Chinese Efl Undergraduates’ Academic Writing: Rhetorical Difficulties and Suggestions

Abstract

Difficulties encountered by students in L2 academic writing has been a subject of research for several decades. However, to date, there still remains a lack of detailed and in-depth investigation into this area of interest. This qualitative study thoroughly investigated the rhetorical difficulties faced by Chinese EFL undergraduate academic writers, and collected suggestions on how to address these rhetorical issues. To be sufficiently detailed and thorough, this study divided students' difficulties into process-and product-related difficulties, and used triangulated data from supervisors' perspectives, students' perspectives, and supervisors' comments to address research questions. Although there were no strong generalizations derived from data from different perspectives and sources, the findings of this study showed supervisor perceptions of the rhetorical difficulties the students experienced were almost identical. In nature these rhetorical difficulties were culturallyembedded and genre-related issues; and the degree of difficulty experienced by each student varied. In this study, supervisors and students both suggested that, to solve rhetorical difficulties, teacherstudent communication should be improved. This study provided empirical evidence to contrastive rhetoric theory and socio-cultural theory. It also offered suggestions on how to strengthen future research in this area of inquiry, and how to improve academic writing teaching in L2 educational contexts.Keywords: process-related rhetorical difficulties; product-related rhetorical difficulties; nature, causes and degree of difficulty; suggestions. This study is motivated by some changes that are currently taking place in China. For years in China, academic writing in English (AWE) for undergraduates has been considered as English majors' BA thesis writing. It is generally taught in the final year of bachelor's study, and taken as the only academic writing task English majors need to fulfil before graduation. In 2006, the School of English and International Studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU, China's top university for foreign languages studies) led curriculum reforms. This school became well aware that it is essential for underclassmen students to develop a good level of academic writing ability, and it set up an AWE course for sophomore English majors. Now, like BFSU, more schools in China are teaching or plan to teach sophomore English majors about AWE. They are coming to realize that it is even necessary to offer the AWE course to all firstyear undergraduates (both English-majors and nonEnglish majors), since AWE involves not only English-majors' graduation thesis writing, but also the writing of some assignment tasks that undergraduate freshmen need to face. In all, these changes imply that teaching practice for AWE in China is still in its infancy, and Chinese AWE teachers need to learn how to teach more effectively.As an understanding of the challenges students face is essential for effective teaching practice, this stu...

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