Page 32 - English - Teaching Academic Esl Writing

18 CHAPTERS
those written discourse genres and formats common in the academy in English-speaking environments.
WRITING REQUIREMENTS IN THE UNIVERSITY
Undergraduate students in U.S. colleges and universities are required to take general education courses in such disciplines as the sciences, history, philosophy, psychology,and sociology prior to their studies in their chosen majors. One implication of this structure in U.S. college education is that the greatest demand on students' language skills occurs during the first 2 years of their academic careers, when they are expected to read large amounts of diverse types academic text, write many short and long assign- ments, and take numerous tests and exams.
In the academy in English-speaking countries, the purpose of written as- signments and of examinations and testing is to require students to display their knowledge and familiarity with the course material. Examinations vary in types and formats, ranging from multiple-choice tests to lengthy term papers, including essay tests and short essay-like responses. Outside multiple-choice tests, a great deal of writing is expected in most undergrad- uate courses, and it is not unusual for students to have to produce up to a dozen written assignments per term (Horowitz, 1986a). Even some multi- ple-choice tests—such as the TOEFL, ACT, or SA T—incorporate an essay component designed to measure test takers' writingproficiencies.
It is important to note that practically all writing assignments necessi- tate more than one writing task, such as exposition in the introduction, fol- lowed by cause/effect or comparison/contrast rhetorical structures, and possibly back to exposition in the conclusion. For instance, most types of writing assignments can include summaries of published works or synthe- ses of multiple sources of information or data. In this case, the writing tasks would include synthesis (or analysis) of information, paraphrasing, and restatement skills.
Beginning in the early 1980s, several studies undertook to investigate the types of writing assignments and tasks required of undergraduate and graduate students in academic mainstream courses in various disciplines, such as the natural sciences (e.g., biology, chemistry,and physics), engineer- ing, business, and the humanities including English.
MOST IMPORTANTCHARACTERISTICS OF ACADEMICWRITING
A survey of 155undergraduate and 215 graduate faculty in 21 U.S. universi- ties specifically identified the essential NNS students' L2 writing skills in coursesthatranged from history,psychology,business,chemistry,and engi- neering (Rosenfeld, Leung, &Oltman, 2001).The responses of undergrad- uate faculty (Table 2.1) clearly indicate that organizing writing to convey
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