Academic writing in ESL contexts

The book reports on the study that aimed to explore first year students’ conceptions of writing and the extent to which these conceptions influence their academic writing; explore tutors’ expectations and understandings of student writing and how they respond to it; and suggest guidelines that can inform effective teaching and learning of writing in ESL contexts. The study was underpinned by the academic literacies model. The study adopted a qualitative research methodology and used a case study approach as research design. Participants included ESL first year students and their tutors. Questionnaires, focus group interviews and marked student writing samples were employed as data collection instruments. The findings showed that although students categorised their writing skills as average, tutors had a different perspective. The findings reveal that tutors found that students still struggle with aspects of writing including, grammar, spelling, the structuring of essays, coherence and cohesion in paragraphs as well as arguing a point convincingly.