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145 Apuntes de Investigación en la Enseñanza de Idiomas

Results

One major theme that emerges from the interviews is the transition from one stage to the next. Par-
ticipants describe and complain about changing demands from one stage of education to the next.
Amelina, for example, found it very difficult that despite having been an exemplary student during her
undergraduate studies, she was constantly corrected during the MA. She feels she went from being
the perfect student to an average student; This is true for all levels of writer spoken to. Priscila also
mentions that during her PhD studies she confronted changing expectations from her professors. “In
the PhD I felt frustrated because I felt that what I had learned or what the teachers had taught me in
the MA didn’t work any longer” (Priscila). She goes on to say that she felt that her MA professors must
have lied to her about the right way to write. She laughs at this now, but we should not lose sight of
what was a very real emotion during her PhD studies.

Another theme is the role of external and internal motivation as writers. Rebeca, who represents the
highest level of writing development among our participants talks about her journey as an academic
writer form writing to fulfil formal course requirements, that is, the dissertation for her MA and her
PhD, through writing to garner points for the academic bonus system which complements a profes-
sor’s salary, to feeling a need to write for her community. A related theme is the level of independence
necessary to move along this continuum of development as a writer. Delia expressed a need to fur-
ther support in order to finish her MA dissertation and to become a writer. She wants someone to tell
her that her writing is good and that she is doing the right thing.

Conclusions
Until recently the primary mode of academic production in the language teaching profession in Mexico
has been in more oral forms of communication, classes and lectures and conference presentations.
The writers we spoke to associate this mode of academic production to undergraduate studies whe-
re they see writing as a mechanical process of paraphrasing previous knowledge and fulfilling course
requirements. There is still relatively little written academic production directly associated to the field
of foreign language teaching in Mexico. This has reduced our access to the respect commanded by
more developed professions. In this paper we argue that the coming of age of the profession is rela-
ted to the coming of age of the individual writers who make up the profession. This is simply because
the generation of a meaningful and contextualized body of knowledge in the academic literature
which we need to become a respected profession can only result from the varied production of a
wide community of individual writers who are in constant dialogue about the central issues in the field.

In order to promote the development of this community of writers, we need to set up mechanisms
which will support the development of individual writers. These mechanisms would involve ques-
tions like the provision of timely and meaningful feedback and the inclusion of students in the writing
process in apprenticeships. However, there are also some aspects of becoming a writer which are
maturational, the ability to recognize that the stakes have changed and that what is currently ex-
pected of one as a writer has moved beyond previous expectations is an individual realization which
probably cannot be forced on the writer. The development of personal stakes in what is written rather
than responding to external demands is also something that results from a very personal process of
reflection and self-awareness.