PRINCIPALES FLUJOS DE EFECTIVO EN EL PERIODO

In terms of the theoretical framework, the notion of transition has been central to this exploration of students’ experiences of student writing. Tinto (1988) describes student transition as a process of moving from one community to another and this transitional change is needed for students when entering academic life in HEIs. In the case of student writers transitioning from school to HEIs, the change of context could certainly restrain them on what, and how, they can write. When writing is seen as a social act in HEIs (Ivanič, 2004), new writers are made aware of the context in which they are writing. The issue has caught many researchers today discussing how, for L2 writers and native writers alike, there is a “mismatch between secondary and college writing” (Aull, 2015, p. 1) as this stage is difficult for some students. To address the challenges that new student writers face, Hyland and Guinda (2012, p. 6) use the term “bridging the gap” where Macaro and Wingate (2004, p. 467) use “transition” to explain how students survive the “gap” from writing in school to writing in HEIs and to discuss how the shift of context affects how students write.

Aull (2015), in her book entitled First Year University Writing, briefly reviewed assisting students transitioning with their essay writing from school. To help students develop academic writing skills once they enter HEIs, approaches such as first-year college writing courses13_{, writing across the curriculum}14 _{and English for Academic Purposes}15 have been introduced to prepare them to demonstrate their command of written, academic English. Since the medium for assessment is usually written (Lea, 1999), there is an expectation for the students to ‘write well’ to succeed at university (Baker, 2011). However, Bartholomae (2005) reiterates that students face challenges in writing in order to meet or satisfy a particular ‘standard’ and that many are ‘unprepared’ for that challenge. According to Lea and Street (1998), the change of writing context from school to university caused a mismatch of expectations between the students and the institutions, and this also poses a challenge to the students to continue writing in their HE context.

3.1.4.1 Supporting L2 Writers in HE

Transition from school will involve adapting to a writing culture that is different from the culture of school but students may not be aware of these differences. Though students are admonished for not producing good writing at HE levels, relatively little empirical research has focused on the significance of this transition and the implications for students’ writing (Baker, 2011). Baker (ibid) found that published research into transition has tended to focus on single subjects, for example, English Literature (Ballinger, 2003), Music and Music Technology (Winterson & Russ, 2009), or on a broader discussion of transition-related issues (for example, Smith, 2004). However, there have been some investigations into students’ writing across a range of disciplines and approaches to teaching writing in school such as Burhans (1983), Chandrasegaran (1991), Hausfather (1996) and Chow (2007).

To show how crucial it is to focus on students’ transition experience, Krause and Coates (2008), as well as Lea and Street (1998) refer to the general separation between student's expectations and institutional expectations. The overall learning experience, according to Lowe and Cook (2003), could affect students’ preparedness in the university. Along the

13 _{designed to offer students practice on general a cademic writing before their field specific writing and}

focusing on academic essays, critica l thinking and genre a wareness

14 _{more discipline specific academic writing}

same vein, McEwan (2015) argues that it is important “to understand and manage student expectations in HE in order to enable a more successful transition to tertiary study” (p. 511).

In learning to write in HEIs, there are certain conventions that will influence the expectations that teachers have towards students’ writing, expectations that are not always met. For example, Aull (2015), did a corpus-based study comparing 19,000 incoming college students’ writing with expert academic writing. She found that the specific discourse features of first year writings did not match the expectations in terms of more advanced academic argumentation. Aull (ibid) concludes that such findings could be used to heighten students’ writing awareness and to make clearer connections between writing and language expectations in pedagogy and assessment. Another example is the expectation to use proper language when writing, but as Aull (ibid , p. 3) points out, “the U.S. National Educational Assessment of Progress (NEAP)” specifications of what “proper language” meant was not given. Similarly, it is difficult for students to understand what constitutes “successful academic writing” as students are expected to engage with the processes of meaning making rather than learning to write as a straight forwa rd study skill (Lea & Street, 1998, p. 158). Above all, it is important to note that the lack of preparation in academic English from school creates difficulties, especially for students in the first year of the university (Mary, 2002).

In Malaysia, students’ use of inappropriate language in writing can be seen as originating in language problems in school, where the focus is on using the correct grammatical forms of English (Maros et al., 2007). From an EAP perspective, according to Bacha (2010) academic writing is seen as an area in which learners struggle. Razianna (2000), Tan and Miller (2007), Osman and Bakar (2009) investigated problems faced by L2 learners in Malaysia when it comes to academic writing. Tan and Miller (ibid) discovered that learners focused on what was acceptable when writing in the examination. Thus students were not encouraged to develop their writing skills beyond these narrow requirements, adopting instead “a range of pragmatic and expedient tactics” (p. 124). This suggests that there may be a mismatch between knowledge about writing as taught in school and what is expected at the university level.

In supporting students to learn to write in university, alongside the linguistics challenges in relation to L2 writing practices in HEIs, feedback has been argued to play a central role in writing development (Hyland & Hyland, 2006; Yang, Badger & Yu, 2006), as does understanding writing approaches in HEIs (Biggs, 1989; Ellis & Yuan, 2004; Lavelle & Zeurcher, 2001; Leki & Carson, 1997; Lea & Street, 1998; Lillis, 2002) and group writing to facilitate learning (Dobao & Blum, 2013; Matthews et al., 1995; Storch, 2013). All of these can offer guidance and support that L2 writers can adopt in a continuous development process (Norton et al., 2009). Moreover, when students are provided with “adequate descriptions” of what writing is in HEIs, they are less likely to struggle to comprehend the discursive expectations and practices of academic communities (Hyland & Guinda, 2012, p. 7). This is discussed in detail in the next sections.

3.1.4.2 Teacher’s Expectations and Practices

Bailey (2009, p. 114) found that teachers expect students to write in “formal register and avoid styles similar to everyday speech like colloquialism and non-standard forms” and to use “impersonal constructions in their writing and maintain a degree of objectivity or distance”. It is also reported that the academy expects students to be ‘literate’ in the use of complex forms which are assumed to have been ‘acquired’ as part of their socialisation process for, and in the initial stages of, HE (ibid). Bailey (ibid) discovered what Hyland and Hyland (2006) term a ‘narrow definition’ of writing: when referring to ‘poor student writing’ teachers often emphasized ‘poor grammar’ which was associated with ‘poor thinking’. Further, Bailey (ibid) also reported that teachers believe good writers could “apply logic and use evidence”, be able to “demonstrate a capacity for abstract thought”, “grasp the underlying epistemological nature of writing, and using knowled ge in the discipline” putting emphasis on the students to “figure out things” (p. 120). This normative way of thinking about students’ writing raises other concerns for teachers associated with the amount of support they are expected or willing to give stu dents on an individual basis, if L2 writing addresses fluency and accuracy in language production.

If teachers’ beliefs on good writing actually depend on intangible internal factors such as ones’ ability to construct ideas using thinking capacity to demonstrate thoughts, these assumptions impact choices made in the classrooms (Casanave, 2014). However, this leaves much unspecified as it could also be conceptualised from the outside in; in other

words that external influence on teachers’ beliefs include; methods of reasoning, learning from course readings, lesson gained and conveyed ideas about ways to deal with teaching from books in various manners (Casanave, 2014). Beliefs on teaching L2 writing in general and students’ learning in particular, can lead to different definitions. Thus, in understanding L2 writing it is necessary to probe the nature of learning to write in order to support the teacher’s efforts based on what they believe.