INVERSIONES EN EMPRESAS RELACIONADAS a. El detalle de las inversiones es el siguiente:

Students’ attitudes towards their English learning tended to be influenced by their perception and attitudes towards learning efficiency. Most of them felt it was ‘not an

enjoyable experience […] could not get the right words, could not express both in written and spoken well enough in English’, some believed that group working supported them

to ‘build list of words, content’ and even ‘confidence’ (see Section 6.1.5). Even though many of them employed the strategies provided by their school teachers (see Section 6.1.4) they still had issues when writing in the university.

While the writing courses seemed to help some with their academic tasks, other students experienced significant problems. Shuhada said she felt ‘very low and not good enough’ labelling herself as ‘weaker’ when paired with her course mate. She felt that group writing allowed for more discussion but a lack of communication and interaction with her partner discouraged her.

This semester, I am working under pressure. I could not find the right time to work with my pair. I think I could write better alone. Like in school, I used to write with essays from my teachers […] I could just do that. I will look at the examples from Ms Raisha, and I could just write my own summary. I feel like it is a competition now writing with other people.

(Shuhada)

She enjoyed writing even though she did not have ‘enough vocabulary and good

self-related problems tended to regard the writing course ‘as a waste of time’ and even

‘boring’.

6.3.1.1 Why do I still have to write summaries in the university?

Students from Ms Raisha’s class had to prepare an Executive Summary as part of the assessments. Despite being confused, students adopted 143ummarizing skills learned in school rather than seeking answers from their teacher or course mates. Adila said ‘I wrote

summary in school, I think it is the same... writing it again in the university was not a new discovery… I actually like doing research […] you get to read articles in the same topic and write about it […] but this summary writing is very boring […] she gave us articles on something that I do not like […] I mean, it is something that is new […] new knowledge, but the topic does not grab my attention’. However, Ms Raisha said: ‘Adila failed to meet the requirements of writing executive summary for the course simply because she did not follow the instruction’.

Adila’s enjoyment of her writing experience in the university related to how ‘interesting’ the topic was and seemed to hold her back from exploring other available writing methods.

In school we were taught to use a lot of our creativity, and then all of a sudden, we enter the university, it is all very technical.

(Adila)

Adila seems to have lost her interest in writing and felt it was ‘tiring because we do more

work. […] tried to accommodate to what Ms Raisha wanted. I am also packed with other law assignments’.

This observation is noteworthy as this particular student is from the Faculty of Law which does not require executive summary writing for content courses. However, students from the Faculties of Engineering and Applied Science felt that the writing classes could help them to improve their L2 writing in other courses while completing their degrees.

6.3.1.2 Just go out and find what it is? Where are the models?

Mr Eilyas’s class was experiential in nature and Ema, Siti and Eleena found there was ‘tough decision making’. When a question such as ‘is this how you write a report?’ cropped up while planning, drafting and editing it left them speculating on what was considered ‘right’.

Students’ initial writing experience in school suggested that they relied heavily on models (see Section 6.1.2). In the preliminary drafting stage Mr Eilyas attended to content and not form. When students questioned him on the report structure he suggested exploration when writing out their first draft, with an assumption that ‘students at this stage like to

explore’. However, as they felt unable to write without a model (see Section 7.2.2) they ‘explored’ from ‘a report (borrowed) from a friend doing the same course’ because ‘we are afraid of not meeting the requirements because the format is unclear’. Eleena

commented ‘format wise seems unclear to me...what kind of reports do we have to write

for this course?’

Ema, Eleena and Siti found that the purpose of structuring and defining reports in class was ‘to make the participants and readers to understand something’, whereas writing a lab report was ‘to show their own understanding of the experiment’ with both possibly being in the form of charts. Mr Eilyas said ‘students at this age, they would want to

explore, they would want to show that they are also capable of doing things on their own […] let they themselves do the correction, use their insight from inside’. This seems to

suggest that writing practices in different contexts are socially constructed activities and that students accomplished certain goals by exploring the relationship between these practices and processes.

Students’ relationships between their reasons for writing and their choices of writing strategies seemed to affect the potential outcomes. Some students used both successful and unsuccessful strategies from school to try and improve their academic writing, saying that their school experiences influenced their current decision making.

6.3.2 Student Writers’ Expectations Regarding the Role of Feedback in University Writing Classrooms

Providing feedback was seen as one of the most important teaching tasks (see Section 5.2.2) from the perspective of both the students and the university teachers.

Ema felt feedback was important but, because of negative experiences from her school years, she mostly self -corrected her work.

I knew feedback from teachers were supposed to help, but not in my case […] whenever I made mistakes in primary school, my English teacher (in

school) used to criticise me […] it was always bitter when I received back

my writing […] so to improve my writing, I asked less, I self-corrected myself using Ms Word […] until now, you know that red and green lines? I made sense of what Ms Word was trying to tell me.

(Ema)

Through her self-correction Ema demonstrated her comprehension and understanding of her own mistakes. Although she knew she would receive feedback for her written tasks, her prior experience in school reduced her self -efficacy and thereby influenced her learning choices, thoughts and emotional reactions. Ema and Siti, who both had a strong sense of confidence, persevered and made a greater effort with their writing.

Generally, students seemed to value feedback more in the university than they had at school.

When she corrected our work, she will put a tick when we did it correctly with some words of encouragement and if we did the task wrongly, she provided comments line by line and wrote to explain to us what went wrong with some possible options so that we could understand better […]I don’t mind getting a lot of comments but with the way Ms Raisha corrected our work, I don’t have to refer to my classmates because sometimes they were unsure themselves.

(Shuhada) With Ms Raisha, I like the fact that she doesn’t change our sentences, she sticks with what we have written and she just corrects that sentence […] it is not she totally changes the whole sentence to her own idea, she sticks to our ideas […] other lecturers they don’t give it back […] we don’t know what we did wrong.

Practices in the university varied from one teacher to the other but it was common to see all three teachers providing feedback while their students were in the writing process (see Sections 5.2.2.1 and 5.2.2.2). Shuhada and Adila clearly welcomed Ms Raisha’s feedback believing it could help them to improve and consolidate their learning when writing in their second language.

Other students preferred receiving verbal feedback.

We only had verbal feedback with Dr Dalia […] we showed her our work and she would read and gave comments. If she could n ot understand, she would ask and we explained. That in a way increase our own understanding on our own work.

(Wana) During our discussion with Dr Dalia for feedback, we do not just listen, I do write down her comments and asked her right away if I did no t understand her clearly, we don’t have to wait until the next time we see her. This saves time.

(Naja) Yes, and when Dr Dalia highlighted our weakness, we could just ask her until we fully understand how to do it better next time.

(Farahin)

There seems to be a comparison made here between the effectiveness of verbal and written feedback. Written feedback appeared to have less space for interaction and negotiation whereas verbal feedback, which could take place either during or after the lesson, provided more space to discuss their writing development and thereby help them gain better understanding.

Eleena said ‘we normally work individually on our parts, but when we have done our part

the best, we meet up with our friends, doesn’t matter you meet them face to face or online, friends will give comments and feedback’. Siti agreed that ‘many things can be improved’

and Ema added that other group members have got ‘different opinions regarding our

work’. Aside from getting feedback from their teachers, students also shared their writing

and responded to written and verbal feedback with their peers in and out of the classrooms.

Although some students felt that peer feedback was potentially valuable, other students found it to be challenging. Shuhada had anticipated some form of learning from her partner, however, this was not the case.

I need someone to help me […] I know she (the pair) is good and when I know that I am not good enough, I want her to correct me, how I can do it better […] but she doesn’t like to communicate that much.

(Shuhada)

Upon seeing this conflict, their teacher encouraged them to participate in the feedback process.

6.3.3 Change of Focus from ‘Form’ in School to ‘Meaning Making’ When Writing in the