An investigation into EFL pre-service teachers' academic writing strategies.

Recent research has shown writing strategies to have a substantial impact on language learners' writing performance but little is known about what strategies EFL learners use and how they use them in writing academic texts such as reports, final assignments, and project papers. The study reported in this paper extends this line of research by investigating the strategies Vietnamese EFL pre-service teachers use in academic writing. Data included document analysis of 17 pre-service teachers' final assignment papers (one paper per teacher) and individual semi-structured interviews with ten teachers. The study adopted a content-based approach to qualitative data analysis with reference to a comprehensive research-based taxonomy for L2 academic writing strategies, including rhetorical, metacognitive, cognitive, and social affective strategies. The results show that rhetorical, metacognitive, and cognitive strategies were most frequently used by the teacher participants. The results further show that self-efficacy and self-regulation determined the teachers' use of strategies during the writing process. Implications for the L2 writing classroom focused on academic writing strategies to enhance pre-service teachers' writing quality will be discussed.

Students' and teachers' perceptions of effective ESP teaching.

Given the importance of ESP teaching, this study explores and compares students' and teachers' perceptions of effective ESP teaching. The researcher administered a 32-item Likert-scale questionnaire to 248 participants (216 students and 32 teachers) at five universities in Vietnam. The participants were then stratified to select 20 participants (fifteen students and five teachers) for interviews. Results showed that there were significant discrepancies between students and teachers' perceptions of four categories: task-based language teaching, corrective feedback and assessment, discipline specifications, and culture integration. However, students' and teachers' perceptions of three categories, namely language use, application of technologies, and grammar teaching, were aligned. Interview data generally confirmed the quantitative results and provided more insights into what the participants thought. It might be important for teachers to present their concerns about ESP teaching to students and understand students' needs and expectations to bridge the gaps.