Poster Presentation

Formal Academic Writing Instruction

to Advanced English Learner Groupsin Science and Engineering
Steven Taro Suzuki
Waseda University, Faculty of Science and Engineering
The acquisition of formal academic writing skills is paramount for EFL university students
of science and engineering. However, one ESP context that can pose a variety of challenges isteaching academic writing skills to EFL science and engineering university students who areat an advanced level of English proficiency. These students have in some cases native or nearnative English speaking proficiency. However, many may still struggle in understanding
and engaging in formal academic writing. This paper shares some basic suggestions to give
students at the aforementioned level. It also offers some classroom activities and materials
that will engage and empower students to grasp a clearer understanding of some basic aspectsof formal academic writing. The activities are designed to enhance both students’ analyticaland rhetorical skills, and encourage rhetorical consciousness-raising and reflection.

English remains the dominant language of an ever-growing global community of
research and scholarship. Along with this growth is the increasing importance ofteaching the skills of writing effectively in English to EFL students at the tertiarylevel. Writing is a key feature of all students’ experience, and in fact dominates
their lives due to it being perhaps the central activity of educational institutions(Hyland, 2014).
A genre-based approach with ESP conventions focuses on enhancing
students’ writing competence in specific target text types (Hyland, 2014). The
use of this combination is apropos in the case of EFL university students ofscience and engineering who are required to write research papers. Examples oftarget text types include writing methods sections using the past tense and passive
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Suzukivoice, or discussion sections where hedging language like modal auxiliaries
and adverbs of degree occur frequently. Understanding target genres used inparticular instances will assist students in using language that can be understoodin relation to those instances. In addition, using appropriate language will aid
students in achieving certain goals that are valued and expected within distinctsocial and cultural scholastic contexts (Hyland, 2014; Paltridge et al., 2009).
Given the foregoing factors, it is clear that the acquisition of formal
academic writing skills is paramount for EFL university students of scienceand engineering. Students in this learner group will find themselves writing insocial and cultural academic contexts particular to their field during and after
university life (e.g., lab reports, research proposals, conference proceedings). As
a result, they will require the basic foundations of communicating in a formal
academic manner appropriate to the norms of their science or engineering fields.
However, there may be a number of academic situations which pose difficulties
for EFL instructors teaching the necessary academic skills.
One ESP context that can pose a variety of challenges is teaching academic
writing skills to EFL science and engineering university students who are at anadvanced level of English proficiency. Advanced here is being defined as TOEIC
scores of 900 or greater. In some cases, these students have native or near-native
speaking abilities. However, many of them may still have difficulties in expressing
their ideas in formal academic writing. This struggle may be due to uncertaintyof what is required of them in writing in a particular academic context (Paltridge
et al., 2009). In addition, the prior writing experiences of the students (home,school, or elsewhere) may not prepare them for the literacy expectations of said
context (Hyland, 2014). Moreover, simply studying the Academic Word List
(Coxhead, 2010) may be insufficient for these students to transform some of
their language habits from informal to formal language usage.
This paper looks at one course, shares some basic suggestions to give students
at the aforementioned level, and offers some classroom activities and materials.
These activities and materials will engage and empower students to acquire abetter understanding of some of the basic aspects of formal academic writing.
Others objectives from the suggestions and activities are to enhance both
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Formal Academic Writing Instruction, OnCUE Journal, 9(2), pages 189-197

students’ analytical and rhetorical skills in an academic environment, and toencourage rhetorical consciousness-raising and reflection (Swales & Feak, 2004).
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. First, the educational context
with be explained, followed by the approach and methods of this study. Then,the outcomes will be presented with a discussion on the interpretations of the
major findings. Finally, evaluations of the study will be provided, with the future
direction in further planned studies.

Educational Context

The course is a special version of a second-year compulsory English discussion andwriting course at Waseda University, Faculty of Science and Engineering. Whatdistinguishes this course is that it is offered by invitation only to students who
possess a TOEIC score of 900 or greater. The course is called Concept Building
and Discussion 1 (CBD1).
In the spring semester of 2014, 19 students accepted the invitation to theadvanced version of CBD1. The student make-up could be divided into twogeneral categories: students who acquired their language skills from living in an
English speaking country for several years, and those whose TOEIC scores weremainly attributed to their diligent study of English in Japan.
From the first writing assignment, it was clear in many cases that students
struggled to write in a formal academic style even though their compositions
were lexically and syntactically correct in general terms. For example, personalpronouns, informal casual language, and slang terms were often used in theirwriting. In the next section, I will explain a particular approach and method thatwas used to heighten students’ awareness of their analytical and rhetorical skills,
which resulted in improved formal academic writing skills.

Approach and Method

The standard textbook, Concept Building and Discussion: Foundations (Anthony,
Rose, & Shepard, 2010), was used in the advanced CBD1 course. However, inorder to increase the students’ awareness of their language use, a more technicalapproach was used involving supplemental materials. Many of my ideas for191

Suzukiclassroom activities came from the textbook, Writing Up Research in Scienceand Engineering: Foundations (Anthony, 2013). The following stages explain
the process of improving the students’ skills in formal academic writing whileheightening their analytical and rhetorical awareness.
Stage 1
In class, a short explanation was given on the problem-solution structure ofwriting. Students were then given short sample texts where the sentences wereout of order. Students worked together to put the texts in the correct order basedon the “Situation → Problem → Response → Evaluation” sub-genre (Anthony,
2013, p. 30). Then some explanation on paragraph structure was given using the“Topic sentence → Supporting sentence(s) → Conclusion/Transition sentence(optional)” pattern .
At the end of class, a short academic writing assignment was given. Students
were told to write a four paragraph essay on any topic of their choice based on the
Situation → Problem → Response → Evaluation sub-genre. I collected the papers
through digital submission, read them, made personal notes (needs analysis),and then returned them to the students without making any evaluations orcomments.
Stage 2
One weakness displayed in the students’ early writing assignments was the useof the passive voice. In class, therefore, the students worked on passive voicesentences in both past and present tense. One activity that was used was taking arecipe and changing all of the imperative sentence forms.
The students were told that writing in the passive voice is important in somestyles of formal academic writing, and that in this course, I wanted them to use
the passive voice in their writing as much as possible. I told them that not allacademic writing uses the passive voice, and that in the future after they havemastered the passive voice, they could make their own writing decisions using
good writing judgment.

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Stage 3
In class, I offered some prescriptive advice on stylistic aspects of formal academic
writing:• Avoid using contractions:◦◦ The results weren’t announced. → The results were not announced.
• Avoid using “run-on” expressions (and so on, etc.):◦◦ Calories can be burned by playing tennis, soccer, etc. → Calories can beburned by playing tennis, soccer, and other active sports.
• Avoid starting sentences with “And,” “So,” and “But.” “In addition,”“Therefore,” and “However” are preferred:◦◦ And, gasoline prices are increasing. → In addition, gasoline prices are
increasing.
• Avoid using the personal pronoun “you”:◦◦ As you can see from the data, smartphone use is increasing. → As can beseen from the data, smartphone use is increasing.
• Try to make your paper more impersonal by reducing the amount of “I”
statements and writing with the passive voice:◦◦ I think we need to address this issue. → This issue needs to be addressed.
Stage 4In class, I advised the students to try to avoid short high frequency verbs
whenever possible. Then an activity sheet was given to them, and I had themwork in groups trying to think of more formal academic alternatives. Table 1 is asample of the sheet, and some of the answers produced by the students.
We did the same activity for phrasal verbs. Table 2 shows some of the answers
produced by the students.
Stage 5In class, students were given research paper introduction sections from various
science and engineering fields (e.g., computer science, environmental resourceengineering, life science). They were to analyze and compare these texts withthe prescriptive advice and classroom activities in Stages 3 and 4. Following thisactivity, the students were then to exchange their problem-solution papers from193

SuzukiTable 1High Frequency Verbs and Their Potential Academic Alternatives (Produced by Students)
High frequency verbs

Academic alternative(s)doperform, conduct

end

finish, complete

getobtain, achieve, acquire

keep

preserve, maintain, retain

need

requiresayreport, statesee

observe, view

stopcease, terminate

tell

inform, notify, instructwanthope, desire

Stage 1 with a partner and provide verbal peer feedback, comments, and advice
on how the author could improve his or her paper. Then the students were given
the assignment to reflect on their first problem-solution paper and rewrite it using
what they had learned about formal academic writing and the peer feedback theyreceived.

Results and Discussion

Here, I will report on some interesting occurrences and my observations during
and after the previously explained process. Unsurprisingly, the students’ second
problem-solution papers were much improved in quality. What was unexpected,
though, were some comments I received from some students.
Some of the students reported that they were surprised at their own
improvement, and how much they did not know about formal academic
writing prior to the course. Some had thought that they already had sufficientknowledge of English and that the course, albeit “advanced”, would be easy.
Some also reported that they could see their own improvement developing while
doing the classroom activities and that their view of writing academic texts had
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Table 2
Common Phrasal Verbs and Their Potential Academic Alternatives (Produced by Students)
Phrasal verbs

Academic alternative(s)blow up

explodebreak up (take apart)

dismantle, disassemble

come out

appeardo againrepeatdo wellsucceedfind out

determine, investigate

fill out (a form)

completefinish upcomplete, conclude

get better

improvegive off

releasego down (an amount)decrease

go up (an amount)increasego down little by little

gradually decrease

go up little by little

gradually increase

go up and down

fluctuate

hand in (turn in)submitleave out

omit, exclude

let goreleaselook at (a problem)

investigate

look into (a problem)

investigate

make up forcompensate

not enoughinsufficient, inadequate

point out

highlight

put out (a fire)

extinguish

set upconstruct, establish

start out

commence

think about

considerwork out (a problem)

determine

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Suzukichanged and evolved. One student disclosed that he found it interesting that hecould make so much improvement without teacher comments on his first paper.
The foregoing comments lead me to believe that the approach and method
outlined in this paper were effective for three primary reasons. First, thetechnical approach gave students something specific and concrete to focus on
while learning and writing formal academic papers. Second, the students could
see measurable qualitative improvements in their writing. Finally, the activities
engaged and encouraged students to think and reflect on their own writing.
As a result of their increased awareness, the students were able to enhance theiranalytical and rhetorical skills.

Future Research and Conclusion

Notwithstanding the apparent effectiveness of the approach and method
presented here, it was the first time for me to implement the described process.
As a result, there were some weaknesses of this type of research. For one, it was
based primarily on anecdotal conversations from my students, and there wereclearly some areas that could be improved for future use. In future courses, more
concrete research designs will be implemented in an attempt to quantify theeffectiveness of the language teaching approach and method. In order to measure
this effectiveness, concordance and other analyzing software will be used. The
end result will be the presentation of concrete evidence to support the proposed
approach and method.

References

Anthony, L. (2013). Writing up research in science and engineering: Foundations.
Unpublished manuscript. Waseda University, Tokyo.
Anthony, L., Rose, R., & Sheppard, C. (2010). Concept building and discussion:
Foundations. Tokyo, Japan: DTP Publishing.
Coxhead, A. (2010). The Academic Word List. Retrieved from http://www.
victoria.ac.nz/lals/resources/academicwordlist/
Hyland, K. (2014). ESP and writing. In B. Paltridge & S. Starfield (Eds.), The
handbook of English for specific purposes (pp. 95-113). West Sussex, England:196

Formal Academic Writing Instruction, OnCUE Journal, 9(2), pages 189-197

Wiley Blackwell.
Paltridge, B., Harbon, L., Hirsch, D., Shen, H., Stevenson, M., Phatiki, A.,& Woodrow, L. (2009). Teaching academic writing. Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan Press.
Swales, J. M., & Feak, C. B. (2004). Academic writing for graduate students:
Essential tasks and skills (2nd ed.). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan
Press.

Author bio

Steven Taro Suzuki received an M.A. TESOL degree from Columbia University
and currently teaches at Waseda University – Faculty of Science and Engineering, theMinistry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, and the University of Electro-Communications.
Steven’s research interests include areas involving genre analysis, genre-based pedagogy
in EFL tertiary education, and corpus linguistics. suzukitaro@hotmail.com
Received: September 26, 2015
Accepted: December 6, 2015

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