Abstract
Today, the number of Japanese universities has decreased to less than 70%, requiring students to write a senior thesis as part of the graduation requirements (Kawaijuku, 2017). It may result from the weak motivation toward writing that Japanese students have. That might be because not a small number of students perceive writing a senior thesis challenging when completing a senior thesis is deemed to be the culmination of four years of academic learning. The course was created, based on the student's need for supportive instruction and assistance through the process of writing, with a focus on a pre-writing phase. It aims at students' discovery of their research topic and overview of the senior thesis, which will lead to the fourth-year senior thesis. This paper outlines the key findings from developing a course designed for the pre-writing stage of a senior thesis writing process of students at an English department of a university in Japan. The course is designed to assist third-year students in starting to prepare to write a thesis by thinking critically and logically. Pedagogical approaches were explored, and an active learning course, chiefly in the style of task-based learning, was developed. In three modules, it first focuses on idea generation, then research and outlining, and finally presentation of the overview of the thesis. In addition to the student needs, the background of the course, the educational setting, the characteristic tasks representing each of three modules, complexities, and implications are discussed.
Author Information
Satomi Yoshimuta, Kwassui Women’s University, Japan
Paper Information
Conference: SEACE2023
Stream: Teaching Experiences
This paper is part of the SEACE2023 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Yoshimuta S. (2023) Designing a Couse for Building Effective Pre-writing Skills of Academic Thesis ISSN: 2435-5240 The Southeast Asian Conference on Education 2023: Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2435-5240.2023.56
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2435-5240.2023.56
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