Escrita acadêmica e ação comunicativa: reflexões do professor sobre a produção de textos acadêmicos em inglês no contexto universitário na Venezuela

Abstract

Teaching writing in a foreign language at the university level is a process that involves linguistic, communicative, and discursive aspects. In the case of initial teacher training, these aspects contribute to the development of students' critical skills for creating and using genres specific to the academic sphere. In this regard, this research aims to understand how academic writing is taught by English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers at the Universidad Nacional Experimental Francisco de Miranda (UNEFM) in Venezuela, considering the linguistic, communicative, and discursive aspects that constitute the production of academic texts. Theoretically, the study is based on Habermas' Theory of Communicative Action (TCA), as well as contributions from academic literacy studies by Lea and Street (1998) and the Genre Pedagogy Model by Devitt (2009). The methodology is grounded in research-training with a qualitative approach, using discussion groups and document analysis as tools for data collection. The discussion group consisted of four professors from the UNEFM Department of Languages, who, over three sessions, shared their theoretical and methodological conceptions of academic writing instruction in English. The document analysis included two institutional documents: instructional designs of the courses in the English Program and the graduate profile of UNEFM. Extracts from institutional documents and participants’ discourse were analyzed and interpreted through the stages of critical hermeneutics: preconception, understanding, interpretation, and self-comprehensionreflection. Among the research findings, institutional documents from UNEFM indicate that academic writing is considered an essential competency for students' development, emphasizing textual production as a way to demonstrate linguistic and sociocultural knowledge. The participating professors pointed out challenges related to the lack of specific training for teaching academic writing, especially in a foreign language, and highlighted the need for a more integrative approach that encompasses linguistic, discursive, and communicative aspects of writing. The discussion group generated reflections on pedagogical practices that prioritize various academic genres, such as summaries and essays, but often require greater contextualization or a more direct connection with students’ academic and professional realities. As part of the teachers' contributions, a critical approach to teaching academic writing emerged, integrating the TCA perspective and emphasizing the need to foster dialogic interactions between teachers and students while considering technical-instrumental, practical-interpretative, and critical-emancipatory interests in writing instruction