Abstract:
The continued impact of the globalisation of education on Australian Universities challenges educators to develop new understandings of the writing of overseas students. Overseas students are an integral part of our university classrooms. This paper arises from a series of case studies of students undertaking an MBA at an Australian university has as its focus a case study of a Thai student following her progress from the commencement of a set of lectures, the setting of a writing assessment task, through her research and production of the essay, to the lecturer's assessment and subsequent events. It highlights the cultural mismatch of the student and lecturer as academic discourse is attempted. It examines some of the ways that academic writing has been viewed and using extracts from interviews with the Thai student and her lecturer, as well as the student's essay, suggests a more complex understanding of the writing of overseas students, and consequently how this writing is read by lecturers, is necessary to meet the needs of these new times.