From early stages of their degree programme, MA seminar students desperately need a sense of direction and support to be able to move ahead with their research projects. In English-medium instructional contexts (like English Studies in Poland), supervisors' feedback on both the content of their planned research AND language (which is a foreign language for them) helps make progress. Here is how I tackle this challenge - fully online this semester - in my Research Writing Moodle course. 1. MA seminar. I created a Moodle forum dedicated to the development of content for MA thesis proposals and called it “MA seminar”. The students created Google Docs entitled “MA thesis proposal e-portfolio” and shared the links in this forum. Each week they complete tasks that engage them in planning research and developing content for their projects so that they are able to conduct their studies next semester. I give feedback on students' ideas directly in their Google Docs. Having a forum with all these links is very convenient. 2. Academic Writing. Similarly, I created a Moodle forum focused on the improvement of writing and called it “Academic Writing”. The students created Google Docs entitled “Academic Writing e-portfolio” and shared the links in this forum. Weekly tasks engage them in improving English and developing writing strategies so that they can write their MA theses according to academic norms and conventions. I assess students’ work and give them feedback, directly in their Google Docs, on language, text organisation and content. 3. Research Writers’ Forum. Finally, in order to keep track of students’ problems and to react to these problems, I created a Moodle forum, called it “Research Writers’ Forum” and generated a thread “My burning question/s”. I invited my students to voice concerns there, ask questions, etc. I respond to these issues and keep the dialog going with each student. Importantly, apart from my support, MA seminar students also need to interact with various members of the professional community of practice. In my next post I will explain how I enable this in my Research Writers course this semester.
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