The Five Tier Model for Teaching English Academic Writing in EFL Contexts

Abstract

Academic writing in English is at the heart of teaching and learning in English foreign language (EFL) contexts. However, despite the need to target and isolate the problems associated with writing academic English in EFL contexts, recent research has focused mostly on the psycholinguistic dimension of academic writing in English. The aim of this paper is to redirect interest in English academic writing and situate it back within linguistic enquiry. The study focuses on targeting and isolating the problems associated with English academic writing at the transitional stage from public high school to university.In contemporary research,educators are raising concerns on the level of proficiency in English academic writing, attained by the end of secondary schooling, specifically in the public education context. A case study, conducted on 470 final year secondary students in public schooling in Lebanon, reflected persistent phonemic orthographic errors, grammatical errors, structural and organizational errors, notwithstanding the fact that the participating students were instructed according to the official EFL programme. Errors were interpreted from contemporary linguistic perspectives and a five tier model was proposed for teaching English academic writing in EFL contexts.