Evaluating the effectiveness of a cross-disciplinary genre-focused writing intervention

Abstract

In tertiary education settings it is imperative for students to move confidently between the academic discourses of a variety of disciplines. Thus, it is merited to aim writing interventions at genres that straddle disciplinary boundaries. Following a survey on preferred genres and text types at the University of Pretoria an essay-writing intervention for second-year undergraduate students was designed and developed. The effectiveness of the intervention was evaluated using a pretest-posttest design. On average the scores of the respondents improved by 7%. The largest improvement was on structure and development (15%), followed by the use of source materials (10%) and academic writing style (7%). An interpretation of the findings, combined with feedback from the respondents, suggested that extensive writing should be introduced soon after the commencement of an essay-writing intervention, and that a series of shorter teaching and learning cycles might be more effective than a single cycle. Furthermore, study units dealing with making and supporting claims might focus more strongly on learning from models than on explicit teaching of a variety of disciplinary conventions and preferences.

Triple Method Approach to Development of a Genre-Based Approach to Teaching ESL/EFL Writing: A Systematic Literature Review by Bibliometric, Content, and Scientometric Analyses

“…Participants in these studies ranged from low (de Oliveira & Lan, 2014; Firkins et al, 2007; Maturana Araneda & Gálvez Fredes, 2021), to intermediate (Arnbjörnsdóttir, 2020; Carstens, 2009; Emilia, 2005; Guerra-Lyons & Mendinueta, 2020; Kongpetch, 2006; Truong, 2017; Ye, 2020), to advanced levels in English writing competence (Johns, 2011; Kuteeva, 2013; Negretti, 2021). The majority of studies (48) focused on the GBA’s effectiveness in tertiary students’ writing courses in or beyond college.…”

Using online discussion forums to promote student engagement in an academic literacies course

“…They gave students more opportunity to write extensively than had been the case in purely face-to-face iterations of the course, in line with the outcomes of writing intensive courses (cf. Nichols, 2017); Carstens, for example, has found across several studies the importance of having ample opportunity for practicing writing in the development of academic writing skills (Carstens, 2011;Carstens & Fletcher, 2009). ODFs provided students with real-life exemplars against which they could measure both their own interpretations of ideas, and their own academic writing proficiencies.…”

Student experiences studying accounting in English as an additional language

“…In this regard, South African language researchers have appreciated and addressed the efforts, struggles and achievements of students with EAL, and have worked across a variety of disciplines (Boughey, 2013; Carstens, 2009; Jacobs, 2007a, 2007b). These include the arts and social sciences (van Schalkwyk et al , 2009), computer science (Dalvit, 2010), economics (Paxton, 2009), engineering (Jacobs, 2005) and law and science (Carstens, 2013).…”