Good idea and opinion seem not important: reflections on students’ conceptualisations of academic writing

This article reports on a study done at a New Zealand university seeking to determine the way overseas students respond to the teaching academic writing using a text functions or structures approach, which focuses on discrete language structures and skills. Feedback was gathered from a class of 30 students through the use of a written questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The data was analysed using keyword and pattern analysis. The findings reveal a palpable disjuncture between overseas students‟ prior academic writing experiences and their present learning using a text functions or structures approach. The article argues that more dialogic and discursively oriented approaches to the teaching of academic writing will bring about greater value-addedness to academic writing courses even as they help alleviate students‟ struggles while making the switch from L1 to L2 writing.