The Role of EAP Genre-Focused Instruction in Preparing Novice Research Students for Thesis Writing

A Case Study

Bibliographic Data

ID21830871
AuthorsWei Wang (0000-0001-5806-2368, Fudan University, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume13
Issue2
Pages29
Publication date2023-02-07
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of English Linguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1923-869X • E-ISSN: 1923-8703
PublisherCanadian Center of Science and Education (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5539/ijel.v13n2p29
OpenAlexW4319659248
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited9

Although writing master’s theses are believed to be a major challenge for many L2 research students, there has been no extensive discussion about to what extent students are prepared for such advanced academic writing through learning in English for academic purposes (EAP) classes. This study investigated a group of novice research students learning to write master’s theses in an EAP course at a Chinese university and explored their progress in developing genre knowledge. Data were drawn from interviews, participants’ learning diaries, and their written texts. It was found that most learners had developed the macro-level formal genre knowledge, including the overall structure and content of thesis writing, and raised the declarative meta-cognitive genre awareness, but they had not yet grasped the tacit aspects of rhetorical knowledge, the micro-level formal knowledge, and the complicacy of process knowledge, including the abstract thinking processes, intertextuality, and the interpersonal meaning of academic texts, as well as the correspondent lexicogrammatical features. The nascent status of the students’ genre knowledge developed in the EAP class, and the role of EAP genre-focused instruction in preparing novice research students for their future thesis writing, are further discussed. It is suggested that thesis-focused EAP writing courses take advantage of explicit instruction to inform students about the meta-generic specifications of thesis writing and emphasize the multiple dimensions of genre knowledge development

Academic writing · English for academic purposes · Intertextuality · Linguistics · Mathematics education · Pedagogy · Rhetorical question · Computer Science · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Psychology · Second Language Acquisition and Learning · Second Language Learning and Teaching

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