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This qualitative study investigates the strategies that students from Asian language backgrounds use to cope with writing assignments in their academic fields at a New Zealand university. It also focuses on the perceived usefulness of the credit-bearing English Academic Writing course designed to accompany and support their first-year studies. Findings showed that in writing assignments for their other subject papers, the participating ESOL students resorted to faithful reproduction of texts as it rewarded them with better grades than writing in their own voice.

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Irmengard Wohlfart (BA Literature and Linguistics, Massey University, NZ; MA Language Teaching and Learning, Auckland University; ProfMA Translation Studies, Auckland University) has lived in New Zealand for over 25 years and teaches English at Auckland University of Technology.

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