THE MAIN PROBLEMS OF ACADEMIC WRITING COMPETENCE FORMATION OF PRE-SERVICE FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHERS

Abstract

This article presents a relatively new direction for Kazakhstan's educational system - academic writing. A brief analysis of some scientific works devoted to this topic was made in order to determine the conceptual essence of the category "academic writing"; the importance of introducing this discipline in educational programs of RK universities was raised; the most difficult areas in forming the competence of academic writing among undergraduate and graduate students of the "Training of foreign language teachers" program were revealed; the factors that cause difficulties in academic writing were determined and described. The study took the form of a survey administered to 38 students. Data were collected through semi-structured questionnaires developed by the authors based on a review of the literature on the topic and which included multiple-choice and open-ended questions covering the challenges students face in learning academic writing and identifying the factors underlying those challenges. Open-ended responses from respondents were also analyzed. Responses were analyzed using Google Forms.

The results of the data analysis revealed the most frequent difficulties faced by future foreign language teachers in developing academic writing competence. If the analysis of the results of the respondents' answers showed that such topics as organization of ideas, identification of text types, application of stylistic techniques, grammatical constructions and academic vocabulary, correct citation of academic sources do not cause serious problems in the learning process, then such a skill as use of scientometric databases, as well as the issue of teacher competence and incompatibility of the discipline content with the requirements for young scholars to publish academic papers, cause great difficulties among students during the learning process as well as in the future. As a result, the question of quality of all abovementioned acquired skills remains open.