Despite recent efforts to improve college-level students’ academic writing, the ways this skill develops continues to be vastly unexplored. Students do not meet the current literacy demands posed by higher education. These demands become more strenuous when students have to write in English, a language they do not master. The current study reports on the implementation of a systematized assistance model for writing in English as a Foreign Language in a Colombian public university’s bilingual teacher education program. Weekly tutoring sessions were provided to 16 students from an academic writing course in one semester. Common error patterns in their writing samples were identified and categorized with an analytical rubric and students’ reactions to the systematized assistance model were collected through a questionnaire. Results revealed that students benefited significantly from tutor support and professor’s feedback especially in terms of metalinguistic awareness, knowledge of the Process Approach to writing and accuracy in language convention use.

The demands of the academic field and the constraints students have while learning how to write appropriately call for better approaches to teach academic writing. This research study examines the effect of a multifaceted academic writing module on pre-service teachers' composition skills in an English teacher preparation program at a medium sized public university in Colombia. Four written samples from sixteen students were analyzed throughout the two academic periods of 2016. Analytical rubrics measured six writing features quantitatively. Results showed that this multifaceted academic writing module significantly improved pre-service teachers' competences such as discourse, syntax, vocabulary, mechanics and language conventions.Key Words: Academic writing, peer review, tutoring, writing lab, systemized feedback, TOEFL practice, Process Approach ResumenLos requerimientos del área académica y las limitaciones de los estudiantes al aprender a escribir exigen mejores estrategias para la enseñanza de la escritura académica. Esta investigación examina el efecto de un módulo multifacético de 1

Writing academically in a foreign language (L2) involves grammatical and lexical expertise, and it definitely implies having a set of skills to create texts that are both accurate and substantial. In tertiary education contexts, students are compelled to use higher-order thinking skills in their compositions since expectations are more demanding and seek to meet the international quality standards of the 21st century. However, according to Yang (2016), professors do not obtain the expected results when teaching students to write, not even from the most studious learners. Moreover, he states that the lack of writing ability among second language university students is mainly caused by deficient teacher instruction, negative first language transfer, and scarce teaching materials and methods. Indeed, one of the reasons why there is a limited number of national scientific publications in international journals is language limitations as stated in a study conducted by Colombian Administrative ...

La Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira (UTP), a través de la Vicerrectoría de Investigaciones Innovación y Extensión, busca promover la extensión universitaria como una estrategia que permite el intercambio, la aplicación y la integración del conocimiento científico, tecnológico, artístico y cultural; al igual que la vinculación con la realidad social, cultural, económica y productiva de la región y del país, al darle valor a las capacidades institucionales y al generar una articulación e integración entre la docencia y la investigación, la cual permita la identificación de problemáticas y la propuesta de alternativas de solución; además de las oportunidades en el sector externo para realizar intervenciones y alianzas que conduzcan a fortalecer y aportar al desarrollo económico, cultural y el bienestar de la comunidad en general. En este sentido, para el año 2018 se ofertó, a los miembros de la comunidad universitaria, la «Convocatoria interna para la financiación de proyectos de extensión social, cultural y artístico» cuya ejecución se realizaría en el año 2019 y cuyo objetivo era fomentar el desarrollo de proyectos de carácter social, cultural, artístico, los cuales permitieran la solución y transformación de problemáticas que involucraran o beneficiaran sectores de diferentes comunidades. En esta convocatoria fueron financiados catorce proyectos que involucran a diferentes estamentos de la sociedad civil en torno al planteamiento y a la discusión de problemáticas, conflictos y sus posibles soluciones, así como a la identificación de oportunidades de progresos tecnológicos, ambientales, educativos o de creación artística, los cuales involucren o beneficien sectores de diferentes comunidades.