An Investigation Into The Process Of Thesis Writing Of The Senior Students In The English Department At East China Normal University

The past decade has witnessed a steady increase of interest in EFL writing among Chinese researchers who have investigated a wide range of topics (Li & Li, 2003). However, in spite of the large number of studies conducted so far, certain problems exist in contemporary research such as inadequate attention paid to the learner, lack of scientific and objective means of evaluation, and disproportionate use of empirical research methods. At the same time, research on academic disciplines has flourished and continued among researchers overseas. Nevertheless, as Li (2007) points out, most of these studies were concerned with students in social sciences and humanities at North American universities and tended to be housed in the context of a disciplinary curriculum, i.e. examining how individual students represent and fulfill coursework writing tasks. There is a lack of parallel research with nonnative English speaking (hence NNES in this study) students in non-Anglophone settings such as Asian universities (Braine, 2002).Hence, the present study is to explore the processes of thesis writing of the 92 graduating English majors at the East China Normal University by comparing the data obtained from different sources: questionnaires and interviews with eight pairs of students and their paired supervisors under the guidance of two theoretical concepts: acquisition of academic literacy and legitimate peripheral participation. Here the notion of academic literacy adopts the interpretation of Braine (2002) who emphasizes that it is more than the reading and writing abilities and involves lots of social skills such as the ability to adapt to academic culture and to interact with one's supervisors and peers.Results show that: 1) Differences exist between students and supervisors in the perceptions of writing difficulties and the quality and quantity of assistance which should have been provided. As a result, it was not uncommon that students probed in the dark and learned from their own mistakes without adequate guidance from supervisors while supervisors were not satisfied with their students' academic performance. 2) The process of socialization through writing was not successful in terms of enculturation to the academic community. 3) Some underlying pedagogical problems are revealed behind the issues of "literature searching", "elements of good writing", "research originality and creativity" and the like.Based on these findings, this thesis explores some implications such as there is a need for a team of more EAP-qualified professionals and a comprehensive supportive system where a great part is played by supervisors and an equally large part is played by the academic community consisting of research development programmes, student peer support mechanism, a less formal and more personal support and development mechanism; students need to be encouraged to work higher conceptual and critical levels; a more systematic evaluation system is needed.