Reflective writing 4

Webster University in Tashkent

TESL 5750 EAP COURSE

Group U-1

Niyazova FerideReflective teaching journal

Intructor: Dr Vino Reardon

date: 19.09.2019

The article by Charles ,M and Pecorari ,D (2016) ‘Academic discourse’ is a useful material for the EAP teachers which includes essential features of discourse and the problems which EAP students always encounter to produce academic and semantically and logically connected texts. It involves all the vital aspects that should be taken into consideration carefully when developing academic resources.

Initially I begin to analyze Variations in academic discourse-variation in register, variation between spoken and written academic discourse, variation in discipline and variation in genre which are the main features that directly affect the construction of discourse and the vital aspects for distinguishing an academic discourse from a non-academic discourse.

Variation in register: Register is characterized as analyzing the text according to the three aspects- 1 Field (indicates the subject matter of the text), 2-Tenor (clarifies the grade of formality), 3-Mode (distinguish the text if it is spoken or written).

We take as an example a sentence and analyze it in terms of three aspects. ‘These studies indicated that learners tend to follow a natural order of acquisition’ the field in this sentence is acquisition, in terms of tenor it is in a formal style, according to the mode it is written style.

Variation between spoken and written academic discourse. We can describe the specific characters of spoken and written academic discourse utilising Multidimensional analyzes that preliminary used by Biber (2006). Written academic discourse is characterised by: using noun phrases, impersonal tone, conjunctions and subordinators, it is permanent and pre-planned and usually addresses an unspecified reader.

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Spoken academic discourse, on the contrary, is marked with the attendance of personal style, extremely usage of pronouns (I, You), produced unplanned in a real situation addresses the real listeners.

Variation in discipline: Disciplines classified according to the subject to which individuals belong. They are four domains: Hard-pure fields; (physics, chemistry) that based on discovery and explanation. Soft-pure fields; (philosophy and sociology) that is mainly emphasised on understanding and interpretation, Hard-applied(clinical medicine, engineering) employment with products and techniques, Soft-applied (business studies and education) highlights to improve protocols and procedures.

Variation in genre: Choosing a text for an academic purpose requires a careful checking for its suitability for the concept and audience. When creating a text it is important to combine register and genre at the same time to be a successful writer.

All examples these given are the main factors which constitute the forms of the texts, I will analyze the key factors that make the text more structurally complicated and attribute the text more academic feature.

Theme and information structure: The units which constitute the meaning part of the text are called as ‘Theme’ and ‘rheme’. Making their tasks in the sentence we ascertain Theme-as the main subject of the clause, it is what is your main idea in the text, on the other hand Rheme is the way of ascertaining your theme with giving samples or clarifications. For example: ‘Focus-on form (the theme) is evident in the traditional approach to grammar teaching, based on a synthetic syllabus(rheme). Sometimes in order to prevent to produce longer sentences we just shorten the given information via demonstrative pronouns and by the help of given information which is noun to the reader the new information is presented. This method is effective to keep the writing uncomplicated and understandable for the reader. For example; ”Focus-on form is evident in the traditional approach to grammar teaching, based on a synthetic syllabus. In such a approach (implies the given information above) , learners are required to treat language primarily as an object to be studied(new information)”

Cohesion; In order to progress cohesive texts our sentences should be both logically and semantically connected. It means that sentences musn’t contradict each other in meaning.

Noun phrases and nominalization; Using noun phrases and nominalization is important way of producing academic writing style and they have their own tasks in the sentences; Noun phrases is the way of altering other clauses to noun phrases. For example adjective based noun phrases- common accuracy: or noun phrases- processability perspective: by prepositional phrases; variety of phenomena. Usining noun phrases in a text – Nominalization has multitude funtions in a text such as abstract, given information, indicating the writer’s stance, help the reader follow the text. Although its possess multiple usage for making the text more comprehensible, overusing nominalization can create misunderstanding and make the text more complicated.

Stance and evaluation; Stance if the attitude and feeling of the writer or speaker for the text. It is somehow characterized with the usage of pronouns and also modal verbs in order to add the writers own position for a text.

Intertextuality and source use; Intertextuality is using other recourses and other’s ideas about a field to make it more variable and informative. For adding other sources to an academic writing citation concept is used which is dived to two types: integral citation, the name of the cited author has a role in the grammar of the reporting sentence; in non-integral citation, the name of the cited author appears in parentheses or a number refers to the name, which is given in the list of references. Just presenting others ideas in our text is not sufficient we should also show our attitude for their ideas.

All these issues are important to overcome the problems which we encounter during the academic writings . Provided matters are the useful and practical concerns for an academic writing. In the future I am going to use widely the strategies which I learned from the text. For example, make our writing more appropriate in terms of register-identifying its formality, taking into consideration the position of the reader when writing an article. Produce the complicated but understandable sentences basis on the theories nominalization and also using other recourses to make our writing more evident.

Grammar is an essential part of language acquisition that play an important role for EAP and general English students and requires special methods of teaching as it is more complicated than it seems. But EAP students should master grammar more perfectly as they incorporates with more academic issues than general English students. The grammar learning style is also different between these two groups, while EAP learners should learn it more deeply, general English leaner’s only basic grammar rules.