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THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH ACADEMIC WRITING SKILLS AT HIGHER SCHOOL OF _ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY (RUSSIAN CONTEXT)_
DOI: 10.31618/ESU.2413-9335.2020.2.77.968 Medvedeva Ekaterina
University of Leicester Faculty of International Education Leicester, UK, 2018
About the author
Medvedeva Ekaterina has been teaching English at the Department of Language Training at Russian Presidential Academy (RANEPA University) since December 3, 2018. She teaches general English, as well as social and political aspects to students of the 2nd and 3rd year at Liberal Arts Faculty. She is also working as an English teacher at Higher School of Economics University at the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs (since April, 2019).
Ekaterina graduated from Moscow State Linguistic University, the faculty of Translation and Interpretation (2017) and from University of Leicester, the faculty of International Education with an additional module on Innovations and Reforms (2018).
Ekaterina's research activities at the University of Leicester, international conferences and seminars allowed her to gain experience in communication and scientific exchange with the leading experts in the field of International Education and ELT and conduct her independent research.
ABSTRACT
The aim of this paper is to find out the peculiarities of the process of developing Academic Writing Skills at a non-linguistic university in Russia (i.e. Higher School of Economics) and to recommend some strategies or approaches for more effective ways of developing academic writing skills among Russian students. Being a foreign student I myself faced several challenges while writing academic essays so this experience gave rise to the desire to investigate this topic more carefully in order to identify all possible methods and techniques for making the process of English Academic Writing more effective. In order to get insights and opinions on this topic I decided to conduct a small-scale research among students and teachers (i.e. for my future dissertation) at a non-linguistic university (i.e. Higher School of Economics) in Russia especially among those who had an English Academic Writing course as part of their curriculum. Based on my small-scale research I will be able to reveal some possible challenges which students taking an English Academic Writing Course might have and suggest improvements to the current development of such skills at Higher School of Economics.
Introduction
According to the latest trends in higher education in Russia (i.e. Bologna process (http://ec.europa.eu) which gave rise to international links and partnerships with foreign universities, dual degree programmes, academic faculty exchange, student recruitment and joint research, etc.) it is possible to assume that the innovative development process of higher education currently takes place (Frumin, 2005; Dhondt, 2004).
University rankings as indicators of the universities competitiveness certainly play an increasingly important role in the interaction of universities in the global educational environment in the context of internationalization of higher education (Altbach, Philip and Knight, 2007). This process means that the ability to adapt capacity to the constantly changing world is becoming an ever - increasing necessity in higher education. Successful rankings allow universities to attract the best professors, the
strongest prospective students and facilitate the process of internationalisation. If the university is in a good position in the world rankings, they may be eligible for additional funding from the state budget and international funds. In response to this competitive trend, the Russian government aims to integrate the universities in the world educational environment by implementing the 5-100 educational project (https://5top100.ru/events/), which sets a goal for several Russian universities to get into the top 100 in the global university rankings. This project includes 21 developing non- linguistic universities, for example, National University of Science and Technology MISIS, National Research Nuclear University (MEPHI), Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (State University, MIPT), Saint Petersburg Electronically University (ETU, LETI), National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) and others. The basic principles for choosing such universities are their
successful roadmaps including involvement into global rankings and their ability to garner co- financing funds from budgetary sources
(http://5top100.com/universities). The above mentioned universities are non-linguistic with a firm scientific base to their activities, which means that the priority in Russia is given to the development of science.
Since my topic is the development of English Academic Writing Skills, I would like to pay attention to one of the top Universities, for example, Higher School of Economics (HSE) as its leading policy is to facilitate the process of internationalization by developing English language skills among students and teaching staff (https://www.hse.ru/en). In order to achieve this goal, the Academic Writing Center based on Higher School of Economics was established (https://academics.hse.ru/en/awc). Its aim is to support professors and PhD students who are working on their publications in English because the process of writing a scholarly article is quite demanding in terms of time and effort. The Center organizes courses on different aspects of the English language such as punctuation, grammar, academic vocabulary, academic formalities, etc. and it is free of charge. From my point of view, it is a small step to introducing English for Academic Purposes (EAP) but still there are lots of things to do to put it in a wider scale and develop such skills in many universities.
Thus, the aim of my research is to find out the peculiarities of the process of developing Academic Writing Skills at a non-linguistic university in Russia (i.e. Higher School of Economics) and to recommend some strategies or approaches for more effective ways of developing academic writing skills among Russian students. Being a foreign student I myself faced several challenges while writing academic essays so this experience gave rise to the desire to investigate this topic more carefully in order to find out all possible methods and techniques for making the process of English Academic Writing more effective. In order to get insights and opinions on this topic I decided to conduct a small-scale research among students and among teachers (i.e. for my future dissertation) at a non-linguistic university (i.e. Higher School of Economics) in Russia especially among those who had an English Academic Writing course as part of their curriculum. Based on my small-scale research I will be able to reveal some possible challenges which students taking an English Academic Writing Course might have and suggest improvements to the current development of such skills at Higher School of Economics.
Literature review
During the last three decades, Russian universities have been trying to introduce the English Academic Writing courses in their curriculum. It is an attempt to face the challenges which higher education in Russia has (Bennell and Pearce, 2003; Froumin, 2005). Firstly, the process of internationalisation in higher education means that students should have good understanding of their subject and a good command of English which may allow them to continue their education in a foreign
university (Gritsenko, 2016). This is a reality today because most universities in Russia have developed international relations with their partner Universities from different countries and send their students to take an internship or to get a master or postgraduate degree. Secondly, the necessity to improve the citation index requires to write academic articles in good academic English which means that Russian scientists have to publish their articles in prestigious academic journals in order to achieve high ranking (Fandeeva, Arkhipova, Chistyakov, et al., 2017). The current situation is that Universities in Russia are in demand of highly qualified academics who are able to publish their articles in English in journals with a high impact factor. It might be quite challenging since we have not developed the culture of English Academic Writing at universities in Russia yet and there are lots of steps which we should undertake in order to achieve positive results. In order to do this, universities, especially the leading ones, need to understand the challenges they might face and to arrive at appropriate ways to improve the situation.
Today, there are several challenges in developing English for Academic Purposes (EAP) at Universities in Russia and one of them is English Academic Writing Development (Frumina and West, 2012). In European Universities, the development of Academic Writing Skills has already been practiced for a long time but Russian Universities do not have such a long tradition. Initially, there was a course of Academic Writing in the university curriculum in Russia but the way the students were taught to write was quite different from today's. The main rule was to follow the typical structure: Introduction - Main body - Conclusion. This method is not quite helpful in writing an academic article in English since it is important to follow not only the template in order to get the final product but to understand the process of writing (Anderson, 1998).
Writing this essay, I also found out that there are some difficulties connected with English Academic Writing for non-native speakers. The following researchers have been exploring the L2 learners' specialties in Academic Writing (Flowerdew, 2008; Belcher, 2007; Bazerman, 2001) and they have drawn the conclusion that non-native writers:
• may have a lack of clarity in their texts due to grammatical errors or the wrong wording as well as lack of proofreading and proper editing;
• the language quality is sometimes low so it is difficult to understand sentences and the manuscripts could not be published without additional correction, etc.
The mistakes such as incoherent sentences, violation of logic, grammatical mistakes and misprints can be noticed in Russian academic articles written in English (Hyland,2003). One of the most difficult parts is that the structure of the article should be followed not only at the text level but at the paragraph level as well. The possible reason might be the desire of the L2 English writer to follow the structure of his/ her own language (Ottewell,Li and Lu, 2016).
Going through the process of writing an academic article in English non-native English speakers might also face some challenges (Hewings, 2006) which
influence the quality of their papers. Moreover, L2 writers might spend an extra time and effort for reading and conducting research in a foreign language. According to Ammon (2001), this situation exacerbates the problems connected with producing a high-quality article in English. Although the rules for writing an English Academic article might look simple to follow but not for the beginner in this area. It requires much time to develop the skill of academic writing and special techniques and a qualified teacher might help to make this process more effective.Thus, this practice of English Academic Writing Skills is still developing and it takes time to create a special curriculum to make an Academic Writing course part of the academic schedule at universities and teach the staff appropriately chosen the right method (Korotkina, 2017). Despite these facts, there are some positive results in this area as several Academic Writing Centres in leading Universities in Russia (i.e. the participants of 5-100 Educational Project) were opened and more and more universities in Russia are making Academic Writing part of their curriculum for bachelor and master students.
Nowadays there are five working Academic Writing Centres at non-linguistic universities in Russia. Among them is the English Academic Writing Centre at Higher School of Economics which was established several years ago. HSE students take an English Academic Writing course as part of their programme and teachers and PhD students could take it as an interdisciplinary course. This is one more reason why I have decided to conduct my small-scale research at HSE University and study how fourth year university students' acquire Academic Writing skills and what they think about taking an English Academic Writing course.
Methodology
I decided to choose a mixed method approach for this study because I supposed that the combination of two methodologies might be beneficial for my small-scale research although it requires the collection and analysis of two different types of data and the knowledge of both quantitative and qualitative methodology. Another argument for the chosen research methodology is that a mixed methods approach provides deeper understanding of the work field (Courtney, 2017; Thomas, 2017; Schostak, 2002).
The paradigms of my research are both constructivism and positivism because it is a mixed method approach. A constructivist or interpretive paradigm deals with human consciousness and its role in social life. 'Constructivists believe that there is no single reality or truth, and therefore reality needs to be interpreted, and therefore they are more likely to use qualitative methods to get those multiple realities' (Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2011; Taber, 2014). This approach asserts that individuals actively build the reality of their world by themselves and do not try to reflect the particular reality. Despite the fact that I have conducted a small-scale research with two interview participants and 18 questionnaire responses it is clear that every time (in case of each interview) the reality is different due to the changing situation as I was dealing
with the perception of different individuals. It means that every time the reality might be different. The other part of the research, the quantitative one can be explained by the positivist paradigm because this type of data is more reliable and not biased. My role as a researcher in this part is limited to data collection and interpretation in an objective way which leads me to a statistical analyses. The positivistic view of the world means 'comprising, observable elements and events that interact in an observable, determined and regular manner' (Denscombe, 2010). Moreover, after having chosen this paradigm I have to deal with facts and to be independent in my research which means that it might be purely objective and should be judged only by logic. I would like to focus on my main research question and sub-questions.
My research question is as follows: How do students of the Higher School of Economics University (HSE) develop English Academic Writing Skills (in the Russian context).
In the chosen area of investigation I am going to use quantitative data, i.e. numbers in order to analyse the responses about the teaching methods used during an English Academic Writing course at Higher School of Economics and I have 20 questionnaire replies from HSE students (Appendix 4, https://docs.google.com) .The qualitative data will help me to explore students' opinions and perception on the chosen topic and I conducted 3 interviews with HSE students taken an English Academic Writing Course (Appendix 3).
The sub-questions which help me to answer the main question in more detail are:
What do students of HSE think about the development of English Academic Writing Skills and what are their perceptions of taking this course?
Which methods do their teachers use to develop students' English Academic Writing Skills?
How effective is their English Academic Writing course at HSE, from students' point of view?
My aim as a researcher was to answer the main research question and I am going to present the results based on the data obtained. This small-scale research is a preparation for my dissertation in which I am going to explore the issue of developing academic literacy in more detail. In this research I am going to present part of data which is needed for the dissertation and give students' points of view on this topic. It might be interesting to consider the problem from different points of view (HSE students who take part in the course and teachers who teach it) in order to get the insight of the topic. The three HSE students at the last year of their bachelor study were asked 15 questions (Appendix 3) about their English Academic Writing experience after they had taken an English Academic Writing course at the university. My aim was to find out whether they had particular challenges while taking this course, how they measure the effectiveness of this course and their perceptions of the development of their English Academic Writing Skills before taking the course and after it. Before conducting interviews I filled in the Ethical Approval form in which I described both the details and steps of my research and it was adopted by the University of Leicester. After that I sent a
consent form (Appendix 2) and information for the participants (Appendix 1) to the students. The forms confirmed the participants' intention to take part in my small-scale research and provided the anonymity of the data collected from them. Findings and discussion Considering the issue of developing English Academic Writing Skills I would like to take into account all the factors which influence their development, for instance, the methods which teachers use for the training of English Academic Writing, the manuals used, ICTs, the teacher's personal and professional characteristics which might influence the process and the outcome of learning (Ur, 2012). All the above mentioned concerns were formulated as interview questions for HSE students having taken an English Academic Writing Course. The aim of conducting the interviews was to find out:
The opinion and perception of HSE students about their English Academic Writing Practice
The methods the teachers use while training an English Academic Writing Course
The students' personal subjective evaluation of the effectiveness of this course
I obtained the following results: What do students of HSE think about the development of English Academic Writing Skills and what are their perceptions of taking this course?
My respondents, the three HSE students, both 20 and one 21 years old were from public administration faculty and they choose an English Academic Writing Course as an elective academic course (i.e. it is the only option in terms of learning English in this list) and most of them prefer to choose this course. The duration of this course is 76 academic hours among which 54 hours are spent on class work and the others for home preparation. The HSE students take this course twice a week and the class lasts for 1,5 hours. The students' positive attitude towards this course is built mostly on their engagement in the process of developing English Academic Writing skills because for them it is their first experience of an EAP course and writing an academic article in English. They are taught basic academic writing skills, for instance, knowledge about the grammatical and syntactic structure of an article, linking words and academic vocabulary as well as tactics for the searching of relevant academic articles with high index ratings (i.e. Q1 and Q2 in the Web of Science) using databases. The HSE bachelor students currently use all these ways of English Academic Writing Development and, from my own experience as a MCs student at Leicester University, I would like to say that it is a good start because I was not taught such skills while doing the bachelor degree at my linguistic university in Russia and for me it was challenging in many ways. 70% of 20 respondents considered the ability to write an academic article in English to be important as it helped them to stay focused on writing English and 30% responded that it is important only for the academic purposes. Moreover, the teacher's role is worth mentioning because my respondents claimed that their teachers 'have good command of English', are very active and good at teaching' (interviewer respond)
which might explain the students' positive responses about this course and high motivation to learn so few of them miss classes and the majority of them enjoy the process of learning.
2. How effective is the English Academic Writing course at HSE, from students' point of view?
As for the effectiveness of English Academic Writing course, I would like to pay attention to the researchers and scientists who investigated this topic. For example, Raimes (1991) measured the effectiveness of Academic Writing as the combination of mechanics, content, syntax, writer's process, grammar, organization and purpose which should be learned by students while developing writing skills. All these processes take place while teaching and learning Academic Writing and the effective strategy is to find the most appropriate decision on the above mentioned things. Conversely, the process-based model meets the student's needs more as it deals with the learner' s intention, who is trying to mimic the author of the initial text (Florence, Wall, Nickson, Jordan, Allwright and Noughton,1988). The steps of process-approach model are: specify the task, communicate as far as possible, study model, practise, recycle. According to the questionnaire, the most common practice of an English Academic Writing is to write at home according to the template and 40% of 20 respondents agreed with this.
According to 20 respondentsopinion, the most effective strategy for them (45%) is to write the similar task at home after the teacher explained them the model and all the difficulties that might occur while writing the essay on this topic because it keeps students more concentrated when they write at home. The second popular response (35%) is the combination of different methods (i.e. writing collaboratively and individually in class and individually at home) which might be explained by Raimes (1991) who assumed that students better achieve their goals in academic writing using blended methods. The other results made up 10% for students who prefer writing individually in class and 10% for those who prefer to write collaboratively in class. According to the questionnaire, the most common academic genre among HSE students is short academic essays in the studied area - 40 %. They also learn how to write different parts of an academic article, for instance, Abstract, Introduction, Literature review and Conclusion for their final draft of the thesis. It means the these different parts are trained as well but a bit less than essays which constitute 35%.
3. Which methods do their teachers use to develop students' English Academic Writing Skills?
I would like also to mention the role of manuals and ICTs for developing English Academic Writing skills and students' opinion about them. 55% of 20 students prefer the manuals published by foreign publishing houses (i.e. Oxford/Cambridge University Press, Macmillan and Pearson) for practicing academic writing skills and 20% think that the university produced manuals or 'Methodichkas' (Dugartsyrenova, 2017) to be also effective.
As for using ICTs for English writing skills development, there is a special LMS platform for HSE students who use it for checking the assignments,
timetables and other useful information and 45% have chosen this tool as the most effective for the development of writing skills. During their classes the HSE students use their own devices and the language teachers have interactive blackboards and projectors and make presentations for the classes. The students are also taught to make presentations as a part of their final assignment on English Academic Writing Module. 70% of students consider using ICTs and their own gadgets to be an effective tool for the development of writing skills and 20% of them think that it is not only effective but it keeps them motivated as well.
Csizer and Tanko (2017) paid attention to students' motivation while taking an English Academic Writing course as 'taking responsibility and regulating the learning processes and positive motivational dispositions are needed for successful achievement' (ibid., p.386). I found out that these both factors influencing the English Academic Writing effectiveness take place in HSE students' practice since they choose the course themselves. Most of my respondents are fully engaged in it and the main stimulus to take this course is to succeed in writing the draft for their thesis (i.e. Introduction, literature review, results and conclusions).
Despite the positive attitudes which HSE students have toward an English Academic Writing course and good questionnaire and interview results on their practice of academic writing skills there still some challenges which they face. For instance, several respondents admitted that the language of an academic article is difficult to understand and they have to learn lots of academic vocabulary which might be explained as a special difficulties for non- native writers (Stollen and Robinson, 2016; Hyland, 2000, 2002, 2003). The other difficulty is that the assessment requirements for an English Academic Writing Course at HSE University is to write some parts of the thesis in English (i.e. introduction, literature review, results and conclusion) so students have to spend much time struggling with an English academic articles since some area of their knowledge requires only up to date information and sometimes it is available only in English.
Conclusion
Higher School of Economics is one of the developing universities with good governmental support and it plays a key role in the development of global scientific communication and facilitates the process of internationalisation through the development of English Academic Writing Skills among its students and teaching staff. There are essential goals which they want to achieve and some of them are to cooperate with foreign scientists and universities, to be recognized by the academic world and to contribute to science through publications in prestigious academic journals. In order to achieve positive results in English Academic Writing and to develop it on a larger scale the more Academic Writing Centres should be established at other Russian universities. They would be able to develop the strategy for more effective support to develop academic writing skills in university programmes since the academic
writing traditions are different in Russia and European countries. However, at present only smaller part of Russian students have the chance to choose an Academic English Writing course and develop their academic writing skills. In general, HSE students are highly motivated by the EAP course and in spite of insufficient resources, they learn and develop writing skills. Some of them might experience challenges but the positive thing is that the methodological approaches based on foreign traditions are actively introduce and developed right now in Russia.
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Appendix 1
INFORMATION FOR PARTICIPANTS
This is a mixed method study to gain an understanding to find out how to measure the effectiveness of English Academic Writing Skills level at non- linguistic Universities in Russia in order to explore the hypothesis that there is a lack of sufficient training of these skills and give recommendations to improve this situation.
You are being invited to collaborate in this research project because I believe that you are able to provide useful information to the studied topic. In order to decide if you are going to be a part of it or not, it is important that you understand the reason why this research is being undertaken and what is involved. Please take enough time to read carefully all the information on this paper so that everything would be clear for you. If there is anything that is not clear to you, or if you would like to get more information, please do not hesitate to contact me (see contact information at the end of the document).
We also would like to reassure you that this project has been approved by the University of Leicester.
What is the purpose of the study and why have I been chosen?
I am currently studying in the School of Education and I am currently undertaking a MA in International Education at the University of Leicester. I am going to conduct a small research project for our Module on Innovation and Reform (Lead Module). The research topic coincides with a current phenomenon related to the process of internationalisation in higher education in Russia ( and its link to the English language acquisition). The purpose of this research is to gain an understanding of the processes which take part at non-linguistic universities in Russia, how these processes encourage the development of English Academic Writing Skills language acquisition and facilitate the internationalisation in educational sphere.
The data obtained through the mixed method instruments (online interviews and questionnaires) will be compared in order to find out common patterns and in the end, findings will help me to draw some conclusions about the level of English Academic
Writing Skills Development in non- linguistic University in Russia and to what extent does it facilitate the internationalisation process in higher education.
The project consists of short interviews and questionnaires with university students, university teachers and some members of the staff.
Do I have to take part?
No. It is completely your choice to decide whether to take part or not. Your participation is voluntary so if you decide to participate, you are free to withdraw your participation from this research at any time. If, after reading this information, you agree to participate, please return the questionnaire or confirm your participation for the interview.
What do I have to do for the interview?
You are invited to answer the questions of a short interview which will take approximately 10-15 minutes to complete. The interview answers are needed to be returned by email.
The interview and questionnaires include questions regarding your experience and perceptions as university students, teachers or members of university staff as well as your vision of internationalisation process in higher education and how Academic Writing Skills development in non- linguistic Universities in Russia facilitates it. The information found in these interviews will be kept confidential and will not be circulated beyond the research.
Informed consent
All participants will sign a consent form before completing interviews and questionnaires.! would be
happy to share our research findings with you upon request.
Can I be identified from the information I supply?
No. As mentioned before, interviews and questionnaire results are anonymous. Although the research will be shared with my supervisor at the University of Leicester, the data will be reported in an aggregate form so your personal data will not be identifiable.
Who has access to the information I provide?
As part of the process, the collection, handling and use of the information is carried out in accordance with the legal requirements of the Data Protection Act. Access to the complete interviews and questionnaires and the transcriptions from them is restricted to only us (researchers). Only the results of the interviews will be shared with our tutor. The overall findings will be shared with the audience taking part in a poster presentation session at our university. Your answers and any comments you make (which we may quote in our reflective analysis will be anonymous and will not be identifiable).
Contact information
Should you require any further information before you make a decision to participate in this research, please feel free to contact me: epm8@student.le.ac.uk.
really appreciate your time reading this information sheet and taking the time to participate in my research project
Appendix 2
CONSENT FORM FOR FOCUS GROUP Consent form for HSE University students
Name of participant:
E-mail:
Signature:
Researcher: Ekaterina Medvedeva Signature:
Date: 15.04.18
Project contact details for further information
Kate
Medvedeva:
epm8@student.le.ac.uk
+07562227218
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TAKING PART
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Appendix 3
^Interview questions for HSE students taken an English Academic Writing course
Interview topic: The development of English Academic Writing Skills at the Higher School of Economics University (Russian context)
1. Is the course of academic writing in English compulsory for all HSE students? Is the course of English academic writing an obligatory part of the program on your faculty?
2. How long does an Academic English Writing Course last? How many academic hours? How many times a week do you have an English Academic Writing Course?
3. Do you receive a certificate of completion of this course? How does you teacher rate the knowledge of the English academic writing course at your University? What is the final exam after completing an English Academic Writing Course?
4. Do you like studying an English Academic Writing? Why?
5. Do you consider the course of English Academic Writing difficult or not? Why? What difficulties did you face while developing an English Academic Writing Skills? What was the main motivation for developing these skills?
7. How do you estimate your level of academic writing before taking a course at the University and after? Do you feel more confident after mastering the skills of English Academic Writing? Why?
9. In your opinion, what level of English should a student have to complete successfully an English Academic Writing Course at your University?
11. Which manuals do you use for an English Academic Writing Development? Do you like it? Why? Do you consider them effective for the development of your English Academic Writing Skills?
12. How do you carry out written assignments? At home or in the classroom? How much time does your teacher spend on writing / explaining the new topic during the lesson?
13. Do you consider the methods which your teacher use of effective for the developing of English Academic Writing Skills? Why?
14. What gadgets do you use when teaching English academic writing? Which of them do you consider the most effective in teaching letters?
15. Do you consider using gadgets and other ICTs effective in the English Academic Writing Skills Development? Why?
Thank you so much for agreeing to contribute to the study!
Appendix 4
Questionnaire for HSE students
Link: https://docs.google.eom/forms/d/1EHOy9C pyaRKBCVRWAKh-E83ideI0N9f51KfBpsWEQM/edit
1.Do you think the ability to write in academic English is important?
•Yes •No
•Only for academic purposes
2. What types of English academic writing did you practice? •English academic essays
•English academic articles •Academic essays on your specialization •None of the above •Other
3.How do you most often practice the English academic writing skill? •Writing during the lesson in groups and pairs
•Writing during the lesson individually •Writing at home according to the template •All of the above •Other
4. Which of the above methods do you consider most effective? •Writing during the lesson in groups and pairs
•Writing during the lesson individually •Writing at home according to the template •All of the above
5. What training tools do you most often use to train your English academic writing? •Oxford / Cambridge University Press / Pearson / Macmillan
•Russian
•Manuals of your University (Metodichkas) •Other
6. What ICT do you use to teach English academic writing? •Distance learning (MOOCs: Coursera, FutureLearn., etc.) •Training platforms (Moodle, etc.)
•Google tools (like Google Docs)
•None of the above
•Other
7. What ICT do you consider the most effective in teaching English academic writing? •Distance learning (MOOCs: Coursera, FutureLearn., etc.)
•Training platforms (Moodle, etc.) •Google tools (like Google Docs) •None of the above •Other
8. What gadget do you use when teaching an English academic writing? •Computers / Notebooks
•IPads / other tablets / PDAs / mobile phones •Projector and screen •Your own gadgets •Other
9. Which of the above gadgets do you consider the most effective in teaching an English academic writing? •Computers / Notebooks
•IPads / other tablets / PDAs / mobile phones •Projector and screen •Your own gadgets •Other
10. What is your opinion about the use of ICT and gadgets in teaching an English academic writing? •Increase the effectiveness of training
•Increase learning motivation
•Increase the motivation and effectiveness of training
•Other
11. Would you like to do an interview on Skype? •Yes
•No
