Academic Territorial Borders

Abstract

With the globalization of higher education, English has become the lingua franca of universities operating in non–English-speaking countries seeking internationalization. The communication needs of students studying in such foreign-language contexts have not been fully explored. In this study, the authors interviewed a purposeful sample of professors teaching a variety of specialties in the School of Business in an environment in which English is a foreign language in order to ascertain their perceptions of students’ ability to communicate in English, and these teachers’ ability to focus on their students’ writing skills. The findings reveal that although these teachers asserted the importance of communication skill, particularly in written English, they did not feel that nurturing that skill was part of their academic responsibilities. They felt that they had neither the time nor the expertise to nurture students’ ability to communicate in English.

Keywords

writing across the curriculum L2 writing EFL writing in the disciplines language learning beliefs

With the acceleration of globalization, English is becoming the lingua franca of higher education (Coleman, 2006; Gill & Kirkpatrick, 2013). In Europe, 48 countries who signed the Bologna Process adopted English to facilitate academic cooperation between universities and educational institutions. According to Phillipson (2009), in the Bologna Process, “internationalization means English-medium higher education” (p. 37). In 2006, 30% of European universities had at least one English-medium program, and in some countries, such as the Netherlands and Finland, the percentage reached 100% (Coleman, 2006, p. 6). In Asia, there has been tremendous growth in English-language usage and English-medium universities that, following a transnational education model, have partnership programs with universities in Australia, Britain, United States, and other English-speaking countries.

In the Middle East and North Africa, English has become a symbol of “modernity,” “technology,” and “education” (Joseph, 2013). Many Arab countries consider English-medium instruction as a symbol of quality education, so many countries with a francophone tradition, such as Tunisia and Lebanon, introduced English as a compulsory language in the curriculum in addition to Arabic and French. English has also become the lingua franca in the Persian Gulf because expatriate workers make up most of the private sector. Most universities in the Persian Gulf, then, are also English-medium universities, with many American, British, Canadian, and Australian universities and colleges establishing satellite campuses in Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.

Lebanon has approximately 30 universities that use English as the medium of instruction (Minkara, 2013). In a non–English-speaking country such as Lebanon, research is needed to explore disciplinary teachers’ views and attitudes about their role in developing and nurturing students’ linguistic skill in a language other than their mother tongue. This article reports on the second stage of research that we conducted in the School of Business in one of those universities. In the first stage of that study, we reviewed all the syllabi for the spring 2011 course offerings to look for writing activities in the curriculum. We found that little to no writing is incorporated into the business courses (Nicolas & Annous, 2013). Therefore, in the second stage of our study, which we report here, we looked for instructors’ views about fostering students’ communicative skills in English, particularly about requiring and nurturing writing. We interviewed a purposeful sample of professors in the School of Business, and our findings from these interviews elucidate the writing ethos of the business faculty.

First we discuss the theoretical underpinnings of our investigation, including a detailed description of the context of the study and the methodology of the research. Then we present the results of the study and provide a comprehensive discussion of the emergent themes and their implications. We conclude by offering our final thoughts on the learning generated from this study.

Academic Benefits of Writing in Business Courses

Research into discipline-specific writing tasks asserts that writing is related to knowing and that subject disciplines are not domains of declarative knowledge (Carter, 2007); rather, they have distinctive problem-solving strategies, language conventions, and writing genres. Therefore, to be understood in their specific discipline, students must learn its conventions as well as its vocabulary and language standards (Bazerman et al., 2005; Carter, 2007; Hyland, 2009; Seshadri & Theye, 2001; Zhu, 2004). Hyland’s work includes a discourse analysis that identifies specific language features in different domains, illustrating them in terms of verb frequency: “Engineers show, philosophers argue, biologists find, and linguists suggest” (p. 11). Such a finding points out the necessity of familiarizing students with the word choices and conventions of their discipline so that their writing will be recognizable to anyone familiar with the discipline. Furthermore, Craig, Poe, and González-Rojas (2010) asserted that writing across disciplines can enhance professional communication in a discipline. Bazerman et al. (2005) suggested that writing in the disciplines exposes students to the role of the author, the stance of the audience, and the specific literature in their disciplines. In addition, Brent (2011) reported that learning transfer theory contends that explicit instruction in how to execute a particular genre facilitates students’ learning and helps them to shift their rhetorical knowledge from, for example, the English classroom to the business classroom.

The debate, then, is Whose job is it to facilitate students’ learning of their discipline’s conventions? This debate takes on a more contentious dynamic in classrooms where English is a foreign language to the students and they are being taught in English by teachers for whom English is also a foreign language.

Writing in English in a Foreign-Language Learning Environment

Research on second-language (L2) acquisition differentiates between L2 learning and foreign-language learning. According to Gass and Selinker (2001), foreign-language learning refers to “the learning of a nonnative language in the environment of one’s native language” (p. 5) whereas L2 learning refers to “the learning of nonnative language in the environment in which that language is spoken” (p. 5). Therefore, there are contextual dissimilarities between English-medium universities operating in countries where English is the dominant language and English-medium universities in countries using English as a foreign language (EFL), where “a disjunction often exists between the language of out-of-class campus communication (and of the wider society) and the official medium of instruction” (Evans & Morrison, 2011, p. 200).

Challenges faced by L2 English writing teachers and L2 English writers vary widely in context and writing purpose (Leki, 2001, p. 199). In non–English-speaking countries, L2 English writing might be taught in ways and for purposes that are different from those in English-speaking countries. For example, in many non–English-medium universities, English is taught as a subject for which the context does not provide the purpose for writing. But L2 English in English-medium universities is usually taught so that students can study and publish in English. In such a context, EFL students are similar to those students who are learning English as an L2 because they are supposedly exposed to L2 English outside the English classroom. But in reality, EFL students in English-medium universities do not have much opportunity to use English outside of their academic context. Content teachers who delegate English-language teaching to the English-language teaching staff and do not incorporate writing and writing development in their own teaching are depriving their students of a major opportunity to use English outside of the EFL classroom.

Because students in an EFL environment, such as the one in this study, are striving to achieve effective and expressive communication in a language that is not their mother tongue, they require additional support from all faculty with whom they come in contact (Craig, Poe, & González-Rojas, 2010). Writing for the purpose of both acquiring knowledge and communicating the understanding of that knowledge will build and cultivate strong communicative skill. A study conducted in Turkey investigated the perceptions of Turkish students learning English and found that universities in countries where English is not the mother tongue must incorporate communicative activities in with their traditional teaching approaches in order for students to fully benefit from their language training (Ỉnceçay & Ỉnceçay, 2009).

Furthermore, research suggests that students of English as an L2 or foreign language require additional support in their language development beyond the language classroom (Bacha, 2012; Cox, 2011; Zamel, 1995). In fact, Zamel concluded that “it is unrealistic and ultimately counterproductive to expect writing and English as second or other language programs to be responsible for providing students with the language, discourse and multiple ways of seeing required across courses” (p. 518). And Zhu (2004) discovered that some business faculty realize that writing requires disciplinary thought and specialized vocabulary, which suggests that content teachers also need to be involved in the teaching of writing skill.

Instructors’ Perceptions of Their Role in Student’s Skill and Knowledge Acquisition

Research has pointed out that a lot of university-level business professors do not believe that developing students’ communicative skill is their responsibility (Bacha & Bahous, 2008; Pawan & Ortloff, 2011; Plutsky & Wilson, 2001). After years of study and commitment to their discipline, many university professors only want to teach the content in which they have cultivated a certain expertise. Moreover, university colleges or departments often place a high value on content coverage (Clughen & Connell, 2012; Zhu, 2004), and research has disclosed that many professors feel territorial and possessive about their area of expertise (Becher & Trowler, 2001; Pawan & Ortloff, 2011; Zhu, 2004). Furthermore, Fulwiler (1988) talked about the idea of “turf” working both ways—that even English teachers can feel somewhat territorial and skeptical about the positive impact that writing in other domains may have on students’ overall writing. And Lavelle (2008) maintained that there is no research that suggests that student learning is in any way compromised by instructors teaching in their L2.

Research is inconclusive about the importance of writing in business courses specifically. Bacha and Bahous (2008), reporting on research that they conducted in an EFL context similar to that of our study, found that the business professors in their study did not think that writing was the most important language skill for students to master. They ranked listening and reading skills as more important than writing skills for students. In contrast, Zhu (2004), who conducted a study in the United States that examined faculty views on writing instruction, found that business faculty emphasized the importance of writing for success in a business career. Although these faculty members recognized that they bear some responsibility for helping students to acquire the necessary writing skills, they saw their role as primarily that of content expert. And Laster and Russ (2010) asserted that research promotes the importance of teaching written as well as oral communication in undergraduate business programs.

Furthermore, research has shown that native-English-speaking students in the United States also demonstrate writing deficiencies and uneven ability (Epstein, 1999; Laster & Russ, 2010; Matsuda & Jablonski, 2000; Smith, 2011; Zhu, 2004). But business professors in Epstein’s (1999) study reported that they did not have time to address students’ writing deficits and cover all the necessary course content although, as Epstein argued, experts in a field are more effective writing instructors in a specific genre than are general writing instructors. Shaver (2011), however, asserted that the literate practices that students learn in general writing classes in any academic setting can serve them well when they enter the workplace.

So if research contends that even native-language speakers require training in communication skills, it stands to reason that second- and third-language users would require context-specific training as well. Business communication courses are the norm in business programs in countries where English is the mother tongue (Harris, 2010; Knight, 2005; Laster & Russ, 2010; Smith, 2011), and such courses are often taught by communication specialists. But research focusing on L2 users of English suggests that they require more instructional guidance in order to acquire proficient writing skills and that such students learn best when the instruction combines subject content with training in writing and using sources (Pedersen, 2011; Smith, 2011).

Context of This Study

English first made its way into Lebanon in the 19th century with the establishment of American and British missionary schools. Although under the French mandate (1920–1943), French was the official language in Lebanon in addition to Arabic, English began to encroach into its educational institutions. Nowadays all public and private Lebanese schools use either French or English as their medium of instruction, introducing the language in kindergarten and continuing to use it to teach scientific subjects (math and sciences).

In postwar Lebanon (after 1990), more than 30 universities and colleges were established, the majority of which have chosen English as their medium of instruction. In fact, 30 of the 39 universities in Lebanon use English (Minkara, 2013), and most French-medium universities also offer programs in English, especially in the fields of science, engineering, and business. Most private universities require students to take a standardized English test (TOEFL or IELTS) for admission and English-language placement; some offer intensive English courses to prepare students for university studies.

Although a small country, Lebanon has various areas that are each unique in culture and in its linguistic practices. In some areas, French or English is commonly the default language although Arabic is the official language of the country. In the rural area of northern Lebanon where the university in this study is located, Arabic, the mother tongue and primary language, is commonly used.

The university in this study is an English-medium university and its bylaws call for most of its degree programs to be taught in English (some programs are taught in French). The business school uses English as its language of instruction, so the instructors conduct their classes in English and require students to use English in their academic work. But outside of their academic work, students more often default to their first language (L1), Arabic. Strolling around campus, a person is more likely to hear students conversing in Arabic than in English, and throughout the community, Arabic is almost exclusively the language of choice. Such an EFL environment (Gass & Selinker, 2001) creates distinctive challenges for the department responsible for students’ English-language acquisition.

At this university, all the courses that address students’ English-language acquisition, including the remedial courses that prepare students for the two university-required English courses, are within the Department of English Language and Literature. Throughout the department’s composition and rhetoric sequence, which comprises three intensive levels of language study, two freshman-level remedial courses, and the two university-required courses, students acquire progressively higher levels of English skill.

The English department offers a program that leads to a bachelor of arts degree and programs at the graduate level. Such a diverse mission strains the department’s resources. Staffing competent professors who can serve in all capacities and designing curricula that serve all needs are daily challenges for the department. The English department has crystallized its identity during its short life by creating writing-intensive courses and integrating content and language into all its courses. But the department cannot address all the specific communication needs of every major that the university offers; discipline-specific writing genres or presentation conventions cannot be added to already multifaceted curricula.

The various disciplinary schools and all the departments that constitute those schools were founded on conventional academic principles and therefore function conventionally. Each discipline has programs that focus on content that is considered necessary in the international arena. This guiding mentality has led to the establishment of isolated “tribes and territories” (Becher & Trowler, 2001) throughout the university. In addition, students seem to find it difficult or to be somewhat reticent to transfer skills of all kinds from one course to another. To understand why students’ ability to write in English is often criticized throughout the university although its required English courses are writing intensive, we investigated how much writing was required in the business courses (Nicolas & Annous, 2013). Briefly, we found that only 30% of the courses required any formal writing, and within these courses that required writing, none of the assignments identified the required writing genre or included any process writing strategies that would include offering feedback to students on their writing output.

As a follow-up to that initial study, we designed the following study in which we interviewed instructors in the business school in order to address their criticisms of students’ ability to write in English.

Methodology

The six participants in this study are all Lebanese instructors in the School of Business and constitute more than 50% of the full-time instructors in that school. Of these six, four instructors have PhD and two have MBA degrees. The participants’ teaching experience ranged from 7 to 25 years. We used purposeful sampling, choosing instructors who taught across the spectrum of courses that were offered in spring 2011 (Nicolas & Annous, 2013). We interviewed each of the six participants using the same semistructured format.

In the interviews, we attempted to find out the participants’ views about including writing in English in their classes and their attitude toward nurturing students’ ability to communicate in English, especially their business writing skills. We interviewed each participant face to face for about 45 minutes, with each of us taking notes to compare during our analysis. We also audiotaped and transcribed the interviews. In the following section, we discuss our interview questions and summarize our findings. The semistructured interviews provided useful qualitative data. We conducted a thematic analysis on these data by coding the answers of each participant on the written transcripts and then cross-examining the emerging categories. The cross-examination revealed findings common to all the participants. From these commonalities, we generated themes. Table 1 presents the interview format.

Table 1.

Interview Format.

Knowledge of writing-across-the-curriculum strategies

How would you define writing-across-the-curriculum strategies?

Can you describe some characteristics of writing-across-the-curriculum strategies?

Writing activities in business courses

Do you include writing assignments?

What are the written assignments?

General opinion about students’ ability to communicate in English

Do you allow Arabic to be spoken?

Do you ever have to resort to Arabic to ensure understanding?

General evaluation of students’ written performance

Are you satisfied with your students’ writing?

What are the problems?

Do you assess students’ writing?

Is the quality of students’ writing part of the grading criteria?

Willingness to incorporate writing activities in the future

What do you envision the role of a writing center to be?

Can you itemize some of the challenges you face when incorporating writing activities?

Results and Discussion

In our cross-examination of the interview transcripts, we found five major themes in the participants’ answers. First we discuss their answers to the interview questions according to the main topics of the semistructured interview. Then we explicate the themes that these answers generated. Finally, we discuss the main issue that the analysis evoked.

Knowledge of Writing-Across-the-Curriculum Strategies

Our reason for initially asking instructors about their knowledge of strategies for writing across the curriculum was to immediately discern their recognition of the concept of skills—writing skill, in this case—that cross disciplines. Two teachers admitted that they were unfamiliar with the concept of writing across the curriculum while the others suggested that it meant “assessments,” “students’ ability to analyze situations,” “writing in different areas,” or “writing in courses.” None of the instructors was able to discuss the characteristics or the underlying principles of a writing-across-the-curriculum strategy.

Writing Activities in Business Courses

When we asked the participants whether they included writing activities in their business courses and, if so, what types of writing activities they used, they responded that their writing tasks vary depending on the nature of the course. Only one teacher stated that she requires essay writing in her marketing course. She went on to say that the philosophy in the marketing department eschews multiple-choice questions, preferring short-answer questions. Another teacher indicated that students are required to analyze charts and write reports. The other four teachers indicated that their courses (accounting, statistics, and finance) are more quantitative in nature and therefore require minimal writing.

The majority of teachers who gave writing assignments admitted that they do not encourage any drafting process. One teacher explained that students have a lot of content to learn so there is no time for drafting writing assignments. Only one teacher claimed that she requires students to resubmit a final draft after she holds a conference with them to discuss their first drafts. But this teacher described her experience of reading the first draft as “torture” because of the language errors.

When we asked the participants why writing activities are minimal in business courses, they told us that the major barrier is the “heavy” course content that needs to be covered in one semester. For example, one participant commented, “My four-credit statistics course covers 13 chapters, and if I have to worry about the language development, I might have to cut down on the content.” Thus, teachers seemed overwhelmed with the course content and saw L2 writing activities as a barrier to students’ comprehension of the subjects they are teaching.

Opinion About Students’ Ability to Communicate in English

All the participants harshly criticized students’ ability to communicate in English. One even used the word “catastrophic” to describe it. Although English is the university-designated language of instruction, two of the participants admitted to speaking Arabic in class in order to ensure that students understood the content of the lesson. And one of those two admitted to allowing students to ask questions in Arabic because she knew that students preferred to speak Arabic. Another participant claimed that a majority of students never achieve a high level of skill in written or oral English, saying that “even students who are in their last semester cannot express themselves in English. At least 70% have a deficiency in English.” All participants cited content coverage as a rationale for ignoring students’ English-language development. Although English is the medium of instruction at this university, participants admitted that they use Arabic (L1) in their classes and allow students to communicate in Arabic because of time constraints and the students’ inability to express themselves in English. As one participant puts it, “I use Arabic because I cannot finish the course outline otherwise.”

General Evaluation of Students’ Written Performance

Most of the participants complained about the students’ low level of English-language skills. In their opinion, students could not express themselves in English and lacked self-confidence in using the language. In analyzing the reasons for this language incompetence, participants blamed the students and the prevailing culture that they live in, which, according to a few of the participants, does not promote or value reading: “This culture is not a culture of reading; students do not read enough, and that’s why their language suffers.”

In addition, most of the participants stated that they neither penalize students for their language errors nor give them feedback on their language. When assessing students’ papers, these teachers stated that they mainly focus on business content even if the form is unacceptable. They made comments such as these:

I feel the grade should reflect how well they understood finance only.

I do not feel that my courses are the place to correct language.

I would like to deduct points for grammar but I feel it would not be appropriate.

One participant confessed that he is not a language expert and therefore finds it difficult to assess language: “I circle mistakes but do not take off marks since I am not a specialist. I feel uncomfortable giving reasons why something is wrong, and I feel I can only assess content.”

Willingness to Incorporate Writing Activities in the Future

Although most of the participants support the establishment of a writing center that would assist students in developing their language skills, they do not envision teaching writing as part of their job. For example, one participant commented, “I have a lot to do and a lot of content to cover. My course is not the place to correct language.” The participants admitted that written communication is vital for business students, but they did not seem willing to be involved in the teaching process. One participant even offered to have an expert come in for one class session to teach the students how to write a statistical response. Some factors that impede implementing a writing culture in the School of Business, participants suggested, are that teachers lack knowledge and training in teaching writing, teachers perceive that it is not their job to teach English, courses have too much content to allow time for writing, English is a foreign language for students, and the culture undervalues reading as a pastime, so students often are not in the habit of reading and view the process as boring and tedious.

Emergent Themes

Our analysis and cross-examination of the interview transcripts revealed these five themes as the primary findings of this study:

These teachers ultimately do not believe it is their job to teach or focus on language acquisition.

These teachers rely on a heavy use of their L1 (Arabic).

The teaching methodology and assessment that this college employs are not conducive to including writing in the discipline tasks.

The top teaching priority for these teachers is subject content.

This university does not seem to be a cohesive camp in which all disciplines and colleges work toward a common end product that includes competent communicators in English.

These five themes might best be explained by the tribal ethos within the business school.

Academic Territories or Tribes

Academic disciplines have been described using the metaphors of tribes and territories, a comparison that highlights the discipline-related differences in academia and the particular norms and ways of doing things in each discipline. Our study has shown that the business instructors at this university view writing as a “foreign” discipline and therefore view teachers of English as belonging to a different “academic tribe” with different “knowledge territory” or as “illegal immigrants” (Becher & Trowler, 2001). All the participants viewed their professional and academic role as mainly teachers of a specific subject area. That is, they viewed themselves as members of a discipline (business) in which they are only specialized to teach discipline-related content (e.g., economics, accounting, finance, and business management).

Becher and Trowler (2001) divided disciplines into four main categories: hard pure (e.g., physics and chemistry), soft pure (e.g., history and literature), hard applied (e.g., technology and engineering), and soft applied (e.g., education and business studies). Because a “one size fits all” approach to academic writing is impossible (Nesi, 2012, p. 72), the boundaries between the English and business territories become messy and fuzzy. Even within the same business territory, we observed differences. We observed two tribes with different approaches to writing: a qualitative tribe (e.g., marketing courses that require written communication) and a quantitative tribe (e.g., accounting and statistics that require minimal writing).

The view of the business faculty in our study—that teaching language is not their responsibility—is shared by business faculty in similar studies. Jackson (2005) found that business faculty in Hong Kong marked exams for content and only gave a lower grade if they could not understand the meaning. Zhu (2004), in a study conducted at a Southeastern U.S. university that hosted many international students, also found that engineering and business teachers “saw their role in teaching academic writing as secondary to teaching content and technical skills” (p. 39). And research asserts that teachers’ beliefs in their own efficacy in a task or an area, including language communication, influence their capacity to negotiate and navigate that academic task (Lavelle, 2006). Because all of our participants’ native language is Arabic, their unwillingness to teach writing might be caused by their lack of confidence in their own skill in their acquired language, English.

The paradigm of academic territories or tribes is strongly in evidence at this university, given the lack of cooperation between the Department of English and the School of Business—with each discipline functioning in isolation, unaware of the needs of other disciplines or of the skills and knowledge that students acquire in their other classes. This “tribal” ethos, which is common in higher education (Bacha & Bahous, 2008; Braine, 2001), negatively affects students’ communication skills, especially when students are operating in an EFL environment. So, if even native speakers require communication training, as research contends, it stands to reason that L2 users would require context-specific training as well. University departments often wish to broaden their students’ experience and skills by introducing approaches from different disciplinary types (Nesi, 2012); therefore, communication across the curriculum or writing across the curriculum (WAC) can become a “trading zone” (Klein, 1996), a hybrid place where the disciplines of English and business can meet. This trading zone cannot exist, however, without support structures and training in how to assess writing for communicative effectiveness (Mackiewicz, 2012).

Conclusion

English is the lingua franca of higher education and international business, so a focus on communicative language in business courses will not only facilitate students’ academic achievement, it will also ultimately enhance their career prospects and career trajectory. In fact, Rivers (2008) argued that a growing linguistic and economic shift has given speakers of English linguistic capital in the business world. It is, therefore, a logical premise that students of business should also be effective communicators in English. Students learning English as an L2 or even third language, as is the case at the university in this study, require extra guidance in developing their writing skill (Bacha, 2012; Hinkel, 2011), particularly concerning discipline-specific conventions. Consequently, research into EFL environments, specifically, is needed not only to shed light on best educational practices for this particular context but also to begin understanding the role of cross-disciplinary training in communication skills and writing in EFL contexts.

Research affirms the somewhat universal and contentious debate over whose responsibility it is to teach English communication skills. An ever-increasing body of research reveals that faculty in a variety of disciplines other than English do not feel qualified to address students’ language deficiencies—nor do they feel that it is their job to do so or that they are competent to do so (Bacha & Bahous, 2008; Plutsky & Wilson, 2001; Townsend, 2008). The faculty in our study asserted the same point of view. But we contend that, with the growing awareness of the need for good communication skills in the workforce (NACE, 2012) and particularly of the value of writing in the learning process (Bazerman, 2009; Carter, 2007; Laster & Russ, 2010; Zhu, 2004), territorial division, particularly concerning communicative-skill development in an L2 or even third language, has to be a shared responsibility in an environment that is principally an EFL one.

Yet, it is understandable why the faculty in this study iterated such an entrenched position about sticking to content coverage. As in most universities, the departments at this university have jurisdiction over the curricula, and this university was founded on and follows conventional practice. It is preparing its graduates for the international market, a market that is Anglophonic in business culture as well as language. As such, content knowledge is regarded as the tool needed to compete in an arena that is foreign to the students’ experience. In the absence of a broader vision from the senior administration, the instructors in this study understandably placed a relentless emphasis on content coverage at the expense of other attributes that students will need to compete in the international arena.

The English department and business school faculty are clearly not engaged in any constructive dialogue concerning how to achieve the ultimate goal of producing graduates with strong English communication skills so that they can be as competitive as possible in their chosen industry. As Krishnan (2009) has recommended, all departments, especially those that function in EFL contexts, need to cooperate and engage in interdisciplinary dialogue instead of looking at their disciplines as a territory that should be protected from “outside infringement” (p. 23). The outdated paradigm of tribes and territories seems to inhibit the business students’ development of all the necessary skills and knowledge that they need to be competitive in the 21st century. Especially in EFL contexts, a new paradigm is needed—one in which disciplines work together to garner all the necessary attributes for graduates to succeed.

The literature strongly advocates giving students discipline-specific writing tasks and explicit instruction in genre knowledge so that they can become effective writers in their domain (Carter, 2007; Hyland, 2009; Zhu, 2004). According to Brent (2011), studies conducted about students learning to write in the workplace generally espouse studying models of authentic genres and extracting the writing strategies and genre principles that are considered conventional. Therefore, business students would benefit from writing in their discipline in authentic ways.

The business teachers who participated in our study had little knowledge of how to incorporate writing in business courses or how to promote effective language skills without compromising content coverage. Most of them talked about assignments without referring to the characteristics of the assignment, the length of the piece, the genres, or the expectations from the students. The study highlights the need for support for faculty who are willing to incorporate writing in their courses through training workshops and training in developing assessment rubrics for a language that is foreign to all concerned. Ultimately, this study corroborates Craig et al.’s (2010) assertion that learning to implement WAC across national and cultural boundaries is necessary. In addition, this study highlights the need to learn more about how to nurture communication skills in an L2 or third language across disciplinary boundaries in EFL contexts specifically. In such contexts, both the need for teaching writing skill that will transfer across the curriculum and the resistance to it, which is noted throughout the literature on WAC and skill transfer in English-speaking countries, seem to be augmented. Therefore, collaboration between English teachers and content staff becomes more important in these contexts in order to meet the challenges that have emerged from the internationalization of higher education in which more universities are using English as their medium of instruction.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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