ABSTRACT
Abstracts play an essential role in the academic field since they are the first section of a research article readers have at their disposal to determine its relevancy. Their main goal is to give a concise view of the articles that accompany them. Grounded on recent theoretical studies, this paper discusses the principles of a pedagogical learning cycle that can assist students in the development of their academic writing literacies in English. This cycle combines two methodologies traditionally used to develop writing literacies, the process-oriented approach and the genre-based one. Additionally, it presents classroom practices developed for the university context regarding the teaching of the academic genre “abstract” to undergraduates taking English at a Faculty of Letters in a public university of Minas Gerais. The participants were freshmen who were taking English One, in their first term in the context of higher education. The classes took place in September of 2017 and ran for one third of a sixty-hour mandatory course. They were aimed at discussing the stages of the learning cycle to help students’ understanding of how to write abstracts in English. The learning activities are thoroughly explained to demonstrate how the stages can be pedagogically applied to teaching practices. A brief analysis of one of the abstracts written by a participating group is given to show that the learning cycle can work well in assisting university students to adequately write abstracts. In a world where English is the major means of sharing scientific knowledge among members of academia, this writing pedagogy may be useful to learners in the process of composing abstracts in English as well as to professors teaching writing in the university context.
Keywords:
abstract; combined approach; writing in English
