Iris Elisha - Primo

2005 - present      Curriculum Renewal Project

The project addresses the problem of teaching academic writing in English as a foreign language in university settings where graduate students are expected to use English for scholarly dissemination or for highly specialized professional needs, but not in their daily academic tasks. This in-depth study aims at developing a theoretical concept of an EFL academic writing curriculum with accompanying pedagogical practices and materials development. The study focuses on three aspects of curriculum development: 1) needs assessment, examining the self-perceived writing needs of EFL graduate students, as well their needs as perceived by the writing teaching staff, department chairs and thesis advisors, 2) criteria for curriculum development in terms of linguistic competence and acquisition of discourse community knowledge, and 3) construction of a framework for faculty development workshops that would involve teachers in curriculum development and pedagogy decision-making while training them in the use of new technologies for promoting L2 writing based on the research findings and meeting the identified needs of EFL graduate students