Meet The Experts: An Interview with Dr. Svetlana Suchkova

Svetlana Suchkova, Higher School of Economics (HSE) University, Moscow, Russia
Interview conducted by Svetlana Koltovskaia, Northeastern State University, Tahlequah, OK, USA

Svetlana: Could you tell us when and how you got into the field of SLW?

Svetlana: It may seem strange, but it is a story of reflection on my own limitations and gaps in formal education coupled with a desire to perfect my profession. This is what stimulated me to learn how to write in English. Although I graduated from a pedagogical university with a diploma as a teacher of English, I had not been taught how to write in English. There was no course in rhetoric and composition. At those times – last century - the grammar-translation method was used in language training; classical literature texts served as major learning materials for reading, literature analysis, translating, expanding vocabulary, and mastering grammar.

When I started teaching at the university, not only did the world become more open to international collaboration and traveling, but also computers came into our lives, stimulating written communication in English with colleagues and students. The first time I felt the need to learn more about writing in English was during the College University Partnership Program (CUPP) sponsored by the USIA. In 1995, the university I worked for (Kuibyshev Pedagogical University) together with Maryland University, College Park, started a project on creating a textbook on the U.S. culture. I became a member of a group of Russian and American writers. The project was a success, and the textbook Sharpen Your Skills was republished several times and widely used to raise would-be English teachers’ awareness of American culture.

While working on the textbook, I had to negotiate details with American colleagues in writing and realized how different the perception of a written text is in our cultures. What seemed clear and inferable from context to me required clarification for my American partners. Only later, reading about contrastive rhetoric and learning about Anglo-Saxon writing conventions, I realized that in Russian, the responsibility for text comprehension lies with the reader, while in English, the writer is responsible for understanding. Applying the writing strategies that worked well in my mother tongue was not effective in English.

To develop my writing skills, I attended lots of courses and seminars on learning/teaching writing and participated in many collaborative projects of the British Council and the Regional English Language Office of the American Embassy. Just to mention a few milestones on the way, I defended a Ph.D. dissertation, created writing courses for students and faculty, published several textbooks, and served as an editor of several journals. As the British Council teacher trainer and Cambridge ESOL examiner, I have been presenting at national and international conferences and symposia, running numerous workshops, and organizing writing events.

After 25 years of teaching and training experience, I accepted an offer to direct a faculty-focused Academic Writing Center (AWC: https://academics.hse.ru/en/awc/ ) at the Higher School of Economics, a leading Russian university. The AWC offers courses, workshops, and one-on-one consultations to research writers. We also collect resources, create materials and blogs, and run a YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-9U0UpMTH2N4UtK962gGEQ ) for those who are interested in writing for research publication purposes. We launched various projects and events; the highlight of 2021 was an international conference Supporting Faculty in Writing for Publication: Best Practices (https://academics.hse.ru/awc/awc_conference_2021/).

I am also an active member and a vice-president of the National Consortium of Writing Centers in Russia. But I never stop learning to develop professionally. Now my passion is using AI as a writing assistant.

Svetlana: Could you tell us what kind of research you do?

Svetlana: Working with academics, naturally, I research into challenges that non-native speakers of English face while writing for publication. In the center, we strive to cater to the needs of our clients – to know what to “feed,” we learn about what they need.

We conduct surveys to build the clients’ profiles in terms of their level of proficiency and autonomy in acquiring language skills; we collect their requirements for workshop topics and identify their expectations about the services the center offers. These findings help us design educational programs for academics. Another source of such information is a diagnostic orientation module Finding Your Route to Research Writing, which I created for the Higher School of Economics talent pool program members. We have been running the module annually since 2018. It aims to provide data on academics’ experience in writing for publication and the specific challenges they meet. Each participant gets individual feedback on their language strengths and weaknesses as well as recommendations for improvement. (See more: Suchkova, S., & Golechkova, T. (2022). "Now I Know Where to Start": Results of a Diagnostic Orientation Session for Academics. Learning Assistance Review (TLAR), 27(2), 181-207.)

We also research the efficacy of consultation techniques and the levels of clients’ satisfaction with the services the center offers. We are interested in the impact of the services on academics’ writing skills development, too.

Svetlana: What person or experience has had the greatest impact on your research/career?

Svetlana: That is a hard question. I am grateful for my career growth to so many people. And every experience has also been conducive to it. I can mention at least two projects. Both of them were focused on materials development and involved research and training, discussing ideas and learning from others, writing and piloting materials, and giving and receiving feedback. Both projects implied a rigorous selection of participants and their long-term commitment.

The first one is RESPONSE (Russian Education Support Project on Specialist English) organized by the British Council. We created materials for a 72-hour professional development course for ESP university teachers and published the participants and the teacher’s books. The project allowed me to grow as a methodologist and materials designer. The training sessions with Mike Scholey and Lyudmila Kuznetsova were invaluable.

Another project that has had a great impact on me was English for Academics, which resulted in publishing a Cambridge University Press (CUP) series of skills-integrated textbooks. Rod Bolitho’s feedback and guidance contributed a lot to the success of the project as a whole and my skills enhancement in particular. The project was very useful as it gave insights into the international publishing process, too.

Svetlana: What is the biggest issue or challenge in the field, as you see it?

Svetlana: I think English for research publication purposes (ERPP) is still an emerging field, and all ESL writers need to be trained in this area. Even proficient learners of English need to raise their awareness of conventions and publication process requirements. As experience shows, a high level of language proficiency does not guarantee publication success; one needs to know the rules of the game. The issue here is who can provide such training. In the Russian context, for example, there are very few academic writing instructors, as pedagogical universities still do not offer this field as a major. Teachers of English often see themselves as practitioners; they may not be prolific research writers either. The situation seems to be even more complicated due to several other factors. Although academics are stimulated to publish in English, many of them have had no writing experience in English before they reach the post-graduate level. Students write academic papers in Russian (except those who are enrolled in double-degree programs) and may need more training in Academic English. Unfortunately, there is no smooth continuity between tertiary-level English programs in many universities either. All these factors put an additional burden on those who would like to write and publish research in English.

Trying to bridge the gap, the center initiates various programs, including collaborative projects with experts from other cultures. We offer ERPP seminars, organize writers’ retreats, and create self-study materials for academics. An essential project of ours is AWC School of Trainers. This year-long course has been specifically designed for experienced teachers of English who would like to get a qualification in teaching ERPP.

Svetlana: Could you share some of the most interesting findings from your recent research?

Svetlana: Our annual surveys show that all the activities of the center greatly contribute to the development of the clients’ research writing skills: 62% of respondents claimed this in 2022, and this figure reached 71 % in 2023. That is a very rewarding result. The share of clients satisfied with our services’ quality is also very high because we have been managing to take into consideration our clients’ needs and requests. The topics, which are on top of their training wish list, do not change much with the years; they require workshops on grammar and syntax, coherence and clarity of writing, genre features of a research article, and punctuation. The most popular request now is using AI in writing, and we have started a series of workshops, introducing AI tools for searching the literature, reading, text generating, and editing. We have also organized a group of AI Geeks, who meet once a week to play with the tools.

Svetlana: As an expert in the field of SLW who has done extensive research and service for the field and community, what would you recommend for someone who wants to develop expertise in SLW?

Svetlana: I am always very cautious about the word expert.If one starts seeing themselves in such a way, it may lead to stagnation. I think all of us are life-long learners and need to acquire new skills to follow the trends.

Risking sounding banal, I would nevertheless like to say that to be better writers, we need to write, to write in different genres, paying attention to how readers respond to our writing and what questions they ask. Reflecting on this will lead to understanding how clearly we express our ideas. To start improving our writing skills, we need to identify our own writing strengths and weaknesses first – a good way to do that is to give our texts to someone for feedback. Of course, we have to know the conventions of writing in English and the typical features of different genres – reading and courses won’t hurt to get the knowledge. Learning from others is also a beneficial way of mastering writing skills. Analyzing well-written samples and thinking about what makes them such adds to our skills acquisition. And I would recommend teaching others to write; by teaching others, we become better writers ourselves.

Svetlana Suchkova, Ph.D., an associate professor, directs the Academic Writing Center at the Higher School of Economics (HSE University), Moscow. She is also a vice-president of the National Writing Centers Consortium. She is a teacher trainer and materials developer. She authored and co-authored several EFL course books for Russian university students and researchers, among them English for Academics series (CUP, 2014, 2015) and How to Write a Research Article (Nauka, 2020). She has participated in numerous national and international conferences with presentations and workshops, edited the Scopus-indexed Journal of AsiaTEFL. The areas of her expertise are academic writing, writing for research publication purposes, public speaking, and teacher training.
 

Svetlana Koltovskaia is an Assistant Professor of English and Director of the ESL Academy at Northeastern State University, Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Her research centers around L2 writing, computer-assisted language learning, and L2 assessment. She had her works published in journals like Assessing Writing, ReCall, JALT CALL, and TESL-EJ.