Exploring Iranian Postgraduate EFL Students’ Academic Writing Experiences and Expectations: A Dynamic Narrative Approach

In spite of the existence of writing courses for postgraduate students in English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) contexts, their academic writing proficiency remains low. Therefore, EFL students’ academic experiences and expectations need to be explored to identify their needs. To this end, a dynamic narrative approach was adopted to examine the academic experiences and expectations of 21 Iranian postgraduate EFL students qualitatively. The narratives were analyzed based on their plots, values, and significance, adapted from Daiute (2014). The findings revealed that EFL students linked their challenges to insufficient and improper instructions. Furthermore, they asserted that their needs are ignored, and teachers use different criteria and expectations to evaluate their writing. On the whole, students’ expectations about writing courses did not align with their actual experiences. The findings of this study about EFL students’ experiences and expectations draw curriculum designers’ and teachers’ attention to those aspects of academic writing that need to be reconsidered. Understanding the actual requirements of writing courses can bridge the gap between teachers’ and students’ expectations.