Teaching practices for the development of academic writing in pre-service teachers

Abstract

Academic writing as an object of study in higher education is recent in Latin America. While research has usually focused on student performance, this study takes a different approach by aiming to describe teaching practices aimed at developing academic writing. The research design consisted of a descriptive, in-depth case study with a qualitative approach. Fourteen teachers from a teacher training school in northwestern Mexico were interviewed, and their lesson plans were analyzed. Findings suggest that teachers associate academic writing with the practice of various intellectual skills, the use of formal language, and discipline-specific writing conventions, and that the English major is where academic writing is most frequently addressed. Although teachers consider this skill important, not all of them incorporate it into their courses; there is no teacher guidance throughout the academic writing process, and there is no uniformity in evaluation criteria. The study concludes that deficiencies in academic writing could be reduced if it were incorporated transversally into the curriculum and if a shared responsibility were established among students, teachers, and institutional authorities.