An Applied Linguistic Analysis of EFL Teacher Trainees’ Communicative Language Ability in Academic Writing

Abstract

This article presents the research findings on EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teacher trainees‟ communicative language ability (CLA) in academic writing. Although CLA in English has long been the major concern in an EFL teacher training program, it remains to a large extent a problematic issue in EFL teaching. The research was conducted at the FKIP, Jember University, and the infomants were 50 students. The research design was qualitative with the synthetic approach of obtaining the research data. The research data were compiled by using questionnaire, interview, and documentary studies. The data were analyzed by using the ethnography of communication and the gooficon analysis for the respondents‟ essays and thesis extracts. The result shows that the EFL teacher trainees‟ communicative ability in academic writing did not, to a large extent, control the cohesion and oherence of their essays. This remains problematic issues of the teacher trainees‟ academic writing today.