Dimensions of difference: a comparison of university writing and IELTS writing

Abstract A challenge for many EAP teachers working on pre-sessional programs is to find ways to reconcile the dual aims of preparing students for university study and for the IELTS test. The study described here seeks to provide some guidance on this issue through an analysis of the type of writing required in the two domains. We compared the standard IELTS Task 2 rubric with a corpus of 155 assignment tasks collected at two Australian universities and found that whilst IELTS writing bears some resemblance to the predominant genre of university study-the essay, there are also some very important difference. Our findings suggest that the type of writing the test elicits may have more in common with certain public nonacademic genres, and thus should not be thought of as an appropriate model for university writing. We conclude that it is probably best to deal with test preparation and the broader EAP writing curriculum within separate programs.

[1]  Paulin C Robinson.  Academic writing : process and product , 1988 .

[2]  Louis Trimble,et al.  English for Science and Technology: A Discourse Approach , 1985 .

[3]  Liz Hamp-Lyons.  Assessing Second Language Writing in Academic Contexts , 1991 .

[4]  Tony Becher,et al.  Academic Tribes and Territories: Intellectual Enquiry and the Cultures of Disciplines , 2001 .

[5]  Lyle F. Bachman,et al.  语言测试实践 = Language testing in practice , 1998 .

[6]  Sandra U. Gibson,et al.  Literacy demands of the undergraduate curriculum , 1992 .

[7]  Brent Bridgeman,et al.  A STUDY OF WRITING TASKS ASSIGNED IN ACADEMIC DEGREE PROGRAMS , 1995 .

[8]  D. Horowitz.  What Professors Actually Require: Academic Tasks for the ESL Classroom , 1986 .

[9]  Mary Coley.  The English Language Entry Requirements of Australian Universities for Students of Non‐English Speaking Background , 1999 .

[10]  George Braine,et al.  Academic Writing in a Second Language: Essays on Research and Pedagogy , 1995 .

[11]  Gordon Taylor.  The student's writing guide for the arts and social sciences , 1989 .

[12]  William C. Mann,et al.  Rhetorical Structure Theory: A Framework for the Analysis of Texts , 1987 .

[13]  Barbara Kroll,et al.  Designing and assessing effective classroom writing assignments for NES and ESL students , 1995 .

[14]  Ann M. Johns,et al.  Genre in the Classroom : Multiple Perspectives , 2001 .

[15]  Tim Moore,et al.  KNOWLEDGE AND AGENCY: A STUDY OF METAPHENOMENAL DISCOURSE IN TEXTBOOKS FROM THREE DISCIPLINES , 2002 .

[16]  S. Levinson.  Activity types and language , 1979, Linguistics.

[17]  P. Byrd,et al.  Writing Required in Graduate Courses in Business Administration , 1989 .

[18]  M. Hoey.  On the surface of discourse , 1983 .

[19]  R. Huddleston.  Introduction to the Grammar of English: Verbs, nouns and adjectives: the boundaries between them , 1984 .

[20]  Larry Selinker,et al.  Technical Rhetorical Principles and Grammatical Choice , 1973 .

[21]  Michael Halliday,et al.  An Introduction to Functional Grammar , 1985 .

[22]  John M. Swales,et al.  Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings , 1993 .

[23]  Jeannett Martin.  Factual Writing: Exploring and Challenging Social Reality , 1989 .

[24]  Brian Paltridge.  GENRE, TEXT TYPE, AND THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CLASSROOM , 1996 .