Teaching academic writing to university staff as a part of continuing education

the paper summarizes the author’s three-year experience of academic writing teaching to the members of Petrozavodsk State University faculty. The developed course of scientific writing is based on the andragogical model of education and the following methodological approaches: linguistic, cognitive, cultural-linguistic and learner-centered. The course includes two PowerPoint presentation lectures accompanied by discussions, and five educational modules. Each module is aimed at studying specific features of each scientific research paper section and an abstract. A text-centered principle is applied in every module. Considering the text at the macro level, the learners analyze it as an entity, they examine its logical structure and cohesion of individual sections, look into a paragraph arrangement and stylistic features. Dealing with the text at the micro level, the students analyze a separate sentence; learn about agreement between the subject and predicate, parallel structures arrangement, multiple meanings (polysemy) of English and Russian words, etc. Some cultural linguistic features of English are of importance for the learners. For instance, the meanings of certain tense forms, different ways of expressing intentions (modality) and a different word order in both languages. The students submit a first draft of their paper section by the end of each module. The drafts are proofread and discussed by the students in a form of peer-to-peer reviewing in the classroom. Each student has an opportunity to consult with an instructor individually, either face-to-face or via e-mail. Almost 60-70% of learners prepare their scientific research paper by the completion of the course