Getting research published internationally in English: An ethnographic account of a team of Finance Spanish scholars’ struggles

Intercultural text-based research has shown remarkable differences in the rhetorical structure and devices of research articles (RAs) in different linguistic/cultural contexts of publication, including the Spanish local context and the English international context. However, not much attention has been paid to the research article (RA) writing process, which can throw light into the publication practices of second language (L2) scholars in particular disciplinary fields and which can help unveil their main writing difficulties. In this paper I focus on the “text histories” of a team of Spanish researchers in the field of Finance who struggle to get their research articles published internationally in English. These text histories correspond to 24 papers drafted and (re)submitted over the past 5-6 years. The analysis focuses on the extent to which they aim to publish their RAs in English, how they cope with writing their texts in English, their success in such a task and the kind of negative comments included in the referee reports they receive. Results show that this team of L2 scholars almost exclusively write their RAs in English and aim at publishing them in English-medium international journals; for this demanding task, they draw on a number of strategies. They are partially successful in that they have managed to publish half of their RAs in the first site where they were submitted. Their manuscripts received a lot of negative comments; especially relevant is the inclusion of a high number of unspecific negative comments related to language or style in major revision reports. Looking into the writing process can be of great help to provide L2 scholars with useful guidelines on drafting their RAs in English for international publication and to gain an insight into the forces driving international publication in this context

A Cross-cultural analysis of the generic structure of business management research articles: the methods section

Many studies have focused on the analysis of each of the prototypical four sections of the research article (i.e. Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Swales 1990). However, whereas some sections have been subject to a great deal of analysis, especially the Introduction, others have not attracted as much scholarly attention. That is the case of the Methods section. Nevertheless, it is believed that the particular organization and content of this section plays a crucial role in the production of a successful research article. The Methods sections of 24 research articles in Business Management written in English for an international readership and in Spanish for a local audience will be contrastively analysed in terms of their rhetorical organization. When comparing the results to those from previous analyses in the fi eld of medicine, it stems that the Method sections in Business Management articles contains some specific steps which could be considered characteristic. Further, the results from the analysis of the comparable corpus indicate that there are certain differences in the extent of inclusion of some steps in the research articles in the two cultural contexts. It seems that both the disciplinary culture and the broad cultural context in which the research articles are written may shape and constraint the microstructure of the Methods sections. Muchos estudios se han centrado en el análisis de las cuatro secciones prototípicas del artículo de investigación (Introducción, Métodos, Resultados y Discusión, Swales 1990). Sin embargo, mientras algunas de estas secciones han sido el foco de numerosos estudios, en particular la Introducción, otras no han recibido tanta atención. Éste es el caso de la sección de métodos. A pesar de ello, se considera que el contenido y la organización estructural de esta sección juegan un papel importante en la consecución de un artículo de investigación adecuado. Este artículo analiza la sección de Métodos de 24 artículos de investigación en el campo de la Dirección y Organización de Empresas escritos en inglés para la comunidad internacional y en castellano para una audiencia local en relación a su organización retórica. Al comparar los resultados con los obtenidos en estudios previos, se constata que la sección de Métodos de los artículos de Dirección y Organización de Empresas contiene algunos steps (o sub-secciones retóricas) que l

Looking into ELF variants: A study of evaluative it-clauses in research articles

Given the high number of non-native English speakers in academia, it becomes necessary to look at the use made of English as a lingua franca (ELF), especially in written communication. It is the aim of this paper to look at ELF in a written academic genre, the research article (RA), in the discipline of business management. A corpus of ELF RAs written by scholars with different linguacultural backgrounds will be compared with a corpus of RAs written by scholars affiliated to Anglo-American institutions. The analysis will focus on a particular genre- specific formulaic sequence (Hu¨ttner, 2007), evaluative it-clauses. Results show differences in their frequency of use, the choice of adjectives, and (lack of) modality. The findings can be interpreted as lexico-grammatical innovations (Dewey, 2007), creative expressions (Seidlhofer, 2011), or emerging patterns (Jenkins, Cogo, & Dewey, 2011) in the process of adaptation, evolution and dynamism of English as used in international written academic communication

Macrostructure and use of nominalizations in applied sport science abstracts in the Internet

-

Developing students' oral communication skills in the primary EFL classroom: a project-based proposal

Over the last years, there has been a growing concern about the best approaches and methodologies to teach English for equipping students with the essential skills for effective communication, especially orally as well as with other key competences, such as lifelong learning. This dissertation shows the process carried out to plan and design a project for an English Foreign Language (EFL) Primary classroom whose main objective is to improve students’ oral communication skills. The project has been developed relying on the approaches that have proved to be most effective for the teaching and learning of EFL, namely, Project Based Learning, Communicative Language Teaching, Task-Based Learning, and Cooperative Learning. The evaluation of the proposal shows how the use of active, participative and communicative methodologies which consider the learners agents of their own learning and provide them with the necessary scaffolding to build their own meanings, positively affects the development of students’ oral communication skills. The work climate that is created through these methodologies also gives confidence to learners who feel more and more capable of expressing themselves in English. This project shows that these approaches are indeed to be followed in our 21st century Primary EFL classrooms

The teaching-learning process of English as a foreign language

This Trabajo Fin de Máster summarizes the main learning and most relevant competences acquired while completing the Master focused on the teaching profession that I have been taking in the specialty of English. It is divided into three main sections. First of all I make some reflections about my process of learning in each course. Then, in the second section, I present and self-assess the sub-competences I acquired in each module and I present through a summarizing chart the main competences of the Master I have achieved at the end of that section. I will synthesize my innovation research project in the third part, and I will finish by explaining the importance of my future permanent training, putting forward some of the ways of developing it

Self-reference in research articles across Europe and Asia: A review of studies

Numerous cross-linguistic and cross-disciplinary studies have looked at the manifestation of author stance in academic texts. One of the most recurrent areas of contrast has been the use of personal pronouns across linguistic and disciplinary cultures. This paper aims at reviewing previous research on self-reference in research articles taking an intercultural perspective. It focuses on 22 studies which report on results regarding this stance feature in 13 lingua-cultural contexts (Bulgarian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Persian, Russian, Spanish). They have been extracted from relevant publications in the fields of English for Academic Purposes and English for Specific Purposes over the past 25 years (1998–2012). A close analysis of this research highlights different cultural trends in constructing writer-reader relationships in this academic genre and reveals important methodological issues across different studies. This review article also has implications for English as a lingua franca (cf. Mauranen 2012) as used in international publications

Developing students’ reading habits and skills in the Primary EFL classroom: ‘Super Reading Improvers’ proposal for extensive reading

In the recent years, there has been a growing tendency towards the use of innovative and active methodologies in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in order to develop all students’ skills, and therefore, their communicative competence. This dissertation shows the process developed to plan, design, create and evaluate an extensive reading proposal for an EFL Primary classroom whose main purpose is to develop student’s L2 reading habits and skills so that their communicative competence increases. All tasks and resources have been carried out on the bases of the Communicative Laguage Teaching (CLT) approach, in line with the Aragonese curriculum, and complemented by some innovative teaching methods and approaches such as Task-Based learning (TBL) and gamification. The proposal is aimed to improve the instructional effectiveness of the extensive reading program by using active and communicative methodologies. These will positively affect the development of the student’s reading skills and communicative competence. Although it must be proven in a future implementation, the developed proposal may foster the students’ L2 reading motivation. This dissertation shows that this extensive reading project is an effective teaching resource to be incorporated in the 21st century EFL Primary classrooms in order to develop the learners’ reading habit.<br /

Analysis of an English Coursebook and Its Oral Activities

In this dissertation I will try to find out if a particular coursebook –New English File: Intermediate, NEF– is an appropriate coursebook to foster students’ oral skills in general and in a particular educational context. For this purpose, I will analyse and evaluate the coursebook, and then I will analyse and evaluate those activities which develop oral skills –listening and speaking activities– according to a specific criterion which will be developed in the Method section. I will first review both input and output hypotheses in general terms, discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using a coursebook in the EFL classroom, and reflect upon the most important factors for the selection of an appropriate coursebook and activities which foster the students’ oral communicative competence. Stephen Krashen and Merrill Swain have a very important role in language acquisition and learning and that is the reason why I find it necessary to review their theories. Similarly, Littlewood’s research on and classification of communicative activities is worth considering and they will certainly make the analysis easier. This particular theoretical part will not only be useful for this dissertation analysis, it is also a good reflection for any teacher on the design and on the characteristics of oral communicative activities

Looking into international research groups' digital discursive practices: Criteria and methodological steps in the compilation of the EUROPRO digital corpus

The EUROPRO digital corpus was designed by the InterGedi research group, based at the University of Zaragoza (Spain). The main focus of InterGedi is the analysis of the textual resources used by international research groups as part of their dissemination and visibility strategies. The corpus comprises a collection of 30 international research project websites funded by the European Horizon2020 Programme (EUROPROwebs corpus). By looking into their websites, 20 projects were observed to maintain a Twitter account and the tweets from these accounts were the basis for the compilation of the EUROPROtweets corpus. This paper delves into the criteria used for the selection of the research project websites and the methodological steps taken to classify, label and tag the verbal component in these websites and tweets. The paper discusses the challenges in the compilation of the corpus because of the dynamic, hypermodal, and hypermedial nature of the digital texts it contains. The paper closes by underlining the potential uses and applications of EUROPRO in order to gain insights into the digital discursive and professional practices used by international research groups to foster their visibility online