Writing curricula design: Aims and practices

Udostępnienie publikacji Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego finansowane w ramach projektu „Doskonałość naukowa kluczem do doskonałości kształcenia”. Projekt realizowany jest ze środków Europejskiego Funduszu Społecznego w ramach Programu Operacyjnego Wiedza Edukacja Rozwój; nr umowy: POWER.03.05.00-00-Z092/17-00

Self-reported problems of L1 and L2 college writers: what can writing instructors do?

Understanding self-reported problems of L1 and L2 writers regarding the writing process holds important pedagogical implications for instructors to address their students’ specific writing needs. L2 writers were usually reported to have more difficulty setting goals and generating material, and to produce less accurate and effective texts (Leki, 1992; Silva 1993, 1997). This paper compares the self-reported writing difficulties of two groups: L1 (N=19) and L2 (N=19) freshman composition students from an American university. To analyze the group differences, a questionnaire (using 5-point Likert scale) about the perceptions of writing difficulties and approaches to writing process was used. Findings from the descriptive statistical analysis suggest that despite self-reported common problems, such as keeping clarity by using appropriate syntax, the L1 and L2 students presented different views on the importance of visuals in a text. While L1s find visuals to be least important for the reader to understand the text, L2s find visuals to be most important. The results reveal that although instructors focus on teaching essay organization, both L1 and L2 students need more instruction on creating better sentence structures. Encouraging L2 students to use visuals (pictures and graphs) in their persuasive essays would prove beneficial for them to overcome writing problems in English

Language, writing, and social (inter)action: An analysis of text-based chats in Macedonian and English

The purpose of this study is to investigate the text-based chatting practices of a particular community of native Macedonian speakers who chat both in Macedonian and in English (as their foreign language). Much research in computer-mediated communication (CMC) over the last decade has been done in English as L1. Some of the few studies which explored CMC cross-linguistically include the comparison of French vs. English (Werry, 1996), Japanese vs. English (Nishimura, 2003b), Spanish vs. English (del-Teso-Craviotto, 2006), Serbian vs. English (Radic, 2007) and Turkish vs. English (Savas, 2010). In these studies, a number of different language features (e.g., orthography, code switching) and functions (e.g., representation of gender) common to TBC have been analyzed, but none has explored in-depth the use of language as social action in online text-based interactions. Data collected from surveys, text-based chats, and interviews were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively using methods and concepts borrowed from discourse analysis, conversation analysis, systemic functional linguistics and communication accommodation theory. Seventy text-based chats in Macedonian and English from seven native Macedonian speakers, who form an intact group, were collected over a period of four months. By investigating linguistic elements, extralinguistic phenomena (e.g., emoticons, typographic forms such as LOL), and contextual phenomena (e.g., appraisal, limitations of the medium) in the text-based chats of my participants, and by conducting follow-up text-based interviews regarding their individual chatting practices, this study has explored how all these phenomena are used for performing social action in two languages. Text-based chat was also found to be a convenient medium for participants to co-position in various ways while carefully accommodating to various contextual factors

Interculturality and Interdisciplinarity in Bachelor Thesis Writing: Mentors’ and Mentees’ Perceptions

This paper explores some aspects of the Anglo-centred (US-based and UK-based educational practices) academic literacy promoted in a non-native English academic context. It seeks to understand better how mentors who were trained and partly educated in an Anglo-centred settings, or never received education abroad, affect the bachelor thesis writing process of their mentees. Through several methods such as analysis of theses’ structures written in L2 (English), surveys and semi-structured interviews with students and with their mentors in three fields, I will present the findings on how the student positioning is affected when they write a BA thesis in English, while simultaneously trying to cope with the transcultural instruction and the local institutional requirements. The thematic analysis also highlights a range of educational practices and understandings of the thesis writing process including, on one hand, how students build argumentation, distinguish between facts and opinions, become objective, avoid plagiarism following the Anglo-centred writing instruction and, on the other, a fluidity in how university professors use their diverse linguistic and educational resources for the same purpose, without challenging the dominating values of the L2 academic literacy

Educational genres in Eastern Europe : a comparison of the genres in the humanities departments of three countries

The intercultural study of genres provides an opportunity not only to gain an understanding of the differences in writing cultures but also to sharpen the view on what is particular for each learning context. As little previous research has undertaken systematic comparisons of genre systems at European universities, we collected data on educational genres used in writing from the Humanities departments of two universities in Eastern European countries (Romania and Ukraine) and one in a Southeastern European country (Republic of Macedonia). A questionnaire with listed genre names was distributed at the three universities to assess the importance and the perceptions of academic genres in the respective cultures. Open questions were used to validate the results and gather hypotheses on the meaning of the mentioned genres. Results show differences in the frequencies of genre use, which, however, do not allow typifying differences in the learning/writing cultures. Genres are labelled differently and emerge from different traditions but seem to resemble a similar pool of genres in each of the studied countries

Educational Challenges of Roma Minorities: The Case of the Republic of North Macedonia

Linguistic diversity comes in various forms. The most common ways of developing knowledge of more than one language according to some authors are either by learning a second language through participation in some form of bilingual education or being raised in a bilingual environment, such as school or a bilingual family. The phenomenon of development of literacy competencies of minority groups, specifically, the context of Roma people, in the Republic of North Macedonia, whose mother tongue is not even considered a standard language is the main research purpose of this paper. Research conducted in comparative studies on integrated education shows that in the elementary schools with high numbers of Roma students actions are rarely taken to enhance the integration of these minority students, because of 1) the lack of iconography, which is important for the ethnic identity of this minority and 2) low competence level of parents and teachers who are not adequately trained to work with students coming from different linguistic backgrounds or social backgrounds that are characterized by low literacy levels and low learning competences. Participants in this study were from several primary schools in North Macedonia and the responses were categorized according to the major themes that occurred. The findings show how women are excluded from obtaining better education and that multilingual children from deprived economic settings with poorly educated parents struggle and are seriously challenged to obtain proper literacy and education in elementary schools. The study reveals important details about the educational legislation, treatment of Roma people by local and international organizations and provides suggestions for improvement of the current status of the Roma population

Educational Challenges of Roma Minorities: The Case of the Republic of North Macedonia

Linguistic diversity comes in various forms. The most common ways of developing knowledge of more than one language according to some authors are either by learning a second language through participation in some form of bilingual education or being raised in a bilingual environment, such as school or a bilingual family. The phenomenon of development of literacy competencies of minority groups, specifically, the context of Roma people, in the Republic of North Macedonia, whose mother tongue is not even considered a standard language is the main research purpose of this paper. Research conducted in comparative studies on integrated education shows that in the elementary schools with high numbers of Roma students actions are rarely taken to enhance the integration of these minority students, because of 1) the lack of iconography, which is important for the ethnic identity of this minority and 2) low competence level of parents and teachers who are not adequately trained to work with students coming from different linguistic backgrounds or social backgrounds that are characterized by low literacy levels and low learning competences. Participants in this study were from several primary schools in North Macedonia and the responses were categorized according to the major themes that occurred. The findings show how women are excluded from obtaining better education and that multilingual children from deprived economic settings with poorly educated parents struggle and are seriously challenged to obtain proper literacy and education in elementary schools. The study reveals important details about the educational legislation, treatment of Roma people by local and international organizations and provides suggestions for improvement of the current status of the Roma population