Writing on Academic Topics: Externalizing Rhetorical Processes in an Intercultural Context

This paper reviews English-language academic writing pedagogy, learning
theories, and cultural rationales to discern problems for Japanese students. One
difficulty is the incompatibility of emphases on sentence-level grammatical
accuracy and the communicative demands of larger discourse units. Another
obstacle is students' unfamiliarity with the function of English-language rhetorical
norms. This paper analyzes how this second problem is rooted in cultural contrasts
with respect to what constitute necessary and sufficient ways of creating written
discourse in Japanese and English. Specific classroom approaches and samples
of student writing on science topics are examined to illustrate generic ways of
helping students become more fluent EFL writers.