Effectiveness of academic writing activities and instruction in an academic literacy writing course at the University of Botswana

The purpose of this paper is to report on the University of Botswana undergraduate students’ and lecturers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of academic writing activities and instruction given in Communication and Academic Literacy Skills (COM112) academic writing module. Students (n= 46) and lecturers (n=2) who have taught the course were probed through a questionnaire adapted from (Krause, 2001) on their instruction and assessment of the course. Fifteen (n= 12) Students were also interviewed in a focus group. The data obtained indicated that students and lecturers held different perceptions about the effectiveness of the academic writing activities and instruction. These results have implications for classroom pedagogy in that lecturers need to consider the perceptions and needs of students (Nunan, 1989) if they are to fully adopt a learner centred approach to learning and teaching that is suggested by the University of Botswana (UB) Learning and teaching policy (2008)

The use of interactional metadiscourse features to present a textual voice: A case study of undergraduate writing in two departments at the University of Botswana

In recent years, there has been an increased emphasis on the interpersonal function of metadiscourse features in academic texts. This means that research on writing in academic contexts began to focus on the rhetorical features, such as interactional metadiscourse, that writers use to present their voice in writing. These developments in academic writing have also considered the context in which specific genres are produced. Using a multiple-methods approach to genre analysis, this article compares students’ use of interactional metadiscourse features in two undergraduate courses, Media Studies and Primary Education at the University of Botswana. A total of 40 student essays were analysed. Interviews with students and lecturers in the two departments were also done to understand the context in which the essays were produced. The comparison of interactional metadiscourse features in the two corpora indicated that interactional metadiscourse markers were present, but that there were variations in the use and distribution of these features by the learners. Contextual information shows that such variations reflect the different values and beliefs about academic writing of the discourse communities that students belong to. These values and beliefs can be problematic for English for Specific Purposes (EAP) lecturers who have to prepare students for writing in the various disciplines in L2 contexts

Integration of sources in academic writing: A corpus-based study of citation practices in essay writing in two departments at the University of Botswana

The ability to cite sources appropriately is an important feature of academic writing. Academic writers are expected to integrate ideas of others into their texts and take a stance towards the reported material as they develop their arguments. Despite this importance, research has shown that citation presents considerable difficulties for students, particularly non-native English speakers. Such difficulties include using citations effectively in writing and understanding them in reading, expressing one’s voice and signalling citations in writing so that there is a clear distinction between one’s ideas and those derived from source materials. This study investigates the types of reporting verbs used by students to refer to the work of others and the extent to which they evaluate the work of others in their writing. It draws from a corpus of approximately 80 000 words from essays written by students in two departments at the University of Botswana (Botswana). The findings show that students used more informing verbs, associated with the neutral passing of information from the source to the reader, without interpreting the information cited, compared with argumentative verbs (which signify an evaluative role). The results of the study underscore the importance of teaching reporting verbs in the English for academic purposes classroom and making students aware of their evaluative potential

Reading competency of first-year undergraduate students at University of Botswana: A case study

The ability to read and interpret textbooks and other assigned material is a critical component of success at university level. Therefore, the aims of this study are twofold: to evaluate the reading levels of first-year students when they first enter the university to determine how adequately prepared they are for university reading. It is also to find out if there will be any significant improvement after going through the academic literacy course offered to first-year students. The participants were 51 first-year undergraduate humanities students enrolled in the Communication and Academic Literacy course at the University of Botswana. The data were collected through a reading test adopted from Zulu which was administered at the beginning of the first semester. The same test was administered at the end of the semester after the students had gone through the academic literacy course to see if there was any difference in performance. The findings of this study indicate that there is a mixed and wide variation of students reading competency levels when students first enter the university and that a significant number of first-year entrants are inadequately prepared for university reading