Academic writing requirements of Masters level study in the Humanities: Some issues for testers

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1 Academic writing requirements of Masters level study in the Humanities: Some issues for testers Clare Furneaux, Department of English Language & Applied Linguistics, University of Reading CRELLA Summer Research Seminar 11 July 2013 University of Reading Presentation Introduction Research questions Study background Insights Whole group One case Timur EAP proficiency test IELTS TEEP 2 1

2 Research questions 1. How do taught post-graduate students develop an understanding of the writing demands of the academy in the early stages of their study? 2. What differences are there in the experiences of taught postgraduate students developing academic writing skills? 3 Study background Longitudinal study: 1-year Case studies Students x 6 MAELT/Applied Linguistics students, University of Reading Gender: 3 men + 3 women Age range: years Language skills Non-native English speakers x 5 IELTS Japanese, Polish, Romanian, Turkish Native English speaker : x 1 (British) Language teaching experience: 1-7 years 2

3 Theoretical background English for Academic Purposes (Flowerdew and Peacock 2001, Hyland 2003) Academic Literacies (Lea and Street 1998, 2006; Lillis 2001, 2003) Lack of synergy between the two (Wingate and Tribble 2012) Information sources Interviews: Students (5x over academic year) Staff Student questionnaires Pre-course, one-year after leaving Student reports Key points Feedback on assignments Written and f2f Assignment rubrics and briefings 6 3

4 WHOLE GROUP: INSIGHTS 7 Personal characteristics Programme expectations Level of application Approach to learning Response to feedback Personal background Professional Discipline Academic Linguistic Motivation Identity/personality Previous writing tasks and feedback Previous reading (genre-awareness) Topic Criteria The reader Task-based factors Content The writing task Feedback on outline Genre Drawing on own experience Writer-based factors Developing academic literacy in this context Developing writer strategies/ writing process Awareness of criteria Audience awareness Developing voice Literacy brokers Programme-related Non programme-related 4

5 CASE-STUDY: ONE PARTICIPANT 9 Timur Background BA in ELT, Turkey No academic reading or writing in English 3 years ELT experience 7 month IELTS course, London pre-ma Interview sequence: [I1] Term 1, week 4 [I2] Term 1, week 8 [I3] Term 2, week 3 [I5] Year end 10 5

6 [I1] IELTS course: Reading: it was taken from the magazine or article or essays but they were all basically academic reading like about the environment, or about machines, about education, about, you know, human mankind. less than 500 words (Interview 1: Term 1 Week 4) Writing: we were practising every day two or three essay a week 250 words, because you are supposed to write 250 words in IELTS (I1) Key: blue = Timur s words; black = researcher s words 11 Start of MA IELTS 6.5 (6 in writing and reading) Straight on to MA programme insessional support 1 st writing task (pre-course assignment): unassessed Interview (I) 2 re pre-course assignment, just returned with feedback (Term 1 Week 8): 12 6

7 [I2] What did you learn, if anything, about writing at masters level that you will use in future assignments? Well I learnt that this is much more professional than the other writings I got used to do writing about like environment, education, all general topics but in precourse assignment, I learnt to write about, I mean, much more specific and I should be clearer. 13 [I2] What advice would you give future MA students about academic writing, based on doing this writing? First of all, they should be very careful about (.) giving references and how they should know how to give references.. and the second one, they should know how to link the paragraphs (.). and also there should be a sequence and the inner fluency in an academic writing, because there is no fluency in my academic writing, and it is very hard to understand what I am talking about, so they should be aware of linking paragraphs,. and they should mention just one thing in a paragraph, only one subject in a paragraph and (..) 14 7

8 [I2] And it s different from IELTS writing? Absolutely IELTS writing is just (.) you know assessing your vocabulary, assessing how to write and assessing how to use the colloquial items. In academic writing you need to use some idea, you need to support them, you need to find loads of examples, you need to read books before starting writing. They are giving topics and you are starting to write about these topics. But in academic writing you have a topic and you need to (.) you need to read some books about this topic. 15 [I3] Term 2 Week 3 Post return of 1st assessed work I believe that I m going to finish this MA degree And pass it, yeah I mean I m more confident when I compare to before this assignments, when I came to first write, especially I was really, really upset when I got my pre-course assignment feedback, I was really upset because it was terrible. It was completely rubbish. then immediately I went to library and I got a couple of books about how to writing, how to write academic writing, what s the difference of academic writing and other writings and I talk to my friend and my friend give me some advice. 16 8

9 [I5] How do you think your academic writing skills have changed this year? Yeah, I think it changed dramatically in a good way because I didn t have any idea about what academic writing is because let s talk about if someone asks me a question about space I have no idea about, it was the same thing. I didn t have any idea about academic writing, I didn t have any idea about academic reading because in five years in the university in my bachelor s degree in total maybe I read like five or four academic reading (.) 17 [I5] What do you now know that you wish you had known when you were writing your first assignment? Well, first of all you have to know how to read first to know how to write, because I didn t know how to read an academic reading because it is, the academic writing is based on academic reading and I didn t read any stuff before coming here. I wish I knew how to read academic essay before coming here. How to evaluate it because (.) I didn t have any chance to read articles or essays to prepare a writing assignment before coming here and after like three months later when I read essays I started to get some notes. 18 9

10 [I5] What do you mean by know how to read? How to read means, I mean, why do you read this articles? To get some idea and how are you going to organise this idea while referring in your writing? I didn t know it. Then I realised that I had to take some notes while reading the articles (.) and then I used these notes in my writing. and I didn t know the giving citations, I wish I had a chance how to know that and the combination of your idea with previous work so like grounding them with previous books 19 [I5] Another insight: genre And another point is that I wish I knew the format because this is quite important, I mean you will start from literature review and you will support your idea with the previous studies or research and I didn t know the format 20 10

11 EAP PROFICIENCY TESTING 21 IELTS writing tasks 1. Reading 3 passages of 2,000-2,700 words (60 mins) 2. Listening conversation / monologue re social contexts; educational texts (one monologue) (30+10 mins) 3. Writing Task 1: describing visual information (20 mins) Task 2: essay (250 words+) (40 mins) 4. Speaking Oral interview (11-14 mins) 22 11

12 TEEP writing task 1. Focus task ungraded brainstorm on writing task (10 mins) 2. Reading on the same topic 1 passage; 1,000-1,500 words (35 mins) 3. Listening task based on the same topic Lecture extract (30 mins) 4. Writing task: 5. Speaking One hour to write essay on the topic introduced in 1., with reference to the materials/tasks for 2. &3. not topic-based 6. Language knowledge 23 Conclusion: Insights for testers Back wash effect Danger of doing harm Academic writing tasks - need to draw on: reading length of text criticality (grounded in experience and reading) Academic reading tasks need to draw on: multiple sources / length criticality How can these outcomes be tested in a EAP proficiency test? 24 12

13 25 REFERENCES: 26 13

14 Berkenkotter, C. (1981). Understanding a Writer's Awareness of Audience. College Composition and Communication, 32 (4), Flower, L. and Hayes, J. (1981). A cognitive process theory of writing. College Composition and Communication, 32, Flowerdew, J. and Peacock, M (eds). (2001). Research Perspectives on English for Academic Purposes. Cambridge: CUP. Harwood, N. and Hadley, G. (2004). Demystifying institutional practices: Critical pragmatism and the teaching of academic writing. English for Specific Purposes, 23, Hyland, K. (2003). Second Language Writing. Cambridge: CUP. Ivanič, R.(1998). Writing and Identity: the Discoursal Construction of Identity in Academic Writing. John Benjamins: Amsterdam. 27 Lea, M. and Street, B.V. (1998). Student writing and staff feedback in Higher Education: An academic literacies approach. Studies in Higher Education, 23(2): Lea, M. and Street, B.V. (2006) The Academic Literacies model: theory and applications. Theory into Practice 45/4: Lillis, T. and Curry, M. J. (2006). Professional academic writing by multilingual scholars: interactions with literacy brokers in the production of English-medium texts. Written Communication, 23(1), Schmidt, R The role of consciousness in second language learning. Applied Linguistics, 11, Wingate, U. and Tribble, C. (2012). The best of both worlds? Towards an EAP/Academic Literacies writing pedagogy, Studies in Higher Education 37/4: