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Preliminary investigation of ESL student writing in engineering

Given the importance of writing skills for communicating messages in the field of engineering, and the seemingly perpetual conflict between novice engineers‟ poor ability to write and the quality expected by employers, it is worthwhile to investigate student engineers‟ writing ability or experiences...

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Main Author: Radina, Mohamad Deli
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: AESS Publications 2018
Subjects:
PE English
PN Literature (General)
T Technology (General)
Online Access:http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/21959/1/PRELIMINARY%20INVESTIGATION%20OF%20ESL%20STUDENT%20WRITING%20IN%20ENGINEERING%20%20%28abstrak%29.pdf
http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/21959/
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spelling my.unimas.ir.219592023-10-30T07:02:43Z http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/21959/ Preliminary investigation of ESL student writing in engineering Radina, Mohamad Deli PE English PN Literature (General) T Technology (General) Given the importance of writing skills for communicating messages in the field of engineering, and the seemingly perpetual conflict between novice engineers‟ poor ability to write and the quality expected by employers, it is worthwhile to investigate student engineers‟ writing ability or experiences prior to their employment. This study thus aims to investigate English as a Second Language (ESL) students‟ writing in engineering studies. The objectives of the study are to (1) identify the genres of writing by ESL undergraduates in engineering studies, and (2) analyse students‟ laboratory reports for „moves‟ typically identified in the genre. Students‟ written scripts were collected from various engineering courses within the mechanical, electrical, and electronic engineering programmes of a Malaysian public university, and identified by genre based on their structure and content. The preliminary finding suggests that the majority of the writings are laboratory and technical reports. Based on a „move‟ analysis outlined for student laboratory reports in science and engineering (Parkinson, 2017) a total of 14 laboratory reports was analysed and 5 macro-sections were identified namely introduction, method, result, discussion, and conclusion. This differs from the 6 macro sections found for engineering in Parkinson (2017) study. Although the number of moves identified was essentially similar, some steps were unavailable in the laboratory reports within these macro-sections. It is believed that findings from this genre-based study can have pedagogical importance in that it may help to enhance the writings of ESL students in engineering studies to reach a standard that may be more aligned to the accepted norms of laboratory report writing. AESS Publications 2018 Article PeerReviewed text en http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/21959/1/PRELIMINARY%20INVESTIGATION%20OF%20ESL%20STUDENT%20WRITING%20IN%20ENGINEERING%20%20%28abstrak%29.pdf Radina, Mohamad Deli (2018) Preliminary investigation of ESL student writing in engineering. International Journal of Asian Social Science, 8 (10). pp. 909-917. ISSN 2224-4441 http://www.aessweb.com/journals/ DOI: 10.18488/journal.1.2018.810.909.917
institution Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
building Centre for Academic Information Services (CAIS)
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
content_source UNIMAS Institutional Repository
url_provider http://ir.unimas.my/
language English
topic PE English
PN Literature (General)
T Technology (General)
spellingShingle PE English
PN Literature (General)
T Technology (General)
Radina, Mohamad Deli
Preliminary investigation of ESL student writing in engineering
description Given the importance of writing skills for communicating messages in the field of engineering, and the seemingly perpetual conflict between novice engineers‟ poor ability to write and the quality expected by employers, it is worthwhile to investigate student engineers‟ writing ability or experiences prior to their employment. This study thus aims to investigate English as a Second Language (ESL) students‟ writing in engineering studies. The objectives of the study are to (1) identify the genres of writing by ESL undergraduates in engineering studies, and (2) analyse students‟ laboratory reports for „moves‟ typically identified in the genre. Students‟ written scripts were collected from various engineering courses within the mechanical, electrical, and electronic engineering programmes of a Malaysian public university, and identified by genre based on their structure and content. The preliminary finding suggests that the majority of the writings are laboratory and technical reports. Based on a „move‟ analysis outlined for student laboratory reports in science and engineering (Parkinson, 2017) a total of 14 laboratory reports was analysed and 5 macro-sections were identified namely introduction, method, result, discussion, and conclusion. This differs from the 6 macro sections found for engineering in Parkinson (2017) study. Although the number of moves identified was essentially similar, some steps were unavailable in the laboratory reports within these macro-sections. It is believed that findings from this genre-based study can have pedagogical importance in that it may help to enhance the writings of ESL students in engineering studies to reach a standard that may be more aligned to the accepted norms of laboratory report writing.
format Article
author Radina, Mohamad Deli
author_facet Radina, Mohamad Deli
author_sort Radina, Mohamad Deli
title Preliminary investigation of ESL student writing in engineering
title_short Preliminary investigation of ESL student writing in engineering
title_full Preliminary investigation of ESL student writing in engineering
title_fullStr Preliminary investigation of ESL student writing in engineering
title_full_unstemmed Preliminary investigation of ESL student writing in engineering
title_sort preliminary investigation of esl student writing in engineering
publisher AESS Publications
publishDate 2018
url http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/21959/1/PRELIMINARY%20INVESTIGATION%20OF%20ESL%20STUDENT%20WRITING%20IN%20ENGINEERING%20%20%28abstrak%29.pdf
http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/21959/
http://www.aessweb.com/journals/
_version_ 1781710381636386816
score 13.211869

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