Exploring Taiwanese EFL Graduate Students Learning Academic Writing

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15642/ijet2.2022.11.1.69-80

Keywords:

community of practice, academic writing, English as a foreign language (EFL), English for academic purposes (EAP)

Abstract

Much has been done to explore the successful tips for scholarly publication in higher education, and has revealed the challenges facing periphery scholars; few studies, however, discussed the enculturation of learning how to write their theses in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts from graduate students’ standpoints. This study aims to bridge the gaps in the extant literature on academic writing and yield insights into how research space is created by graduate students from the perspective of community of practice (CoP). In particular, this paper addressed what graduate students might encounter in terms of graduate students’ beliefs and attitudes toward academic writing and their multidimensional engagement in the academic community. Four graduate students were involved in the study via homogeneous sampling from four universities in Taiwan. To obtain rich data, semi-structured interviews were adopted, audio-recorded, transcribed, and re-constructed. The results highlighted graduate students’ needs for systematic training of research paper writing. The participants believe that they may benefit more from thorough academic training, whereas they found their academic writing training and writing proficiency insufficient. This study concludes with pedagogical implications for rigorous course design and training for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing professionals to improve the quality of EFL academic writing.

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Author Biographies

Ming-Hung Hsieh, National Sun Yat-sen University

Mr. Ming-Hung Hsieh is an English teacher and also a Ph.D. student in National Sun Yat-sen University. His research interests include teacher professional development, English for Academic Writing, and tele-collaboration. He has years of experiences in differentiated instruction, and curriculum & textbook design. He has published numerous papers in well-respected international conferences, book chapters, and SSCI-indexed articles.

Hsueh-Hua Chuang, National Sun Yat-sen University

Dr. Hsueh-Hua Chuang is a professor of Center for Teacher Education and Graduate Institute of Education, and director of International Graduate Program of Education and Human Development at National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan. Her research interests include multimedia learning, faculty professional development, and technology adoption at schools. She can be reached at hsuehhua@g-mail.nsysu.edu.tw

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Published

2022-07-31

How to Cite

Hsieh, M.-H. and Chuang, H.-H. (2022) “Exploring Taiwanese EFL Graduate Students Learning Academic Writing”, IJET (Indonesian Journal of English Teaching), 11(1), pp. 69–80. doi: 10.15642/ijet2.2022.11.1.69-80.

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Articles