Disciplinary Writing in an EFL context from Teachers’ and Students’ Perspectives

Abstract

Studies have indicated that EFL students have difficulties in coping with the writing assignments in their university courses. Although studies in Writing across the Discipline and English for Academic Purposes have been helpful in this regard, little research has been done from the disciplinary teachers' perspective. This paper reports on a comparative needs analysis study at one English medium university in Lebanon through a survey of disciplinary teacher and student perceptions on the type of writing assignments students do in their university courses, students' language problems and proficiency levels and the sources that help with developing disciplinary writing. Findings show that teachers and students perceive research reports and lecture note-taking done most frequently, teachers perceive less improvement in students' writing over a semester than students do, identify more problems in student disciplinary writing, identify English teachers as the main source of help, but importantly, both teachers and students agree to collaboration between disciplinary and English teachers in raising students' disciplinary writing level. Student and teacher views diverged more than those of students in the disciplines. Implications and recommendations are made for EFL contexts.