journal, following the collaborative authorship concept of the CERN (Grasshoff 2012). The presentation will explain this learning arrangement more deeply and introduce the students’ research results briefly. Based on evaluation data, the learning outcomes will be shown from the students’ point of view.
References
Graßhoff, G. & Wütherich, A. (2012) MetaATLAS, Bern Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, Bern Stephenson, N., n.y.. Introduction to Inquiry-based learning. [online] available at: < http://www.teachinquiry.com/index/Introduction. html> [27 December 2014]
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Symposium IMPLEMENTING WRITING FELLOW PROGRAMS AT TWO GERMAN UNIVERSITIES: IMPRESSIONS, CHALLENGES AND RESEARCH RESULTS Stephanie Dreyfürst¹, Katrin Girgensohn², Franziska Liebetanz² ¹Goethe University Frankfurt/Main, Germany ²European University Viadrina, Frankfurt /Oder, Germany In this symposium, the Goethe University Frankfurt/Main and the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), both located in Germany, will report about their common project of implementing Writing Fellow programs at their universities. Writing Fellows are students educated as writing center peer tutors. They work together with lecturers and students across various disciplines. Lecturers who would like to teach writing-intensive classes within their disciplines can apply for the Writing Fellow program. They can gain one to two Writing Fellows to work with their classes. The Writing Fellows help lecturers with the design of two writing assignments and provide written and oral feedback on the texts that the students hand in during the course of the semester. During the class, the Writing Fellows comment on two drafts per semester and afterwards meet with the student writers individually to discuss the next steps for revision. We introduced Writing Fellow programs at both universities in winter semester 2013/14 with the help of our partner writing center at the University of Wisconsin/Madison (USA). The program follows structures provided in the literature (e.g. Hall & Hughes 2011; Haring-Smith 1992; Severino & Knight 2007; Zawacki 2008). We will report our experiences from working with about 15 very different classes in different disciplines and the first results from an empirical study. The overall aim of the course is to derive recommendations for action that may help future Writing Fellows in their daily work. Speaker One will address the question of why Writing Fellow programs were taken into consideration as an addition to our centers’ regular work, based on the local needs at both universities as well as on a brief literature review (cf. Severino et al. 2007; Zawacki 2008). The professional relationship between the two German writing centers and the writing center in the US will be outlined. The presentation will then give an overview of our Writing Fellow programs, addressing the following aspects: -- tutor education of Writing Fellows and their tasks within the program; -- participating classes and the collaboration process between teachers, Writing Fellows and the program coordinator; -- collaboration processes between writers and Writing Fellows. A typical semester cycle in the writing fellow program will illustrate those aspects. Presentation one will close with a synopsis of the pilot in collaboration with the faculty for law and the following implementation at all faculties of the speaker’s university. Speaker Two will give a brief introduction to her university’s context and point out differences as well as similarities in her writing fellow program. The presentation will then focus on the evaluation results and experiences with the program. She will share some typical and multi-faceted challenges which occur when offering such a program: -- before and during a Writing Fellow course, faculty teachers are required to voice their (sometimes vague) ideas about ‘good academic texts’ and evaluation criteria; the Writing Fellows need to know exactly what the teacher expects from the two writing assignments; -- students are confronted with a completely new learning environment where they collaborate with a Writing Fellow from the writing center; -- Writing Fellows face the challenge of acting as an intermediary between faculty and students while still being students themselves; avoiding certain ‘tripping hazards’ which come with their new role is paramount to their work; -- finally, the head of the program is entrusted with the task to supervise the entire process and to verify that the program’s guidelines are being followed by faculty teachers and Writing Fellows alike. Based on these experiences, some reflections on possible strategies for a permanent implementation of the Writing Fellow program will follow.
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Speaker Three will introduce results of an empirical study, conducted based on data that was collected in Frankfurt (Oder). The focus is to find out more about the differences between oral and written feedback. Given that peer tutors do not learn how to provide written feedback in their regular peer-tutor-training they face major challenges when working as a Writing Fellow for the first time. Therefore, the key questions of the study are to find out: -- how the Writing Fellows employ the rules for oral feedback they already know on the written feedback they provide and; -- which additional techniques they apply beyond that. Consultation protocols, commentaries and a personal letter the Writing Fellows send to the writers are analyzed by qualitative content analysis (Mayring 2008). The overall aim is to provide recommendations for interactional feedback strategies future Writing Fellows can use in their everyday work.
References
Hall, E. & Hughes, B. (2011) 'Preparing Faculty, Professionalizing Fellows: Keys to Success with Undergraduate Writing Fellows in WAC', The WAC Journal 22, 21–40 Haring-Smith, T. (1992) Changing Students’ Attitudes: Writing Fellows Programs. In S. H. McLeod & M. Soven (Ed.), Writing Across the Curriculum: A Guide to Developing Programs. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 175–188 Mayring, P. (2008) Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse. Grundlagen und Techniken. Weinheim: Beltz Verlag Severino, C. & Knight, M. (2007) Exporting Writing Center Pedagogy: Writing Fellows Programs as Ambassadors for the Writing Center. Marginal Words, Marginal Work: Tutoring the Academy in the Work of Writing Centers. Cresskill, NJ:Hampton P, 19-33 Zawacki, T.M. (2008) 'Writing Fellows as WAC Change Agents: Changing What? Changing Whom? Changing How?', Across the Disciplines 5. available at: < http://wac.colostate.edu/atd/fellows/zawacki.cfm>. [17 September 2014]
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Presentation DISCIPLINARY DIFFERENCES IN CONSTRUCTING COHESION AND COHERENCE IN RESEARCH-PAPER ABSTRACTS Eva Braidwood, Suzy McAnsh Languages and Communication, Extension School, University of Oulu, Finland Research-paper abstracts are designed to convey a great deal of information in the space of a few lines. To comply with the appropriate word limit, researchers need to avoid wordiness and redundancy. This need for conciseness may restrict authors’ possibility to employ the typical devices used for composing a well-connected, flowing text, and means that they may need to resort to other strategies to make their abstract both cohesive and coherent. Although some work has been carried out to investigate the factors contributing to cohesion and coherence (Hoey 1991; Tanskanen 2006) and cohesion in scientific abstracts in particular (Santos 1996, Afful & Nartey 2014), further work is needed to explore this topic in abstract writing and to establish whether the devices used differ according to discipline. The present study aims to examine how cohesion and coherence are achieved in research-paper abstracts in various fields within architecture and engineering. By analysing a corpus of abstracts recently published in high-impact journals in these disciplines, we survey how cohesion and coherence are created by tracing lexical, grammatical and rhetorical features in the texts. In our presentation, we demonstrate that different disciplines employ different textual devices to follow the conventions of their discipline. The findings of this study may support academic writing teachers in designing more effective discipline-specific instruction for students striving to meet the expectations of the gatekeepers to publication in the discourse community.
References
Afful, J.B.A. and Nartey, M. (2014) ‘Cohesion in the Abstracts of Undergraduate Dissertations: An Intra-disciplinary Study in a Ghanaian University’. Journal of ELT and Applied Linguistics 2 (1), 93–108 Hoey, M. (1991) Patterns of Lexis in Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press Santos, M.B. (1996) ‘The textual organisation of research paper abstracts in applied linguistics’. Journal of Applied Linguistics 16 (4), 482–499 Tanskanen, S-K. (2006) Collaborating towards Coherence: Lexical Cohesion in English Discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company
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Presentation THE TRANSDISCIPLINARY TURN: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN ACADEMIC WRITING Stella Harvey, Paul Stocks Goldsmiths, University of London, London, United Kingdom The emergence of transdisciplinarity within arts, humanities and social sciences degree programmes has promoted a reconfiguration of traditional disciplinary boundaries into more hybrid forms, entailing an unsettling of traditional academic written genres with differing ontologies and epistemologies, undoing such dichotomies as academic/vocational, theoretical/practical. This process has the further effect of placing creativity at the core of academic writing practices, resulting in new forms of written assessment very different from traditional academic writing genres. This presentation reports on two examples of transdisciplinary writing assignments undertaken at Goldsmiths, University of London. The first, required by a culture industries-related postgraduate programme, is an ‘academic business plan’ involving a critical and creative rethinking of a standard business genre. Our second example, undertaken by Graduate Diploma students following a lecture module on Media Arts, is an assignment combining creative media practice with reflective writing. In both cases, drawing on qualitative data, we will discuss the challenges second language students face in navigating the demands of an assignment for which there is no template, and whose emphasis on creativity makes them inherently precarious. As these types of assignments become more widespread, it seems important for academic writing pedagogy to engage with creativity and precariousness.
References
Bourdieu, P. (2010) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice, with a new introduction by Tony Bennett. London: Routledge Coffin, C. and Donohoe, J. P. (2014) A language as Social Semiotic-based Approach to Teaching and Learning in Hihger Education. Wiley-Blackwell Coffin, C. and Donohue, J. P. (2012) Academic Literacies and systemic functional linguistics: how do they relate? in Journal of English for Academic Purposes 11, 64–75 Francis, P. (2009) Inspiring Writing in Art and Design: Taking a Line for a Write. Chicago: Intellect Books Gill, R. C. and Pratt, C. (2008) In the social factory? Immaterial labour, precariousness and cultural work. in Theory Culture and Society 25, 1–30 Hyland, K. (2003) Genre-based pedagogies: A Social Response to Process. in Journal of Second Language Writing 12, 17–29 Ivanič, R. (1998) Writing and Identity: the Discoursal Construction of Identity in Academic Writing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Lea, M. (1999) Academic Literacies in Higher Education: Constructing knowledge through texts and experience. in Jones et al (eds) Students Writing in the University Amsterdam: John Benjamins Lillis, T. (1991) Whose ‘common sense’? in Jones et al (eds) Students Writing in the University Amsterdam: John Benjamins Lillis, T. and Scott, M. (2007) Defining academic literacies research: issues of epistemology, ideology and strategy. Journal of Applied Linguistics 4/1, 5–32 McRobbie, A. (2002) From Holloway to Hollywood: Happiness at work in the new cultural economy? in Du Gay and Pryke (eds) Cultural Economy. London: Sage Montuori, A. (2010) Transdisciplinarity and creative inquiry in transformative education: Researching the research degree in Maldonato, M. amd Pietrobon, R. (eds) Research on Scientific Research, a Transdisciplinary Study Brughton, Sussex Academic Press Moon, J. A. (2004) A Handbook of Reflective and Experiential Learning: Theory and Practice. Oxford: RoutledgeFalmer Quinn Patton, M. (2002) Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods London: Sage Tribble, C. and Wingate, U. (2013) From text to corpus – A genre-based approach to academic literacy instruction. in System 41, 307–321 Williams, R. (1988) Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. London: Fontana
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Presentation PROFILE (PROFESSIONAL LITERACY IN ENGLISH) – A STUDY OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ENGLISH AS THE MEDIUM OF INSTRUCTION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROFESSIONAL ENGLISH LITERACY Andreas Eriksson¹, Magnus Gustafsson¹, Charlotte Hommerberg², Hans Malmström¹, Ibolya Maricic², Diane Pecorari², Phillip Shaw³ ¹Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden ²Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden ³Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden In many European universities, English is today used as a medium of instruction (EMI). One of the rationales behind using English is that it is believed to develop students’ discipline-specific knowledge of English. This knowledge is then often seen as providing a competitive advantage supporting professional success. The design of many educational programs shows that this knowledge is supposed to develop incidentally rather than through explicit instruction. Recent research has, however, offered reason to question the extent to which such incidental learning actually occurs (Pecorari et al. 2011; Shaw et al. 2010). In addition, little is known about what type of knowledge is developed in different educational contexts. The present paper reports on the preliminary findings of a project testing assumptions about the development of Englishlanguage skills in EMI environments. The study is longitudinal, and students from several master's programs in Sweden are followed from the beginning of their degrees into the workplace. Various methods are used to gather data, including language tests, interviews and observations. The aim is to carry out a thorough analysis of proficiency levels, the development of English literacy, literacy demands, and the extent to which activities in the programs support the development of disciplinary discourse and workplace demands. Preliminary analyses reveal several themes: evidence that instructors and students see the use of English as both opportunity and disadvantage; a wide diversity of English proficiency levels (based on four tests distributed to approximately 150 students); and significant differences across programs in terms of the sorts of English-language proficiencies their students are believed to need in the workplace.
References
Pecorari, D., Shaw, P., Irvine, A. & Malmström, H. (2011) ‘English for Academic Purposes at Swedish Universities: Teachers' objectives and practices’. Ibérica 22, 58–78 Shaw, P., Irvine, A., Malmström, H. & D. Pecorari. (2010) ‘Intertextual episodes in lectures as apotential enhancement of incidental learning from reading’. Hermes Journal of Language and Communication Studies. 45, 115–128
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Presentation A GENRE-BASED STUDY OF CASE RESPONSE WRITING ON AN MBA PROGRAMME Philip Bernard Nathan The English Language Centre, University of Durham, Durham, United Kingdom Business students at European Universities and internationally, are faced with a variety of academic writing tasks, ranging from essays to critiques, and from case-based assignments to business reports, research proposals and research reports, amongst other academic writing tasks (Cooper and Bikowski 2007; Nesi and Gardner 2012). This variety of tasks and the varying linguistic features underpinning their realisations, present significant challenges for both business students and their academic writing tutors, aiming to provide effective, targeted support. Case-based writing is widely used to support teaching and learning on business programmes (e.g. Maufette-Leenders et al. 1997: 5–6), yet, previous studies are largely limited to business case reports (e.g. Nathan 2013). In order to deepen understanding of case-based writing, this paper reports a small corpus-based study, based on 36 case-based non-report writing texts (ca. 42000 words) written in three disciplines (Finance, Human Resource Management and Marketing) on a UK MBA programme. Using Wordsmith Tools 6.0 (Scott, 2012), key differences were identified between the disciplinary texts in terms of modal verb deployment, business lexis, use of personal pronouns and a range of other rhetorical features. Levels of literature citation differed markedly with negligible citation in the Finance and Marketing texts (<1 citation per thousand words) but much higher levels of citation in Human Resource Management texts (4.6 citations per thousand words). Awareness of such variation in case-based writing should serve as a useful aid to informing academic writing pedagogy in the context of the European Business School.
References
Cooper, A., & Bikowski, D. (2007) Writing at the graduate level: What tasks do professors actually require? Journal of English for Academic Purposes 6, 206–221 Mauffette-Leenders, L. A., Erskine, J.A., & Leenders, M.R. (1997) Learning with cases. Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario Nathan, P.B. (2013) Academic writing in the business school; The genre of the business case report. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12 (1), 57–68 Nesi, H. and Gardner, S. (2012) Genres across the disciplines: Student writing in higher education. Cambridge Applied Linguistics, Cambridge Scott, M. (2012) WordSmith Tools version 6, Liverpool: Lexical Analysis Software
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Presentation GENRE ANALYSIS OF PHARMACY JOURNAL ARTICLES AND ITS APPLICATION TO EAP TEACHING Jayne Parry University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, United Kingdom This presentation will summarise the results of a genre analysis of authentic texts in the field of Pharmacy employing an approach described by Bhatia (1993). The analysis focused on the structure of the texts and how cohesion was achieved. There were two main findings: firstly, that the articles described professional issues in the field of Pharmacy through the use of Introduction, Problem, Solution and Evaluation moves; secondly, it was discovered that there was a low frequency of linking words and phrases (LWP) other than ‘and’. Therefore, it seemed that cohesion was implicit and achieved by cohesive devices, such as, the use of lexical (key word) repetition. To conclude, learning/teaching the essential moves utilised in the articles could empower Pharmacy students’ writing skills by linking these moves to a plan for the text structure in their essays. In addition, a learning/teaching focus on the use of cohesive devices other than LWP could improve cohesion in students’ writing in their field of study.
References
Bhatia, V.J. (1993) Analysing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings. Harlow, England: Longman
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Presentation DISCIPLINE KNOWLEDGE, ACADEMIC LITERACY AND CULTURAL COMPETENCE: INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION IN SUPPORT OF STUDENTS’ CRITICAL REFLECTIVE WRITING Arlene Harvey, Gabrielle Russell-Mundine University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia The aim of the project described in this paper is to understand the communication demands placed on students in demonstrating their cultural competence through discipline-based assessment tasks such as essays, reports, case studies, and reflective journals. The literature suggests two of the most important academic capabilities required for cultural competence are reflective practice (knowing oneself) and critical thinking (understanding and challenging world-views). While aspects of academic literacy support for students in developing these capabilities in various disciplinary contexts has been described (e.g. Borglin and Fagerstrom 2012; Szenes et al. 2015), what has yet to be explored are the academic literacy demands on students in writing discipline-based assignments with cultural competence components, especially those which incorporate Indigenous knowledges that may be radically different from the Western knowledge that underpins the curriculum/discipline/academy (Battiste and Henderson 2009) and/or in contexts in which colonisation, marginalisation and racism make cultural competence development emotionally charged (Sherwood et al. 2010; Thackrah and Thompson 2013). This paper reports on our model construction, drawing on literatures from a variety of disciplines, theories and frameworks, including linguistics, critical linguistics, critical pedagogy, critical race theory, and discourse analysis. We describe under-explored similarities between the processes of embedding academic literacy and embedding cultural competence in the curriculum (and written assessment tasks), describe differences (especially around the ideas of 'decolonisation' and 'courageous conversations') and discuss what might need to be done to integrate these two processes to ensure students can confidently produce the writing expected of them.
References
Battiste, M. and Henderson, J.Y. (2009) ‘Naturalizing Indigenous knowledge in Eurocentric education’. Canadian Journal of Native Education 32 (1), 5–18 Borglin, G. and Fagerstrom, C. (2012) ‘Nursing students' understanding of critical thinking and appraisal and academic writing: A descriptive, qualitative study’. Nurse Education in Practice 12, 356–360 Sherwood, J., Keech, S., Keenan, T., and Kelly, B. (2010) ‘Indigenous studies: Teaching and learning together’. In Milgate, G, Purdue, N., and Bell, H. (Eds.) Two way teaching and learning: Toward culturally reflective and relevant education. ACER Press: Melbourne, 189–201 Thackrah, R. and Thompson, S. (2013) ‘Confronting uncomfortable truths: Receptivity and resistance to Aboriginal content in midwifery education’. Contemporary Nurse 46 (1), 113–122 Szenes, E., Tilakaratna, N., and Maton, K. (2015) ‘The knowledge practices of critical thinking’. In Davies, M. and Barnett, R. (Eds.) The Palgrave handbook of critical thinking in higher education. Palgrave MacMillan: New York, 573–591
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Presentation THE THEORETICAL SHAPING OF SUSTAINABLE EMBEDDED WRITING INSTRUCTION Arlene Harvey, Bronwyn James, Eszter Szenes, Minkang Kim, Marie Stevenson University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia In this paper, we report on a model that extends previous work on embedding support for academic writing within disciplinary contexts (see e.g. Jones et al. 2001; Harris and Ashton 2011). This model involves collaboration between academic language and learning (ALL) and discipline specialists during the early stages of curriculum design, with a view to encouraging sustainability by supporting discipline teachers to take over language and learning support for their students. A sustainable approach is especially valuable for university-wide ALL centres, as embedding work, while effective, tends to be more resource intensive than generic adjunct support (Harris and Ashton 2011). This sustainable model has been successfully applied over three consecutive years in a first year Undergraduate subject in the Education faculty of a large Australian university, with the Education/ALL team working collaboratively on a written critical reflective report assessment task. The team worked on marking criteria and rubrics, targeted writing resources for academic literacy development, learning activities, and tutor training. While this collaboration resulted in demonstrably improved outcomes in students' capacity to understand the disciplinary requirements involved in writing the report, as described here, the process of embedding also had a broader positive impact on teaching and learning. This was made possible not only by the invaluable theoretical exchange that took place between discipline and ALL specialists (Thies et al. 2014), but also by making explicit the different yet complementary theoretical models, assumptions and approaches influencing the members of the ALL team, as elaborated in this paper.
References
Harris, A. and Ashton, J. (2011) ‘Embedding and integrating language and academic skills: An innovative approach’. Journal of Academic Language ad Learning l5 (2), 73–87 Jones, J., Bonanno, H., and Scouller, K. (2001) Staff and student roles in central and faculty-based learning support: Changing partnerships. Conference on ‘Changing Identities: National Language and Academic Skills: Changing Identities’, held 29–30 November at University of Wollongong, Australia Thies, L.,Wallis, A., Turner, A., and Wishardt, L. (2014) ‘Embedding academic literacies curricula: The challenges of measuring success’. Journal of Academic Literacy and Learning 8 (2), 43–59
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Presentation POSTGRADUATES’ GENRE-KNOWLEDGE DEVELOPMENT IN ‘NEW DISCIPLINES’ Kathrin Kaufhold Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden Interdisciplinary and reflexive research approaches in the Humanities and Social Sciences increasingly influence postgraduate academic writing (Starfield and Ravelli 2006). Writing conventions here are often contested (Casanave 2010) and new forms of English for Academic Purposes pedagogies are required. This paper examines students’ development of genre knowledge (Tardy 2009) in the context of these tendencies: How do master’s students studying in interdisciplinary fields perceive and develop genre knowledge in the multilingual and interdisciplinary learning context of a Swedish university? What are pedagogic challenges and perspectives for a faculty-wide EAP course? The paper presents an ethnographically informed case study (Barton and Hamilton 1998) with eight participants who completed a cross-disciplinary EAP course. The data material includes regular interviews with the students, interviews with discipline-specific teachers, the analysis of students’ texts written as part of the EAP course, sample texts introduced to the course by the students as well as their final thesis. Initial results highlight the role of students’ previous genre knowledge in the understanding of writing conventions for their new interdisciplinary projects; the students’ positioning towards their programme of study; and the uncertainties of conventions in relatively young disciplines, such as Fashion Studies, that are still in the process of formation. Thus postgraduate EAP courses can neither be generic nor discipline-specific but have to actively involve students as researchers of their own writing and include the analysis of students’ past writing and other texts relating to their current projects.
References
Barton, D., and Hamilton, M. (1998) Local literacies: Reading and writing in one community. London: Routledge Casanave, C. P. (2010) ‘Taking risks?: A case study of three doctoral students writing qualitative dissertations at an American university in Japan’. Journal of Second Language Writing 19 (1), 1–16 Starfield, S., and Ravelli, L. (2006) ‘"The writing of this thesis was a process that I could not explore with the positivistic detachment of the classical sociologist": Self and structure in New Humanities research theses’. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 5 (3), 222–243 Tardy, C. M. (2009) Building genre knowledge. West Lafayette: Parlor Press
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Presentation CHANGE FROM INSIDE OUT – INITIATING CURRICULUM REFORM BY DEPARTMENTAL SELF-REFLECTION Svenja Kaduk, Swantje Lahm Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany More and more Writing Programs are involved in contexts of institutional or curricular change, e.g. in the context of the Quality Pact for Teaching in Germany. But how can Writing Programs become Institutional Change Agents (Condon and Rutz 2012)? In order to address this problem, whole departments have to be involved. In German universities this is very difficult because of the high degree of autonomy faculty and departments have with respect to teaching. Top Down approaches to curriculum development are met with strong resistance. In 2012 we initiated a Bottom Up departmental process at our university (Bielefeld) aiming to reform the First Year of Study by introducing writing to learn in introductory courses. Now we want to deepen departmental commitment by leading interviews with faculty based on the Decoding-the Disciplines-Approach (Pace and Middendorf 2004) in which faculty members reflect upon their disciplinary ways of knowing, doing and writing. We expect that this deep reflection will help to further support our reform process that aims to integrate writing as a fundamental mode of disciplinary learning into curricula. In our talk we will present the first findings from the interviews, describe the ways we recruited faculty, and outline our plans for the future. We will discuss the pros and cons of our interview-approach as an instrument for initiating change. Participants will get to know the Decoding-the-Disciplines-Approach, which in our context we use as a basis for Curriculum Development, but which can be used in other contexts as well, e.g. assignment design.
References
Carter, M. (2007) ‘Ways of Knowing, Doing, and Writing in the Disciplines’. College Composition and Communication 58 (3), 385–418 Condon, W., and Rutz, C. (2012) ‘A Taxonomy of Writing Across the Curriculum Programs: Evolving to Serve Broader Agendas’. College Composition and Communication 64 (2), 357–382. available at <http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/CCC/0642dec2012/CCC0642Taxonomy.pdf> [21 January 2015] Knight, P. T., and Trowler, P. R. (2000) ‘Department-level Cultures and the Improvement of Learning and Teaching’. Studies in Higher Education 25 (1), 69–83 Oliver, S. L., and Hyun, E. (2011) ‘Comprehensive curriculum reform in higher education: collaborative engagement of faculty and administrators’. Journal of Case Studies in Education 2, 1–20. available at <http://www.aabri.com/manuscripts/10649.pdf> [21 January 2015] Pace, D., and Middendorf, J. (2004) ‘Decoding the Disciplines: A Model for Helping Students Learn Disciplinary Ways of Thinking’. in Decoding the disciplines: Helping students learn disciplinary ways of thinking. ed. by Pace, D., and Middendorf, J. San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1–12
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Presentation LITERARY QUOTES: L1 ENGLISH WRITERS’ USE OF DIRECT QUOTATIONS IN LITERATURE PHD THESIS INTRODUCTIONS Bojana Petrić¹, Masumi Ono² ¹Birkbeck, University of London, London, United Kingdom ²Keio University, Tokyo, Japan Most writing guides advise students, regardless of their fields of study, to avoid overusing direct quotations, i.e. conventionally signalled verbatim repetitions of words from another source. However, research shows that quoting directly is a discipline-specific practice: while extremely rare in natural sciences, it is relatively common in the humanities. Yet little is known about how direct quotations are used in the disciplines where this way of source use is appropriate. Focusing on one such discipline, Literature, our study aims to explore patterns of direct quotation use in PhD theses in Literature written by native speakers of English. A corpus of about 100,000 words, consisting of 15 PhD thesis introductions collected from three comparable literature departments at UK universities, was compiled and analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. Our findings provide a rich description of direct quotation patterns in the corpus, including the common types of quotations in terms of length and structural composition, the ways in which quotations are integrated into the writer’s text (e.g. as a stand alone clause or an element integrated into the writer’s sentence), the surrounding textual elements (e.g. reporting verbs and references to the author) and the wider co-text preceding and following the quotation (e.g. whether the writer introduces or comments on the quotation). Following the presentation of the findings, we will discuss how they can be utilised in the teaching of source use in academic writing courses for L2 students in Literature and related fields.
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Presentation ENGLISH AS THE CORNERSTONE OF SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGY AND RESEARCH (ECOSTAR) Clive Lawrence Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands Higher education in Israel is endeavouring to move towards English Medium Instruction (EMI). As part of an EU TEMPUS project, Maastricht University, along with the Universities of Nicosia, Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Aquila, Leicester, Cluj-Napoca and Wroclaw is in collaboration with 7 universities in Israel to develop and implement a course, including writing in a range of academic genres, employing EMI for the first time in HE in Israel. The focus of the project is to develop and introduce a course to be delivered in English that is appropriate for any discipline at bachelor level. Students will learn both content and language by writing. Further, we have to establish the language level at which the course is to be taught, the genres and standard of writing that is to be demanded of the students and the level and criteria for assessment. We also have to establish the English language level required by the course teachers and to facilitate the development of their own English writing skills to enable them to teach and assess student writing. This presentation will outline the challenges faced by the project team and the solutions we have identified so far. I shall explain the rationale behind the choice of sustainability as the ideal subject for a single course across disciplines. I would welcome input from anyone who has started from scratch an EMI course curriculum including academic writing.
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Presentation EMBEDDING WRITING INSTRUCTION IN A POSTGRADUATE DEGREE PROGRAMME: A CASE STUDY Stuart Wrigley Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, United Kingdom This presentation reports on an academic writing intervention in a large, international business studies Master’s programme in a research-led university in the UK. The Master’s programme faces several of the increasingly well-documented challenges in UK business schools, such as skewed diversity (Robson & Turner 2007), large class sizes, and varied motivation patterns, such as students wanting a degree but not wishing to integrate in UK communities of practice (Tian and Low 2012). The variable academic performance of students on the programme was seen as symptomatic of the contextual challenges outlined above, so the decision was taken to embed the teaching of writing into the Master’s curriculum. The benefits of embedding writing instruction are well known (e.g. Hyland 2000), and the main design principles driving our intervention were based on the CEM model (Sloan and Porter 2010) and on those developed in Wingate et al. (2011), which emphasise the relationship of academic writing and critical reading. The intervention was evaluated via analysis of a survey, a focus group with students, class observations, email correspondence with students and analysis of student performance. Findings suggest that the intervention met with considerable success, despite concerns raised by stronger students and ongoing diversity and classsize issues. It is suggested that to reduce the potential for disengagement and failure, a joined-up approach is needed that combines the embedding of academic writing instruction with institutional moves to diversify the international student body and reduce class sizes.
References
Hyland, K. (2000) Disciplinary Discourses: Social Interactions in Academic Writing. London: Longman Robson, S. & Turner, Y. (2007) ‘Teaching is a co-learning experience’: academics reflecting on learning and teaching in an ‘internationalized’ faculty. Teaching in Higher Education 12 (1), 41–54 Sloan, D. & Porter, E. (2010) Changing international student and business staff perceptions of in-sessional EAP: using the CEM model. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 9, 198–210 Tian, J. & Low, G. D. (2012) To what extent are postgraduate students from China prepared for academic writing needed on UK master’s courses? Language, Culture and Curriculum 25 (3), 299–319 Wingate, U., Andon, N. & Cogo, A. (2011) Embedding academic writing instruction into subject teaching: A case study. Active Learning in Higher Education 12, 69–81
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Presentation METAWRITING AND PROFESSIONAL WRITING IN A ‘REAL-WORLD’ PROJECT Jacqueline F. van Kruiningen, Robin de Boer, Japke Grit University of Groningen, The Netherlands In writing research, little studies have been carried out that focus on university students’ metacognitions with regard to writing (Negretti 2012). However, the knowledge that students bring into a course, form the foundation for the development of new knowledge and skills. This study examines students’ metacognitions about professional writing, and their progression in a ‘real-world’ client project; a classroom-workplace collaboration in which 80 third-year students learned to analyze an organizational problem and to write a proposal and a report for a real client. Such writing tasks can be considered as hybrid assignments, since students are not only required to write for an authentic client, but also for their instructors who may have (partly) different educational motives. These different perspectives may lead to conflicting demands (Blakeslee 2001; Dias, Freedman, Medway & Paré 1999; Schneider & Andre 2005). In this study, students’ metacognitions and expectations with regard to these professional genres were analyzed in the first week and after completion of the project, based on a content-analysis of two metawriting tasks. These outcomes were related to data concerning students’ orientations during the project (based on an analysis of consultations, journals, interviews, and students’ texts). The outcomes of this ongoing study will give rise for reflection on the way we can teach professional writing effectively. Insight in the ways students articulate their cognitions, and in how these articulations relate to their interactions and performances, can provide valuable input for the design of such writing tasks in university education.
References
Blakeslee, A. M. (2001) Bridging the workplace and the academy: Teaching professional genres through classroom-workplace collaborations. Technical Communication Quarterly 10 (2), 169–192 Dias, P., Freedman, A., Medway, P., & Paré, A. (1999) Worlds apart. Acting and writing in academic and workplace contexts. Mayway/ Londen: Lawrence Erlbaum. Negretti, R. (2012) Metacognition in student academic writing: A longitudinal study of metacognitive awareness and its relation to task perception, self-regulation, and evaluation of performance. Written Communication 29 (2), 142–179 Paltridge, B. (2000) Genre knowledge and teaching professional communication. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication Pc 43, 397–401 Schneider, B., & Andre, J. (2005) University preparation for workplace writing: an exploratory study of the perceptions of students in three disciplines. Journal of Business Communication 42 (2),195
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Presentation OPERATIONALIZING EPISTEMIC PRACTICES: NEGOTIATING THE TEXTUAL FORMATION OF ISSUES OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Ann-Marie Eriksson Division for Language and Communication, Chalmers University of Technology and The Linneus Centre for Research on Learning Interaction and Mediated Communication in Contemporary Society, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden The special position academic writing assignments hold as a means for introducing university students to disciplinary discourses foregrounds text production as a form of knowledge development. For instance, while writing a report on issues of sustainable development exemplifies a demanding textual process, it also implies participating in epistemic practices grounded in disciplinary traditions. Such practices are challenging for student writers and therefore need to be made concrete and operational. What types of concerns emerge and require attention as students begin operating in disciplinary fields? How can access points to epistemic practices be provided by means of producing text? This presentation aims at synthesizing and reporting results from three interaction-analytical studies where these questions were investigated empirically in the setting of engineering education. The results from analyses of 33 video recorded supervision sessions around emerging report documents, produced by 14 Master's degree students, show a series of challenges at different points in the text production process: at the initial stages of formulating an outline for the reports; as previous knowledge was transformed and situated for the students’ own writing assignments; and, whilst grounding and crafting conclusions in alignment with traditions of the particular field. It was found that access points often consisted in negotiating alternative ways of formulating text and in testing alternative solutions to specific, textual problems. This presentation will show how dealing with concrete textual formulations together with someone more experienced provided valuable points of entry to epistemic practices.
References
Eriksson, A. M. (2014) Formulating knowledge: engaging with issues of sustainable development through academic writing in engineering education. (PhD), University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg Studies in Educational Sciences 357. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle. net/2077/36885 Mäkitalo, Å. (2012) Professional learning and the materiality of social practice. Journal of Education and Work 25(1), 59–78. doi: 10.1080/13639080.2012.644905 Mäkitalo, Å, Jakobsson, A. & Säljö, R. (2009) Learning to reason in the context of socioscientific problems. exploring the demands on students in'new'classroom activites. In K Kumpalainen, C Hmelo-Silver & M Cesar (Eds.), Investigating classroom interaction: Methodologies in action. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 7–26 Prior, P. (1998) Writing/Disciplinarity: a sociohistoric account of literate activity in the academy. New York, NY: Routledge Prior, P. (2006) A sociocultural theory of writing. In C.A. MacArthur, S. Graham & J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of writing research. New York, NY: Guilford Press, 54–66
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Workshop US-U IS NOT GERMAN U (AND VICE VERSA): CONSIDERING CONTEXT IN INTEGRATING WRITING INTO CURRICULA Swantje Lahm¹, Paul V. Anderson² ¹Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany ²Elon University, Elon, USA In 2012 a German University and a US University began collaborating in a project aimed at integrating writing into undergraduate courses at German-U. It is one of the first universities in Germany to systematically embark on such an effort. US-U made writing a university wide effort, including WAC/WID goals as the collective responsibility of all faculty in degree-granting programs, not just the few who teach writingintensive courses. German-U profited from US-U’s advice and experience, learning several US “tricks of the trade”: backward design, formulation of student learning outcomes, design and use of rubrics. US-U gained new ideas while helping develop WAC/WID strategies for German-U’s context. Both schools learned that strategies for integrating writing into curricula cannot be transferred automatically from one context to another. The possibilities at any school are impacted by its national educational system, the distinctive traditions of disciplines in its country, and the institution’s particular policies and practices. Using a framework based on theory and viewed through the lens of our experiences, workshop participants from any country will identify and assess easily overlooked features of their national, disciplinary, and institutional contexts that can hinder or promote their efforts to integrate writing into their curricula. Participants will also learn how to build the positive features into structures that support their efforts. Throughout, participants will work collaboratively, helping one another see things that outsiders can discern more easily than insiders – just as the collaboration between German-U and US-U prompted insights neither of us would have discovered working alone.
References
Carter, M. (2007) ‘Ways of knowing, doing and writing in the disciplines’. College Composition and Communication 58 (3), 385–418 Foster, D., and Russell, D. R. (2002) Writing and Learning in Cross-National Perspective: Transitions from Secondary to Higher Education. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Hubball, H., and Gold, N. (2007) ‘The scholarship of curriculum practice and undergraduate program reform: Integrating theory into practice’. in Curriculum Development in Higher Education: Faculty-Driven Processes and Practices. ed. by Wolf, P. and J. Christensen Hughes. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 5–14 Huemer, B., Rheindorf, M., and Gruber, H. (2013) ‚„Writing a.i.D.“ – Ein neuer Ansatz für die Schreibforschung und ihre Didaktisierung‘. in Writing across the Curriculum at Work. Theorie, Praxis und Analyse. ed. by Doleschal, U. et al. Wien: LIT Verlag, 15–39 Jenert, T. (2014) ‘Implementing Outcome-Oriented Study Programmes at University: The Challenge of Academic Culture’. Zeitschrift für Hochschulentwicklung 9 (2), 1–12. available at <http://www.zfhe.at/index.php/zfhe/article/view/652/609> [21 January 2015]
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Project Meeting IS IT POSSIBLE FOR NON-WRITING SPECIALISTS TO REVIEW WRITING SKILLS OF FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS Tonnie van Genugten, Renate Suzanne Ouwendijk The Hague University of Applied Sciences, The Hague, The Netherlands Is it possible for disciplinary faculty to review writing skills of first-year students? It is a great effort for content teachers to give feedback on writing skills and to review texts, even in L1. However, that is exactly what they have been doing in the Faculty of Health, Nutrition & Sport at The Hague University of Applied Sciences (THUAS) this past year. Hebbrecht & van der Westen (2009) state that in the most narrow vision on language policy in higher education the language classes are focused on fixing deficiencies of a target group and are carried out by a writing specialist. These classes exist as an extra-curricular part in the total educational programme. In the most elaborated version of language policy the aim is communicative competency for all the students, requiring a collective effort of all faculty staff. They should all work together to stimulate students in developing their language skills, both oral and written. Every content teacher should pay attention to the specific requirements of any linguistic task they assign and should be able to give feedback on linguistic features of texts. In the bachelor education programmes of THUAS, this elaborate type of language policy is the objective. This means that writing is being implemented throughout the entire curriculum. All content teachers are informed about their responsibility to contribute to the development of students’ language skills and trained to determine the CEF-level (B1, B2 or C1) of the first-year students’ writing skills. This raises the question to which extent the reviews of the disciplinary specialists and their feedback are similar to those of the language teachers. Do they agree upon the CEF-level showed in the texts students provide? At this moment, both authors are reviewing 25 texts to compare their findings with those of the disciplinary faculty. During the EATAW Conference we would like to present the results of this comparison and discuss the consequences of it.
References
Hebbrecht, J. & Westen, W. van der (2009) Drie typen taalbeleid. Drieëntwintigste conferentie Het Schoolvak Nederlands, 152–157.
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Presentation A TALE OF TWO CAMPUSES: EXPLORING WAC, WID AND WEC IN DIFFERENT CONTEXTS IN IRISH HIGHER EDUCATION Pauline McGlade¹, Alison Farrell², Moira Maguire¹ ¹Dundalk Institute of Technology, Dundalk, Ireland ²Maynooth University, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland In this paper we discuss two approaches to working with academic colleagues in order to explore the ideas of writing across the curriculum (WAC), writing in the discipline (WID) and writing enriched curriculum (WEC). This paper aims to contribute to a growing body of research that explores the introduction of these concepts in contexts, like the Irish one, without a WAC, WID or WEC tradition. Our paper documents how these approaches worked across two distinct higher education settings, namely an Irish university and an Irish institute of technology. Differing institutional contexts and priorities dictated the form of initiative employed. In the institute of technology the focus was on WID and WEC, supporting the development of specific strategies. We delivered a series of one-hour practical seminars where academic staff participated in short, low stakes writing and reading activities. In the university setting, WAC, WID and WEC were explored through a series of academic-led lunchtime conversations about writing in teaching and learning, master classes by visiting experts, a writing liaison pilot and an ‘assignment litmus test’ pilot. There was a high level of engagement in both settings and feedback has been very positive. This paper details the rationale for beginning this work in both institutions, contextualises the work in wider pedagogical concerns, outlines the approaches adopted, presents a preliminary evaluation of impact and proposes some plans for the future.
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Presentation DEVELOPING A SHARED UNDERSTANDING OF EXPECTATIONS OF WRITTEN ASSESSMENT: A PROGRAMME LEVEL APPROACH TO TEACHING ACADEMIC WRITING IN THE DISCIPLINES Madeleine Mossman University of York, York, United Kingdom An embedded approach to teaching writing is the most useful one to develop both students’ academic writing skills and confidence (Wingate 2011; Mitchell and Evison 2006). Central to the development of writing instruction within the disciplines must be a shared understanding, from both students and teaching staff of what the expectations are for written assessment and how that translates to the marking criteria (Lea and Street 2006; Sadler 2005). The role of the learning developer therefore, must not only be to work with students to develop their understanding and skills but also with staff to ensure an alignment with expectations of written assessments and the programme level outcomes using a social constructivist assessment process model (Rust et al. 2005). This paper examines the use of this model to develop a programme level approach to teaching writing in the disciplines in the University of York’s School of Health Sciences. Staff within the school were invited to attend marking and feedback assessment workshops, and they were also asked to co-develop and co-deliver writing workshops with a member of the writing centre team. Following initial evaluation, we intend to test the extent to which this approach to writing in the disciplines supports staff to appreciate their students’ understanding of writing literacies, and the students better to understand expectations. The approach has the added benefit that writing centre staff become familiar with assessment methods within the school, and are thus able to offer more tailored advice and guidance.
References
Lea, M. R. and Street, V. B. (2006) The ‘academic literacies’ model: theory and applications. Theory into Practice 45 (04), 368–377 Mitchell, S. and Evison, A. (2006) Exploiting the potential of writing for educational change at Queen Mary, University of London. In L. Ganobcsik-Williams, (Ed). Teaching academic writing in UK higher education: theories, practice and models. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 68–84 Rust, C., O’Donovan, B. and Price, M. (2005) A social constructivist assessment model: how the research literature show us this could be best practice. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 30 (03), 231–240 Sadler, D. R. (2005) Interpretations of criteria based assessment and grading in higher education. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 30 (02), 175–194 Wingate, U. (2011) A comparison of “additional” and “embedded” approaches to teaching writing in the disciplines. In M. Deane and P. O’Neil, (Eds). Writing in the disciplines. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 66–87
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Presentation TWO APPROACHES TO CONTEXTUALISING WRITING SUPPORT WITHIN THE DISCIPLINES: PROJECT LISA (LEARNING IN SPECIALISED AREAS) AND DIALOGIC LECTURE ANALYSIS Lisa Maria Clughen Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, England As writing is a prime form of communication through which the disciplines interact, it is constructed, as many strands of writing support emphasise (see Clughen and Hardy 2012, Deane and O’Neill 2011, GanobcsikWilliams 2006), according to the specific needs of the wider disciplinary culture, and this, in itself, contains an array of writing conventions and expectations. Given the multiplicity of practices involved in disciplinary writing, ensuring that writing support is discipline, indeed subject or even module-appropriate is a core challenge for writing tutors and can seem an unending, confusing task. This paper discusses two ways in which a certain degree of clarity over disciplinary requirements can be attained through collaboration with subject tutors and with student writers themselves. Both methods address the time-poor context in which subject tutors operate and which may prevent widespread, long-term dialogue about localised writing concerns. First, it describes Project LISA (Learning in Specialised Areas), an ongoing initiative since 2002 in the School of Arts and Humanities in Nottingham Trent University, England. Through project LISA, the writing support co-ordinator has been able to gain information on writing conventions across the whole of the School by asking tutors to respond to questions about their expectations in a way that has secured a very high response rate. The second technique describes how ‘dialogic lecture analysis’ (Clughen and Connell 2012: 123–141), whereby writing tutors and students enter into debate over subject lectures, offers a dynamic, ecologically valid approach to gauging and demonstrating local writing practices and discourse conventions.
References
Clughen, L. and Connell, M. (2012) ‘Using Dialogic Lecture Analysis to Clarify Disciplinary Requirements for Writing’. in Writing in the Disciplines: Building Supportive Cultures for Student Writing in UK Higher Education. ed. by Clughen, L. and Hardy, C. Bingley: Emerald, 123–141 Clughen, L. and Hardy, C. (eds.) (2012) Writing in the Disciplines: Building Supportive Cultures for Student Writing in UK Higher Education. Bingley: Emerald Deane, M., and O’Neill, P. (eds.) (2011) Writing in the Disciplines. London: Palgrave Macmillan Ganobcsik-Williams, L. (ed.) (2006) Teaching Academic Writing in UK Higher Education. Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan
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Round-Table Discussion HARNESSING DISCIPLINARY BACKGROUNDS TO ENRICH WRITING PEDAGOGIES Tom Muir, Tulpesh Patel Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, Oslo, Norway The aim of this round-table is to explore the ways that different subject knowledges might be used to reimagine writing processes. Writing pedagogies often have a fraught relationship with disciplinarity: whether one sees writing as something crucial to disciplinary understanding (e.g. the embedded academic literacies approach) or something students should master in order to access disciplinary success (e.g. the so-called butler stance), the implication is that there is something neutral about the writing itself; the writing serves the discipline. An alternative to this may lie in the other areas of expertise writing teachers possess. Teachers of academic writing often come from a range of disciplinary backgrounds; the proposers of this round-table, for example, teach EAP but also have backgrounds in neuroscience and literary criticism, and have recently encountered writing teachers with backgrounds in business, engineering and philosophy. If a writing teacher is also a chemical engineer, or an archaeologist, or a sociologist, might the act of writing be the object of oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s study, as well as the means of reporting on it? By making writing the object of a multidisciplinary enquiry, this round-table aims to be a forum for discussing how the varied disciplinary backgrounds of writing teachers can be harnessed to enrich writing pedagogies. What does writing look like when viewed through the lens of a particular discipline, or the prism of many disciplines? Our hope is that this enquiry may produce reconceptualisations of writing that are surprising and imaginative, flares lighting the way into new kinds of writing pedagogy.
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Workshop DEVELOPING SPECIFICITY IN THE WRITING CLASSROOM Anne (Margaret) Vicary, Sarah (Margaret) Brewer University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom The Academic English Programme at the University of Reading delivers 15 discipline-specific programmes at Master’s and undergraduate levels. This number is steadily increasing. The programmes are non-credit bearing, and attended on a voluntary basis. To attract and retain students, EAP lecturers need to ensure that they are well acquainted with the academic culture, content and performance tasks required of students on their degree programme. Time-poor Master’s students are strategic – they are only likely to attend extra-curricular classes if their direct relevance is easily perceived. An EAP lecturer performs a delicate balancing act, ideally adopting a friendly, investigative yet non-threatening approach in an effort to learn from discipline specialists while fostering a certain academic confidence with students in the Academic English classroom. Building these relationships successfully results in meaningful teaching and learning taking place within discipline-specific writing programmes. The challenge is to facilitate and formalise this process to enable the highest level of integration possible. At Reading we use the complementary parameters of context, embedding and mapping, first established by Sloan and Porter in their CEM model (2010), to plot the level of integration of our courses with their particular degree programme. This metalanguage allows us to discuss in a concrete way how to work on reviewing and developing our courses. This workshop will give examples of courses run with differing levels of integration and encourage participants to review the level of integration of their own courses in the light of these models.
References
Sloan, D. E. and Porter, E. (2010) Changing international student and business staff perceptions of in-sessional EAP: using the CEM model. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 9 (3), September 2010, 198–210
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Presentation BEYOND FORMAL CONVENTIONS – TALKING ABOUT ACADEMIC AND SCIENTIFIC WRITING IN AN INTERDISCIPLINARY CONTEXT Andreas Corr The University of Tübingen, Central Administration II – Academic Affairs, Diversity-Oriented Writing Centre, Tübingen, Germany Usually, university writing courses (implicitly or explicitly) focus their attention on a specific academic or scientific discipline. This might have to do with institutional issues as well as the common idea that Academic or Scientific Writing skills are, in a way, bound to specific disciplines and their particular standards or conventions (e.g. in style, textual structure and citation). In this short presentation however, I will look into the challenges and benefits of Academic and Scientific Writing courses in an explicitly interdisciplinary context, where students coming from different academic backgrounds are addressed. Relating to our experiences at the Tübingen Writing Centre, the following questions will be raised: What problems and challenges does one have to face when she/he is talking about writing in an interdisciplinary context? Where are the main differences between diverse scientific fields when it comes to writing and which similarities can eventually be found? Are there any advantages of an interdisciplinary approach in teaching Academic and Scientific Writing Skills and what are they? In conclusion, I will argue that despite its many challenges, teaching writing in an interdisciplinary context can profoundly sensitise for the general demands and functions of scientific texts. It also lays the groundwork for keeping an open mind and being able to think outside the box. I will claim that, in order to become a better writer, it is vital to know the possibilities you have in writing beyond the formal constraints of a particular area of expertise.
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Presentation THE RESEARCH CIRCLE AS A RESOURCE IN CHALLENGING ACADEMICS’ PERCEPTIONS OF HOW TO SUPPORT STUDENTS’ WRITING IN HIGHER EDUCATION Lotta Bergman Malmo University, Malmo Sweden This presentation deals with research exploring how a group of academics, from different disciplines, collaboratively reflect on and extend their knowledge about how to support students’ writing. A teacherperspective on this issue is important since the limited research shows that academics may be uncertain about how such support can be designed and whether or not their competencies are adequate (Bailey 2010). Research concerning how teachers’ practices can be changed and developed is also scarce. The study is influenced by action research, concerned with developing and changing an activity and to gain knowledge regarding processes of change (Somekh 2006). The research took place within a research circle that gave opportunities for a dialogue where experience-based and research-based knowledge could meet. The project included participants’ small-scale investigations where different ways to support students was explored. The theoretical foundation is sociocultural (Wertsch 1998), supplemented with theories about the importance of critical reflection for changes in ways of thinking and acting (Mälkki 2011). Furthermore, the project draws on academic writing research, particularly socio-culturally oriented approaches (e.g. Lea & Street 1998). The data gathered includes audio-recorded meetings and semi-structured interviews. Results show how experience-based stories together with research-based knowledge can become powerful resources for challenge and development. Through collaborative work and the small-scale investigations the dialogue change character from focus on approaches to remedy students’ failings to participants’ teaching practices and the responsibilities of institutions.
References
Bailey, R. (2010) The role and efficacy of generic learning and study support: What is the experience and perspective of academic staff? Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education 2, 1–14 Lea, M. R., & Street, B. (1998) Student writing in higher education: An academic literacies approach. Studies in Higher Education 23 (2), 157–172 Mälkki, K. (2011) Theorizing the Nature of Reflection. Helsinki: University Print Somekh, B. (2006) Action Research. A Methodology for Change and Development. New York: Open University Press Wertsch, J. (1998) Mind as action. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press
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Presentation A TRANSFORMATIONAL APPROACH FOR WAC/ WID: CASE STUDIES IN TUNING AND PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF STUDENT WRITING ABILITIES Paul V. Anderson Elon University, Elon, North Carolina, USA WAC/WID programs in the US and similar programs in other countries have not yet realized their full potential for developing students’ writing abilities and enhancing their learning because they have drawn an imaginary boundary around their activities that restricts their focus to individual courses and faculty. Even in US programs that require several writing-intensive courses, each WI class stands alone, independent of the other(s). The European Union’s TUNING project (part of the Bologna Process) and its US adherents suggest a transformational solution. A disciplinary program’s entire faculty can collaborate to coordinate the writing instruction in their courses in order to scaffold writing instruction across its curriculum just as WAC/ WID instructors scaffold writing instruction within standalone WI courses. Elon University designed a fourphase method for creating such writing plans. First, a program identifies graduation-level writing outcomes. Outcomes are framed rhetorically. Each has a genre, audience, and use the (after-graduation) audience will make of the communication. In Phase 2, the program determines how each course will build on previous learning and prepare for the writing instruction in the following courses. Phases 3 and 4 involve pilot testing and refining plans. This process resembles the full-cycle assessment required by US accrediting agencies, so it is not completely new, though its application to writing is. While the process seems straightforward, implementation must be adapted to each program’s specific requirements, culture, and penchants. After explaining the theoretical and practical context for Elon’s process, I will compare seven programs’ different journeys through the first two phases.
References
Ewell, P. T. (2013) The Lumina Degree Qualifications Profile: Implications for Assessment. Urbana-Champagne, IL: National Institute on Learning Outcomes Assessment Jenert, T. (2014) Implementing outcome-oriented study programmes at university: The challenge of academic culture. Zeitschrift für Hochschulentwicklung 9 (2), 1–12. available at: http://www.zfhe.at/index.php/zfhe/article/view/652/609 [25 January 2015] Gaston, P. L. (2010) The Challenge of Bologna: What United States Higher Education Has To Learn from Europe, and Why It Matters that We Learn It. Sterling, VA: Stylus Gonzalez, J. and Wagner, R. (2005) Tuning objectives and methodology. In Gonzalez, J & Wagner R (eds.) Tuning Educational Structures in Europe II: Universities’ Contribution to the Bologna Process: Pilot Project Phase 2 Final Report Bilboa, Spain: Universidad de Deusto, 25–38 Ramaley, J. A. (2013) Seeking more high-quality undergraduate degrees: Conditions for more effectively working with policy makers. Peer Review 15 (1), 7–9
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Presentation CREATING A WRITING CURRICULUM FOR ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN DOCTORAL PROGRAMS Cheryl E. Ball¹, Tim Anstey² ¹West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV USA ²Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway Over the last two decades, the Research School at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO) has raised the level of scholarly output by offering a research-based PhD in four disciplinary areas typically known for their practical aesthetic approaches: architecture; design; form, theory, and history; and urbanism and landscape. With the exception of the Institute for Form, Theory, and History, long-form academic writing (from articles to monographs) does not have a tradition in the coursework for these fields. But the PhDs in all institutes at AHO produce either a monograph or a compilation of articles with an exigence (i.e.,“kappe”; see also Buchler et al, 2008; Lee 2010). As a visiting scholar in academic literacies and academic publishing, the first speaker sought to develop a writing curriculum with the second speaker, an architectural historian and the new PhD director, that would formalize the implicit instruction PhDs had received as part of the Research School in the past. This presentation uses case studies and examples to describe the rhetorical instruction that AHO has used informally for its PhDs over the last decade and has recently codified into an assignment sequence, to show improvements to PhDs’ learning outcomes and academic literacies practices. Following Lillis and Scott’s work on academic literacies as a field of inquiry as well as Lillis and Curry’s work on literacy brokers, we discuss how AHO honors the practice-based roots of its PhD students while instructors function as literacy brokers, leading students through academic-literacies inquiry to raise the level of research production in this multidisciplinary program.
References
Buchler, D., Biggs, M., Sandin, G., & Ståhl, L. (2008) Architectural Design and the Problem of Practice-Based Research. Cadernos de Pos-Graduaçao em Arquitetura e Urbanismo 2 (2) Lillis, T. & Scott, M. (2007) Defining Academic Literacies Research: Issues of Epistemology, Ideology and Strategy. Journal of Applied Linguistics 4 (1), 5–32 Lillis, T. & Curry, M. (2006) Professional Academic Writing by Multilingual Scholars: Interactions With Literacy Brokers in the Production of English-Medium Texts. Written Communication 23 (1), 3–35 Lee, A. (2010) When the Article is the Dissertation: Pedagogies for a PhD by Publication. In C. Aitchison, B. Kamler & A. Lee. (eds.), Publishing Pedagogies for the Doctorate and Beyond. New York: Routledge
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Presentation SUPPORTING WRITING IN THE DISCIPLINES – INTO THE CONTEXTUAL VORTEX Lisa Maria Clughen, Christine Hardy Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, England In our book, Writing in the Disciplines: Building Supportive Cultures for Student Writing in UK Higher Education (2012), we reported on research into writing that was undertaken across institutions in UK Higher Education (HE). The book is underpinned by a view of writing as a social practice (Street 1984) and discusses how tutors have responded to calls to recognise its social and cultural situatedness (Barton Hamilton & Ivanic 2000; Clark and Ivanic 1997). Reflecting on this research, in this paper, we emphasise the importance of context when considering the challenges of writing and its support. We present some of these challenges and reposition them within current contexts – international, national and local. Deploying data from the research, we discuss both the case for, indeed the urgency of, giving heightened attention to student writing in HE and the intricacies involved if such attention is given. Themes explored include the variable nature of writing in the disciplines and the spiralling complexity of writing support – once one accepts, for example, the need to lend a disciplinary flavour to writing support, how is this done? How are disciplinary practices identified? Who is the writing tutor? How might we address the social side of writing and pay attention to the writers themselves? Such complexity, once situated within the dynamic nature of social contexts, means that potential solutions to identified issues in writing support may also slip from our grasp as contexts change. Might sociocultural writing support find itself in a vortex, a whirl of constant reinvention?
References
Barton, D., Hamilton, M. and Ivanic, R. (2000) Situated literacies: Reading and writing in context. London: Routledge Clark, R. and Ivanic, R. (1997) The Politics of Writing. London: Routledge Clughen, L. and Hardy, C. (2012) Writing in the Disciplines: Building Supportive Cultures for Student Writing in UK Higher Education. Bingley: Emerald Street, B. (1984) Literacy in Theory and Practice. New York, NY: Cambridge University
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Presentation USING CBI, SFL AND CEAP TO INTEGRATE CONTENT AND LANGUAGE LEARNING IN A HIGHER EDUCATION CONTEXT Taryn Bernard General Linguistics Department, Stellenbosch University, South Africa This paper reports on a project developed to integrate disciplinary content and language skills on the extended degree programme (EDP) at Stellenbosch University. The project drew on three theories widely applied in the English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) literature: content-based instruction (CBI), systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and critical English for academic purposes (CEAP). Schleppegrell, Achugar & Oteiza (2004) and Schleppegrell & de Oliveria (2006) have shown how CBI and SFL perspectives can be combined to simultaneously develop knowledge of content and language skills of students in secondary school contexts; however, there is little research to show the impact of these theoretical approaches in higher education (HE) contexts. I argue that in such contexts, the combination of CBI and SFL has immense pedagogical value which can be added to by drawing on ideas developed in CEAP. In considering how power relations and social practices are embedded in academic texts, HE language practitioners can raise students’ awareness of the social value of their discipline and offer a fresh perspective on how disciplinary content often relies on linguistic skills.
References
Schleppegrell, M.J., Achugar, M. & Oteiza, T. (2004) The grammar of History: enhancing content-based instruction through a functional focus on grammar. TESOL Quarterly 38 (1), 67–93 Schleppegrell, M. & de Oliveira, L.C. (2006) An integrated language and content approach for history teachers. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 5 (4), 254–268
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Presentation A WORKING ALLIANCE: FRAMING THE TUTOR-TUTEE RELATIONSHIP Monica Broido, Harriet Rubin Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel The writing center tutor-tutee relationship is a delicate one. On the one hand, in a short time, the tutor must analyze the writing sample, and give the tutee guidelines and guidance for becoming a better, independent writer. On the other hand, the tutee has to trust the peer, internalize the advice, and implement changes. What makes this possible? How can this process be managed for it to be most effective? We believe that as in any helping relationship, a certain level of trust and connection is crucial for change to take place. We propose framing the tutor-tutee relationship as a Working Alliance, a concept borrowed from psychology, which according to Larose et al. (2010) is "likely to facilitate interpersonal engagement and collaboration” and is composed of three key elements: (1) a respectful and friendly partnership between tutors and tutees, (2) an agreement on the goals or expected outcomes, and (3) an agreement on the activities and responsibilities designed to achieve these goals. To determine whether this model can be applied to writing center relationships, we conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with tutors and tutees at the English Writing Center at Tel Aviv University. We found that all three components must be present for the interaction to be effective; should one be missing, the whole enterprise failed. Additionally, we suggest that this framework can serve not only as a diagnostic tool for understanding the dynamics of the relationship, but as a powerful pedagogical tool for training prospective tutors.
References
Larose, S., Chaloux, N., Monaghan, D. & Tarabulsy G.M. (2010) Working Alliance as a Moderator of the Impact of Mentoring Relationships Among Academically At-Risk Students. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 40 (10), 2656–2686
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Presentation USING A WRITING CENTRE TO ENHANCE THE WRITING SKILLS OF STUDENTS FOR WHOM ENGLISH IS NOT A FIRST LANGUAGE IN A TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY: A CASE STUDY Tsaona (Seitsiwe) Mokgwathi Botswana International University of Science and Technology, Palapye, Botswana This paper discusses the initiative by the Academic Affairs Centre for Technical Writing to use a Writing Centre to enhance the writing skills of students studying in a technical university. Students had serious writing problems generally, problems with technical writing in particular, and problems following academic writing conventions. Furthermore, English, the language of instruction, is not a first language for almost all the students. The conceptual framework of this paper is informed by Janet Emig's (1971) writing process, based on the idea that “students determine the content of the course by exploring the craft of writing using their own interests, language, techniques, voice, and freedom …”. The Writing Centre is an ideal setup to engage in the writing process since it provides peer tutoring on one-on-one basis. The benefit of peer tutoring is that students are assisted by fellow students with better language competency skills. Peer tutoring also values the contribution of both the writer and tutor. The qualitative study involved the analysis of twenty samples of students’ written work by examining them for grammatical correctness, cohesion, coherence and adherence to explicitness which is central in technical writing. The students had used the Writing Centre for three months. A focus group of 10 students was then interviewed to solicit their views about the service rendered. The results showed that a Writing Centre is crucial in the enhancement of students’ writing skills. The results of the study will be useful to lecturers teaching a similar course in technical institutions.
References
Wulff, A., Henderson, A., Williams, C., Marshall, L., Saravia L., & Aleksa, Vol.1. “To be a peer: an introduction to writing centre theory and practice”. A handbook online. http://www.uic.edu/depts/engl/writing/wc%20handbook2014.pdf [24 March 2015]
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Symposium TRANSATLANTIC PERSPECTIVES ON WRITING CENTERS: SURVEYING INSTITUTIONS AND SHARING PRACTICES TO DEVELOP SITUATED WRITING SUPPORT Pam Bromley¹, Andrea Scott², Ruth Bonazza³ ¹Pomona College, Claremont, California, USA ²Pitzer College, Claremont, California, USA ³Universität Osnabrück, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany While there is significant common ground in their scholarship and pedagogy, writing centers across the globe are distinct, operating in different academic contexts, languages and research traditions. This topic has been addressed in articles exploring the influence of the dominant Anglo-American model on writing center scholarship and practice (e.g., Harbord 2010; Donahue 2009; Macgilchrist & Girgensohn 2011; Ruhmann 2005). However, to date there have been no systematic investigations into the work of international writing centers, in particular writing centers in German-speaking countries, some of the oldest and by far the largest group of non-Anglo-American centers. Collating this information could help us to better understand the varieties and work of international writing centers, which could then inform and inspire both future research and center development. This symposium will share preliminary results from three empirical, crossinstitutional studies, encouraging attendees to reflect on and discuss the question: how can exploring and sharing different writing support traditions lead to the development of relevant and situated writing support? Pam Bromley shares preliminary survey results from the International Writing Centers Research Project, which solicited responses from over 500 non-US writing centers. Asking many of the same questions as the U.S.-based Writing Centers Research Project and the WPA Census, these findings show ways in which international writing centers both differ from and are similar to US centers. Andrea Scott tests the universality of what Grutsch-McKinney calls the "writing center grand narrative,” or stories writing centers tell about themselves to consolidate their identities (2013: 3). Results from a preliminary survey of writing center professionals in German-speaking countries suggest this influential theory needs to be qualified, because those surveyed offer more capacious and diverse definitions of writing centers than their U.S. counterparts. Ruth Bonazza presents findings from a project mapping L2 writing support services, particularly writing centers, in German universities. Using data from questionnaires and interviews with 9 L2 writing support services, this presentation also shares the experiences that some participants had in negotiating writing support models predominantly developed for English L1 contexts.
References
Donahue, C. (2009) "Internationalization" and Composition Studies: Reorienting the Discourse. College Composition and Communication 61 (2), 212–243 Grutsch McKinney, J. (2013) Peripheral Visions for Writing Centers. Logan: Utah State University Press Harbord, J. (2010) Writing in Central and Eastern Europe: Stakeholders and directions in initiating change. Across the Disciplines, [Online] 7. available at: http://wac.colostate.edu/atd/articles/harbord2010.cfm [6 January 2015] Macgilchrist, F., & Girgensohn, K. (2011) Humboldt Meets Bologna: Developments and Debates in Institutional Writing Support in Germany. Canadian Journal for Studies in Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie, [Online] 23 (1). available at: http://www.cjsdw.com/index. php/cjsdw/article/view/9 [6 January 2015] Ruhmann, G. (2005) Über einen ungehobenen Schatz der Hochschullehre. In U. Webers & O. Gaus (eds), The shift from teaching to learning. Konstruktionsbedingungen eines Ideals. Bielefeld: CW Bertelmann
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Presentation “WRILAB2”: DEVELOPING AN ON-LINE READING AND WRITING LABORATORY FOR L2 STUDENTS Gerd Bräuer¹, Ursula Doleschal² ¹The Freiburg Writing Centre, University of Education Freiburg, Germany ²SchreibCenter Klagenfurt, University of Klagenfurt, Austria In our presentation we will provide insight in the methodology, current challenges and preliminary results of an EU/Lifelong Learning project (2013–2016) focusing on the development of an international Online Writing/Reading Centre. The attention devoted to the shaping of writing ability in L2 Czech, German, Italian and Slovenian has so far been, more or less, rather scarce, resulting in a general lack of support material for both students and instructors on L2 writing in the languages mentioned above at secondary schools and universities. This problem is further accentuated by the recent increase of foreign students across the educational pyramide in the partner countries of this EU project. The aim of the project is to develop and test instructional and (self-) learning material, insight in current research on L2 writing/reading processes, training sequences for instructors and on-line courses that could be used locally and in international online collaboration. In our presentation we will especially focus on the needs analysis we conducted based on questionnaires and interviews with instructors and students in different teaching/learning cultures of our project partners. Based on these findings about their individual and institutional literacy management, we will draw conclusions for the design of the (digital) teaching and learning materials and its digital arrangement as an on-line writing and reading lab for L2 students and teachers.
References
Bräuer, G. & Schindler, K. (2011) Schereibarrangements für Schule, Hochschule, Beruf. Freiburg im Breisgau: Fillibachverlag Cope, B. & Kalantzis, M. (2009) Multiliteracies: New literacies, new learning, Pedagogies: An International Journal 4, 164–195 Gee, J. P. (2010) New digital media and learning as an emerging area and ”worked examples“ as one way forward. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Jewitt, C. (2006) Technology, literacy and learning: A multimodal approach. Abingdon, UK: Routledge
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Poster Presentation VISUAL METHODS IN ACADEMIC READING. FIND YOUR OWN SYSTEM TO DECODE THEORETICAL TEXTS AND THEN MAKE THEM YOUR OWN Pascal (Helmut) Bittner Europa-Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany Even more than writing, to many people "reading" is a skill one receives in the first grade and has since. Someone can read or cannot, and university students are just expected to have this reading ability. But reading an academic text does not equal understanding it. Even less does reading an academic text mean that the (student) writer can actually deal with it successfully. This becomes much more evident for (future) scholars reading in a non-native language. Here, especially writers with little experience might blindly follow the original structure and fail to extract the actual matter. This workshop means to prevent this and enable writers to use text sources in their favor. It therefore seeks to give and practice innovative methods that use different visualizations as a key to understanding. Visualizing something does always demand a certain understanding of the visualized. It is therefore challenging, but does prevent empty phrases that only seemingly transfer information, which is especially important in foreign languages. Additionally, it can actually turn into a welcome source of joy during academical work. Participants will: (1) develop their own system of codes, "mental short-cuts" while reading, (2) get to know methods that help to sum up paragraphs in a way that animates "dusty" sources, also assisting with later paraphrase, and (3) shape the extracted knowledge in a way that is personal and can serve as a sustainable source for future writing.
References
http://www.studis-online.de/Studieren/Lernen/text-verstehen.php Kruse. O. (2010) Lesen und Schreiben. Vol. 3355. UTB
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Workshop WHEN TUTOR MEETS TUTOR Julius Voigt Writing Centre, Frankfurt Oder, Germany What happens when two writing tutors with different cultural backgrounds, different mother-tongues and from different disciplines in their studies meet in a writing consultation giving advice to each other? In our workshop we would like to promote an exchange between tutors. Therefore, we are going to create a situation of a live-consultation where pairs of two tutors can exchange their tutoring methods and their ways of dealing with situations that they are confronted with in consultations. The aim is to generate knowledge for tutors and their work and to reflect different styles of tutoring in this live-situation. In various tutortutor-consultations we ourselves have already experienced the benefits from those special consultations in contrast to the usual tutor-student-ones; on the one hand, we get all the advantages that a usual consultation offers, but we also learn as tutors. Going into a consultation as a tutor to get help with my paper, I take the role of a student. But being not only a student, I see the tutor in front of me with “professional” eyes and I am able to mirror the tutor in his or her tutor-style. From previous workshops, where we created a similar situation, participants experienced unexpected new ideas and methods that came up and enriched their “tool-box” of tutoring. The idea of this workshop is to generate knowledge in a very practical way by confrontation and experience. Interaction will be guided by us, participants will find a partner via a “speeddating”-round in the group. There will be time and space for individual and collaborative thinking, action, reaction and reflection.
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Presentation WRITING CENTRES AS THE DRIVING FORCE OF PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT: FROM AD-ON STUDY SKILLS COURSES TO CONTENT AND LITERACY INTEGRATED TERTIARY EDUCATION Susanne Göpferich Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, Zentrum für fremdsprachliche und berufsfeldorientierte Kompetenzen (ZfbK)/Institut für Anglistik, Giessen, Germany Academic writing courses and subject-matter courses have been taught independently to a large extent at many universities although there are a number of advantages of integrating literacy development, both in students’ L1 and in English (if this is not their L1), into subject-matter courses. These include an increase in students’ motivation to complete assignments, exploiting the epistemic function of writing, acculturation into discourse communities and time economy (Kellogg 2008; Beaufort 2012; Craig 2013; Byrnes and Manchón 2014). The lack of integration that can still be observed has a number of causes, among them the belief that the integration of literacy development into subject-matter courses would take away time for the teaching of the subject matter itself, a lack of cooperative teaching models (Craig 2013: 154), and administrative barriers. Against this background, a three-level model of measures in tertiary education will be presented, which aims at the development of writing centres into motors of literacy development across curricula in all disciplines. The macro-level encompasses university-wide services and policies. These include writing centres cooperating with teaching centres to provide support for program development, policies which comprise incentives and training for teaching writing-intensive seminars in the disciplines and the definition of quality criteria for good teaching and assignments. The meso-level addresses program development towards content, and literacy integrated teaching and learning, and the micro-level, curriculum and syllabus development for individual courses. The application of the model will be illustrated with reference to the university of Giessen (Germany), where it has been introduced since 2012 (Göpferich 2015).
References
Beaufort, A. (2012) ‘College Writing and Beyond: Five years later’. Composition Forum [online] 26. available at <http://compositionforum. com/issue/26/college-writing-beyond.php> [9 January 2014] Byrnes, H. and Manchón, R. (eds) (2014) Task-Based Language Learning – Insights from and for L2 Writing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Craig, J.L. (2013) Integrating Writing Strategies in EFL/ESL University Contexts: A Writing-Across-the-Curriculum Approach. New York, London: Routledge Göpferich, S. (2015) Text Competence and Academic Multiliteracy: From Text Linguistics to Literacy Development. Tübingen: Narr Kellogg, R.T. (2008) ‘Training Writing Skills: A Cognitive Developmental Perspective’. Journal of Writing Research 1 (1), 1–26
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Workshop WRITING CENTER – THE NORWEGIAN WAY THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE BERGEN WRITING CENTER AND EXPERIENCES AFTER THE FIRST YEAR IN BUSINESS Randi Benedikte Brodersen¹, Michael Grote², Birger Solheim¹, Pål Steiner² ¹Department of Philosophy, Bergen, Norway ²The Humanities Library, Bergen, Norway In September 2014, the first Norwegian academic writing center in the Western part of Norway at The University of Bergen was opened. During the autumn more than 100 students received guidance, individually and in smaller groups, and many tailored writing courses were designed and held. In this presentation we will describe the process that led to the establishment of our center and discuss some aspects which contributed positively to its realization. Further we will share some of the experiences that we have gained at this early stage, and reflect upon whether there is something about our pedagogical practice that singles us out in comparison to other writing centers. Is it possible to talk about a Bergen model of writing center? A combination of several factors might evolve into a specific Bergen-concept: a very active use of exercises to initiate and advance writing (e.g. spontaneous writing), a dialogic approach to guidance and an open attitude towards the students' individual needs paired with criterion-based feedback and an extensive utilization of writing groups. To a large extent these principles are used both when we meet the students in individual and group guidance and in the tailored writing courses within the subjects. The Bergen-model also includes a close cooperation between the writing center and library staff, especially in the development of our own online writing tool “Søk & Skriv” (“Search & Write). “Søk & Skriv” has users worldwide – there were over 340,000 visits last year.
References
Dysthe, O. & Hertzberg, F. (2014) Skriveopplæring med vekt på prosess og produkt. In: Kåre Kverndokken (ed.): 101 Skrivegrep. Om skriving, skrivestrategier og elevers tekstskaping. Oslo: Fagbokforlaget & Landslaget for norskundervisning, 13–35 Rienecker, L. & Jørgensen, P. S. (2008) Den gode oppgaven. Håndbok I oppgaveskriving på universitet og høyskole. Oslo: Fagbokforlaget Ryan, L. & Zimmerelli, L. (2010) The Bedford Guide for Writing Tutors. Boston & New York: Bedford/St. Martin's Søk&Skriv: sokogskriv.no
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Presentation PLAGIARISM REHABILITATION AS CATALYST IN THE SUCCESSFUL GROWTH OF THE WRITING CENTRE ENVIRONMENT Zander Janse van Rensburg North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa Plagiarism is a growing concern in the African academic environment and with a growing contingent of first-generation students, predominantly non-native speakers of English, poor writing skills could be a contributing factor. As illustrated by the annual results of the Test of Academic Literacy Levels (Van Dyk & Weideman 2004), these students are ill-equipped to write effectively. Therefore, the question is: Can plagiarism detection tools/software (e.g. Turnitin) be used to promote development of a writing centre and academic writing skills (Penketh & Beaumont 2014) (Ledwith & Rísquez 2008), without compromising the image of the writing centre as a safe haven? Data from a campus specific questionnaire indicated that when students do commit to plagiarism it is mainly because of a lack of knowledge or skill (compare Baird & Dooey 2014: 389; Devlin & Gray 2007), which is in keeping with the excuse most frequently presented in defence during disciplinary hearings. Students fear disciplinary hearings; therefore, the local writing centre, in collaboration with the local disciplinary office, has been repositioned as a safe haven (Buranen 2009) to which students can turn for consultation (assistance) against plagiarism. The centre therefore becomes a safe, remedial pedagogical space when students have inadvertently committed a transgression. This paper presents data from the questionnaire on plagiarism and also explains the steps taken based on these findings to create a safe, remedial, pedagogical space. The favoured effect is that the services of the Writing Centre provide opportunities for qualitative and quantitative research on plagiarism and academic writing.
References
Baird, C. & Dooey, P. (2014) Ensuring student support in higher education alleged plagiarism cases. Innovative higher education 39 (5), 387–400 Buranen, L. (2009) A safe place. Knowledge Quest 37 (3), 24–33 Devlin, M & Gray, K. (2007) In their own words: a qualitative study of the reasons Australian university students plagiarize. Higher Education Research & Development 26 (2), 181–198 Ledwith, A. & Rísquez, A. (2008) Using anti-plagiarism software to promote academic honesty in the context of peer reviewed assignments. Studies in Higher Education 33 (4), 371–384 Penketh, P & Beaumont, C. (2014) Turnitin said it wasn’t happy. Innovations and Teaching International 51 (1), 95–104 Van Dyk, T. & Weideman, A. (2004) Switching constructs: On the selection of an appropriate blueprint for academic literacy assessment. SAALT Journal for language teaching 38 (1), 1–13
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Presentation WRITING SUPPORT IN A MULTILINGUAL CONTEXT: WHAT DO STAFF AND STUDENTS NEED? Birgit Huemer, Katrien Deroey, Eve Lejot University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg This paper reports on an extensive analysis of language learning needs performed amongst staff and students at a multilingual university. Although needs analysis is a well established method to inform specific language teaching (Basturkmen 2010), few studies have analysed writing support needs in general (Kruse 2013; Kruse, Meyer & Everke Buchanan in press) or writing support needs in multilingual contexts (Huemer, Rheindorf & Wetschanow 2014). In this paper, we will focus on the needs for writing support in English, French, German and Luxembourgish across faculties at the University of Luxembourg, where most degree programmes are multilingual. In addition to the results for these two groups, we will discuss the (mis)match between staff and student perceptions of students’ needs. Results are from 24 semi-structured interviews and online questionnaires (staff n=559, students n=364) covering all faculties. Not surprisingly, academic staff and post-doctoral researchers report the greatest need for support in writing research genres, i.e. papers and proposals, chiefly in English. They also felt students mostly required instruction in writing assignments and dissertations in English. Students, however, would like support in writing assignments and dissertations in all four languages. Finally, when looking at the overall results for staff and students, it is striking that the need for general language training, especially conversational skills, in all four languages outstrips the reported need for academic language instruction. We will discuss how these results informed our course design across different programs and faculties.
References
Basturkmen, H. (2010) Developing courses in English for specific purposes. London: Palgrave Macmillan Huemer, B. & Rheindorf, M. & Wetschanow, K. (2014) Gesellschaftliche Mehrsprachigkeit. Eine Herausforderung für universitäre Schreibzentren. In Anke Wegner & Eva Vetter (Hrsg.) Mehrsprachigkeit und Professionalisierung in pädagogischen Berufen. Opladen: Budrich UniPress Ltd., 229–244 Kruse, O. (2013) Perspectives on Academic Writing in European Higher Education: Genres, Practices, and Competences. Revista de Docencia Universitaria 11 (1), 37–58 Kruse, O. & Meyer, H. & Everke Buchanan, S. (in press) Schreiben an der Universität Konstanz. Eine Befragung von Studierenden und Lehrenden. Working Papers in Applied Linguistics [Online Publication]
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Presentation GENDER-BALANCE IN THE WRITING CENTER Jóhannes Gísli Jónsson, Helga Birgisdóttir University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland In the newly founded writing center at the University of Iceland (Ritver Hugvísindasviðs, RH), one of the most striking facts to emerge from our statistics is that 85% of our clients are women. To be sure, a perfect gender balance is not to be expected since female students comprise 62.8% of the undergraduates at the university and 70.9% of the graduate students. It is well documented that writing centers attract more women than men (Nicolas 2003) but the gender gap at RH is so big that it requires further investigation. Tipper (1999) offers some speculations as to why male students stay away from writing centers, but many of them are based on the assumption that students know what to expect in writing center consultations, e.g. that they involve a non-directive style. This cannot be the case for RH as our students live in a country without any tradition of writing centers and have only vague ideas about writing center work. Moreover, it is overly stereotypical to claim that male students dislike the non-directive approach of writing center consultations. It is not particularly helpful to view writing centers as “feminized spaces” that drive away male students if we want to understand the gender difference in writing center use. Rather, one must carefully examine the way that male and female students approach their studies at a university level, and at the same time look for variables other than gender that may affect the gender ratio in writing center consultations.
References
Nicolas, M. (2003) Re-telling the story: An exploration of the feminization of the writing center narrative. Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University Tipper, M.O. (1999) Real men don't do writing centers. Writing Center Journal 19 (2), 33–40
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Presentation RAPID IMPLEMENTATION OF ACADEMIC WRITING SERVICES Brigitte Römmer-Nossek, Eva Kuntschner, Charlotte Zwiauer Center for Teaching and Learning, University of Vienna, Austria In this paper we want to present the case of the University of Vienna’s Center for Teaching and Learning implementing academic writing services and discuss our experiences from an organizational point of view. In May 2013 the University of Vienna Center for Teaching and Learning started to implement first academic writing services: Writing workshops to coach diploma students who are already teaching in schools, over a period of 8–10 months towards finishing their theses. A writing mentors programme aimed at supporting students with their first writing assignments at university. In this program students are being educated to foster small regular writing groups in two BA program. Currently we are in the process of piloting a Writing Fellows Program and expanding the writing mentoring program as to accommodate for the particular needs of students with German as a second/foreign language. We want to discuss our case of a rapid implementation of academic writing services by an already existing organizational unit under three aspects: Firstly, within an expert organization like a university, any organizational unit needs credibility as well as experience in working with partners rooted in diverse academic cultures. Having already established a network facilitates rapid implementation. Secondly, academic writing is a central academic competency, but it is worthwhile to view it in the context of research led teaching and learning and curriculum development. Thirdly, in working with decision makers in the disciplines, it is constructive to complement the “working on the writer ethos” with an evidence based quality development view.
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Poster Presentation FROM A BAD PAPER TO A PATENT: A CASE STUDY ON COACHING IN ACADEMIA Alena Kasparkova VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic In the Czech Republic, writing lessons at universities are rare as writing skills remain underestimated. Inspired by writing centres abroad, taking various forms and having many functions, the presentation considers coaching, as defined by International Coach Federation, as a tool in academic (writing) progress, possibly to precede academic writing courses, especially if there is low trust in them. The talk addresses a case study of a six-month period in the career of an academic. As a consequence of a situation when valuable research was under threat of remaining unpublished due to poor writing skills of the future coachee, the academic English teacher turned into a coach. Involved in a 12-month certified training programme, the coach welcomed the opportunity of a possible synergetic effect of offering a different approach and practicing coaching. The frequency was one 60-minute session per month. Open questions, various techniques and working with the interim were used to change the coachee's perspective, set goals and encourage her to take responsibility for her actions. As the coachee is accountable for the work, she was enthusiastic about the results, such as personal development, better time management, lodging a patent based on the research included in the original paper, and application for a new project. Additionally, owing to the trust developed between the coach and the coachee, she has revised her attitude to writing. This presentation may be inspiring for those who are involved in providing individual writing consultations and who may wish to develop further.
References
Čmejrková, S. (1994) 'Nonnative (academic) writing'. In: Čmejrková, Světla - Daneš, František - Havlová, Eva ed. Writing vs Speaking Language: Text, Discourse, Communication. Tübingen: Narr, 303–310 Maltarese, V. ed. (2013) Supporting Research Writing: Roles and challenges in multilingual settings. Oxford: Chandos Silsbee, D. (2010) The Mindful Coach. Jossey-Bass; 2nd Edition
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Presentation A MEASURE OF POSSIBLE SOURCES OF DEMOTIVATING FACTORS IN L2 WRITING: SCALE DEVELOPMENT AND PRELIMINARY VALIDATION Mehmet Karaca, Serhat Inan Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey Investigating the factors demotivating learners in second language writing process has paramount importance. Recently, a great body of research has been devoted to exploring possible demotivating factors in language learning in general. However, this is not the case for second language writing. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to find out the main demotivating factors in second language writing among ESP/ EAP students in Turkey as an EFL context. For this aim, 400 students from two different state universities participate in this study. Besides, as there is no scale of demotivating factors in L2 writing, the researchers will develop a Second Language Writing Scale Demotivating Factors Scale (SLWDFS) and through this they will explore the demotivating factors in the process of second language writing instruction. The initial items of the scale will be generated by a thorough literature review and student compositions. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses will be conducted for the final version of the scale, which includes five constructs: the writing teacher, the learner, the teaching/learning context, writing materials and content, and the nature of writing. It is estimated that the results will reveal that the teaching and learning context and the nature of writing will be the most demotivating factors in the writing skill. The findings of the study can be applied in teacher development in general and in teacher literacy of writing training in particular.
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Presentation THE VISUALITY OF WRITTEN TEXTS: MULTILINGUAL WRITERS MAKING DESIGN CHOICES Amy A. Zenger American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon Visuality, how we learn to see socially, is relevant for the design and reading of texts – units that are complete in terms of their social environment” (Kress 2004: 64). Academic texts convey significance not only through language but also through features such as the shape of paragraphs; punctuation; line and section breaks; headings; systems for quoting and documenting sources; and title treatments. As Blommaert (2004) observes, however, “visuality is not lost in practice, but it is lost in the ideological conception of the writing and reading process” (655). Visuality is often addressed in academic writing classrooms not as a critical question but as a purely pragmatic one, in the instructions for formatting an assignment. This study draws on theories that represent writing as a practice always embedded in social environments (Barton; Street), and pedagogies of writing with students who are, in Canagarajah’s (2006) words, “shuttling between languages.” Using interviews and text analysis, my proposed research seeks to document the visual choices multilingual student writers make as they move between different academic and linguistic environments (Arabic, French, English, and Armenian). In my presentation, I will provide examples of visual elements that vary across contexts, accompanied by the writers’ discussions of how they design academic writing to address the expectations of different audiences. I aim to promote a discussion about teaching practices that integrate visuality into the conceptual dimensions of composition courses.
References
Barton, D., Hamilton, M., & Ivanic, R. (1999) Situated Literacies. London: Routledge Blommaert, J. (2004) Writing as a Problem: African Grassroots Writing, Economies of Literacy, and Globalization. Language in Society 33 (5), 643–671 Canagarajah, A. S. (2006) Toward a Writing Pedagogy of Shuttling between Languages: Learning from Multilingual Writers College English 68 (6), 589–604 Kress, G. (2004) Literacy in the New Media Age. London: Routledge Street, B. (1991) The New Literacy Studies. Cross Cultural Approaches to Literacy. Ed. B. Street: 1–21
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Presentation THE WHITE WORSTED THREAD: THIRD SPACE ENCOUNTERS IN ENGLISH L2 WRITING – AN EXAMINATION OF RESEARCH WRITING FOR PUBLICATION IN ENGLISH IN A PHYSICS/ MATHEMATICS PUBLIC UNIVERSITY FACULTY IN CENTRAL MÉXICO Rocio Barbosa-Trujillo, Nancy Keranen Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, México Background. Third Space Theory proposes that in any given situation people draw on multiple resources or funds (Bhabha 2004). Third spaces are the in-between, or hybrid, spaces where first and second spaces work together to generate third space knowledges, discourses, and literacy forms (Moje et al. 2004). The theory has been applied in fields such as geography, arts, postcolonial studies, feminist studies and recently in education; however, as yet, it has not been widely used to describe L2 English writing in the sciences. Aims. To analyse the different funds of knowledge and discourses that may shape L2 writing. To explore the way this knowledge and discourse is used to support writing and publishing scientific articles. RQs. RQ1:What are the different funds of knowledge and discourses that may shape NNES scientists’ writings when publishing in a second language – English? RQ2:How do NNES scientists bring this knowledge and discourse to support their writings? Approach. Qualitative. Methods. Ethnographic-type, 8 Spanishspeaking physics/math academics. Data. Interviews: narrative/experiential, examination of resources/tools/ artefacts used to write research results for publication in L2-English. Results. An analysis of the funds the scientists draw on to write their research for publication. A description of beliefs/strategies/emotions and antecedent factors, along with resources at hand when writing for publication. Conclusions. Understanding the hybrid spaces and how the participants function within them can help educators create or provide access to third spaces via career enculturation and literacy resources for incipient researchers and those struggling to survive in academic careers.
References
Bhabha, H. K. (2004) The Location of Culture. London: Routledge Fahlander, F. (2007) Third space encounters: Hybridity, mimicry and interstitial practice. In P. Cornell and F. Fahlander, eds. 2007. Encounters / Materiality / Confrontations – Archaeologies of Social Space and Interaction. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, Ch.2 Moje, E. B, Ciechanowski, K. M., Kramer, K., Ellis, L., Carrillo, R., and Collazo, T. (2004) Working toward third space in content area literacy: An examination of everyday funds of knowledge and discourse. Reading Research Quarterly 39 (1), 38–70 Vistrain, A. (2009) enero-junio. Apertura del tercer espacio y los procesos de hibridación en las situaciones de enseñanza dentro del salón de clases. CPU-e, Revista de Investigación Educativa, 8. Recuperado el [fecha de consulta], http://www.uv.mx/cpue/num8/inves/ vistrain_tercer_espacio.html Wagner, G. and Ikas, K. (eds.) (2008) Communicating in the Third Space. London: Routledge
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Presentation “BALBH I DHÁ THEANGA”, SPEECHLESS IN TWO LANGUAGES: THE SEARCH FOR AN ACADEMIC VOICE AMONG BILINGUAL IRISH-ENGLISH SPEAKERS Síobhra Aiken National College of Ireland, Galway, Ireland Although 1.77 million of the Irish population claim to speak Irish, the future of the language is continually threatened by the global dominance of English. A 2014 study of language acquisition among young children in the Gaeltachtaí, or Irish speaking areas, shows that even children whose first language is Irish have a higher cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP) in English (Péterváry et al. 2014). The anxiety evoked by this uneven bilingualism can result in Irish speakers becoming, in the words of poet Máire Mhac an tSaoi, “speechless in two languages.” The Academic Writing Centre in the National College of Ireland, Galway is the only centre in Ireland which caters for academic writing in the Irish language. This paper will draw on my own experience as a peer tutor and highlight the challenges that face both native and non-native speakers in finding their academic voice. Given that academic writing is “no one’s mother tongue” (Bourdieu et al. 1994), I will demonstrate how the bilingual skills of English-Irish speakers can be transferred to an academic context. In addition, while English is increasingly the lingua franca of academia, the production of a corpus of dynamic scholarly writing in Irish is crucial for the credibility and future of the language. Fledgling Irish language scholars are thus, to borrow K. David Harrison’s term, “language warriors” (2010), and I will demonstrate how this definite sense of identity among minority language speakers should be channelled to enhance their academic writing.
References
Péterváry, T., Ó Curnáin, B., Ó Giollagáin, C. and Sheahan, J. (2014) Iniúchadh ar an gCumas Dátheangach, An sealbhú teanga i measc ghlúin óg na Gaeltachta/ Analysis of Bilingual Competence, Language acquisition among young people in the Gaeltacht. available at: http://www.cogg.ie/wp-content/uploads/iniuchadh-ar-an-gcumas-datheangach.pdf [15 January 2015] Ní Uigín, D. (2013) ‘An Litearthacht Acadúil agus an Fhéiniúlacht Acadúil: Cás-Staidéar ar an Ionad Scríbhneoireachta Acadúla in Ollscoil na hÉireann, Gaillimh’ Ollscoil na hÉireann, Gaillimh. Léann Teanga : an Reiviú : Gaillimh : OEG. available at: http://leannteangaanreiviu.oegaillimh.ie/ sites/g/files/g993166/f/201305/LéannTeanga-AnReiviú_2013_07_An%20Litearthacht%20Acadúil%20agus%20an%20Fhéiniúlacht%20 Acadúil.pdf [15 January 2015] Bourdieu, P., Passeron, J.P., and de Saint Martin, M. (1994) Academic discourse: linguistic misunderstanding and professorial power. Cambridge: Polity Press Harrison, K. (2010) The last speakers: the quest to save the world's most endangered languages. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic
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Presentation THE CHALLENGES OF ACADEMIC WRITING FOR STUDENTS FROM CONTEXTS OF RESIDUAL ORALITY WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE THOUGHT OF WALTER ONG Leonard Dirk Hansen Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa More than thirty years ago Walter J. Ong (1912 –2003), American Jesuit priest, professor of English literature and cultural and religious historian, wrote his Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982). In it Ong attempts to identify the distinguishing characteristics of orality: thought and its verbal expression in societies where the technologies of literacy (especially writing and print) are unfamiliar to most or where this has till recently been the case (using the term ‘residual orality’). Although not free from criticism, Ong’s thought continues to challenge scholars across a wide variety of disciplines – as is shown, for example, in the recent 30th anniversary republication of Orality and Literacy with John Hartely again contextualising Ong’s work, discussing recent criticism of it and assessing it in light of recent scholarship on orality, literacy and the study of knowledge technologies. This paper revisits Ong’s seminal work with view to Africa, one of the few contexts where residual orality still flourishes despite the growth in cultures of literacy. This is done specifically with reference to examples of student writing in (academic) theology at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Given the increased mobility and numbers of students from Africa and other contexts where residual orality may exist, this paper hopes to contribute to the discourse on understanding the challenges in teaching of academic writing to multicultural groups of students, including non-European students attending European universities.
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Presentation VOICES OF REVIEWERS: EXPRESSION OF EVALUATION IN ENGLISH AND LITHUANIAN Birutė Ryvitytė Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania Academic writing programmes in tertiary education aim to encourage students to think critically and externalize their values verbally. Though it has long been known that the systems of values expressed by different cultures through their particular languages differ, the study of the evaluative function of language has become the focus of linguistics only in the 21st century (Hunston & Thompson 2000; Hyland & Diani 2009; Thompson & Alba-Juez 2014). The purpose of this presentation is to discuss the cross-cultural differences of one evaluative genre, i.e. the book review genre, in English and Lithuanian. The corpus analysed consists of 60 English and Lithuanian reviews of books on linguistics published in academic journals in 2008–2014. The study reveals that English reviewers tend to express their general positive evaluation of the book as early as possible, while their Lithuanian counterparts display greater reservation. An additional step was identified in Lithuanian reviews employed to express the reviewers’ wishes concerning the author’s future work. Both English and Lithuanian reviewers were aware of the interpersonal effects of the review and maintained solidarity with the authors reviewed through the mitigation of criticism, however, Lithuanian reviewers were more cautious in expressing their critical remarks. The findings of this research suggest that, in order to enable students to produce critical literature reviews as part of their academic theses in English, non-native students should be made aware of the existing cross-cultural differences in evaluative language rather than be expected to transfer evaluative moves from the familiar genres in their native language.
References
Hunston, S. & Thompson, G. (eds.) (2000) Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford University Press Hyland, K. & G. Diani (eds.) (2009) Academic Evaluation: Review Genres in University Settings. Palgrave Macmillan Thompson, G. & Alba-Juez, L. (eds.) (2014) Evaluation in Context. John Benjamins Publishing Company
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Presentation GLOBAL SPREAD OF ENGLISH IN ACADEMIA AND ITS EFFECTS ON WRITING INSTRUCTION IN TURKISH UNIVERSITIES Hacer Hande Uysal Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey The global spread of English in academia and its pedagogical consequences have been of interest in recent scholarship. Therefore, this paper first historically analyzes Turkish state policies of scholarly publishing, increasingly supporting publishing in English. Second, a field study explores the influences of state policies on academic writing instruction in two major universities in Ankara because studies of language policies in practice are needed and education is a critical vehicle for language spread. First, the courses with an academic writing component were identified, curricula/syllabuses, textbooks, and assessment rubrics were obtained. Kaplan & Baldaufâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (1997; 2005) language-in-education policy descriptions for access policy (what is learned and when), curriculum policy (time allocated in the curriculum, intensity of instruction, objectives, approaches, and methods), and materials policy (content of the textbooks) were used as a framework in data analyses. Then, interviews with students and instructors were conducted. The results indicate that the state policy has largely influenced literacy planning and practices at universities as increasingly more courses aiming at developing English academic writing skills according to Anglo-American norms are offered while academic writing in Turkish is neglected. English seems to gain a higher status and hegemony in scientific literacy.
References
Kaplan, R. B. & Baldauf, R. B. (1997) Language Planning: From practice to theory. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Kaplan, R. B. & Baldauf. R. B. (2005) Language-in-education policy and planning. In E. Hinkel (Ed.) Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1013-1034
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Workshop "WE LEARN FROM MISTAKES" – THE MOST FREQUENT DIFFICULTIES CZECH STUDENTS FACE WHEN WRITING IN ENGLISH: AN ANALYSIS OF ESSAYS WRITTEN BY STUDENTS OF PHILOSOPHICAL FACULTY Veronika Glogarová¹, Alena Kasparkova² ¹Palacký University in Olomouc, Olomouc, Czech Republic ²VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic For Czech university students, writing in English is becoming more and more essential. Research focusing on Czech and English writing styles (e.g. Čmejrková 1996) described significant difficulties for Czech students and academics which arise from their socio-cultural background, influenced mainly by German and Russian cultures. However, because the Anglo-Saxon influence has been gaining on importance in the Czech Republic since the Velvet Revolution in 1989, the question emerged whether the above-mentioned difficulties still persevere and what role the socio-cultural aspect plays in academic texts written by Czechs in English. The method chosen for the research was an analysis of 60 essays written by undergraduate students of the Philosophical Faculty, Palacký University, across disciplines, within a semestrial Academic English course. According to the analysis, the main difficulties which Czech students face concern structuring, citing skills and referencing, argumentation, modality and meta-discourse. Because students wrote the essays having been taught the principles of English-style academic writing, the problematic commonalities may be concluded to be deeply rooted in the Czech cultural background. Changing the writing habits in English will not only need more practice, but also require broadening the students’ way of thinking, i.e. incorporating lessons on critical thinking, argumentation styles and other general academic skills into curricula. The results shown by the research and the syllabus adapted according to them may be useful either for Central/ Eastern European teachers of Academic Writing who have students from similar cultural backgrounds, and also for West European teachers teaching in post-Communist countries.
References
Connor, U. (1996) Contrastive Rhetoric. Cross-cultural aspects of second-language writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Čmejrková, S. (1996) 'Academic writing in Czech and English'. Academic writing. Intercultural and Textual issues. Amsterdam Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 137–152 Kaplan, R. (1966) 'Cultural thought patterns in intercultural education'. Language Learning 16 (1), 1–20 Swales, J. M. (1990) Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
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Presentation MULTILINGUALISM AS A KEY FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF ACADEMIC WRITING Özlem Alagöz-Bakan, Marco Linguri Schreibwerkstatt Mehrsprachigkeit, Hamburg, Germany and Schreibzentrum Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Multilingualism and interculturality are gaining an increasingly important role in today's globalized world. Intercultural exchange along with worldwide migration are both a source for potential conflict as well as opportunity. Therefore, writing centres, especially in multicultural cities like Hamburg and Frankfurt, need to address this topic in more detail. Peer tutors may ask themselves: What does it mean for a L2 learner of German to write an essay in German literature? What does it mean for Master's degree students who write their thesis in English? To peer tutors, it can sometimes be challenging to not only see the problems but also recognize the opportunities. We should keep in mind that a significant advantage of peer tutoring is that it provides a one-to-one situation including a non-judgmental space which leaves much more room for experiments that tap into students’ multilingual skills and expose them to different methods of writing (Knorr et al. 2015). Multilingual writers who have actively incorporated multilingualism into their writing process have reported positive influences on several aspects of their writing. These students utilize, for example, the linguistic knowledge of their languages and thereby create a unique writing style. Finally, our aim is to present methods and strategies one could employ in writing conferences with multilingual students. Also, we will discuss some experiences we had by using them. By this, we would like to encourage others to make it their goal to keep an open mind towards their multilingual students and embrace their additional language skills as a strength and opportunity.
References
Knorr, D., Andresen, M., Alagöz-Bakan, Ö., Tilmans, A. (2015) Mehrsprachigkeit – Ressource für SchreibberaterInnen und Ratsuchende. In: Dirim, Inci/ Gogolin, Ingrid/ Knorr, Dagmar/ Krüger-Potratz, Marianne/ Lengyel, Dorit/ Reich, Hans H./ Weiße, Wolfram (ed.): Impulse für die Migrationsgesellschaft. Bildung, Politik und Religion. [Bildung in Umbruchgesellschaften; 12]. Münster, 318–338 Lange, U. (2012) Strategien für das wissenschaftliche Schreiben in mehrsprachigen Umgebungen. Eine didaktische Analyse. In: Knorr, Dagmar/ Verhein-Jarren, Annette (ed.): Schreiben unter Bedingungen von Mehrsprachigkeit [Textproduktion und Medium, Bd. 12]. Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 139–155
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Symposium ANALYSING ACADEMIC WRITING PRACTICES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TARTU: A MULTIFACETED PERSPECTIVE ON LANGUAGES, TEACHING, AND TRADITIONS Djuddah A. J. Leijen, Marge Käsper, Ülle Türk, Pille Põiklik, Mari Kruse, Anni Jürine, Kersti Lepajõe College of World Languages and Cultures, University of Tartu, Estonia The symposium, chaired by Djuddah A.J. Leijen, the Head of the Center for Academic Writing and Communication at the University of Tartu, focuses on how texts are constructed in the Estonian context in Estonian and other languages. The presenters all teach academic writing and text analysis, be it to students of specific languages or students from various disciplines wishing to publish in a foreign language. The question we explore is whether there are any culture-specific characteristics which can be traced in the texts of Estonian writers. Our aim in looking at this across languages, formats and levels is to provide insights that could be applied when considering the needs of Estonian university writers. To begin with, Marge Käsper offers a contrastive analysis of book reviews published in Estonian humanities and social sciences and of functionally comparable texts in French. After this, Pille Põiklik and Ülle Türk present an analysis of the written answers produced by Estonian students in English at university entrance examinations, and Mari Kruse analyses the influence of English on students writing in Spanish. Djuddah A.J. Leijen and Anni Jürine analyse the problems young researchers have as they enter specific fields of research. Kersti Lepajõe, the invited expert for the discussion, will comment further on the Estonian writing traditions the students bring with them as they enter university studies and the difficulties they might have in academic writing. Thus, the first presentations provide an overview of where we are coming from: what have been considered the discursive norms and practices in published texts and what is the level of students entering the university, while the following presentations are concerned with the practicalities of the Estonian students’ writing in other languages and the lessons that can be learnt from it. Studying texts that are essentially commentaries on other writings, our presentations share an interest in how source texts or ideas are referenced and how the self is positioned with respect to these, be it studied from the textual (structuring, cohesion), lexicogrammatical or the more socio-pragmatic (text strategies, the discipline variable, etc.) point of view.
Marge Käsper The presentation takes a contrastive discourse analysis look (Münchow 2010; Claudel et al 2013) at the academic writing in two languages that are not in contact all that frequently. Historically, the Estonian socio-cultural setting has mostly been related to the German tradition, nowadays to the English one. A comparison with the French discursive space has a chance to point to aspects that otherwise do not seem significant. The basis of the analysis, the tertium comparationis, is a relatively comparable text genre: the book review about research, made in particular in linguistics and history (reviews published in the Estonian journals Keel ja Kirjandus and Tuna and in Langage et Société and Annales in the French context between 2005 and 2007). The discipline variable serves to measure the interpretations about the discursive cultures of these two different socio-cultural settings. However, instead of generalizations, the variations in textual and socio-pragmatic strategies, in the journals’ profiles, and the authors’ varying discursive socializations can be discussed. The presentation focuses on the differences in practices and also in perceptions of structuring. Analyzing book reviews both as structured texts and as sets of commentaries about the structures of the presented books, the study can provide an overview and particular examples of a strict linearity or a re-structuring of material in the presentation process, but can also discuss the explicit or less explicit commentaries on what is presumed as generally accepted (discursively and cognitively pre-constructed) norms (Paveau 2006) in text and material structuring in the discursive settings considered.
References
Claudel et al. (2013) Cultures, discours, langues. Nouveaux abordages, Lambert Lucas Münchow, P. (von). (2010a) Langue, discours, culture : quelle articulation ? (1st part) Signes, discours et sociétés 4 [en ligne] http://www. revue-signes.info/document.php?id=1439 Münchow, P. (von). (2010b) Langue, discours, culture : quelle articulation ? (2nd part) Signes, discours et sociétés 4 [en ligne] http://www. revue-signes.info/document.php?id=1452 Paveau, M.-A. (2006) Les Prédiscours. Sens, mémoire, cognition. Paris : Presses Sorbonne nouvelle
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Sachtleber, S. (1992) « Vue contrastive sur un genre de textes scientifiques : les actes de congrès », Langages n° 105, mars 1992, 87–99
Ülle Türk, Pille Põiklik In 2014, the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Tartu returned to using a written entrance examination on the BA level. In one part of the examination paper, candidates produced 200-word written answers to a question based on a text they read in the examination room. As a preliminary indicator of their writing skills, these short texts are of high interest for the department, giving us a general idea of the candidates’ ability to express themselves in academic written English. In order to analyse their answers, the texts were typed in and coded, resulting in a corpus of 127 texts (one for each candidate, 24,561 words in total). This section of the symposium focuses on how the candidates approached the task of answering the question given, including a discussion of how they structured their text, what strategies they used to support their arguments, and how and to what extent they made use of the text provided for them. Within the framework of the symposium, we aim to discuss the potential influence of the Estonian context on the students’ writing in English and take a comparative look at the expectations associated with academic writing in different cultural settings.
Anni Jürine, Djuddah A.J. Leijen Speakers will report on how discipline-specific doctoral students’ writing groups within a large crosscurricular doctoral writing course comment on each other’s work, asynchronously using Comment and Track Changes in Word. The process of using peer feedback in small writing groups is not common-placed at the University of Tartu. Studies (Baldwin and Chandler 2002; McGrail et al. 2006) have indicated that writing is a major influencing factor why student do not complete their doctoral studies in time, and students have indicated that writing remains challenging at doctoral levels. Writing groups are considered an effective pedagogical tool to benefit doctoral student’s writing skills (Aitchison 2003; Lee and Boud 2003; Aitchison and Lee 2006). As a result, this course aims to increase students’ awareness of the process involved in writing a journal article and developing their responsibility as authors as well as reviewers (Ellis et al. 2004). Four different groups will be compared and additional artifacts, such as revision plans and writing journals will be used to present initial findings which should contribute to further developing the writing course for the next academic year.
References
Aitchison, C. (2003) “Thesis writing circles”. Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics 8 (2), 97–115 Aitchison, C., and Lee, A. (2006) “Research writing: Problems and pedagogies”. Teaching in Higher Education 11 (3), 265–78 Baldwin, C., and Chandler, G.E. (2002) “Improving faculty publication output: The role of a writing coach”. Journal of Professional Nursing 18 (1), 8–15 Ellis, R., Calvo, R., Levy, D. and Tan., K. (2004) “Learning through discussions”. Higher Education Research and Development 23(1) 78–93 Lee, A., and Boud, D. (2003) “Writing groups, change and academic identity: Research development as local practice”. Studies in Higher Education 28 (2), 187–20
Mari Kruse My current investigation on the final papers of the Department of Spanish Language and Literature (University of Tartu) studies the traceable lexico-grammatical influences of other languages on written academic Spanish. It aims to find traces of their authors’ mother tongue, Estonian, and English, the dominating lingua franca, in the deviations from the standard uses of Spanish. A key term is the perceived distance (Ringbom 1986) between languages: learners use any obvious formal similarities between the learned language (Spanish) and others in their repertoire depending on whether they consider these languages closely related or not; therefore, transferring from English is supposedly more likely than from Estonian. Ringbom also suggested that while formal lexical similarities can be transferred from any learned language, grammar, syntax and semantics are only transferred from the first language. To test this, about 10% of the 900 000 word corpus was observed manually to establish search parameters (deviations in lexis, grammar, and to a lesser degree, word order), after which the whole corpus was analysed with AntConc. A parallel corpus of Spanish doctoral thesis was also formed to compliment general dictionaries. Initial findings indicate English influences on all levels analysed. My aim is to elaborate a guide and a three-language glossary for Estonian Spanish students to improve their academic writing, while it will also be possible to compare academic surroundings
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with a different linguistic background, investigating whether English influence rather depends on linguistic relatedness, proficiency in the languages involved or the way academic writing is taught.
References
Ringbom, H. (1986) Crosslinguistic influence and the foreign language learning process. In: E. Kellerman & M. Sharwood Smith, eds.1986. Crosslinguistic Influence in Second Language Acquisition. New York, etc.: Pergamon Press, 150â&#x20AC;&#x201C;162
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Presentation BRIDGING THE GAP – MOTIVATION AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES VERSUS ACADEMIC CREDIBILITY IN THE EAST END OF LONDON. HOW WIDE IS WIDENING HIGHER EDUCATION? Elspeth (Jackson) McConnell Newham College University Centre, Stratford, London, United Kingdom The recent, rapid growth in the provision of Open Access to Higher Education in the UK and other European cities, raises many practical issues concerning academic literacy. An overriding one is the problem of ‘acceptable’ language content in assessments, particularly from second language speakers and less formally educated native speakers of English. There has been very little research in this exact area as the phenomenon is relatively new. Lecturers vary in their degree of tolerance to grammatical accuracy and language use, leading to a lack of standardization. I have produced two questionnaires, one for lecturers and one for students, with both binary, graded and open questions. This will allow me to quantify a large part of the results. When the data are collected, over the next few months, I will be able to identify the critical language areas that lead to a loss of marks and, in a consultative process with lecturers, establish a benchmark for an acceptable English language level for all submissions. As the lecturer responsible for EAP at our university, I can see the problem clearly from all points of view: the students themselves, who are frustrated by the discrepancy between lecturers for similar standards of English in their work, leading to de-motivation; the lecturers, who are subject specialists but may themselves not be fluent language users and who have different standards of English language use; and an acceptable level of English for a British University Degree.
References
Gardner, R. C. (1988) Attitudes and motivation. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 9, 135–148 Han, Z. (2004) Fossilization: Five Central Issues International Journal of Applied linguistics 14 (2), 212–242 McConnell, E. J. ‘Open Access in H.E. an Open and Shut Case?’ presentation of paper at WDHE Conference Liverpool 2–4 July 2012 & ‘Englais’ presentation of paper at LGW Conference Leeds 5–6 September 2012 Schumann, J. H. (1975) Affective factors and the problem of age in second language acquisition. Language Learning 25, 205–235 Vujisic, A.Z., (2007), The Role of Achievement motivation on the interlanguage fossilization of middle aged English as a second language learners’ published in LINCOM Europa, Project Line 19. 2009, 144
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Presentation THE SECURITISATION OF PLAGIARISM John Harbord Central European University, Budapest, Hungary Plagiarism is increasingly seen as a pervasive threat to academic values, not least when perpetrated by overseas students who may be seen as bringing with them different cultural values which may lead them to see the copying other people´s work as acceptable. Traditional definitions of plagiarism have always included the intent to deceive. However, given that intent is often hard to prove since the mid-late 1990s increasing numbers of universities are redefining plagiarism so as to remove this element and thus make it easier to secure convictions. Many policies now define plagiarism as incorrect use of sources, meaning that growing numbers of students, especially foreign students or those from disadvantaged minorities who have not yet mastered the complex rules of source use, now find themselves guilty of unintentional dishonesty. I draw on a theory from international relations, securitisation theory, to show how the perception of plagiarism as a threat to essential values leads to the justification of extraordinary measures we would not normally consider, simply because the severity of the perceived threat to academic existence trumps our normal values such as fairness and justice. I argue that securitizing plagiarism serves neither the international student, nor ultimately the university system. I consider how we can desecuritise the issue, returning to educational rather than punitive measures to assist students in fully mastering the use of sources.
References
Bigo, D. (2002) Security and Immigration: Toward a Critique of the Governmentality of Unease. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 27, 63â&#x20AC;&#x201C;92 Buzan, B., Waever, O. and de Wilde, J. (1998) Security: a new framework for analysis. Boulder, Colorado: L. Rienner
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Presentation ACADEMIC WRITING COMPETENCE IN THE LIGHT OF MULTILINGUALISM – TRACING SPECIAL NEEDS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPETENCE Karolina Kochanska Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt, Deutchland According to a student survey from 2012, more than 24 per cent of the students at Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main have a migration background and about 15 per cent of the students were brought up in a multilingual setting. Among the 45,000 students enrolled in the winter term 2014/2015, several thousand are now in the focus of attention of those institutions that address the advancement of writing and language competence in L2 German. The range of courses, workshops and counselling are aimed at all students who want to improve their competence in German as an academic language. Besides, the Writing Center at Goethe University seeks to sustainably promote the advancement of the writing competence of multilingual students. The special needs of this target group are identified, one the one hand, by the analysis of scientific texts the students bring into counselling sessions and on the other, by short linguistic tests run in the winter term. This presentation focusses on the results of the tests. The tasks tapped into the text competence of students with German as a second language on the syntactic-semantic text level, i.e. into the interface between Higher and Lower Order Concerns (HOCs and LOCs). The findings will be discussed with the audience and the ideas generated will influence the further development of courses and workshop concepts that support writing competence in L2 German.
AKADEMISCHE SCHREIBKOMPETENZ VOR DEM HINTERGRUND DER MEHRSPRACHIGKEIT – WEGE ZUR ERMITTLUNG DES FÖRDERBEDARFS UND DER KOMPETENZENTWICKLUNG Karolina Kochanska Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt, Deutchland Eine universitätsweite Studierendenbefragung an der Goethe-Universität aus dem Jahre 2012 hat ergeben, dass mehr als 24 Prozent der Studierenden Migrationshintergrund haben und ca. 15 Prozent mehrsprachig aufgewachsen sind. Unter den im Wintersemester 2014/15 immatrikulierten 45.000 Student*innen sind mehrere Tausend Studierende mit Deutsch als Zweitsprache in den Fokus derjenigen Einrichtungen gerückt, die sich mit der Förderung von Schreib- und Sprachkompetenz in L2-Deutsch befassen. Das Angebot an Kursen, Workshops und in der Beratung spricht zunächst alle Studierende an, die ihre Sprachkompetenz im Bereich der deutschen Wissenschaftssprache verbessern wollen. Daneben strebt das Schreibzentrum der Goethe-Universität auch eine nachhaltige Förderung der Schreibkompetenz von mehrsprachigen Studierenden am Standort an. Der förderbedarf dieser Zielgruppe wird zum einen durch Analyse der von Studierenden in der Schreibberatung vorgelegten wissenschaftlichen Texte und zum anderen durch linguistisch basierte Tests ermittelt, die im vergangenen Wintersemester durchgeführt wurden. Im Vordergrund des Vortrags stehen die Ergebnisse des unter mehrsprachigen Studierenden des Fachbereichs 10 der Goethe-Universität durchgeführten linguistisch basierten Kurztests. Mithilfe einiger Aufgaben wurde die Textkompetenz von Studierenden mit Zweitsprache Deutsch auf der syntaktisch-semantischen Textebene – also an der Schnittstelle der Higher Order Concerns (HOCs) und der Lower Order Concerns (LOCs) – überprüft. Die Testergebnisse werden im Konferenzplenum zur Diskussion gestellt und die auf diesem Wege gewonnenen Beiträge sollen in die Konzeption von Kursen und Workshops zur Unterstützung der Schreibkompetenz in L2-Deutsch einfließen.
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Presentation MULTIMODAL PRAXIS IN THE WRITING CLASSROOM: FOSTERING CREATIVE CRITICAL DISCOURSE ON DIGITAL IDENTITIES THROUGH AUTOETHNOGRAPHY Nicola Joan Wilson Clasby Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA Digital media shapes student identities in and out of the classroom. The degree to which students are aware of the hegemonic forces at work here is a highly contested, political issue. Engagement in digitized writing platforms and multimodal assignments, I argue, demands critical examination of the nature of this pedagogy within the student’s personal digital matrix. The goal of critical pedagogy is to empower students to understand the links between power and knowledge in order to resist hegemonic forces and dominant ideologies (Giroux 2011). However, Wendy Hesford argues, because critical pedagogy is a form of praxis, it is difficult to implement and maintain. Hesford calls for teachers to engage in site-specific autobiographical acts as interventionist praxis. I take up Hesford’s call in order to address the challenges our digital culture poses for students and writing instructors in a qualitative research study, “Totally (Un)Wired”: Media Abstinence & Creative Resistance in the Writing Classroom.” Students from a university-level English Composition course were required to conduct autoethnographic research and collect comprehensive data on their digital interactions over a 24-hour period, then abstain from them. Data was analyzed and critiqued resulting in photo-essays, reports, interviews and critical conclusions. These assignments disrupted and challenged students’ perceptions of themselves as powerful, independent, popular, smart, socially adept, free individuals. Through narrative inquiry of student texts, this study explores the process of how students uncover their role in supporting hegemonic forces and dominant ideologies, and how this knowledge is used to critically re-evaluate their identities within the media matrix.
References
Giroux, H. A. (2011) On critical pedagogy, New York: Continuum Harris, R. (2004) Encouraging emergent moments: the personal, critical, and rhetorical in the writing classroom. Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture 4 (3), 401–417 Qualley, D. (1997) Turns of thought: teaching composition as reflexive inquiry, Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Heinemann
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Presentation THE CHALLENGES OF DEVELOPING AND EVALUATING AN ENGLISH ACADEMIC WRITING WEBSITE FOR USE IN DIFFERENT INSTRUCTIONAL SETTINGS Julia Miller¹, Kate Wilson² ¹University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia ²University of Canberra, Canberra, Australia New technologies present opportunities but also challenges for academic writing instruction, including student and classroom access to the Internet. Research also indicates a dearth of evidence as to the efficacy of technology use in language teaching (Golonka et al. 2014). When designing an academic skills website, for example, it is therefore important to provide materials in different formats to suit a range of learning situations, and research should evaluate their effectiveness. The English academic skills website in this presentation includes creative videos, explanations and interactive exercises. The theoretical principle guiding its development and evaluation was Biggs’ Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO) taxonomy (2011) which had not, to our knowledge, been applied previously to evaluate online academic writing resources. To investigate the effectiveness of the resources, in-class tests with a control group (n=244), focus groups with students and lecturers (n=54), and online evaluations (n=107) compared participants’ levels of understanding of different academic skills areas before and after using the resources. The results indicate that both students and lecturers increased from a “unistructural” to a “relational” or “extended abstract” level of understanding (Biggs 2011), where they used higher order thinking skills to apply their new knowledge in unfamiliar situations. The resources may therefore be effective for lecturers or students teaching and studying English in many different contexts: online, in flipped/inverted classrooms, or as selfstudy and homework materials, both online and in printed format. The SOLO taxonomy is recommended for the evaluation of similar resources.
References
Biggs, J. (2011) Academic: SOLO Taxonomy [online] available at <http://www.johnbiggs.com.au/academic/solo-taxonomy/> [7 January 2015] Golonka, E.M., Bowles, A.R., Frank, V.M., Richardson, D.L., and Freynik, S. (2014) ‘Technologies for Foreign Language Learning: A Review of Technology Types and their Effectiveness’. Computer Assisted Language Learning 27 (1), 70–105
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Electronic Poster Presentation PROMOTING PERSONALISED LEARNING THROUGH AN ACADEMIC WRITING ONLINE COURSE (AWO) Petra Hauptfeld University of Applied Sciences Burgenland, Eisenstadt, Austria The EU funded project, first ranked in Austria within the call 2014 Erasmus+ develops an online course on Academic Writing which provides key topics like scientific writing, the composition of a paper, ICTbased administration of literature, empirical research methods, the presentation of the results and the proper management of work. Every module is composed of 15 text units including exercises and videos with additional advice. The modules will be provided in Croatian, Czech, English, German, Hungarian, Slovak and Slovenian. AWO takes into account that students have to cope with part time studies, longer study periods abroad and international cooperation demanding a more flexible and personalised way of learning. As students nowadays differ in previous knowledge, the course enables them to concentrate on certain modules in certain languages to catch up knowledge gaps. AWO considers different learning approaches like acceleration of learning, repetition phases and personal learning styles. The course may either be applied online or in combination with blended learning. This flexible use will give students a chance to succeed in writing their final thesis. Hence, the course is a contribution to overcome the fact that “less than one person in three aged 25–34 has a university degree (in Europe – P.H.) compared to 40% in the US and over 50% in Japan”[1], whether it refers to university access in general or a failure in studies.
References
Aschemann, B. (2007) Die Betreuung von Bachelor-, Master- und Diplomarbeiten. Konzepte, Ideen und Hilfestellungen für Lehrende. Graz: Karl Franzens-Universität Kruse, O. (2010) Lesen und Schreiben. Wien: Huter & Roth KG Macgilchrist, F. (2014) Academic Writing. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh Peters, N. & Girgensohn, K. (2012) Studentische Schreibberatung ist professionell und persönlich. Ergebnisse einer Studie zu Peer Tutoring im Schreibzentrum. In: Zeitschrift Schreiben 12 (1), 1–9. Online publiziert: http://www.zeitschrift-schreiben.eu/beitraege/peters_ Studentische_Schreibberatung.pdf [5 January 2015]
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Electronic Poster Presentation BLENDED LEARNING FOR MIXED CULTURAL ACADEMIC WRITING PARTNERSHIPS Annett Mudoh Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany Blended learning to improve academic writing skills, specifically for L1, L2 and L3 learners, is widely discussed (Anastasiades (editor) 2012, Häfele& Maier-Häfele 2012). The aim of this electronic poster is to show the ways in which a blended learning environment might help students with mixed cultural backgrounds acquire knowledge about academic writing. Our research question revolved around the ways in which students of many diverse cultural backgrounds and with very different writing experiences (Brinkschulte 2012; Roche 2013) might conform to the expectations and requirements of skilled academic writers (in our case in academic German: Esselborn-Krumbiegel 2012). For our research, we formed tandem partners or small groups of L1, L2 and L3 learners in academic writing partnerships. They were asked by means of a learning agreement to create different types of texts over a 6-month period in a blended learning environment. Instructions and feedback were given throughout the writing process, both face-to-face and online. However, students worked mainly among themselves. Both the progression and the results of the students' work were documented in e-portfolios. The course feedback evaluations showed an increased awareness in regard to the differences in writing cultures. We found out that tandem partnerships in blended learning seem to enable students to better conform to the expectations and requirements for successful writers, since they are able to discuss and exchange ideas and problems among themselves more freely without possible barriers of the teacher-student hierarchy.
References
Anastasiades, P. (ed.) (2012) Blended Learning Environments for Adults: Evaluations and Frameworks, IGI Global, Hershey PA Brinkschulte, M. (2012) 'Schreiben in einer Fremdsprache', in Draheim K, Liebetanz F & Vogler-Lipp S, Schreiben(d) lernen im Team, Springer VS Research, Frankfurt (Oder), 59–81 Esselborn-Krumbiegel, H. (2012) Richtig wissenschaftlich schreiben: Wissenschaftssprache in Regeln und Übungen, 2nd edn. Schöningh, Paderborn Häfele, H. & Maier-Häfele (2012) 101 e-Learning Seminarmethoden: Methoden und Strategien für die Online- und Blended-LearningSeminarpraxis, managerSeminare-Verlag, Bonn Roche, J. (2013) Mehrsprachigkeitstheorie: - Kognition - Transkulturation - Ökologie, Narr, Tübingen
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Presentation CLOUD-BASED TEXT PROCESSING TOOLS IN ACADEMIC WRITING: POTENTIAL BENEFITS AND DIFFICULTIES Leonardo Dalessandro, Sascha Dieter Writing Centre, Goethe-University, Frankfurt/Main, Germany During the past two decades, digital technologies and the new media have advanced tremendously regarding their proliferation as well as their capabilities. As terms like web 2.0, e-learning and MOOCs find their way into the sphere of academia, a lot of students are right now growing up in an environment of considerably increased technological availability. What this means for higher education has not yet been discussed widely enough. Moreover, concerns are often expressed when it comes to the new media. Nevertheless, the relevance of new technologies and digitalisation as a background for academic writing is constantly increasing. In this presentation we therefore want to take a closer look at cloud-based text processing tools and show effective ways to use new technologies in the classroom. We thereby hope to shed light on their potential benefits, such as insight into and reflection on writing processes, collaborative writing, easy usability and accessibility. We will also point out possible challenges, such as premises of collaborative writing, competent use and privacy issues. With regard to the wide variety of tools available, which ones are useful and suitable for academic purposes? How may students and faculty profit from the use of online writing tools? What precautions can be taken to minimize the difficulties that accompany working in digital, cloud-based environments? With these questions in mind, we would like to debate our proposals in the concluding discussion.
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Presentation WHAT MAKES A TEXT WELL-WRITTEN? SCRIPTOR: A TOOL TO DEVELOP ACADEMIC WRITING SKILLS Marco Bianchi, Johanna McElwee, Sonja Entzenberg Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden In 2011, the Language Workshop at Uppsala University, Sweden, was asked to develop support in academic writing in English for international students. It was decided that the focus of this support should be on the often invisible skills that students are expected to master without having received any formal instruction in them, such as genre knowledge, but also general writing skills. As a result, we have developed a text database called Scriptor, which consists of exemplary student texts, representing different text types and different academic disciplines. These texts have been tagged with comments explaining what makes them good texts. In other words, rather than focusing on what does not work in a text, our approach is to make visible the strategies that make a text well-written and able to meet the conventions of academic writing. We intend Scriptor to be an aid both for students in their writing and also for teachers supervising student writers. In our presentation we will explain the background to the text database, the pedagogical principles that form the base for the project, and also show what Scriptor looks like and how we hope students and teaching staff will use it.
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Presentation USING SCREEN CAPTURE TECHNOLOGY IN GRADUATE LEVEL WRITING FEEDBACK – WHAT DO STUDENTS DO WITH THE FEEDBACK AND DOES IT IMPACT WRITING? Elizabeth Cruz-Soto, Nancy Keranen Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, México There is now an emerging body of literature on screen-capture-technology (SCT) as a means for providing writing feedback (fb) to students. Much of it focuses on how and why to use it and teachers’ and students’ perceptions and attitudes about it (e.g. Edwards, Dujardin and Willams 2012; Jackson-Vincelette and Bostic 2013; Séror 2012). At this point what is needed are empirical studies on how students manage/respond to SCTfb and if they feel it results in positive changes in their writing. This study aimed to describe how students in an ELT graduate program actually dealt with SCTfb via think-aloud protocol interviews and to compare how that differed with their actions regarding their other forms of writing fb. RQ1: How do students manage SCTfb? RQ2: In what ways is their management of SCTfb different from their management of more customary forms of writing feedback? Approach/Methods Qualitative-Stimulated-recall/think-aloud protocol. The results will describe the processes associated with the use of SCTfb in the research context, show how the participants responded to SCTfb in terms of management, actions taken, and emotional responses, and compare those with other forms of writing feedback they received. Theoretical implications: The study seeks to fill the gap in our understanding of how students respond to SCTfb and to shed further light on the processes students engage in when responding to SCTfb compared with their responses to more customary forms of writing feedback. Pedagogical implications: Knowing the possible actions students may take with SCTfb can help writing teachers choose among the increasingly available options for feedback.
References
Brick, B. and Holmes, J. (2008) Using screencapture software for student feedback: Towards a methodology. Paper presented at the IADIS International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA 2008) Edwards, K., Dujardin, A. F. and Willams, N. (2012) Screencast feedback on a distance learning MA in professional communication: An action research project. Journal of Academic Writing 2 (1), 95–126 Hynson, Y. T. A. (2012) An Innovative Alternative to Providing Writing Feedback on Students' Essays. Teaching English with Technology 12 (1), 53–57 Jackson-Vincelette, E. and Bostic, T. (2013) Show and tell: Student and instructor perceptions of screencast assessment. Assessing Writing, 18. [15 January 2015]. doi:10.1016/j.asw.2013.08.001 Séror, J. (2012) Show me! Enhanced feedback through screencasting technology. TESL Canada Journal / Revue TESL du Canada 30 (1), 104–16 Stieglitz, G. (2013) Screencasting: Informing students, shaping instruction. UAE Journal of Educational Technology and eLearning 4, 58–62
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Presentation IMPROVING FEEDBACK QUALITY IN ONLINE FORUMS Tobias Zimmermann, Alex Rickert Zurich University of Teachers Education, Zurich, Switzerland Lecturers frequently initiate online discussion platforms as a learning tool that accompanies their courses. The students’ task is to give feedback to other students’ contributions. However, the exchange in such forums is demanding, and often lecturers as well as students perceive these written discussions as inefficient. Research has proven that feedback in learning contexts is especially effective in terms of learning if it challenges, differentiates or elaborates statements from previous contributions by learning partners (Fischer 2002). Zimmermann (2014) developed a complex framework with categories that allow to assess the quality of written online feedback. Based on this extensive framework we deducted a concise version and tested its practicability by conducting a survey in a university course setting. The aim was to improve both the textual quality of the feedback and the learning effects in written online discussions by introducing the framework to the students. Therefore, we analyzed the effects of our framework in supporting students to generate high quality online feedback that supports their learning. In this presentation the results of the survey are discussed. Our contribution shows the usability as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the framework in practical use. Overall, our findings suggest that frameworks focusing on feedback quality can help to establish written online discussions as effective learning instruments.
References
Fischer, F. (2002) Gemeinsame Wissenskonstruktion – Theoretische und methodologische Aspekte. Psychologische Rundschau 53 (3), 119–134 Zimmermann, T. (2014) Transaktivität in Rückmeldungen. Linguistische und soziokognitive Analysen zur Bezugnahme auf andere Texte in Online-Foren. Universität Zürich: Dissertation. http://opac.nebis.ch/ediss/20142168.pdf
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Workshop SCAFFOLDING ACADEMIC WRITING THROUGH WIKIS Susan M. Stetson-Tiligadas DEREE The American College of Greece, Athens, Greece Participants in the wiki workshop will see examples of wiki use in an undergraduate English for Academic Purposes course and will conceive and lay the foundation for a wiki they can use in their own teaching practice. The 60-minute workshop will provide a brief background of wikis and highlight the constructivist nature of this collaborative tool for use in academic writing courses. Attendees will be prompted to think about how use of a wiki could help their students achieve the learning outcomes through curating resources, collaboratively creating knowledge, demonstrating visible evidence of learning, or acting as a fixed instructor-created source of information. After viewing several examples of wiki use in an undergraduate English for Academic Purposes course, participants will work individually to think of ways a wiki could be used in their own teaching practice. Pairs of participants will share their ideas and decide on one idea each to develop in the remainder of the workshop. Through a step-by-step process, participants will lay the foundation for a wiki to use in their own practice. This will be conducted offline using a detailed handout. During the last part of the presentation, there will be a brief demonstration of how to set up and monitor a wiki on the presenter’s laptop as a roundup. The handout will guide participants through the conceptual process, give global wiki guidelines, and include links to setting up a wiki using an LMS or a free site, such as Wikispaces or CourseSites.
References
Elgort, I., Smith, A. G., and Toland, J. (2008) ‘Is Wiki an Effective Platform for Group Course Work?’ Australasian Journal of Educational Technology [online]24 (2), 195–210. available at http://ascilite.org.au [29 November 2014] Heng, L. T., and Marimuthu, R. (2012) ‘Let's Wiki in Class’. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences [online] 67 (10), 269–274. available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/18770428 [16 November 2014] Kear, K., Woodthorpe, J., Roberstson, S., and Hutchinson, M. (2010) ‘From Forums to Wikis: Perspectives on Tools for Collaboration’. The Internet and Higher Education [online] 13 (4), 218–225. available at http://www.journals.elsevier.com/the-internet-and-higher-education/ [16 November 2014] Neumann, D. L., and Hood, M. (2009) ‘The Effects of Using a Wiki on Student Engagement and Learning of Report Writing Skills in a University Statistics Course’. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology [online] 25 (3), 382–398. available at http://ascilite.org.au [29 November 2014]
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Presentation ONLINE VIDEOS AS A TOOL FOR WRITING INSTRUCTION Cordula Maja Jeszke, Petra Sonntag Eberhard-Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany Audio-visual material can be used in different branches of education to support student learning; it is a source of knowledge, persuasion and pleasure every bit as powerful as the written word (Jaques 1997), but more entertaining. Online-based instructional videos can imply different educational benefits for students, they commonly aim to help their viewers visualize solutions for various writing related issues (Asensio & Young 2002) such as grammar, syntax, and composition. Instructional online-videos can be used as a supplement for in-class teaching to help instructors promote their students' writing skills by offering them a more individual approach to academic learning. Research, however, discovered instructional videos to be solely used by a minority of instructors (Laurillard 1995; Shephard 2003), which leads to the assumption that some are still reserved in their judgment of online videos when it comes to communicating academic knowledge. Therefore, this presentation will focus on the challenges and perspectives of online videos in the context of writing studies. The purpose of this talk is to present different types of videos, to show how to effectively incorporate them into writing instruction, and to give specific examples from free available sources including our own from the Research and Writing Center at the University of Tübingen.
References
Asensio, M. & Young, C. (2002) Click and Go Video. Video Streaming – a guide for educational development. [Online] available at: http:// www.cinted.ufrgs.br/videoeduc/streaming.pdf [19 January 2015] Jacques, A. (1997) The Image. London: British Film Institute Laurillard, D. (1995) Multimedia and the changing experience of the learner. British Journal of Educational Technology [Online] Wiley Online Library. (26), 179–189. available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8535.1995.tb00340.x/pdf [22 January 2015] Shepard, K. (2003) Questioning, promoting and evaluating the use of streaming video to support student learning. British Journal of Educational Technology [Online] Wiley Online Library (34), 295–308. available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/14678535.00328/pdf [23 January 2015]
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Presentation USING WIKIS TO DEVELOP ACADEMIC WRITING SKILLS: AFFORDANCES, CONSTRAINTS AND FEEDBACK PRACTICES Margaret Pate Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy Working collaboratively in multi-disciplinary groups is a reality for many researchers. How can universities prepare their students to function effectively in this world? In this talk I will argue that the use of collaborative writing, using Wiki technology, represents a possible answer. Collaborative learning requires students to pool language resources in order to complete tasks they cannot do alone. They do this through dialogue and interaction with peers. Vygotskian approaches also highlight the importance of social interaction in the zone of proximal development (ZPD). But are learners ready for this approach? Studies have reported both acceptance and refusal of peer feedback. The Wiki is an excellent tool both for the promotion of collaboration as well as peer feedback. For the teacher the possibility to track the changes on a text and the comments made between peers is highly valuable and can be used as an area for teacher feedback to aid the collaborative process. The research for this talk took place during a course run at the Politecnico di Torino, to help PhD students to write academic papers in February 2015. Through the analysis of quantitative data provided by student questionnaires, qualitative data through semi-structured student focus group interviews and the wiki pages, I will provide reflections on the affordances and constraints of implementing collaborative writing through a wiki as a means to improve journal writing skills, as well as suggestions for maximizing the potential of both peer and screencast teacher feedback.
References
Hyland, F. & Hyland, K. (2006) Feedback in Second Language Writing: Contexts and Issues, CUP Kessler, G., Bikowski, D. & Boggs, J. (2012) Collaborative writing among second language learners in academic web-based projects, Language Learning and Technology 16 (1), 91–109 Rott, S. & Weber, E.L. (2013) Preparing Students to Use Wiki Software as a Collaborative Learning Tool, CALICO Journal 30 (2) Storch, N. (2011) Collaborative writing in L2 contexts: Processes, outcomes and future directions, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 275–288 Strobl, C. (2014) Affordances of Web 2.0 Technologies for Collaborative Advanced Writing in a Foreign Language, CALICO Journal 31 (1)
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Presentation REANALYSING REVISION IN THE 21ST CENTURY Roger M. A. Yallop, Djuddah A. J. Leijen Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia. It is generally accepted in writing research that revision is one of the key components of writing; both generally and in learning to write. Faigley and Witte (1981), in their attempt to build a taxonomy to study revision, correctly stated that the revision process is incredibly complex. Many studies (Min 2006; Yang, Badger and Yu 2006; Woo, Chu and Li 2010; Cho, Kwangsu and MacArthur 2010) have used their taxonomy to obtain a deeper insight into what and how students revise. Current technological developments, such as web-based peer review systems and novel research methods, are making studying revision more accessible. This is used to record the students' drafts and store digital data to allow a closer analysis of the revision process. For example, written peer feedback during the writing process provides measurable evidence when analysing revision using Faigley and Witte’s taxonomy. This study reports on the complexity of applying their taxonomy on real data obtained from peer review, and specifically when attempting to replicate a strong reliability between coders. The results indicate that despite the logic of the taxonomy, replication on larger sets of data from different writers and contexts require much more transparency or even a revised taxonomy. To obtain a deeper insight into the process for future studies, the authors suggest a mixed method approach of quantitative data analysis with more qualitative evidence to investigate what students really ‘think’ when they decide to revise their text.
References
Cho, K. and MacArthur, C. (2010) "Student revision with peer and expert reviewing". Learning and Instruction 20 (4), 328–338 Faigley, L., and Witte, S. (1981) "Analyzing revision". College composition and communication, 400–414 Min, H. T. (2006) "The effects of trained peer review on EFL students’ revision types and writing quality". Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (2), 118–141 Woo, M., Chu, S., & Li, X.X. (2010) "Tracing peer feedback to revision process in a wiki supported collaborative writing", The 2nd Asian Conference on Education 2010, 2–5 December 2010, Osaka, Japan Yang, M., Badger, R., and Yu, Z. (2006) "A comparative study of peer and teacher feedback in a Chinese EFL writing class". Journal of Second Language Writing 15 (3), 179–200
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Presentation PROVIDING FEEDBACK ON IELTS ACADEMIC WRITING FOR LARGE NUMBERS OF STUDENTS: FOSTERING LEARNER AUTONOMY THROUGH EMPORIUM-STYLE ENGAGEMENT WITH OUTPUT Ian Charles Lister Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy With hundreds of Politecnico di Torino students taking the IELTS Academic exam every month and increasing numbers using the services offered by the Language Centre (CLA), a new approach to helping as many as possible with their writing was required. Taking into account Swain’s output hypothesis, along with concepts of noticing and scaffolding, an emporium-style model of blended learning, combining aspects of e-learning and the flipped classroom, was instituted. After watching an online lesson on IELTS writing, students may attend four writing tutorials, with one timetabled several times each week. They must do the IELTS Writing Tasks received when booking online before the tutorial in the CLA computer laboratory, with up to 18 participants. A teacher is present to offer guidance, but the onus is on the students themselves to use the interactive powerpoint presentation to compare their output with an annotated model, engaging consciously with noticing lacunae in the content and structure of their texts. Subsequently, students work on commonly encountered grammar and vocabulary issues. The branching potential of powerpoint lets them manage the hour-long session with great autonomy. The success of the tutorials in fostering student self-sufficiency, helping them learn from their output, has been evaluated through a survey of participants and analysis of attendance and IELTS results. A rewrite will implement this information to enhance the userfriendliness of the presentation and validity of the areas covered, providing a template for future applications of this novel approach to giving large numbers of students feedback on their academic writing.
References
Applebee, A. N. and Langer, J. A. (1983) ‘Instructional scaffolding: Reading and writing as natural language activities’. Language Arts 60(2) Cotterall, S. and Cohen, R. (2003) ‘Scaffolding for second language writers: producing an academic essay’. ELT Journal 57 (2), 158–166 Hulstijn, J. H. and Schmidt, R. (1994) ‘Consciousness in second language learning’. AILA Review 11 L & S Learning Support Services (2012) Introduction to Blended Learning [online] available at <https://teachingwithtech.lss.wisc.edu/ m3w1.htm> [20 January 2015] Swain, M. (2007) The Output Hypothesis: Its History and its Future [online lecture], 17 May 2007. Beijing: CELEA. available at <http:// www.celea.org.cn/2007/keynote/ppt/merrill%20swain.pdf> [23 January 2015]
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Presentation CROSSING THE BRIDGE – BRIDGING THE GAP Anna Rolinska EFL Unit, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland International students arriving to study at an English-speaking university frequently encounter various challenges. Not only do they have to negotiate language- and culture-related hurdles but often they need to adapt to subtly different academic practices of presenting knowledge. While attempting to achieve this, the students may feel that their voice and capital, instead of being acknowledged, are being suppressed. The course ‘Digital English’, which was experimentally offered at Glasgow University to a small cohort of learners, attempted to ease the students into the new ways of academic being and knowing. The course extensively used digital social spaces, such as blogs, collaborative documents and visual tools, which, by being typical of home-based literacies, intended to reflect the students’ subjectivities, fears and concerns, more accurately. By elaborating on those through creating digital artefacts of ‘Identity Boxes’ (following Gauntlett 2007), the students could develop self-awareness and consider what influences them as humans, academics or professionals. The next stage entailed analysing the visual metaphors through a collaborative and more structured academic report, whereby the students had to adopt an identity of a more objective researcher/writer. The exercise of a self-exploration as an object of a more academic discussion of students’ ways of self-portrayal seemed to provide a useful introduction to collaboration, reflection and analytical thinking skills, so crucial when writing academically. It appears the digital environments may provide safe spaces where students can develop their understanding of academic writing in ways that creatively and sensitively acknowledge their inner voices and experiences.
References
Gauntlett, D. (2007) Creative Explorations: New approaches to identities and audiences. London: Routledge
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Electronic Poster Presentation SCRIBO – RESEARCH QUESTION AND LITERATURE SEARCH TOOL, 4TH ED Lotte Rienecker Educational consultant, freelance, Copenhagen, Denmark Scribo – Research Question and Literature Search Tool, 4th ed. is an interactive tool which supplies the student writer with suggestions and information on research papers and library searches. With a dialogue of 28 questions sequenced to support the work-in-progress, explanations and real model examples from university and college research papers and BA theses, Scribo helps the student process his/her initial ideas, and structure the research design, write a suitable research question and conduct an information and literature search. The resource is an answer to the often voiced need of supervisors and information specialists of having students prepare in a structured manner for supervision meetings and information searches. Scribo’s content and design is based on a genre pedagogy approach and scaffolds the student’s research paper design and information search closely. It is based on the author’s and Peter Stray Jörgensen´s academic writing textbook “The Good Paper”. Scribo is now in use in 18 HE institutions in Denmark, and some 32,000 students have logged in as users in the past 10 years, making Scribo a research paper writing tool with a very substantive outreach, and a more interactive supplement to any academic writing textbook.
References
Rienecker, L. (2014) Scribo – Research Question and Literature Search Tool, www.scribo.dk 4th edn. Samfundslitteratur, Frederiksberg Rienecker, L. & Stray Jörgensen, P. S. (2013) The Good Paper, (translated into 4 languages), Samfundslitteratur, Frederiksberg
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Workshop EXPANDING OR LIMITING ACCESS? RE-VISIONING THE CALLS FOR AND AFFORDANCES OF INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH-MEDIUM ON-LINE PUBLICATIONS Joan A. Mullin¹, Magnus Gustafsson², Terry Myers Zawacki³, Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams4, Cheryl Ball5 ¹University of North Carolina Charlotte Charlotte, North Carolina, USA ²Chalmers University of Technology; Gothenburg, Sweden ³George Mason University; Fairfax, Virginia, USA 4 Coventry University, Coventry; England, United Kingdom 5 West Virginia University; Morgantown, West Virginia, USA This workshop expands on issues of scholarly production, privilege and access raised by Lillis, Curry and others by investigating barriers and affordances emerging in on-line publications. While the credibility of even peer-reviewed on-line publications is questioned in some countries, digitally available scholarship increases visibility and access. Two on-line international book series editors and two editors from different on-line international journals will briefly explain “international” in light of their mission statements, CFPs, and use of English. With these statements as a frame, small-groups of participants will discuss issues of access and inclusion raised by these editorial approaches, including Whose knowledge is valued or excluded when English is the language for international on-line publications? What are the linguistic consequences of this choice for authors? Readers? Editors? What are the consequences and limitations for authors who choose to publish books and articles in English rather than in their home languages? How might international publication networks work to promote L1 publication, discourse and access? What are the consequences of publishing in digital environments? Print? How might answers to these questions translate into statements that guide on-line publications’ mission statements and calls for proposals and articles? Participants will use their discussions of questions to revise editorial documents, making them more accessible and invitational for wider participation from scholars internationally. Editors will use the results to revise their calls and statements, and post these to listservs and other journals, encouraging a wider discussion and more equitable access and distribution of scholarship internationally.
References
Belcher, D. (2007) Seeking acceptance in an English-only research world. Journal of Second Language Writing 16, 1–22 Dearden, J. (2014) English as a mediumof instruction – a growing global phenomenon: phase 1 Interim report. Oxford: British Council, 1-8 Flowerdew, J. (2001) Attitudes of journal editors toward nonnative speaker contributions. TESOL Quarterly 35, 121–150 Gnutzmann, C. (2008) Fighting or fostering the dominance of English in academia. In English in academia: Catalyst or barrier?, Ed. C. Gnutzmann. Tubingen: Gunter Naar Verlag, 73-91 Lillis, T., Hewings A., Vladimirou D., & Curry, M.J. (2010a ) The geolinguistics of English as an academic lingua franca: Citation practices across English medium national and English medium international journals. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 20 (1), 111–135 Lillis, T., and Curry M. J. (2010b) Academic writing in a global context: The politics and practices of publishing in English. New York: Routledge Lorés-Sanz, R., Mur-Dueña P., & Lafurente-Millán. E. (2010) Constructing interpersonality: Multiple perspectives on written academic genres. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing Kruse, O. (2013) Perspectives on Academic Writing in European Higher Education: Genres, Practices, and Competences. Revista de Docencia Universitaria 11 (1) Enero-Abril 2013, 37–58
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Smit, U. & Dafouz, E. (2012) Integrating content and language in higher education: An introduction to English-medium policies, conceptual issues, and research practices across Europe. AILA Review 25 (1), 1–12 Tardy C. M. and Matsuda P. K. (2009) The construction of author voice by editorial board members. Written Communication 26, 32–52 Uzener, Sedef. (2008) Multilingual scholars’ participation in core/global academic communities: A literature review. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 7, 250–263 Wilkinson, R. & Zegers, V. (eds) (2008) Realizing Content and Language Integration in Higher Education. Maastricht: Maastricht University Language Centre
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Presentation PUBLISHING AND PRESENTING IN ENGLISH: THE EXPERIENCES OF SCHOLARS FROM BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA Alma Jahić University of Tuzla, Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina In order to exercise their membership in the international scientific community, scholars from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) need to publish research and give oral presentations in English. Although English language competence within the scientific community in BiH is still relatively low, some scholars do succeed in attaining professional recognition for their work in English beyond the borders of BiH. This paper investigates the experience of BiH scholars in publishing in international scientific journals and in giving oral presentations at conferences. The primary objective of the paper is to examine strategies BiH scholars use to assert their membership in the international scientific community through the use of English, the challenges they face during the process, and the type of support or recognition they receive from their domestic institutions. The inclusion of conference presentations in addition to publications is motivated by the tendency for conference presentations to be a stage in the process of publishing one’s work. Data for this study is collected through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with the BiH scholars who have experience with publishing and presenting their work in English in the fields of medicine, business, and electrical engineering – three disciplines which are relatively well integrated into the international scientific community.
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Presentation NATURAL SCIENTISTS' TRANSLINGUAL PRACTICE FOR WRITING SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS Melanie Brinkschulte, Monica Elena Stoian, Ellen Borges, Irina Barczaitis Georg-August-University, Göttingen, Germany The research project “Multilingual competence in scientific writing”, initiated by the International Writing Center of Göttingen University, deals with the perspectives of natural science scholars on scientific writing and their approach towards a global working academia. Natural Sciences normally deal with English as global publication language, but scientists have conducted their studies in their L1. They are able to develop an academic writing knowledge in more than one language. Statistics regarding the distribution of languages in natural study programs at German universities and students' attitudes towards translingual practice (Canagarajah 2013) in their academic writing processes form the gist of the first part of the research (Brinkschulte, Stoian and Borges 2015). The focus of this presentation is the multimodality of writing and the specifics of writing strategies scientists use. It offers results of the ongoing analysis of the applied methods and handling of translingual matters from the side of internationally acting scientists in their writing process, be it before, during and the following phases of publication. These phases include the complex embedding of translingual writing process within the scientific community, beginning from the call of papers or topic suitability for a certain journal, e.g. with a high impact factor, until a paper is reviewed and published. In our presentation we will offer insights into how scientists implement translingual writing in the publication process. The research aims in its final outcome to bind the results achieved in investigating the situation among the natural science students and scholars in order to develop a didactical model for multiliteracy in scientific writing embedded in natural science study programs.
References
Brinkschulte, M., Stoian, M. and Borges, E. (2015 under publication) Resource focused research for multilingual competence in scientific writing. In: Journal of Academic Writing. http://e-learning.coventry.ac.uk/ojs/index.php/joaw Canagarajah, S. (2013) Translingual Practice. Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations. London and New York: Routledge
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Poster Presentation COACHING FOR WRITERS OF ACADEMIC PAPERS Mary McIntosh Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy Like all non-native speakers of English who publish research, Italian academics are increasingly obliged to write papers in English. They often receive vague feedback from reviewers indicating a generic need to improve their English. At the Politecnico di Torino, a large scientific university with over 800 academics, external proofreaders are frequently sought to make improvements, often at a distance. This type of intervention “… is highly unlikely to …meet all textual requirements” (Turner 2011). In response to the need for proofreading, 5 English teachers developed an internal coaching service offering one face-to-face appointment per paper. Over 5 years the service has transformed to encourage learning through a dialogic approach in order to contribute to “self-regulation” and “circumvent the limitations of one-way transmission of feedback” (Yang and Carless 2013). We help researchers identify problem areas in their papers and recognize rhetorical moves by acting as live readers, asking for clarification about meaning and helping to re-phrase unclear sections or prompting on-the-spot corrections. The English team’s limited expertise in the technical field confronts writers with the need for clarity. An unforeseen benefit of this approach has been the development of a new professional relationship with academic staff which has raised the profile of English teachers in the university. Interviews with users indicate that the current service is not exactly what researchers expect but it is nevertheless relevant to their needs. In the future we hope to implement peer feedback groups in order to meet demand for more opportunities for feedback.
References
Turner Rewriting in higher education: the contested spaces of proofreading. Studies in Higher Education 36 (4), June 2011, 427–440 Yang and Carless (2013) The feedback triangle and the enhancement of dialogic feedback processes. Teaching in Higher Education 18 (3), 285–297 Zhang, Sheng, Li. Evaluating an Academic Writing Course – based on an Integrated Model. The Journal of Asia TEFL 11 (1), 95–125
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H – Writing for Publication
Presentation WHY SHOULD I WRITE ABOUT MY TEACHING? ON SCHOLARSHIP OF TEACHING AND LEARNING Anker Helms Jorgensen IT University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark There is currently a strong push in academia to improve the quality of teaching and learning and to put teaching and research on a par. One relevant approach towards this end is the paradigm Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL). A key feature of SOTL is to apply research approaches, methods, and tools to teaching in order to enhance the quality of teaching and learning. More specifically, Trigwell and Prosser's (2000) interpretation of SOTL reads: know the literature, experiment with teaching, reflect on teaching, and publish the results. Hence, academic writing is key in SOTL. The paper draws on three cases from my teaching: the effect of learning students' names (Jorgensen 2014), exposing students early on to a peerreviewed paper (Jorgensen 2011), and two metaphors on ambitions in theses (Jorgensen 2007). The paper addresses challenges and benefits in writing about experiences, approaches, and results in teaching, among these genre conventions, deciding what's new, where to publish, and doing research & development in one's own work as a kind of action research. The paper rests on the paper by Rienecker and Jorgensen (in press).
References
Jorgensen, A. H. (2014) Learning Students' Names: Doers it Matter? Proc. ICERI: International Conference on Education, Research and Innovation, Sevilla, Spain, November 17–19, 2014, 3366–3372 Rienecker, L. and Jorgensen, A. H. (in press) Why should I write about my teaching? On Scholarship of Teaching and Learning [In Danish]. In: Rienecker, L. and Jorgensen, P. S.: University Pedagogy in Practice. Copenhagen: Samfundsliteratur Trigwell, K., Martin, E., Benjamin, J. and Prosser, M. (2000) Scholarship of Teaching: a model. Higher Education Research & Development 19 (2), 155–168
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H – Writing for Publication
Presentation ENHANCING PUBLICATION PRODUCTIVITY AMONG DOCTORAL STUDENTS – A CASE STUDY FROM AALTO UNIVERSITY Pia Lappalainen Aalto University, Espoo, Finland Publication productivity constitutes a key measure of institutional and researcher performance, determining success in university rankings and academic career development. [1], [2] Against this background, surprisingly little support has thus far been available for doctoral students at Aalto University. As a remedy, a Writing Doctoral Research course was designed for Aalto engineers. To build a relevant and domainspecific course for doctoral students, their needs were examined quantitatively (n=290) and qualitatively (n=74). The aim was to identify pedagogy for raising the quality of publications and to speed up the writing process. These two investigations show that 1) in the absence of sufficient supervision, engineers require more support in the writing-related mental processes, 2) engineers lack means to accurately express their research aims, 3) the mechanics of writing needs to focus on structuring and sentencing of the introduction section, 4) students lack variety, precision and hedging strategies in data commentary, and 5) rhetoric and argumentation strategies are subsidiary to mechanistic referencing or summarizing in engineering texts. Instead of the traditional functional approach, the course was subsequently designed within the framework of the conceptual approach, especially to align with the principles of enculturation. [3] This emphasizes researcher identity, profiling and personal voice, while focusing on the reporting and structural conventions in engineering and the field-specific academic style. Particular emphasis was placed on the writer’s block, as the respondents expressed anxiety similar to the blank page syndrome and required strategies in getting started with their writing. Process writing together with tools enhancing sketching and outlining upon initial drafting were selected as additional pedagogic foci. The feedback on this locally novel course demonstrates that 1) academic communication strategies help conceptualize overall research aims and perception of the broader research process, 2) a writing course can effectively expedite research progress by providing targeted support in style, structuring, researcher positioning and text readability, 3) on the doctoral level, authenticity of the course materials is a pedagogic necessity, and 4) mental support provided outside the supervisor-doctoral student relationship yields benefits for student well-being and productivity.
References
Kamler, B. (2008) Rethinking doctoral publication practices: Writing from and beyond the thesis. Studies in Higher Education 33 (3), 283–294 Cotterall, S. (2011) Doctoral students writing: where's the pedagogy?. Teaching in Higher Education 16 (4), 413–425 Lee, A., & Kamler, B. (2008) Bringing pedagogy to doctoral publishing. Teaching in Higher Education 13 (5), 511–523
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H â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Writing for Publication
Presentation ASSESSING WRITING AND JOURNAL OF ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES Liz Hamp-Lyons CRELLA, University of Bedfordshire, United Kingdom My curious role as Editor of two journals, the Journal of English for Academic Purposes and Assessing Writing, can be explained by my career-long interest in the assessment of academic writing. In this presentation I draw on what I have learned in editing these two journals for more than 12 years to show how assessments (in this case, writing assessments specifically) can be the core of a research study, or valuable tools within research into writing for academic purposes. There is little good quality research being done into the development, use and validation of writing assessments, and less still into the development, use and quality assurance of classroom writing assessments. That may be the bad news â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but the good news is that that leaves a gap in the journals market for both strong research articles and high quality reporting of teacher-led writing assessment project in educational programmes. Research on academic writing, as well as classroom-based action research projects into academic writing, is too often weakened by the use of measures of writing proficiency, progress or needs that are not fit for purpose. Through the use of several examples, I will illustrate good practice in the use of writing assessments for and in research, and discuss how such good practice can be reported in writing up research for publication.
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Social Programme
Social Programme Festive Dinner will be held on 15 June 2015 at 19.00– 22.00 at Glehn Castle in the close vicinity of TUT. Delegates registered for this event will board charter buses in the parking area of the Main Building of TUT at 18.45. Delegates who are willing to take an invigorating 20-minute slightly up the hill walk to the castle through the pine forest will gather in the foyer of the Main Building at 18.30. To board the bus and enter the Glehn Castle, delegates will need to wear their Name Badges. At 22.00 buses will take delegates back to the Centre of Town, convenient for most conference hotels. Tallink Taxi (phone +372 640 8921) would be another option to reach the Glehn Castle or Centre of Town.
Guided Tour to Mektory, the Business and Innovation Centre of TUT, will take place on 16 June 2015 at 17.00– 18.30. The tour will start at 16.50 in the foyer of the Main Building and proceed to Mektory, located on the campus of TUT within a 5–7 minute walk from the Main Building. Apart from visiting the Labs and Studios of Mektory, delegates will have a chance to learn more about TUT and its international relations, and interact with other delegates in the relaxed atmosphere. Refreshments and snacks will be served.
Old Town Tour will take place on 17 June 2015 at 17.00– 19.00. Charter buses will depart from the parking area of the Main Building of TUT at 16.45. The Old Town walking tour will start in the Upper Old Town, proceed across Toompea Hill (once a castle and now the seat of Riigikogu – the Estonian parliament) and then continue from the Dome Church to the viewing platform at Toompea to enjoy a bird's eye view of Tallinn. The tour will end on the Town Hall Square in the Lower Old Town. Tallinn is quite easy to explore on foot thanks to its small size and compact layout.
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Destination Tallinn
Destination Tallinn
Ever since the days of Viking traders Tallinn has been a meeting point for various cultures and nations. Visitors coming from any direction are bound to find something familiar, and something surprising, when they explore the city. This historical city was first mentioned at the beginning of the 12th century. Tallinn has the best-preserved medieval Old Town in the Northern Europe with its unique milieu and structure that has earned the city a place in the UNESCO´s World Heritage List. Other regions of the city reflect different ages, from the romantic Tsarist-era Kadriorg Park to the unforgettable early 20thcentury wooden house district of Kalamaja. A modern shopping/business district in the city center completes Tallinn as an amazing blend of old and new. Tallinn is situated on the Gulf of Finland which allows visitors to stroll along well-developed seaside pathways or discover the nearby islands, enjoying the panoramic views of the city. The compactness of the city enables to explore the beautiful nature within 15 minutes’ drive from the city. Tallinn is widely recognized as one of the World´s most technology-oriented cities, offering a range of cutting-edge solutions from e-government and e-banking to mobile parking. All hotels, conference centers, as well as the airport, shopping malls, downtown cafés, restaurants, and public parks offer public Wi-Fi, for free. All in all it is an innovative country in the proper sense of the word with a medieval twist to its story! Tallinn City Tourist Office & Convention Bureau is the official tourist authority for the City of Tallinn. We are the best starting point when planning an event in Tallinn – with a wide range of free services and assistance we will help you along the way to a successful event! Please discover more about Tallinn´s possibilities at www.visittallinn.ee
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EATAW 2015 Committees
EATAW 2015 Committees EATAW 2015 Organising Committee Kärt Rummel, Tallinn University of Technology Hele Saar, Tallinn University of Technology Language Centre Academic and Administrative Staff Conference Proposal Review Committee Ene Alas, Tallinn University Esther Breuer, Cologne University Kathleen Shine Cain, Merrimack College Jim Donohue, Queen Mary, University of London Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams, Coventry University Magnus Gustafsson, Chalmers University of Technology John Harbord, Central European University Mare-Anne Laane, Tallinn University of Technology Bojana Petric, University of Essex Pille Põiklik, Tartu University Kärt Rummel, Tallinn University of Technology Birutė Ryvitytė, Vilnius University Hele Saar, Tallinn University of Technology Ülle Türk, Tartu University
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Language Centre
The Language Centre of Tallinn University of Technology For the Estonians, a small nation of fewer than one million native speakers in the country of origin, communicative competence in languages is a prerequisite for their success in various aspects of life, especially in the academic world. Members of the academia, students and academic staff, comprise a driving force for our integration into internationally recognised discourse communities to share their specific knowledge and promote their research both in oral and written modes. The Language Centre of Tallinn University of Technology has attempted to respond to the changes in educational and professional contexts, and the needs for the students and academics to enhance their proficiency of foreign languages. We support the teaching and learning of a variety of languages, including English, German, French, Finnish, Swedish, Russian and Estonian in different degree programmes and modules in seven faculties of the university, namely, Civil Engineering, Power Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemicals and Materials Technology, Information Technology, Sciences and Social Sciences. The academic and professional activities of the Language Centre are informed by recent research in applied linguistics, academic literacies studies, second language and foreign language acquisition, language for academic and specific purposes, L1/L2 academic writing, text and discourse, sociocultural studies, educational technology, among others. We have contributed to several British Council, TEMPUS, Primus and other projects in academic writing, syllabus design and testing, upgrading staff in ESP, and LT management and quality assurance in LSP. Apart from that, the university has initiated two large-scale writing conferences, including the Pan-Baltic International Conference of Advanced Writing in 1996 with Professor Ron White and Clare Furneaux, the University of Reading, and the European Association of Science Editors XI Conference in 2012, led by Mare-Anne Laane, a recognised instructor of scientific writing. The Language Centre of TUT is engaged in inspiring and productive partnerships with international research groups, including Language in Higher Education Research Group (LIHERG), Queen Mary, University of London; the Finnish-Estonian Communication Skills Workshop Research Group (CSW), University of Helsinki; and the European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing (EATAW). Recently, a number of new partnerships have been established with universities of the UK, Finland, the Czech Republic, and Norway in Erasmus+ and other EU programmes. The staff of the Language Centre are actively seeking for further possibilities to expand their knowledge and skills in the field of academic writing, especially in academic literacies, writing for publication, writing in and across disciplines, and writing centre development. We would welcome collaborative initiatives in these areas to share the best practices and expertise of academic writing with colleagues in other universities of the world.
K채rt Rummel Head of Language Centre Tallinn University of Technology
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Index by Authors
Index by Authors Aiken, Síobhra 14, 155 Alagöz-Bakan, Özlem 14, 160 Alas, Ene 11, 77 Albachten, David R. 12, 29 Altorfer, Erik 12, 67 Anderson, Paul V. 13, 123, 132 Anson, Chris 11, 91 Anstey, Tim 14, 133 Armstrong, Thomas 10, 42 Ball, Cheryl E. 11, 14, 133, 184 Banzer, Roman 12, 75 Barbosa-Trujillo, Rocio 11, 154 Barczaitis, Irina 10, 187 Berggren, Jessica 14, 32 Bergman, Lotta 10, 131 Bernard, Taryn 14, 135 Bianchi, Marco 12, 173 Birgisdóttir, Helga 15, 148 Bittner, Pascal 11, 142 Bloch, Joel 10, 15, 34, 35 Bonazza, Ruth 10, 140 Borges, Ellen 10, 187 Braidwood, Eva 11, 109 Bräuer, Gerd 11, 141 Breuer, Esther 12, 40 Brewer, Sarah (Margaret) 15, 129 Brinkschulte, Melanie 10, 187 Brodersen, Randi Benedikte 12, 145 Broido, Monica 11, 138 Bromley, Pam 10, 140 Brown, Abraham 12, 89 Caulton, David 13, 33 Charles, Maggie 15, 47 Chi, Feng-ming 11, 28 Christoph, Julie 12, 73 Clughen, Lisa Maria 10, 13, 15, 59, 127, 134 Coffin, Caroline 12, 14, 21, 22, 23 Connor, Ulla 10, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 Corr, Andreas 10, 130 Cruz-Soto, Elizabeth 12, 174 Dalessandro, Leonardo 15, 172 de Boer, Robin 15, 121 de Glopper, Kees 10, 72 De Grez, Luc 15, 46 Delahunt, Brid 11, 96 Deroey, Katrien 10, 147 De Wachter, Lieve 11, 45 D’Hertefelt, Margot 11, 45 Dieter, Sascha 15, 172 Djahani, Parvin Latifa 15, 97 Doleschal, Ursula 11, 141 Donohue, Jim 12, 14, 15, 20, 22, 23 Dorang, Monique Chantal 10, 66 Dreyfürst, Stephanie 14, 107 Ek, Auli Anneli 15, 93 Emde, Maren 13, 62 English, Fiona 12, 70 Entzenberg, Sonja 12, 173 Eriksson, Andreas 10, 111 Eriksson, Ann-Marie 13, 122 Everitt Reynolds, Ann 11, 96
Farrell, Alison 13, 125 Fernando, Weronika 12, 70 Finnegan, Damian 11, 91 Franzky, Tony 10, 87 Freede, Lauren 10, 60 Freedman, Leora 14, 68 Frei, Rosita 10, 94 French, Amanda 15, 30 Ganobcsik-Williams, Lisa 11, 13, 90, 184 Gartland, Sarah 11, 82 Gebril, Atta 12, 51 Gillies, Pauline 13, 33 Girgensohn, Katrin 10, 14, 106, 107 Glogarová, Veronika 12, 159 Gomez, Julio Cesar 14, 102 Göpferich, Susanne 10, 144 Green, Simon John 13, 38 Grit, Japke 15, 121 Grote, Michael 12, 145 Gustafsson, Magnus 10, 11, 13, 15, 43, 111, 184 Hamp-Lyons, Liz 13, 191 Hansen, Leonard Dirk 13, 156 Harbord, John 10, 165 Hardy, Christine 10, 134 Harvey, Arlene 13, 15, 114, 115 Harvey, Stella 11, 110 Hasanen, Johanna 10, 60 Hauptfeld, Petra 13, 170 Heeren, Jordi 11, 45 Hendrickx, Jef 15, 46 Hock, Katharina 13, 62 Hommerberg, Charlotte 10, 111 Honegger, Monique 12, 67 Huemer, Birgit 10, 147 Hughes, Karl 11, 37 Inan, Serhat 14, 152 Jahić, Alma 13, 186 James, Bronwyn 14, 15, 55, 115 Janse van Rensburg, Zander 10, 146 Jeszke, Cordula Maja 12, 14, 76, 177 Johnson, Sarah 11, 81 Jónsson, Jóhannes Gísli 15, 148 Jorgensen, Anker Helms 10, 189 Jorgensen, Peter Stray 15, 101 Jürine, Anni 10, 161, 162 Kaduk, Svenja 14, 117 Kaib, Alexander 13, 53 Kam, Angeniet 13, 41 Karaca, Mehmet 14, 152 Kasparkova, Alena 11, 12, 150, 159 Käsper, Marge 10, 161 Kaufhold, Kathrin 13, 116 Kauppinen, Asko 11, 91 Kearns, Judith 11, 54 Keranen, Nancy 11, 12, 154, 174 Kim, Minkang 15, 115 Kirchhoff, Leonie 12, 76 Kirschbaum, Anne 11, 64 Klein, Alma 11, 64 Kochanska, Karolina 10, 166 Kohl, Kerstin Eleonora 10, 87
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Index by Authors
Koppelt, Diana 12, 89 Kotkas, Ene 11, 95 Krämer, Sabina 10, 87 Kruse, Mari 10, 161, 162 Kuntschner, Eva 11, 149 Lahm, Swantje 13, 14, 117, 123 Lappalainen, Pia 10, 190 Lawrence, Clive 14, 119 Lazar, Gillian 11, 86 Leijen, Djuddah A. J. 10, 11, 13, 91, 162, 179 Lejot, Eve 10, 147 Lepajõe, Kersti 10, 161 Liebetanz, Franziska 14, 107 Lind, Karen 14, 61 Linguri, Marco 14, 160 Lister, Ian Charles 14, 180 Maguire, Moira 11, 13, 96, 125 Majchrzak, Ola 14, 65 Malmström, Hans 10, 13, 43, 111 Manderstedt, Lena 12, 105 Maricic, Ibolya 10, 111 Mason, Sacha 10, 48 Maxwell, Judy 14, 55 McAnsh, Suzy 11, 109 McConnell, Elspeth (Jackson) 12, 164 McElwee, Johanna 12, 173 McGlade, Pauline 13, 125 McGrath, Lisa 14, 32 McIntosh, Mary 11, 188 McNeil, Barbara Elaine 14, 61, 80 Metzdorf, Birte 13, 53 Mežek, Špela 14, 32 Miller, Julia 10, 169 Minning, Heidi 11, 37 Mokgwathi, Tsaona (Seitsiwe) 11, 13, 104, 139 Molenda, Marek 14, 65 Molinari, Julia 15, 83 Mosler, Stefan 12, 49 Mossman, Madeleine 11, 126 Moxley, Joe 11, 91 Mudoh, Annett 13, 171 Muir, Tom 11, 128 Mulholland, Valerie 14, 61 Mullin, Joan A. 11, 184 Mundelius, Patricia 15, 97 Nathan, Philip Bernard 11, 112 Nicholls, Karen 11, 58 Northcott, Jill 13, 33 Nuzha, Irina 11, 63 Ofte, Ingunn 11, 84 Oncul, Gamze 15, 56 Ono, Masumi 11, 118 O'Sullivan, John 11, 52 Ouwendijk, Renate Suzanne 12, 124 Palo, Annbritt 12, 105 Parry, Jayne 11, 113 Pate, Margaret 12, 178 Patel, Tulpesh 11, 128 Paynter, Eleanor 11, 98 Pecorari, Diane 10, 13, 43, 111 Petrić, Bojana 11, 118 Pitak, Alicja 14, 50 Põiklik, Pille 10, 161, 162 Poloubotko, Anja 12, 89
Raedts, Mariet 15, 46 Rannula, Kateriina 11, 95 Rickert, Alex 11, 175 Rienecker, Lotte 13, 15, 101, 182 Rolinska, Anna 10, 181 Römmer-Nossek, Brigitte 10, 11, 74, 149 Rubin, Harriet 11, 138 Rummel, Kärt 12, 15, 70 Russell, David R. 15, 99 Russell-Mundine, Gabrielle 13, 114 Ryvitytė, Birutė 11, 157 Salski, Łukasz 14, 65 Salter-Dvorak, Hania 69 Salumets, Kalev 11, 95 Schlüter, Michael 12, 49 Scott, Andrea 10, 140 Sevier, Marti 13, 36 Shaw, Phillip 10, 111 Sherazi, Saima 12, 70 Solheim, Birger 12, 145 Sonntag, Petra 14, 177 Spielmann, Daniel 13, 44 Stahlberg, Nadine 12, 49 Steiner, Pål 12, 145 Stetson-Tiligadas, Susan M. 15, 176 Stevenson, Marie 15, 115 Stierwald, Mona 15, 97 Stocks, Paul 11, 110 Stoian, Monica Elena 10, 187 Szenes, Eszter 15, 115 Taylor, Laura (Jeannette) 10, 100 Thomas, Peter 10, 12, 42, 70 Tuck, Jackie 12, 70 Türk, Ülle 10, 161, 162 Turner, Brian 11, 54 Uysal, Hacer Hande 13, 158 van Genugten, Tonnie 12, 124 van Kruiningen, Jacqueline F. 15, 121 van Leeuwen, Anne 11, 98 Van Steendam, Elke 15, 46 Vicary, Anne (Margaret) 15, 129 Vode, Dzifa 11, 57 Voigt, Julius 11, 143 von Rautenfeld, Erika 11, 57 Wärnsby, Anna 11, 91 Wette, Rosemary 15, 31 Williams, Bronwyn T. 10, 39 Willumeit, Ariane 13, 53 Wilson, Kate 10, 169 Wilson Clasby, Nicola Joan 14, 168 Wolfsberger, Judith 10, 88 Wrigglesworth, John 11, 58 Wrigley, Stuart 14, 120 Yallop, Roger M. A. 13, 179 Yoder, Monique 13, 85 Zawacki, Terry Myers 11, 14, 15, 24, 25, 26, 184 Zenger, Amy A. 12, 153 Zimmermann, Tobias 11, 175 Zwiauer, Charlotte 11, 149
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Practical Details
Practical Details IMPORTANT PHONE NUMBERS General Emergency: 112 Conference Secretary: (+372) 560 66782 Tallink Taxi: (+372) 640 8921 Airport: (+372) 605 8888 Harbour: (+372) 631 8550 General Information: (+372) 626 1111
TAXI EATAW 2015 recommends Tallink Takso. They accept all major credit and debit cards, including Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and cash (EUR). Start fee 3.90 EUR, day tariff 0.79 EUR/km (06.00–23.00); night tariff 0.89 EUR/km (23.00–06.00).
WIFI is available throughout the campus of TUT (Open Network and Sharing Centre Access)
The distance from the Airport to the City Centre is about 4 km and to the Venue about 9 km (14 min without traffic).
PUBLIC TRANSPORT From the City Centre to the Venue: Trolley-bus 3 towards Mustamäe (22 min), stop Ehitajate tee Bus 36 towards Väike-Õismäe (28 min), stop Tehnikaülikool Bus 11 (express; no service between 10.00– 16.00) towards Kadaka (15 min), stop Ehitajate tee From Hotel Kreutzwald to the Venue: Trolley-bus 3 (stop Koidu) towards Mustamäe (14 min), stop Ehitajate tee From von Stackelberg Hotel to the Venue: Trolley-bus 4 (stop Hotell Tallinn) towards Balti Jaam–Keskuse (25 min), stop Ehitajate tee
Tickets: Single ticket 1.10 EUR can be bought from a driver (cash only, small change, valid for one journey). Another option is to buy a smartcard Ühiskaart for 2 EUR and load credit onto it in R-kiosk. Ühiskaart should be validated on the entrance to the bus. Regardless of the number of rides, one day costs 3 EUR. Travel with Tallinn Card provides free admission to top city attractions, free public transport, a free city tour and various other offers and discounts. More info: transport.tallinn.ee
To the City Centre from the Venue: Trolley-bus 3 (stop Ehitajate tee) towards Kaubamaja (22 min), stop Kaubamaja Bus 36 (stop Tehnikaülikool) towards Viru (28 min), stop Viru Bus 11 (express; no service between 10.00–16.00) (stop Ehitajate tee) towards Kunstiakadeemia (15 min), stop Kunstiakadeemia To Hotel Kreutzwald from the Venue: Trolley-bus 3 (stop Ehitajate tee) (16 min), stop Koidu To von Stackelberg Hotel from the Venue: Trolley-bus 3 (stop Ehitajate tee) towards Kaubamaja; at the next stop (Liivaku) transfer to Trolley-bus 4 towards Balti Jaam (21 min), stop Hotell Tallinn
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