Teaching English Academic Writing to Non-Linguistic Undergraduates: The BelSU Case
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52575/2712-7451-2026-45-2-310-322Keywords:
academic writing, English for Academic Purposes, non-linguistic university, academic literacies, genre approach, process approach, disciplinary integration, BelSUAbstract
Non-linguistic undergraduates need English to read international literature, take part in international projects and present research results; therefore, English academic writing becomes a necessary component of their training. The relevance of the study is determined by insufficient academic writing skills and the need for teaching methods that combine genre and process approaches. The purpose of the study is to substantiate, on the basis of the BelSU case, a transferable six-stage model for developing English academic writing competences and supporting students' earlier entry into research communication.
A qualitative pedagogical-analytical study was carried out. The empirical basis was the BelSU two-step trajectory: a course in academic writing in Russian followed by a cross-curricular elective in English academic writing for non-linguistic programmes. The main difficulties are insufficient knowledge of academic genres, weak source-use skills and separation between language training and disciplinary content. The proposed model includes diagnosis, genre modelling, lexical-grammatical scaffolding, drafting with feedback, source work with academic integrity, and disciplinary integration. This trajectory gave students experience in finding, citing and formatting foreign sources and mastering the structure of a research article; by the end of the third year, they prepared publication-oriented texts for a local foreign-language journal. English academic writing should be treated as academic literacy and a way of entering professional discourse communities. The novelty of the BelSU case lies in linking Russian-language preparation, English academic writing and publication-oriented results; further verification requires quantitative indicators of participation, publication readiness, source-use quality and error dynamics.
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