Addressing academic writing needs of ESL (English as a Second Language) undergraduate students

This study reports on a genre-based study examining the employment of communicative purposes (moves) in the body paragraphs of academic essays written by ESL (English as a Second Language) students at a university in Malaysia. A move analysis on the body paragraphs of student English academic essays is carried out using Peacock’s (2002) move-structure model of the discussion section. Students’ perceptions on their academic writing experience elicited through an interview are included as an accompanying data. The present study has pedagogical implications in teaching academic writing to ESL undergraduate students.