Abstract
<p><em>As higher education is being internationalized globally, it is also not rare to find degree programs delivered in English, the world’s lingua franca, in countries where English is learned as a foreign language. In mainland China, such courses are available for bachelor and master’s degrees. Accordingly, students in those programs have to meet the academic English requirements, by which writing is assumed to be the most challenging. This small-scale research was conducted among 81 mainland non-English-major students studying in the taught postgraduate program in Hong Kong, with the instruments of questionnaires and follow-up interviews. Within the framework of needs analysis, it reports their detailed perceptions of English academic writing. Results indicate that those upper-intermediate language learners are generally able to get accustomed to academic writing in English, but some writing skills, and particularly language issues (academic lexis, grammar, and style) pose challenges to their studies. The article concludes with some feasible pedagogical implications for updating the university English education system in mainland China.</em></p>
Highlights
1.1 BackgroundInternationalization and Englishization of Higher Education 1.1.1 Institutions in EFL Contexts Globalization, which has undoubtedly exerted enormous social impacts across the world, “is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/seltStudies in English Language TeachingVol 6, No 1, 2018 characterized by the compression of time and geographical distance, the reduction of diversity through intensified trade and communication, and new social relationships marked by reduced local power and influence” (Giddens, 1990, p. 64; cited in Coleman, 2006, p. 1)
Since the 1950s, European countries have been attempting at internationalizing their Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) by successively administering English-Medium Instruction (EMI) degree programs both at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels (Coleman, 2006). Those HEIs are capable of taking in more international students of diversity, and producing domestic students who are more employable in the globalizing job market, which in return raises their standing in the world university rankings
The recent years have witnessed the expansion of the practice of EMI in Asian HEIs where academic subjects are taught in an EFL (English as a foreign language) context, for instance, in South Korea, Malaysia, China including Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland
Summary
1.1 BackgroundInternationalization and Englishization of Higher Education 1.1.1 Institutions in EFL Contexts Globalization, which has undoubtedly exerted enormous social impacts across the world, “is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/seltStudies in English Language TeachingVol 6, No 1, 2018 characterized by the compression of time and geographical distance, the reduction of diversity through intensified trade and communication, and new social relationships marked by reduced local power and influence” (Giddens, 1990, p. 64; cited in Coleman, 2006, p. 1). Since the 1950s, European countries ( the Netherlands and Scandinavia) have been attempting at internationalizing their Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) by successively administering EMI degree programs both at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels (Coleman, 2006). In doing so, those HEIs are capable of taking in more international students of diversity, and producing domestic students who are more employable in the globalizing job market, which in return raises their standing in the world university rankings. Over the past two decades, there have been three large-scale studies of HK undergraduates’ academic language needs: Hyland’s (1997), Littlewood and
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