This study investigates recurrent multiword sequences RMS in English as a foreign language in Indonesian undergraduate students’ academic writing. This study builds a bridge between the study of RMS and English foreign language teaching and learning at university level, where RMS are seen as indicators of learning and the development of writing fluency. The study includes three analytical perspectives: a cross-sectional corpus-based analysis of RMS in students’ writing as a measure of academic register learning; a content analysis of the learning and teaching materials used with current cohorts of students with a view to establishing whether materials provided enough content about RMS or other linguistic expressions to help students compose their academic work; and interviews with stakeholders in the learning and teaching process (students, academic writing lecturers, head of department) to gain insight into institutional teaching and learning practices and thereby explain and contextualise the corpus analysis.
The corpus data analysis followed Biber et al. (1999)’s model and comprised RMS frequency and distribution analyses, as well as the analysis of RMS structural features, and their discourse functions. The findings of corpus data analyses revealed that both first and final year students use only a small number of fewer distinct types of RMS. In addition, the analysis results show that only a minority of students in both groups were able to produce longer RMS (e.g., as cited in reference, is one of the). The structural and functional analyses of the RMS used by students show that there is very limited structural and functional variety in their repertoire of RMS. From the point of view of writing development, these results might indicate problems in students’ capacity for English proficiency, particularly in terms of complexity and fluency. These results also suggest that there have not been immediate effects of academic writing courses on the development of RMS for both groups of students.
The content analysis of the learning and teaching materials results show that both subjects (YEAR1 Intensive Course IC and YEAR4 Writing for Academic Purposes) do not provide explicit writing instruction or appropriate materials to enable students to improve academic writing proficiency through practice. Notably vocabulary and structural phenomena that could, with practice, stabilise into fluency-enhancing RMS are missing. If relevant vocabulary and structural phenomena were taught without being referenced in the materials, this teaching must be characterised as ineffective because these structures are not reflected in the students’ use of RMS.
The analysis results of interviews show that despite the differences in their respective perspectives, students, lecturers, and the head of the department agreed that there were problems in the teaching and learning process and learning outcomes of English for academic purposes at the university, in particular for academic writing. This appears to support the findings of the linguistic analyses and the content analysis of teaching and learning materials. The problem of a lack of development and a lack of routinisation of writing for the majority of students, as reflected in the use of RMS in academic writing cannot be separated from the existence of difficulties they encountered in learning academic writing, which appear to be substantially influenced by institutional practices and policy that determine the shape of learning and teaching materials, the assignment of teachers to learner groups, and the delivery of teaching academic writing in class.
Considering the results of all data analyses, this study concludes with the pedagogical implications in which the materials of RMS and their use in the learning process, particularly in EFL classrooms, should be explicitly introduced, implemented, and developed in EAP materials. This study concludes that incorporating RMS into teaching and learning processes should be considered a solution to increase students’ understanding of linguistics concepts and language skills. The analysis results from this current study further strengthen the importance of the inclusion and integration of RMS in EFL teaching and learning activities.
