Juha Jalkanen

Voices of pedagogical development – Expanding, enhancing and exploring higher education language learning

This reflective practice paper offers some insights into teaching an interdisciplinary academic writing course aimed at promoting process writing. The study reflects on students’ acquisition of writing skills and the teacher’s support practices in a digital writing environment. It presents writers’ experiences related to various stages of process writing, their growing awareness of becoming good writers but also the constant struggle with common writing problems. Preconceived attitudes towards the process of writing provide further obstacles for students to overcome in an interdisciplinary and intercultural learning environment. A writer often overcomes the barriers to effective writing by acquiring strategies for independent, self-directed learning. Course experiences may help teachers develop efficient writing courses for the new language learning environments and thus to promote students’ academic writing competence.