How effectively and consistently do international postgraduate students apply the writing strategies they have been taught in a generic skills based course to their subsequent discipline based studies?

Abstract

Abstract: International students comprise 76% of the coursework post graduate cohort in the Faculty of Business at the University of Tasmania. The traditional pathway has been to have an IELTS score of 6. However, the university also has an internal entry pathway via DEAP (Direct Entry Academic Program) which is taught in the English Language Centre. This program has grown in size and popularity and in November 2008 there were 138 students in 9 DEAP classes. This studyaimed to have ex DEAP students identify effective writing strategies and to evaluate whether they used those strategies when tackling writing tasks in their discipline. The first stage was a written questionnaire of 100 items which listed strategies. This was followed up by one to one interviews to enable students to expand on their responses. Key words: international students, internal pathway, postgraduate study,