CHALLENGES OF TEACHING ACADEMIC WRITING TO UKRAINIAN ESL STUDENTS
Keywords:
academic style, English, writing, challenges, teaching methodology, Lesia Ukrainka Eastern European National University, Foreign Philology Department, paraphrase, generalization, synonyms, academic essaysAbstract
Academic writing in English is one of the important tools that enable voices of Ukrainian scholars to be heard in the scientific world. Most of Ukrainian universities included this subject into their curricula. Students of the Foreign Philology Department at Lesia Ukrainka Eastern European National University study this subject during their MA course. Our article is based on the teaching experience gained in 2016. We singled out the most frequent challenges that Ukrainian instructors face when teaching academic writing to Ukrainian students. The main problems that occur are the following: students replicate the approaches they used at secondary school when writing compositions in case of writing academic essays, they sometimes fail to understand the purpose and type of an essay they are asked to write; inability to briefly and precisely describe visual information (charts, graphs and tables, etc.), inadequate use of synonyms and paraphrase, unsuccessful use of generalizations, making mistakes when writing summaries.
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