Writing in a foreign language: action research with university students of languages

Abstract

The act of writing has been seen, traditionally, as a single act of codifying ideas onto a piece of paper or computer screen exactly according to the pace in which those same ideas appear. Pedagogies for the teaching of writing in regular schools are non-existent or are restricted to the discussion of a topic or theme and the consequent immediate writing activity, within a short period of time, a complete and finished text. Nowadays,  writing is not seen as a product oriented activity but a process. It is as a process that creative writing of a text require stages that combine or even juxtapose since the generation of ideas until the editing phase. This article is a result of an experiment with the  teaching of academic writing in English for university students. The awareness towards the process is discussed and learners’ attitudes concerning the activities undertaken during the classes are analyzed.