Abstract
This study examined the experience of academic writing of English as a second language (ESL) students in postsecondary education by examining their writing transition from secondary school to postsecondary level in order to obtain a rich picture. A sociocultural approach was used to look into students’ beliefs about writing, expectations of writing and desire for self-expression in writing as they moved from school to postsecondary education. The instruments used in this study were interviews, personal narratives and students’ essays. The findings depicted that students’ academic writing was impacted by students’ histories, experiences and participation in the writing community which were intertwined with individual, institutional and societal factors. This study has implications for teaching and learning of academic writing, i.e. the impact of sociocultural factors, students’ personal histories, experience and intent participation on academic writing should not be underestimated.
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Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the funding by Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) from the Ministry of Education (MOE) and Principal Investigator Support Initiative (PSI) from Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM).
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Lee, L.F., Sidhu, G.K., Chan, Y.F. (2015). A Sociocultural Perspective of Factors Influencing Academic Writing from School to Postsecondary Education. In: Tang, S., Logonnathan, L. (eds) Taylor’s 7th Teaching and Learning Conference 2014 Proceedings. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-399-6_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-399-6_4
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