DISCOURSE AWARENESS IN IMPROVING NON-NATIVE STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN GENERIC WRITING
DISCOURSE AWARENESS IN IMPROVING NON-NATIVE STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN GENERIC WRITING

Summary/Abstract: This study explores the importance of teaching discourse patterns to non-native university students. I used particular discourse patterns in teaching generic writing to undergraduate students at the Gulf University for Science and Technology, GUST, in Kuwait. The assumption of this study was that undergraduate non-native students should be aware of the importance of discourse patterns in generic writing. This hidden tactic is not obvious unless consciously taught to them. To study the importance of generic patterns, I opted to teach discourse patterns that are used in newspaper editorials, the rationale of which was that students would grasp discourse patterns and apply them to their own writing. I chose two groups of students randomly, one of which was an experimental group and the second of which was a control group. I conducted a detailed analysis afterwards to examine the validity of my assumption. I taught the experimental group the chosen model of analysis, and instructed the control group to read sample editorials, and write their own editorials afterwards. The results of this experiment were substantial. Based on the level of compliance with the suggested format, triads, movements, and artifacts in newspaper editorials, students in the experimental group were evaluated on a scale of 0 to 10. The performance of the experimental group was above average, 75.3%, in comparison to the control group that complied quite poorly with the chosen model, < 30 %.

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