Perceptions of academic writing competencies
The analysis of both qualitative and quantitative data indicated that FLE junior students found themselves competent (with a mean of 3.63 out of 5) in academic writing skills although they did not think they reached excellence in academic writing. When student responses to the separate items are examined, it is seen that students feel competent in paraphrasing, summarizing, internet research and writing clearly, correct and appropriate sentences. However, their competence in giving citations is perceived to be the lowest. This shows that students’ perceptions of their competencies follow a certain order from simple skills (writing sentences) to higher order skills (writing essays and referencing). Out of 9 students who participated in the interviews, 7 stated that they had problems in giving in-text and end-text citations, as they had not studied how to give references earlier in FLE 135 or 136. The student voices below display their complaints:
Student 1: I have real difficulty in giving references. In freshman courses,
we were not taught how to give citations. We didn’t focus on research skills, either.
Student 3: I don’t know if I have plagiarized or not. The instructor says
some of the students have already failed the course because of plagiarism. But I don’t know who they are, if I am among them or not.
Student 4: I thought there was no need to give in-text citations when
I paraphrased. So my first draft was terrible. The instructor wrote plagiarism everywhere on my paper.
When students were asked about their weaknesses in academic writing during the interviews, most of them talked about the problem of organizing ideas into a unified and coherent whole, as the following sequences of interviews display:
Student 6: I don’t think I am bad at writing. But when it comes to academic
writing, you know, you have to pay a lot of attention to organization and things like that.
Student 8: In general, I find myself good at writing. But academic writing
is different. I think I have problems with unity.
However, FLE 311 instructors were not as positive as (with a mean value of 2.58) the learners about FLE students’ academic writing competencies. Teacher interviews supported the low opinion of instructors revealed in the statistical analysis. Unlike student interviews, a common thread in FLE 311 teacher interviews about learners’ academic writing competencies was students’ level of proficiency in English. For FLE 311 instructors, learners’ English writing skills were not sophisticated enough. According to the instructors, learners had many problems in grammar, as mentioned in the following excerpt taken from an interview:
Instructor 1: Even with a very frequent word like research, obviously this
is a research skills course, they still in their last draft wrote “researches.” Same with data, they don’t know if it is, you know, data, datas or … FLE 311 instructors also reported that after realizing students did not know much about giving citations, they provided them with some guidelines about giving references. However, students were not able to benefit from the information given in the guidelines, as mentioned in the following lines:
Instructor 1: A lot of them did not even know they have to write references
from A to Z.… Especially in-text citations, they had problems. Although I’ve repeatedly told them that you need to use the last name of the author comma the year when you’re doing in-text citations, even in their last drafts they used first and second names with no year.
160 Instructor 2: Another thing is plagiarism. Students have old habits, of 161
course. Defining plagiarism was important, at first.
FLE 311 instructors also talked about the significance of critical thinking skills for academic writing, which was not an issue for the learners. They emphasized that students need to be able to read texts or research articles with a critical eye, as can be seen from the teacher voice below:
Instructor 3: Most importantly, they aren’t still able to evaluate other
people’s work. This is the biggest problem. Some of them can do that. But others, they just summarize what others have written.
The analyses of the data reveal one striking difference in the perceptions of students and teachers about FLE students’ academic writing competencies: while most FLE junior students think that they are competent in academic writing in general with some areas of weakness to be improved, FLE 311 instructors do not think FLE junior learners’ level of academic writing competence is satisfactory.
Perceptions of course effectiveness
Learner responses show freshman academic writing courses were perceived as effective in general (with a mean score of 3.39 out of 5). However, they were not considered as highly effective, as students thought there were still some problems in these courses. In fact, student perceptions of effectiveness differed depending on the instructor of the course. While some students perceived these courses to be highly effective, some thought they were totally ineffective, as the student voices below indicate:
Student 10: In my opinion, the competencies I learnt in FLE 136 course
helped me a lot not just in 311 but in all the essays I have written.
Student 19: Of course there is contribution of this course to FLE students,
but if the syllabus is applied effectively during the semester, it’d be better. Some instructors of this course are not able to follow the syllabus or teach how students can write academic papers.
Student 22: They absolutely do not provide prerequisite knowledge for
311. The first time I learned APA style, citation, etc. was in the 311 course. However, these things should have been taught in 135 and 136.
As for the instructors who taught these courses, they were more positive than the students (with a mean value of 3.77). Yet, they were aware of the problems. During the interviews, they underlined the structural problems in the FLE department and program: crowded classes, limited number of contact hours (3 hours a week), integration of reading and writing skills in one course, the lack of connection and coordination between these two courses, and the lack of guidance offered to novice teachers who were to teach this course for the first time.
Conclusion
The findings of the study revealed that FLE junior students are perceived to be competent in academic writing to a certain extent both by the students and the instructors. Yet, both students and teachers think that FLE students have certain weaknesses in academic writing that need to be improved. As for the reported effectiveness of freshman writing courses, students have differing views based on the instructor of the course. When it comes to teachers’ views on the effectiveness of freshman writing courses, they thought these courses were not enough to prepare students for the junior level research course, since they could not cover all the necessary competencies due to certain limitations. In conclusion, this evaluation study revealed that the FLE 135 and 136 courses are effective only to a certain extent to prepare FLE students for the FLE 311 course in terms of academic writing competencies.
References
Brown, J. D. (1995). The Elements of the Language Curriculum. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle Publishers.
Şallı-Çopur, D. (2008). Teacher Effectiveness in Initial Years of Service: A Case Study on the Graduates of METU Foreign Language Education Program. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Middle East Technical University, Ankara.
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