EFL students making sense of good writing: the case of Algerian third year pre-service ENSB teacher trainees

Abstract EN

Writing plays a major role in students’ academic success as a skill used in both English language teaching and evaluation in the EFL context.

this study investigates third year students’ perceptions of good writing as it is taught and practiced at l’ecole normale supérieure de Bouzareah-Algiers (ENSB) by answering the following question: how do students perceive good writing? to answer this question, qualitative data was collected from semi-structured questionnaire and a follow up interview and were thematically analysed as part of a PhD thesis on students' journeys of becoming writers.

thus, i will focus on students’ understanding of the standards of good writing while they negotiate access and recognition as writers of the academic writing community.

the findings reveal five main features of good writing which are: mastery of English, positive impact on the reader, and finally having some writing ethics like honestly, commitment and responsibility towards the readers.