EFL Academic writing. What should Dutch business communication students learn?

Abstract

Many Dutch university students are expected to read and write academic research papers in English. In this article, we discuss a number of areas of EFL academic writing that are relevant for first-year Dutch business communication students. These students need to become familiar with quantitative research in the field of international business communication (corpus analyses, experiments, surveys) and with the English conventions for reporting such research. The relevant areas of EFL academic writing include the conventions of empirical research articles and research posters in terms of structure, phrasing, tense use, expressing caution, and referencing. We will illustrate our discussion with examples of exercises from a course we have designed to enable students to practise their skills in the various areas. We also present the results of a survey among our students regarding their experience of the course and student exam scores showing how well they have mastered various aspects of academic writing discussed in the course.