Teaching Academic English to Russian-speaking Academic Staff: The Case of the Office of Academic Writing

The paper discusses the preliminary results of teaching academic writing to scientific and academic staff at South Ural State University (national research university) within the framework of advanced training courses. The 36 and 72-hour training programs were developed by the academic and methodological department of the Office of Academic Writing. The Office was opened at the university in 2016 in order to improve the academic literacy of the university’s academic staff, develop professional communication skills in English, and assist authors who aspire to get their papers published in top rated scientific journals indexed in the scientific citation databases Scopus and Web of Science. Upon completion of these programs, authors of scientific papers gain knowledge about the basics of academic writing, the structure of a scientific paper, the English scientific style and its lexical and grammatical features, as well as editing a paper, working with scientific citation databases, and elaborating a publishing strategy. We conducted a study from October 2016 to December 2018 and calculated data on the attendees’ affiliation (an institute or higher school), the contingent (position), and the importance of the offered training programs (the number of attendees in each course). The obtained data indicates that representatives of social-humanitarian and technical fields show a special interest in the courses. The courses of academic writing are most popular among associate professors who have experience in publishing papers in Russian. Authors are especially interested in intensive practice-oriented programs. Upon completion of the courses and with the support of the Office of Academic Writing, attendees prepared scientific texts in English and submitted them to top rated journals and conference proceedings. The educational activity of the Office of Academic Writing can be developed through elaboration and implementation of new advanced training programs, including the distance ones. Their effectiveness will be evaluated by an increase in the publication activity of the university’s employees.