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Abstract: In the current context, the need for written communication has increased significantly, and e-mail correspondence, both at the informal and formal levels, is a generally accepted and widely used means of communication among scholars. Yet, despite the widespread use of academic writing programs in English at Russian universities, not enough attention is being paid to writing formal e-mail messages. The aim of this study is to experimentally discover the potential of genre pedagogy to develop the skills of writing scholarly e-mail messages at a technical university. One hundred first-year postgraduate students of technical specialties at the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI in the 2020/2021 academic year took part in the experiment. Texts of academic e-mail messages written by the participants of the experiment while fulfilling three writing assignments served as material for a qualitative analysis. The students were also asked to answer several questions regarding their perception of how much their writing skills have improved and what characterizes the academic email message genre in general. The contribution of each au- thor in this study is as follows: N. L. Vasilieva – 55%, E. V. Aleshinskaya – 45%. The study has revealed that first-year postgraduate stu- dents of a technical university lack the necessary knowledge of the main content, structural and stylistic features of academic electronic correspondence in English, and at the same time has demonstrated an urgent need for such knowledge. As a result, it has been shown that owing to the application of the genre-based approach, in a relatively short period of time, the students became able to achieve significant success and noticeably improve their performance in the following components: communicative task fulfillment, text and language organization, and conformity to the style. The article demonstrates the great potential of genre pedagogy in the formation of written communication skills.

About the author(s) :

Natalia L. Vasilieva
National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow, Russia)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4715-3181

Evgeniya V. Aleshinskaya
National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow, Russia)

ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5684-5852

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 01.11.2021; date of publication: 31.03.2024

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