Conference proceedings

​​Beyond text as the gold standard: Multimodality, scholarly legitimacy, and rigor in the age of AI

Keynote presentation by Sidury Christiansen
University of Texas at San Antonio

This keynote argues that multimodality is no longer a stylistic enhancement of academic writing but an epistemic shift that is redefining what counts as clarity and rigor in scholarly communication. Practices such as bullet-pointed research summaries, video and graphic abstracts, journal-produced multimodal content, and platform-based scholarly commentary do not merely disseminate research; they reorganize how knowledge is represented, interpreted, and recognized as legitimate. As these genres become central to how scholarship circulates and is taken up, standards of rigor increasingly extend beyond textual argumentation to include visual reasoning, design coherence, and multimodal alignment.

At the same time, this transformation is uneven and contested. Multimodality is often required without being substantively evaluated, producing symbolic rather than fully epistemic change. In the age of AI, however, the shift is accelerated: automated summarization, algorithmic visibility, and platform-driven circulation increasingly shape what is identified as the “core” of research and whose work gains authority. These infrastructures not only intensify new standards of clarity and impact but also risk introducing new forms of gatekeeping based on technological, linguistic, and design capital.

By examining emerging multimodal genres in academic publishing, this keynote reframes multimodality as a change in knowledge standards rather than presentation alone. It concludes by considering the implications for international scholars and for academic writing instruction, asking what forms of rigor future writers must master—and for whom these emerging standards are attainable.

Presenter: M. Sidury Christiansen, PhD, a Full Professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, a Fulbright Scholar, and an English Language Specialist. Her research focuses on digital literacy and multimodality in relation to language ideologies, identity, and academic knowledge production. She examines how emerging genres and technologies—particularly in multilingual and international contexts—are transforming what counts as clarity, rigor, and legitimacy in academic communication.

ERPP writing in the age of AI: New challenges, enduring literacies, and pedagogical priorities

Keynote presentation by Karen Ottewell
University of Cambridge

The rapid integration of generative AI tools into academic writing has fundamentally altered the landscape of English for Research Publication Purposes (ERPP). For multilingual and novice scholars in particular, AI presents a paradox: unprecedented linguistic support alongside new risks related to authorship, voice, disciplinary alignment, and research integrity. This talk examines the evolving challenges ERPP writers face in the AI era and argues for a recalibration of pedagogical focus that moves beyond surface-level language correction toward deeper rhetorical, ethical, and epistemic competencies.

Drawing on emerging classroom practices, institutional policies, and writer experiences, the talk first outlines key challenges confronting ERPP writers today. These include over-reliance on AI-generated text, difficulties maintaining authorial stance and disciplinary voice, uneven access to AI literacy, and heightened anxiety around plagiarism, transparency, and acceptable use. For ERPP learners, AI does not eliminate the need for writing expertise; rather, it amplifies the consequences of weak genre awareness, limited rhetorical control, and fragile publication strategies.

The plenary then proposes a principled teaching response. It argues that ERPP pedagogy should prioritise (1) rhetorical and genre consciousness over linguistic polish, (2) critical AI literacy, including evaluation, prompting, and ethical decision-making, and (3) writer agency, positioning AI as a contingent tool rather than a surrogate author. Practical pedagogical shifts are discussed, such as redesigning writing tasks, assessment practices, and feedback to foreground decision-making, revision histories, and disciplinary norms.

The session concludes by reframing ERPP teachers not as gatekeepers resisting AI, but as mediators helping writers navigate a complex, AI-saturated research ecology. In doing so, it offers a future-oriented vision of ERPP that remains firmly grounded in scholarly communication, integrity, and writer development.

Presenter: Karen Ottewell, PhD, is currently the Acting Director of the Language Centre at the University of Cambridge, where she is also Director of Academic Development & Training for International Students.

Psychology of writing: A cognitive perspective on writing processes and difficulties

Keynote presentation by Ekaterina Redkina
Moscow Pedagogical State University

Writers are often divided—by themselves and by others—into “good” or “bad” writers, or into those who enjoy writing and those who struggle with it. Contemporary writing manuals and academic writing guides typically focus on the product: text structure, cohesion and coherence, genre conventions, paragraph development, and punctuation. While these resources are invaluable, they rarely address why writing is cognitively difficult, or how writers can cope with challenges such as writer’s block, cognitive overload, or resistance to writing.

Writing, however, is a defining feature of human cognition. To generate ideas, organize thoughts, and produce written texts effectively, we need to understand the cognitive processes underlying writing, including attention, working memory, executive control, motivation, self-regulation, and goal setting.

In this talk, we explore the psychology of writing through the lens of several influential cognitive models (Flower & Hayes, Kellogg, Berninger). We discuss how understanding writing from a psychological perspective can help writers overcome common writing difficulties and support teachers in emphasizing writing as a process that relies heavily on students’ reflection, metacognition, and goal setting. A psychological approach to writing validates writing as an often messy, flexible, and exploratory activity, rather than a linear process aimed at producing immediately polished texts.

Presenter: Ekaterina Redkina, a psychologist and a qualified English teacher with 17-year experience. She is CELTA and Delta (M1-2) holder and Fulbright and ELEX scholar. Currently, she is giving lectures on TESOL and psychology at the Institute of International Education of Moscow Pedagogical State University. Her primary interests lie at the intersection of teaching and psychology.

Unintended consequences of AI usage in academic writing and research evaluation

Keynote presentation by Ivan Sterligov
E-Quadrat Science & Education

In less than five years, AI has fundamentally reshaped academia, with scholarly literature being the most affected area. All major processes have been impacted: search and synthesis, writing and evaluation. While there are profound advantages for authors, readers, and reviewers, in this talk the speaker will focus on the problematic side: AI slop tsunami, cognitive distrust, reverse centaurs, second-order hallucinations, systemic anti-novelty, US\China dominance, robot gatekeepers, generational gap, and false accusations.

Presenter: Ivan Sterligov, a specialist in applied scientometrics and research evaluation and a Senior Advisor at E-Quadrat Science & Education. Previously, he founded and led the Scientometrics Center at the Higher School of Economics. He has published in Research Evaluation, JASIST, the Journal of Informetrics, and Scientometrics and regularly delivers educational courses in the field of scholarly communication.

Academic essay as a gateway genre in academic literacy development among non-linguistic students

Research paper presentation by Liliya Yusupova
Petrozavodsk State University

Academic literacy is widely recognized as a core educational outcome of higher education; however, its development often remains fragmented at early stages of university study. In many Russian non-linguistic programs, students begin academic writing with advanced research genres such as course papers, bypassing systematic preparation for academic written communication. Without prior experience in foundational genres such as academic essays that require structured reasoning and argumentation, students encounter persistent difficulties with academic writing. For students, these challenges are further compounded by the need to navigate academic conventions across languages.

The aim of this paper is to reconceptualise the academic essay as a gateway genre in academic literacy development among non-linguistic students in their native language in the first place. The study addresses the research questions: Why does the academic essay remain a marginal genre in non-linguistic university curricula? How does academic essay writing contribute to the development of key components of academic literacy?

Methodologically, the study combines theoretical analysis of academic literacy and academic essay writing with institutional data collected in 2024 at PetrSU. The empirical basis includes a university-wide survey of instructors and students (n = 246) and materials from a nationwide academic essay contest organized by the PetrSU Academic Writing Center between 2023 and 2025. The results reveal a clear pedagogical gap. While over 70% of instructors report persistent student difficulties with academic style and logical structure, only 20% regularly employ academic essays in teaching. At the same time, contest materials demonstrate high student engagement alongside limited genre awareness. 

The proposal suggests that strategic integration of academic essay writing at early stages of university education supports the systematic development of academic literacy key components: cognitive, rhetorical-discursive, genre-structural, source-based, and reflective competences, which are increasingly essential in AI-mediated education.

Presenter: Liliya Yusupova, a senior lecturer at PetrSU, where she teaches ESP and academic writing to non-linguistic students. She is a PhD candidate in pedagogy, and her research focuses on academic literacy, academic writing pedagogy, writing assessment, and genre-based instruction of academic essays in higher education.

AI-assisted academic writing: Practical integration of neural networks in publication workflow

Research paper presentation by Inga Zashikhina
Northern (Arctic) Federal University

This presentation details the outcomes of a practical, three-part workshop series designed to equip researchers with skills for leveraging neural networks throughout a scientific publication lifecycle. While institutional policies and a broader impact of AI on education are vital areas of discussion, this work focuses on applied practice—providing empirically grounded insights into how contemporary generative AI tools, specifically DeepSeek, can be effectively integrated into the demanding workflow of academic scholarship.

The research analyzed the efficacy of using AI at three critical stages: defining the IMRAD structure (Session 1), refining literature search and annotation synthesis (Session 2), and drafting an initial manuscript based on pre-selected materials (Session 3). Participants were required to perform specific tasks—such as formulating a strong research question tailored to a target journal and compiling annotated bibliographies from 15–50+ sources—using AI assistance.

The presentation will share quantitative and qualitative data collected from participants regarding perceived efficiency gains, the accuracy of AI-generated summaries and structuring suggestions, and challenges encountered when balancing AI output with disciplinary accuracy. Specific attention will be given to practical tips and techniques developed during the sessions, particularly concerning prompt engineering for literature analysis and maintaining scholarly integrity while utilizing AI for foundational drafting tasks.

This contribution offers actionable insights for writing center staff, faculty developers, and researchers grappling with the accelerating need to adopt AI tools responsibly. We argue that targeted, workflow-specific training, as modeled by this seminar series, is crucial for transforming AI from a perceived threat into a powerful collaborative instrument for high-stakes academic writing.

Presenter: Inga Zashikhina, associate professor at Northern (Arctic) Federal University. As the Interdisciplinary Academic Communication Centre coordinator, she fosters collaborations. She teaches English and focuses her research on academic writing, publishing, and methodology. Her interests are philosophy, science, and English for academic communication.

AI-integrated language learning centers: Setting agenda for cultural bias research

Research paper presentation by Tatiana Permyakova
HSE University

Recent studies into AI advancements in university language centers tend to focus on gaps in traditional methods and benefits of technical solutions in tutoring systems (AlTwijri & Alghizzi, 2024). AI promises effective personalization but raises issues like over-reliance, biases, and infrastructure barriers. Yet, there are no comprehensive studies, which critically assess cultural biases in centers’ functions and learners’ outcomes under AI transformation. The purpose of the paper is to set an agenda to research not only the cultural biases in (a) AI models themselves (Gromenko et al., 2025) but in other aspects of AI-integrated language centers, including (b) personalized feedback (Habiba, 2025; Lewis, 2025), (c) scalability and adaptability to learners’ needs (Liu, 2023; Eslit, 2024), (d) varying degrees of motivation and anxiety (Masoudi, 2025; Nguyen, 2025), as well as (e) attitudes to technologies (Nadeem, Abbas, Fatima, 2025; Sinderman et al., 2021). Preliminary review necessitates employing a mixed-method approach: surveys, interviews, tests and (quasi)-experiments (Liang, 2023; AlTwijri & Alghizzi, 2024). Anticipated results may reveal AI’s enhancement for language learning services and further recommendations.

Presenter: Tatiana Permyakova, PhD in Language Theory. She works in HSE University in Perm. Her research interests include intercultural communication theories, discourse analysis with emphasis on EFL and ELT situations, English for specific purposes, and professional and business communication.

AI marathon to foster research writing: Academics’ pains and gains

Research paper presentation by Svetlana Suchkova
HSE University

The presentation focuses on the results of a one-day immersion course offered by a faculty-focused academic writing center to university academics (n=25). The course aimed at providing an opportunity to experiment with AI tools (n=19) for research writing, critically evaluate their functionalities and output, and find suitable tools that can assist academics in preparing a research publication.

The presenter will describe an interactive course format that proved to be effective in encouraging academics’ confident and thoughtful AI use. This creative course design – an AI marathon–provided a space for a guided discovery and ensured an individual trajectory for course participants. They moved from station to station at their individual pace and chose a tool at each station to meet individually set goals. The stations (n=10) covered the whole framework of research writing: from searching for literature to drafting a paper.

The presenter will outline pedagogical assumptions behind the course and share both numerical and qualitative data obtained in this case study. The study answered the following research questions: (1) What is the level of academics’ AI literacy? (2) How effective is the educational format of a marathon for research writers? (3) What have academics gained from the course?

This study can contribute to an ongoing discussion about the importance of developing AI literacy among teachers and might add insights into how writing centers and writing instructors can integrate AI tools as writing assistants into writing instruction. The presented ready-to-use model could be applied in other educational contexts.

Presenter: Svetlana Suchkova, PhD, associate professor, a teacher of English, teacher trainer, international examiner, is the director of HSE Academic Writing Center. She has widely published in the field of ELT methodology. She authored a number of EFL course books for Russian university students and academics, including English for Academics series (CUP) и How to Write a Research Article (Nauka). She is a Vice-president of the National Writing Centers Consortium.

Attending to form: Writing as a rhetorical art of choice

Research paper presentation by Melvin Hall
Moscow Finance and Law University

Since the 1966 Dartmouth conference writing researchers and instructors have been practicing process without form. Perhaps this is because the rhetorical and philosophical concept of form is guilty by association with product (Current-Traditional Rhetoric). To address the absence of form in writing pedagogy and rhetorical theory, this paper presents preliminary results of the rhetorical exploration of form. The guiding research questions have been: How does the concept of form enhance and refine our theoretical and practical understanding of the writing process? And how does form enrich and deepen the teaching of writing as a rhetorical art of choice? I have synthesized a theory of form, using a variety of interdisciplinary sources: Art, Composition, Literature, Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Natural Science. The theory is practically grounded in an empirical study of published academic articles and essays, providing real-world illustrations of the form's function in the writing process and training of writers across disciplines. The results have been a series of practical teaching materials, an anlage of a composition textbook, and a new theoretical understanding of how form enriches the teaching of writing. There are six salient implications:

1. Form gives meaning and ethical purpose to the writing process (without form, process is meaningless)

2. Form allows for the development of scaffolded writing assignments

3. Form develops the habit of deeply attending to texts and strengthens the mindful faculty of attention needed for critical thinking

4. Form cogently outlines writing’s complexity and irriducibility

5. Form enriches writing pedagogy through the inclusion of painting, music, sculpture, and other arts; and ultimately

6. Form discloses the biological origins of human communication and writing impelled by a creative principle of life.  

English academic writing skills in higher education: Challenges for Slavic undergraduate students

Research paper presentation by Radoslava Maria Rákociová and Adriana Laputkova
Prešov University

For students in higher education, learning academic writing means, essentially, being exposed to the language characteristic of university. The process may become challenging since becoming a skilled academic writer requires considerable effort and a different mindset. Ultimately, students learn how to think critically and present their ideas effectively, yet differently from what they have previously learned, while being exposed to the language untypical of everyday communication, with different functions and structures. It is not only the new way of thinking, but what may intensify students’ struggle is the fact that the course is taught in English, which is not their mother tongue. The purpose of our paper is to identify challenges that the second-year undergraduate students encounter while attending the academic writing course at the Institute of Translation and Interpreting Studies at the University of Prešov. Using qualitative analysis, we examine 60 essays, namely the vocabulary and the sentence structures. Although students demonstrate overall writing competence, our findings confirm a wide range of persistent difficulties, particularly in lexical and grammatical accuracy, and in adaptation to the Anglo-American academic writing conventions, which might be impacted by the students’ Slavic origin and perhaps also by their translators-in-training mindset. By situating this topic within the current debates on academic literacies, the presentation seeks to stimulate discussion and further research in academic writing pedagogy, while helping university teachers become more responsive to students’ academic writing needs.

Presenters: Radoslava Maria Rákociová, holds a PhD in English Language and Anglophone Cultures and currently work as an Assistant Professor at Prešov University. With extensive international experience and over a decade of teaching practice, her interests include education, literature, culture, travel, and lifelong personal development.

Adriana Laputkova, specialises in academic writing, syntax, and stylistics for translators, all in English. She spent 12 years teaching at the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, Czech Republic, and since completing her PhD in 2024, she has remained as a full-time member at the Institute of Translation and Interpreting Studies at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Prešov in Slovakia.

Exploring the effects of a workshop on ethical AI use in academic text construction

Research paper presentation by Vera A. Dugartsyrenova
HSE University

Given the growing use of AI tools in research and academic writing processes, concerns arise as to students’ misuse of these tools to produce AI-generated content for their assignments. Based on a previous investigation (Dugartsyrenova, 2025) exploring markers of AI use in undergraduate and graduate L2 writers’ research proposal literature reviews, the current study reports an intervention (a workshop) designed to develop L2 students’ awareness of unethical AI uses in writing and research. The study’s primary research question was: What were the students’ perceptions of AI-assisted academic writing practices after participating in the workshop? Participants were first-year Master’s students in an online academic writing course, who were exposed to a set of L2 students’ texts and asked to identify a distinct marker of AI use in each of those texts, with a follow-up discussion around acceptable and unacceptable uses of AI tools. A background survey eliciting students’ previous experiences with and beliefs about AI tools was administered prior to the workshop. To examine participants’ perceptions of the workshop, a survey with quantitative and open-ended questions was conducted at the end of the session, followed up by written reflections one week after the workshop. The quantitative data from the survey were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The qualitative data from open-ended responses to the survey and reflections were analyzed using a thematic approach to qualitative data (Thomas, 2006). Results pointed to participants’ heightened awareness of AI detectability in L2 students’ writing, recognition of the risks involved in uncritical use of AI tools and the need for caution around AI use, and conditional acceptance of AI as a valuable support aid. The study’s findings can contribute to a broader discourse on pedagogical approaches to promote a more responsible and critical use of AI tools in research and writing processes.

Presenter: Vera A. Dugartsyrenova, PhD, teaches language courses at the School of Foreign Languages at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia. Her research interests include blended and distance language learning, CMC for language and intercultural learning, intercultural communication, and academic writing.

First-person pronouns as markers of the author’s presence in academic texts: Comparative gender analysis

Research paper presentation by Ksenia Medvedkina
Northern (Arctic) Federal University

The research investigates how authorial identity is expressed in academic texts, focusing on gender-specific patterns in the use of first-person pronouns. The study seeks to compare the repertoire and pragmatic functions of the first-person pronouns in texts written by male and female authors. 

The conceptual framework for the research is based on R. Tang and S. John’s classification of the pragmatic functions of pronouns [Tang et al., 1999].  The study was conducted using 24 research articles published between 2019 and 2025, 12 of which were written by male authors and 12 by female authors. The articles were selected using a full-coverage sampling method, considering criteria such as individual authorship, affiliation with a specific subject area (linguistics and language teaching), indexing in high-impact international research databases, and authors’ affiliation with institutions in countries where English is an official language. When selecting texts for the research corpus, no consideration was given to whether English was the author’s native language, as we believe this is irrelevant given the global nature of modern scientific discourse.

Research revealed that female authors tend to express their authorial presence more frequently through personal and possessive pronouns than male authors. Female authors typically adhere to canonical usage, employing singular pronouns for roles like “architect,” “researcher,” “opinion-holder,” and “originator”, and plural pronouns for “representative” and “guide”. Male authors often use singular pronouns in roles where plural forms are expected. While female authors actively use pronouns for reader-dialogue-oriented functions, male authors more frequently self-identify as creators of new knowledge. The study suggests that pronoun usage in academic texts is influenced not solely by gender but also by factors like the scientific field, genre, and evolving norms of academic writing.

Presenter: Ksenia Medvedkina, teaches English for general purposes and a range of theoretical linguistic courses to undergraduate students majoring in linguistics and cross-cultural communication and language pedagogy. She also teaches Academic Writing and Public Speaking courses to master students from different fields of study. Her research interests embrace text linguistics, academic writing, and teaching English for academic purposes.

From AI as cognitive shortcut to AI as dialogic scaffold in academic writing

Research paper presentation by Nadežda Stojković

Artificial intelligence has become an integral part of the contemporary educational knowledge environment. In higher education, however, its everyday use by students is still predominantly characterised by cognitive substitution that they employ when letting AI do all the reasoning, judgement, and decision-making related to their assignments instead of them. Current institutional responses largely focus on misuse, plagiarism, and the need for technological control. However, the real pedagogical issue, and the pressing one, is gradual externalisation of academic thinking itself towards possible deterioration of those human competencies. Drawing on classroom practice in English for Academic Purposes, the paper proposes a pedagogical re-orientation in which generative AI is deliberately designed and prompted to function as a dialogic cognitive scaffold rather than as a text-producing tool. In this approach, students are explicitly taught advanced prompting and meta-prompting strategies that instruct AI to act as an academic reviewer and questioning partner: challenging assumptions, probing the quality of evidence, eliciting alternative interpretations and supporting metacognitive monitoring. Importantly, the AI is prevented from generating content, while responsibility for epistemic judgement and disciplinary decision-making remains with the student. In this way, assessment is re-oriented away from evaluating the final written product and towards evaluating the learner’s thinking process itself—made visible through iterative dialogic cycles with AI of expressing initial ideas, responding to critical questions, making reasoned decisions about evidence and arguments, and reflecting on how their thinking develops. This shift lies at the core of the proposed approach to integrating AI into the teaching of academic writing.

Presenter: Prof. Dr. Nadežda Stojković, full professor of English for Specific and Academic Purposes. Author and editor of five international textbooks and fifteen books with Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

From author to curator: Academic work after AI

Research paper presentation by Christopher John Korten
Russian International Olympic University

The rapid integration of artificial intelligence into academic research and writing has transformed the nature of scholarly labor. While AI systems increasingly assist with drafting, summarizing, and linguistic refinement, their expansion reveals clear limits of automation. This paper argues that the academic’s role is shifting from sentence-level constructor to strategic manager and curator of information. Research writing is taking on a decisional and structural dimension: scholars must determine how knowledge is framed, what material is prioritized, how arguments are sequenced, and which sources are included or excluded. Rather than focusing primarily on crafting individual sentences, the contemporary academic is responsible for higher-order intellectual tasks—conceptual organization, interpretive judgment, methodological coherence, and ethical oversight.

The paper explores several “angles of engagement” with AI: delegation, collaboration, supervision, and resistance. It contends that effective scholarship in the age of AI depends not on technical mastery alone, but on refined judgment and epistemic responsibility. The limits of AI automation therefore illuminate a paradox: as machines handle micro-level textual production, the macro-level intellectual agency of the human researcher becomes more decisive, not less.

Presenter: Professor Christopher Korten, an American historian, published author, and graduate of both Oxford and Cambridge. He has served as a Guest Professor at Moscow State University (MGU) for docents in the social sciences (2016) and as Professor of History and Director of Academic Writing at MGIMO University (2018–2023). Since 2021, he has been a Professor at the Russian International Olympic University (RIOU). Beyond academia, Professor Korten is a global OUP trainer, a social-media ESL educator with nearly one million followers, and the creator of numerous international ESL events, camps, and teacher-training programs.

From vision to de facto institutionalization

Research paper presentation by Liliya Yusupova and Tatiana Tatarina
Petrozavodsk State University

Writing centers are often discussed as institutionally supported units embedded in university structures. However, less attention is paid to centers that function as grassroots initiatives. Over five years, the Academic Writing Center at Petrozavodsk State University has undergone a de facto institutionalization without formal administrative support and external funding. The key transformation shifted from “We are creating a writing center and hope it will solve the problem” to “We created a writing center and now see which problems it can solve and which it cannot without institutional change.”

The central problem is how writing centers can sustain meaningful academic impact under conditions of zero-grant, volunteer-based conditions, and limited institutional recognition. Despite tangible outcomes, including courses, professional development programs, tutoring practices, student publications, editorial collaboration, the Center faces persistent challenges: limited enrollment in long-term programs, demand for rapid results, and a gradual narrowing of bilingual practices toward Russian. This raises critical questions: What outcomes are realistically achievable without institutional support? How can volunteer-based initiatives balance immediate demands with long-term pedagogical goals?

To address these challenges, the Center has drawn on organizational and didactic strategies and has implemented several sustainable practices. It established an inter-institutional framework within the Humanitarian Innovation Park, integrated bilingual academic writing instruction, and offered students a year-long propaedeutic elective course that transformed into an open lecture series for faculty as well.  Staff gained new methods through internships and exchanges with HSE, which were then shared with other Center instructors via masterclasses and seminars. Scholarly outputs, such as student research collections and a peer-reviewed special issue on academic writing, have served as markers of legitimacy and value to the academic community. 

The roundtable may consider writing centers' potential and limits without formal support, offering insights for resource-limited initiatives.

Presenters: Liliya Yusupova, a senior lecturer at the PetrSU Medical Institute and an instructor at the PetrSU Academic Writing Center. She teaches ESL and ESP for medical students, with Academic Writing offered as an elective. Currently, she is a postgraduate student in Pedagogy, her research and publications focus on academic literacy, academic essay writing, and writing assessment.

Tatiana Tatarina, an English Teacher of the Institute of Foreign Languages and also an instructor and coordinator at the Academic Writing Center at Petrozavodsk State University. She also mentors the English debate club "Debaters Today, Leaders Tomorrow." Her research focuses on academic writing, educational design, and critical thinking. 

GenAI as a meta-creativity booster: Mapping meaning nodes in hybrid authorship

Research paper presentation by Daria Krasnoshchekova, Maria Kurkova and Mariya Dedova

This work-in-progress study develops and pilots a reproducible framework for observing an end-to-end creative workflow mediated by GenAI under a hybrid human - AI agency arrangement. It examines the transformation of the author’s role. Building on a single-case study (the creation of a literary work), where the creative workflow was documented in detail, we develop a framework for analyzing “cognitive sessions” - continuous episodes of creative thinking mediated by GenAI.

The core idea of this presentation is the concept of the user’s dual role. In a hybrid format, the user acts not only as an author within the creative process, but also as a meta-creative architect who configures the interaction with the model and determines the degree of its involvement. The process is considered through the lens of “cognitive sessions,” in which each user utterance functions as a meaning node. This node captures the dynamics of the cognitive process: the user articulates the current meaning state and a request for feedback. The study advances a hypothesis about the two-layer structure of each node:

1. The human creativity corresponded: content aligned with the stages of the creative process.

2. The meta-creative architecture corresponded: an interaction category that specifies the model’s role at that moment.

This decomposition makes it possible to analyse GenAI-mediated creative work in conditions that are naturalistic for the user.

The study considers three vectors of practical application for this model, the validation of which requires expert input:

1. Instructional design: using the model to teach students metacognitive skills for managing the creative process and engaging in reflection.

2. Managerial analytics: integrating automated log analysis in creative industries to assess employees’ interaction maturity with AI.

3. Adaptive interfaces: developing AI tools that can recognise the user’s current “stage” and automatically adjust the assistance mode to the user’s cognitive needs.

Presenters: Daria Krasnoshchekova, an independent researcher and prospective PhD applicant studying how GenAI reshapes human thinking and the user’s role in hybrid human–AI creative work. Her interests include meta-creativity, authorship and agency negotiation, and the lived experience of creating with GenAI as a cognitive partner. She focuses on naturalistic, process-level evidence from real creative practice.

Maria Kurkova, an independent fiction author and early-career publishing professional. She holds a BA in Philology from HSE University and a recent Master’s degree in Publishing Studies from the University of Stirling (Scotland). She focuses on contemporary fiction, editorial practice, and innovative storytelling across print and digital formats in multilingual, international contexts.

Mariya Dedova, a Senior Lecturer at the Graduate School of Management, Saint Petersburg State University. She holds a Candidate of Economic Sciences degree (PhD equivalent).  Her research spans creative industries, cultural economics, and AI applications in education. Maria has authored over 15 publications in international outlets. 

How we write emails

Research paper presentation by Tatiana Martseva
HSE University

The email is traditionally the most widely used genre both in general and academic communication. Researchers use it to cooperate with foreign colleagues working together on joint research projects. Authors communicate with editors and reviewers of scientific journals while submitting their manuscripts for publication. Therefore, the ability to write effective email is crucial for a scholar.

Since 2018, HSE Academic writing center annually holds a diagnostic module for aspiring HSE researchers to assess their English communication skills both in speaking and writing assignments. An email was chosen to test participants’ writing skills. Being the most frequently used genre of writing, it is familiar to Russian researchers even with limited English language proficiency. Therefore, they were expected to feel comfortable and relaxed while writing an effective and relevant email reply based on the provided prompt.

During these years, over 300 email samples have been collected, out of which 70 samples were analyzed for the current research. The study included looking into the genre of an email, its development and major conventions, as well as the expectations the recipients have when they get an electronic letter. After that the samples produced by Russian scholars were analyzed in terms of the task achievement, following the genre conventions, coherence and cohesion, grammar and vocabulary range and accuracy. 

As a result, the author has developed a typology of the most frequent mistakes made by Russian researchers writing emails in English and offered recommendations on how to avoid mistakes to make written communication effective and pleasant both for the email writer and its reader.

Presenter: Tatiana Martseva, PhD in Germanic languages, has over 20-year experience of teaching English for specific purposes, academic writing, presentation skills, and the specifics of intercultural communication in top Russian universities. Her research interests include modern English language, stylistics, and technology in education. She has DELTA (Cambridge), FTBE (Pearson) certificates.

Linguistic and pragmatic features in English academic writing by Russian authors

Research paper presentation by Svetlana Bogolepova and Anastasiya Grechenko 
HSE University

The research under consideration is a study aiming to synthesise the established linguistic and pragmatic qualities of high-quality (standard) English-language journal articles and contrast them with the characteristics found in publications produced in English by native Russian researchers. While prior studies have predominantly focused on specific aspects of Russian non-native English speakers' academic writing (e.g., lexical choice and grammar), a holistic, pragmatically driven analysis against a benchmark model is still unexplored. The primary goal is to find precise, reproducible variations and distinctive characteristics in non-native English academics' rhetorical and pragmatic competence, shifting from broad perceptions to explicit and detailed linguistic evidence. The research question is the following: What are the key differences in metadiscoursal and pragmatic tactics between benchmark English research papers and those written by Russian researchers in English?

The methodological approach consists of two main phases. First, to develop a model of language and pragmatics in standard articles (written by native English speakers), a comprehensive review will be performed. Second, employing a contrastive corpus-based analysis, the model will be applied to a selected corpus of English-language articles written by modern Russian researchers.

We expect the results to not only document recognised issues but also, particularly, identify under-explored metadiscourse markers (e.g., specific hedges, attitude markers, or engagement markers) that are essential for reader persuasion and text interpretation. The results will provide a focused analysis that may inform practices and encourage discussion on facilitating successful international publication and interdisciplinary collaboration for multilingual authors writing in English.

Presenters: Svetlana Bogolepova, associate Professor at HSE School of Foreign Languages with a PhD in Language Theory. Svetlana has authored and co-authored more than 50 research articles and textbooks, including English for Academics, How to Write a Research Article: Theory and Practice, and English for Research and Academic Purposes. 

Anastasiya Grechenko is a university instructor, teaching English and methodology to future language professionals. Alongside her teaching, she is currently pursuing her postgraduate studies at HSE University. She also contributes to numerous projects launched by the School of Foreign Languages.

Mediation activities in language learning: Students’ perspectives on opportunities and challenges

Research paper presentation by Maria Liashenko
HSE University 

The paper addresses the issues of deployment of wiki technology for mediation activities in English learning at university. The research design used a mixed methods methodology to explore students’ perceptions quantitatively and qualitatively. The quantitative stage was aimed at investigating the degree of students’ acceptance of Google wiki sites for language learning. It showed students’ readiness and willingness to use wiki for studies. Wiki sites were reported to be easy to accept from students’ perspectives. The findings informed a further design and actual deployment of the sites for different teaching purposes to teach mediation activities. In the study, mediation was viewed through the lens of the Common European Framework of References for languages (the CEFR). Mediation activities were presented by three scales: mediating a text, mediating concepts, and mediating communication. The research described three cycles of wiki deployment for different teaching purposes: academic English, general English, and English for specific purposes. The author designed the tasks to be shared on the sites to involve students in mediation activities. The students were then interviewed about their experiences of using wiki sites for mediation activities. Overall, 25 students participated in semi-structured interviews after the wiki deployment. The data was analyzed using thematic analysis, which resulted in presenting three thematic maps that described mediation descriptors from each scale. The findings revealed the advantages and disadvantages of using wiki for mediation activities. The main benefits are the following: free access, the ease of creating and editing content, flexibility and the open nature of wiki sites. On the other hand, there are some barriers to consider, such as security issues, problems of synchronous editing, delays and misunderstanding as a result of asynchronous format of communication. In general, benefits outweighed the challenges.  In addition, the study resulted in identifying the factors affecting wiki-mediated learning which include technological, psychological, and educational aspects.

Presenter: Maria Liashenko has been teaching English for more than 20 years. She holds two degrees: Russian PhD in Methodology of Professional Education and PhD in Technology Enhanced learning from Lancaster University. Currently, she works at the Department of the English language at HSE, Nizhny Novgorod

More important than ever: Importance language in human-written and AI-generated research abstracts

Research paper presentation by Dmitriy Tulyakov
HSE University 

The rise of generative AI tools has significantly impacted academic writing and research publication practices, prompting questions about how AI-generated texts differ from human-written ones. This paper examines the use of importance markers in research article abstracts to establish whether AI-generated abstracts emphasize research importance to the same extent as human-written ones. A comparison of over 200 authentic abstracts from leading journals published in 2016-2020 with AI-generated versions of the same texts shows that while there is no significant difference between the number of importance nouns and verbs, AI-generated abstracts contain considerably more importance adjectives and adverbs and that some importance markers appear in AI output up to 14 times more frequently than in human-written abstracts. Moreover, the differences between abstracts in hard and soft disciplines are much more pronounced in abstracts written by people. These findings suggest that AI-generated abstracts amplify the trend towards increased use of promotional language in research abstracts and do not fully grasp the disciplinary specificity of abstract writing. Given AI’s increased adoption as a writing assistant, writers should be cautious of this inflationary tendency. More broadly, the overuse of importance markers in AI-generated abstracts raises concerns about misrepresenting research significance as AI-assisted writing becomes more prevalent.

Presenter: Dmitriy Tulyakov, a researcher and ESL instructor at HSE university. His interests include applied linguistics, discourse analysis, stylistics, and literary theory. Having spent many years teaching academic writing, he is currently researching how AI is impacting writing practices of students and researchers, as well as the academic texts they produce.

Needs analysis in designing an academic writing course for engineering PhD students

Research paper presentation by Evgeniya Aleshinskaya
National Research Nuclear University

This study proposes an approach to designing an academic writing course in English as a foreign language for PhD engineering students that addresses their specific linguistic needs in order to strengthen their academic writing while also saving time and maintaining motivation.

The study combined a qualitative analysis of 100 essays generated by students and a student survey to evaluate how well the proposed academic writing course met its objectives. The participants of the research were 100 first‑year PhD students of a technical university. The study unfolded in two phases: the qualitative analysis focusing on identifying deviations from established academic language norms was followed by the quantitative assessment of improvements in students’ language proficiency.

In the qualitative phase, the analysis of students’ writing assignments highlighted prevalent issues in vocabulary use, grammar, and style, along with recurring difficulties related to organization, coherence, and punctuation. These findings informed the construction of a targeted curriculum that directly addressed the most salient problem areas and was tailored to students’ needs. The needs analysis raised students’ awareness of their weaknesses and clarified the course’s content, which, within a short time, helped to enhance their motivation to engage with the material. Upon completion of the course, participants demonstrated an enhanced capacity to identify and correct writing errors on their own by applying the resources and strategies provided during instruction. This outcome was confirmed by the quantitative survey results, which indicated measurable improvements in writing practice and self‑correction abilities.

A conclusion is drawn that a personalized, research‑driven pedagogical framework integrating needs analysis can yield tangible gains in the academic writing proficiency of engineering PhD students.

Presenter: Evgeniya Aleshinskaya, a Candidate of Sciences in Philology and Associate Professor at National Research Nuclear University (Russia). She teaches academic writing to postgraduates in technical fields. Her research interests include genre pedagogy, L2 scientific writing, and cognitive modeling. Her publications appear in highly ranked linguistics and communication journals.

Open-forum articles for accessible knowledge production

Research paper presentation by Lilia Bondareva
Lomonosov Moscow State University

This paper presents a case study of the E-International Relations platform, the world's leading international relations website, to help academic-writing practitioners accommodate tensions between rigorous academic conventions and the movement toward democratising knowledge production.

The E-International Relations exemplifies an emerging genre of the open-forum article, a form that responds to digital-media affordances and addresses demands for accessibility without sacrificing research quality. Introducing this genre in English-language courses for international relations undergraduates can act as an effective stepping stone toward more demanding traditional academic writing, enabling students to engage with disciplinary conventions in a more accessible format. 

The study adopts a multi-method approach that combines corpus analysis and discourse analysis. A corpus of 15-20 articles from the E-International Relations platform will be analyzed to identify key genre features, including average length, citation use, structural patterns and jargon density. In addition, a comparative analysis will explore how scholars may adapt their work across platforms by matching a text in an edited collection with the parallel text by the same authors adopted for the  platform. The results  will be discussed to establish how the open-forum genre allows for academic rigour and better public engagement.

Although the paper's primary focus is on genre exploration, it concludes with suggestions for pedagogical adaptations to expand students' writing repertoire and build early motivation for academic research.

Presenter: Lilia Bondareva, holds a PhD in political sciences and serves as associate professor at the School of World Politics, Lomonosov Moscow State University. Her academic interests include international relations and strategic communications. In her previous roles, she coordinated projects on language teaching and pedagogical design with leading international institutions.

Teaching the critical art of synthesis

Research paper presentation by Alexandra Vasileva and Alina Arslanova
Innopolis University

In our academic writing courses for university students, we consistently see a gap between students’ ability to follow mechanical instructions (vocabulary, grammar, phraseology, templates, formal text structure) and their ability to construct coherent, critical literature reviews. This gap is especially apparent when students engage in research writing: even when they use rigorous search protocols (such as PRISMA in the sciences) to find and document sources, they often struggle to synthesize those sources into a critical argument. Currently, less methodological support exists for teaching this higher-level synthesis than for teaching systematic search procedures. Compounding this issue, students’ growing reliance on technological tools and their experience of information overload often further weaken their independent critical thinking and information literacy.

The aim of our ongoing project is to collect and systematize a variety of methods used to teach synthesis skills in academic writing classes, with a view to a subsequent comprehensive methodological review and publication. Our guiding questions are: (1) What pedagogical approaches and tasks are currently described in the literature and practice for teaching synthesis in literature reviews and similar academic writing genres? (2) What evidence, if any, is reported about their effectiveness in ESP/EAP university contexts?

This conference presentation is a brief report on the achieved results of ongoing research, which is planned as a methodological review. At the upcoming AWC Conference, we would like to present several instructional frameworks and methods for teaching synthesis, illustrated with sample tasks and hands-on activities, which are potentially useful for EAP university students We hope to invite participants to share and critically discuss their own practices of teaching synthesis and critical reading-writing integration.

Presenters: Alexandra Vasileva, PhD in Japanese studies and sociolinguistics from a Japanese University, teaches various EAP courses at Innopolis University. She is also doing research in linguistics and occasionally in language education. Using the very creative floor of this conference I would love to present on the collaborative work that we are conducting with my colleague.

Alina Arslanova, an Academic English Instructor at Innopolis University, specializing in supporting students with academic writing, literature reviews, and proposal development. Outside of teaching, I’m a committed lifelong learner, currently pursuing postgraduate studies in linguistics, focusing on English/German phraseology. In my free time, I enjoy exploring music and creative arts.

The hidden curriculum of academic publishing: Essential practices beyond official guidelines

Research paper presentation by Diana Akhmedjanova
HSE University 

The goal of this research presentation is to report on the ins and outs of academic publishing. Using the example of one of the leading Russian journals in the field of education, I will introduce the internal analysis of the manuscripts from the initial submission to final acceptance. The analysis will report on the average numbers of submissions, papers headed to a plagiarism check, to double-blind reviews, and accepted for a publication. For example, on average, we receive 25-30 submissions per month, and 75% (around 23 papers out of 30) of those submissions are desk rejected due to not fitting the scope of the journal, using not rigorous methods of data collection, analysis, and reporting, or not adhering to the guidelines of the submission requirements. Next, the articles are checked for plagiarism, which typically results in one paper rejected due to the high percentage of the whole text “plagiarized” from other not referenced sources (more than 20% of the whole text). Six papers make it to the review process, which typically results in 1 to 2 papers being rejected after the first round of reviews. As a result, around four papers might make it to the final acceptance and publication stages. The research talk will also cover such topics, as an average timeline of a publication, typical mistakes at the submission and reviewing stages, and ways to tackle these challenges. The presentation will finish with helpful tips on how to prepare a manuscript, how to make sure it fits the journal, and how to communicate with the reviewers and editors.

Presenter: Diana Akhmedjanova has a doctoral degree (Ph.D.) in Educational Psychology. She is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Educational Programs at the Institute of Education, HSE, and a scientific editor at the journal "Educational Studies Moscow." Her research interests are self-regulated learning and academic writing.

The writing center’s effect on a specific academic writing task

Research paper presentation by Sergio Álvarez Uribe
Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla

In times of crisis, writing centers must often prove their institutional worth. However, while existing research on the impact of writing center tutorials on students' academic writing is generally positive, it remains scarce. This study aims to provide clear evidence of this impact by addressing the following research question: What is the effect of visiting the writing center on the grade of a specific assignment in a first-year writing course?

The methodological design is rooted in impact research. A comparison group was created to contrast the evaluation of an academic argumentative writing assignment of 19 students who attended the writing center with 19 matched students who did not. This assignment corresponds to the final text of a first-year university writing course. To ensure rigor, the matching criteria for the comparison group included the previous semester’s GPA as a baseline, gender, academic program, and enrollment in either the same class or a section taught by the same instructor.

The treatment group of 19 students was drawn from a larger pool of 70 students who sought consultation for this specific task during the first semester of 2023; 51 students were excluded because they did not meet the strict matching criteria. Consequently, the study analyzed a total of 38 students. The results show significantly higher performance by the group that attended the writing center. These findings suggest that the pedagogical conversation surrounding text development enhances student outcomes, further validating the essential worth of writing centers.

Presenter: Sergio Álvarez Uribe, PhD in Applied Linguistics for Language Teaching from Antonio de Nebrija University, with a thesis on the assessment of academic writing in Spanish L1. Research professor in the Spanish Department and director of the Writing Center at Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla, Colombia.

Traditional or captivating: Debunking some myths about academic writing

Research paper presentation by Irina Khoutyz
Kuban State University

Academic writing is typically expected to be formal, objective, and impersonal. However, contemporary ideas about efficient academic writing have changed. According to academic writing experts (Cassuto 2024; Hyland, Jiang 2025; Sword 2012), present-day stylish academic writing is not only about informing, but also about establishing a contact with the readers, as if “the reader matters” (Cassuto 2024). To make readers interested in the results of the research, authors strive to make their writing engaging and understandable for wider audiences. The aim of this study is to explore some of the new trends in contemporary academic writing and to investigate how linguists engage their readers in the information flow. Predominantly, the research focuses on such means of reader’s engagement as the pronoun use, grammar constructions, and storytelling. The research corpus comprises 31 “most read” academic articles from international highly ranked English-language journals in Language Studies indexed in Web of Science and Scopus (Q1). These articles were randomly selected and further analyzed by means of discourse and pragmatic analysis including methods of classification and interpretation. A descriptive statistics method was used to identify the main features of the research corpus. The mixed method approach uncovered that the discourse of the methodology section demonstrates features of Labov’s sociolinguistic model of narrative (1966) and can be described as the scholarly storytelling. In 100% of cases, the analysis of the abstracts revealed that the Active Voice prevails in the academic articles from four top ranked journals. The authors in their abstracts rely on dynamic verbs and in 75% of cases introduce first person pronouns. These features of academic writing incorporate authors’ desire to make their research noticed by wider audiences and demonstrate further intensification of the reader-oriented tradition (Hinds, 1987; Khoutyz, 2022).

Presenter: Irina Khoutyz, Doctor of Philology, is a professor at Kuban State University. Since 2016 Irina has been the coordinator of the master degree program “Cross-сultural communication in international academic environment” (45.04.01 Philology), where she teaches such disciplines as Academic English, Communication in International Academic Context, Media Discourse in Academia.

What gets cited in academic knowledge production globally? Taking stock and looking forward

Research paper presentation by Natalia Smirnova and Mikhail Kosmynin
HSE University 

The presentation seeks to introduce the results of a systematic literature review (SLR), map out the current state of the research on citation practices in the context of the rise of academic publishing in English globally, and synthesise this line of research and advance a research agenda for the field of ERP and EAP. 

A SLR of 60 scientific articles found in the Scopus and Web of Science databases built the foundation for an analysis of the state-of-the art of the research addressing the interplay between academic publishing in English and citing. This area of research has increasingly received research attention as part of the discussions about the politics of knowledge production and circulation in contemporary academia. Articles have been published since 2010 and more than half have appeared since 2017. 

The findings suggest that citing is increasingly perceived as a crucial and contested academic practice in research publishing globally. The results indicate that politics of citing is a vibrant and growing line of research which spans different fields of study, geopolitical contexts, varied theoretical perspectives and multiple units of analysis. A total of five key themes of interest emerged in citation research in the context of geopolitics of academic research and publishing. 

This study has systematically reviewed research on citing and revealed that this line of research is under researched, offering a significant scope for further scrutiny.

Presenters: Natalia Smirnova holds a Ph.D degree in teaching English. Her research interests lie in the field of knowledge production/circulation and writing for publication globally. She draws on academic literacies, research tradition, and the conceptual frame of geopolitics of academic writing to explore publishing experiences of multilingual scholars. 

Mikhail Kosmynin, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Nord University, Norway. He is fascinated with entrepreneurship with a particular passion for social venturing and impact.

Academics are humans, too

Workshop by Alexandra Suchkova
Gogol School

Have you answered the question “Who are you?”. In work situations, we tend to present ourselves and perceive others through the prism of professional roles–teacher, reviewer, instructor, researcher, editor, etc. Very often we leave our human, emotional expressions, such as tenderness, excitement, vulnerability, sadness, infatuation, to the side.

In this training, we will try to see the real human beings behind the functions they perform. Through various activities and techniques , we will explore how allowing ourselves to express more in a work context generates energy, joy, and a sense of connection. 

Presenter: Alexandra Suchkova, LLB from Saint Petersburg State University and LLM from MGIMO, is currently a product manager and B2B programs facilitator in Gogol School. She is also a death doula and an ex-human rights lawyer (including work in the European Court of Human Rights). With her 10+ years of experience as an educator, she has participated in the Phillip Jessup Moot Court competition as a contestant, a bailiff, a coach, and a judge.

AI for educational projects: An open course for students and faculty

Workshop by Natalia Ten
Yandex Educational Technologies, ITMO University

The rapid development of artificial intelligence is transforming higher education and creating new challenges for teaching, supervision, and assessment practices. However, the clear frameworks or practical guidance for integrating AI into academic work are still limited. This workshop presents the project called "AI for educational projects" by Yandex Education and its open-access AI literacy course. The project aims to support universities in developing responsible and transparent approaches to AI use. The course is currently being piloted with more than twenty Russian universities.

The "AI for educational projects" addresses a key problem: how to ensure that AI tools support students’ learning process, enhancing the quality of their coursework, without  undermining their authorship and intellectual labour. At the same time, many universities have not yet developed or transitioned to a sustainable model of responsible AI integration in educational and teaching practices. In response, we introduce an open-access AI literacy course designed for both students and faculty members. The course covers ethical and transparent ways of implementing AI tools into educational processes without compromising academic integrity or the intellectual ownership of student work.

During the workshop, participants will explore the key modules of the "AI for educational projects" course and apply its practical recommendations in real time. Together, we will examine approaches to using AI in research and writing, as well as discuss supervision and assessment strategies. The workshop will be run in Russian.

Presenter: Natalia Ten, a project manager for the Application of Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education at Yandex Educational Technologies, she has been a university lecturer at ITMO University since 2018.

Author’s voice as the mouthpiece of emotional intelligence in academic publications

Workshop by Yulia Ryabukhina
ITMO University

Does the author’s voice in current academic publications have a pronounced AI accent? Does anyone care about hearing the author, or would the reader want only the content itself rather than any modality or author’s engagement and stance?

The author’s voice has definitely become very domain specific; however, the general trend is towards explicit rather than implicit manifestation of the author’s contribution, be it individual or co-authorship.

In this workshop, the speaker will show how emotionally intelligent (or even wise) authors can promote and propagate their ideas and contributions by using some specific linguistic (and sometimes extra-linguistic) tools and enhance their visibility. 

Participants will discuss examples of successfully published articles to illustrate the transition of some highly prolific writers from their utter reliance on AI-supported “objectivity” to repeatedly using the carefully measured elements of  the author’s voice based on their own confidence and on trusting the editor and the reader.  

The speaker will suggest a simulated consultation on a scientific article to demonstrate how informed and empathetic support and feedback of consultants on academic writing enhances the balanced and trustworthy manifestations of the author's voice.

Presenter: Yulia Ryabukhina, PhD in linguistics, vice-director of Academic Writing Lab at ITMO University, St. Petersburg.  She has more than 25 years’ experience of teaching foreign languages to STEM students,  including courses in academic writing and speaking as well as professional and business communication. A qualified translator and interpreter, Yulia translated books on psychology and psychotherapy.

Art of precision: Peer review strategies for achieving concision in academic writing

Workshop by Leslie Dupont 

Relevance

Plurilingual writers at graduate and postgraduate levels consistently struggle with wordiness, which obscures ideas and diminishes scholarly impact. Writing center professionals, instructors, and editors regularly encounter this challenge but often lack structured approaches beyond surface-level editing. This workshop addresses a critical gap: developing peer review strategies that build writers' metacognitive awareness and long-term capacity for concision while maintaining authentic academic voice.

Aim

Participants will learn and practice interactive peer review protocols that help plurilingual writers identify and eliminate wordiness patterns while developing sustainable revision strategies.

Expected Outcomes

Participants will gain practical tools including peer review protocols, question prompts, and visual guides immediately applicable across disciplines and contexts—one-on-one consultations, group workshops, classroom instruction, editorial feedback. These strategies honor plurilingual writers' expertise while building essential concision skills and writer autonomy.

Presenter: Leslie Dupont, PhD (Rhetoric, Composition and Teaching of English, 1999) is an experienced writing coach and English Language Specialist with over 30 years of teaching experience. She has published two textbooks and worked across diverse populations in higher education and the private sector, committed to inclusivity and empowering independent, confident writers.

Avoiding the hostile takeover: Placing AI in writing programs

Workshop by Talinn Phillips
Ohio University

By this point, no one is surprised to hear that AI is changing the face of higher education. The pressures to adopt AI for widespread writing use are myriad. Institutional and governmental pressures to “avoid falling behind” are coupled with economic and productivity pressures to “do more faster.” While we may not be able to prevent AI-driven change, this workshop draws on Shovlin’s (2025) AI Literacy Framework and describes one programmatic approach to intervening in that change. This approach navigates to a place between total avoidance and total embrace of AI in academic writing by asking two questions: (1) What is essential about the intellectual work of writing? and (2) What do today’s writers need to be able to do with AI? Participants will first discuss these questions within their own professional and academic writing contexts.

In the next portion of the workshop, the presenter will describe a short course to prepare faculty to teach undergraduate students about writing and about writing with AI. The curriculum was developed for U.S.-based writing teachers who come from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and have a wide range of teaching experience. The course weaves key knowledge about effective writing (and teaching of writing) with new knowledge about using AI. Participants will complete 2-3 short activities that were part of the faculty course.

The workshop concludes by considering how we position writing programs publicly in the Age of AI. Participants will consider how we can use public interest in AI to shift public conceptions around writing, especially writing as a knowledge-making activity.

Presenter: Talinn Phillips, Professor of English and the Director of Composition at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, USA. Her scholarship focuses on graduate writing support practices, writing centers, and lifespan writing research.

Building academic vocabulary for effective writing

Workshop by Tatiana Golechkova
New Economic School

It is next to impossible to express oneself precisely, concisely, and to conform to academic communication conventions without possessing extensive vocabulary. In this workshop, we will talk about ways in which we can help our students build an effective vocabulary that will ensure such communication.

We will start by reviewing key principles of working with vocabulary that our students need to be familiar with so that they can say that they really know a word. Then we will discuss ways to build a vocabulary system that can be beneficial for researchers and can enhance their communication. Criteria for selecting vocabulary, skills for noticing items, ideas for storing vocabulary, building discipline-specific glossaries, techniques for memorizing and revising vocabulary should be explicitly taught to students, as they constitute essential self-study skills every researcher needs to develop. In this workshop, we will look at the theory behind these and pay special attention to the tools that can help at each stage of vocabulary acquisition. Participants will have a chance to experiment with some of these tools, share their own favourites, and exchange best practices from their contexts with colleagues.

Presenter: Tatiana Golechkova, PhD, Delta, is an Assistant Professor at the Humanities and Languages Department, New Economic School, Moscow. Her research interests include teaching strategies for effective communication, genre features, Academic Writing.  Tatiana has presented papers and run workshops at various national and international conferences, including NATE, MISIS ESP, IATEFL, AsiaTEFL, BALEAP.

Celebrate voice, not formulas: A brain-friendly workshop on exam writing

Workshop by Natalia Borzykh

Core Problem: In high-stakes exam writing, student anxiety triggers an over-reliance on safe but bland templates. This "amygdala hijack" stifles critical thought and authentic voice, preventing students from achieving top band scores that reward lexical range and task response.

The workshop's aim is to equip participants with a toolkit of practical and applicable activities that directly address this problem. We will move from discussing the issues teachers are faced with in their classrooms to experiencing and practicing the solutions. The session is aimed to demonstrate how theory translates directly into classroom practice. Participants will leave not with abstract ideas, but with activities they can try out the next day.

Method: The workshop is structured as a series of interactive, hands-on activities, explicitly linked to their theoretical foundations which I will briefly outline. Each participant will actively engage in the role of a student, experiencing the strategies firsthand before reflecting on them as a teacher.

Presenter: Natalia Borzykh, a DELTA-qualified teacher educator with 20 years' experience, specializing in academic exam preparation (TOEFL). ELEX 2025 winner and a frequent conference speaker (18 engagements in 2025), she combines rigorous linguistic training with a focus on creating supportive classrooms for achieving excellence.

Crafting compelling teaching cases: Insights from Harvard Business School methodology

Workshop by Igor Ostapenko
HSE University 

Academic and business educators often struggle to create cases that truly engage students. A common pitfall is writing "Railway" cases - linear narratives with a single obvious answer, rather than "Pasture" cases, which set boundaries but encourage free exploration.

This workshop introduces participants to the gold standard of case writing based on Harvard Business School (HBS). Grounded in the "Agassiz Principle" (giving students raw data, or "the fish," rather than textbook answers), this session transforms the writing process from an intuitive art into a replicable science.

Workshop Activities:

1. The Hook Anatomy: Participants will analyze a "broken" case opening and rewrite it using the "6-Element Framework" (Who, Role, Where, When, What, Trigger) to create immediate urgency.

2. The Gap Principle: We will practice designing exhibits that contradict the protagonist’s opinions, forcing students to act as detectives (Data vs. Narrative).

3. The Transferability Test: Participants will learn how to structure a Teaching Note so that their case can be taught by any instructor, anywhere in the world.

Learning Outcomes: By the end of the session, attendees will be able to:

• Apply the "Go/No-Go" test to validate case ideas (Urgency, Drama, Discussability)

• Structure a case to support "Poll-Ready" dilemmas for online teaching, and

• Transform a linear report into a dramatic decision-making puzzle.

This workshop is designed for both novice and experienced educators looking to elevate their teaching materials from passive reading to active learning tools.

Presenter: Igor Ostapenko, the Head of the Group and Team Coaching Program at Lomonosov MSU Business School. An HSE alumnus (Master’s in Psychology: Psychoanalysis and Business Consulting, with Distinction), he was a nominee for the HSE Alumni Awards 2023 in the "Breakthrough of the Year" category. His expertise lies in team dynamics, consulting, and active learning.

Crafting stories without boundaries: Unlocking creativity through text element manipulation

Workshop by Anastasia Okunkova

This workshop aligns with the conference theme of innovative creative writing pedagogy. It focuses on manipulating core text elements—setting, chronotop, style, and perspective—to foster creative flexibility and help students break free from genre conventions. Grounded in contemporary research, particularly Trends in Research on Writing as a Learning Activity by Perry D. Klein and Pietro Boscolo (2020), the workshop emphasizes the importance of dynamic, iterative writing processes and encourages students to experiment with narrative form. Klein & Boscolo (2020) argue that writing instruction should foster creativity by providing opportunities for students to experiment with narrative structure. This workshop demonstrates how attention to text elements—such as setting, chronotop, style, and perspective—can unlock diverse storytelling possibilities, allowing students to explore new genres and narrative voices.

Workshop Activities:

1. Activity 1: Transforming Setting and Chronotop

Participants will rewrite a short scene from a popular fiction piece by changing its setting and time-space structure. Understanding chronotop allows writers to explore how shifts in space and time impact narrative meaning. This activity will encourage participants to pay attention to  how changes to details and timeframes might alter mood and conflict.

2. Activity 2: Exploring Style and Perspective

Participants will reimagine the same scene using different literary styles (minimalist, poetic, fairy-tale, jokes) and perspectives (first-person, omniscient). This activity highlights how narrative style and perspective shape reader engagement and character development. This activity will prompt the beginner writers  to experiment with voice and tone, showing how these elements can dramatically change a story’s impact.

Conclusion:

By focusing on text element manipulation, this workshop offers practical strategies for fostering creativity in students’ writing. It invites educators to integrate these techniques into their own teaching practices, helping students develop flexible, genre-crossing writing skills.

Presenter: Anastasia Okunkova teaches 10th–11th grade students, guiding them to consistently achieve top exam scores (SAT 1500+, Unified State Exam 90+). A course designer in Philosophy and Academic Writing, she also organizes an annual TED-style event at her school. A multiple winner of the “Profi” Olympiad, she’s passionate about inspiring excellence.

“Dear Diary” in the classroom

Workshop by Yulia Mukhina
Saratov State University

Most English learners have experience in keeping personal diary notes. Even though the diary's therapeutic effect is widely acknowledged, it is seldom looked at as a tool for developing writing skills in the ELT classroom. The reasons for such lack of methodological attention may lie in the characteristic features of diary entries that turn a diary into an inappropriate form of writing (e.g. possibility of violating the language norms). The same characteristic features, though, can become beneficial for a foreign language learner (e.g. violating the language norms in the conscious play on words).

The aim of the workshop is to show how a “personal diary” approach can be employed to solve the problem of a writer's block, fear of mistakes, as well as to help change the perspective and develop writing skills. Additionally, diaries can be used as an effective tool for reflection and feedback.

Theoretically the workshop is based on a number of research works highlighting the positive effects of using diary notes for study purposes and the author’s personal teaching experience in the groups of intending teachers at Saratov State University. Methodologically, it focuses on the active engagement of the participants through changing interaction patterns (teacher’s presentation – group discussion – pair work reflection – independent writing – small group conferring). 

The procedure: the participants are expected to elicit the structural and linguistic features of a personal diary entry through the whole group discussion, exchange the current day impressions with a partner in the conversation, create a diary page for the current day, and participate in the read-around “conference” in a small group.

The language focus: sensory and emotional vocabulary, emotional syntax patterns, elision.
The target audience: teachers, students, researchers in the field of ELT.

Presenter: Yulia Mukhina, an associate professor at the department of The English Language and its Teaching Methods in the Pedagogical Institute of Saratov State University (Russia). She has 20+ years of experience in teaching English and its aspects (practical phonetics, grammar, writing, speaking, and translation), lecturing in British and American Studies and Linguistics as well as conducting workshops.

Discussing others' work in research articles: Choosing a "modal"

Workshop by Olga Malinova
Russian Academy of Sciences

Discussing and citing published works is an integral element of academic writing, which is important for demonstrating the author's competence and the contribution of the presented research to the existing research field. When reporting on our research, we constantly mention, retell, summarize, quote, and criticize the work of other researchers. Contrary to stereotype, reference to literature is essential not only for the literature review, but also for other sections of the article. What are the functions of discussing previous work and citing it? How do we decide which works are worth discussing and mentioning? How can we make a discussion of literature more enjoyable? How do we write about other people's work smartly? When is a paraphrase required, when a direct quote is needed, and when is it relevant just to provide a reference? How do we choose the "modality" for discussing literature in the text of an article depending on the context?

The workshop will address these, and other questions based on the analysis of successful and unsuccessful examples from articles and other scientific texts in Russian.

Presenter: Olga Malinova, a chief research fellow of the Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences, and the editor-in-chief of the journal "Political Science" (RU). She is Dr. of Philosophy. She published in Russian and English on political ideologies and political discourse, symbolic politics, politics of memory, and Russian identity construction.

From C2 to ABC: Time to rethink the school-to-university transition for advanced learners

Workshop by Irina Kostyukovich
Primakov Gymnasium

I have watched a national olympiad winner lose her ability to structure an argument after one year of university English. This is not a one-off case — it is a pattern I see repeated year after year with my strongest students.

These are learners who hold C1 and C2 certificates, score at the top of international exams, win the All-Russian Olympiad and university-level competitions. Many have presented before international audiences, won scholarships abroad, and genuinely love the language. For years, their learning has been intense, demanding, and deeply rewarding. Then they enter university — and the momentum breaks. Not because anyone intends it, but because the system has no pathway for them. They are placed in programs designed for a very different level. They stop growing. They come back frustrated, saying they see no point in studying English at university anymore. We are all losing their potential — schools, universities, and the students themselves.

In this workshop, participants will examine real examples of academic writing produced by high-proficiency school students alongside typical university-level writing tasks. Participants will also hear student voices — how these learners experience the transition, what they miss, what they need — and use this as a starting point for a collaborative brainstorm: How should we approach these students at university level? Together, we will evaluate existing writing tasks, discuss what works, and explore practical ideas for building continuity between school and university. Participants will leave with a better understanding of what high-proficiency learners actually need and practical ideas for how to make the transition from school to university work for them.

Presenter: Irina Kostyukovich, an English language teacher and methodologist with over twenty years of experience, and  a coach of the Moscow Region English language olympiad team. Irina has taught at Vitebsk State University. She currently teaches English at the Primakov Gymnasium.

Haibun as a form of travel writing

Workshop by Nelly Shulman

This workshop introduces participants to haibun, which is a Japanese hybrid form that merges concise prose with haiku, and examines its relevance within contemporary travel writing. Drawing on examples from Bashō to present-day practitioners, the session will outline the genre’s defining features: compression, sensory specificity, and the dynamic interplay between narrative movement and poetic stillness. Rather than documenting an itinerary, haibun frames travel as a sequence of distilled perceptions, emotional fluctuations, and encounters with place.

To clarify scope and outcomes, the workshop will include explicit opportunities for participants to practise writing in the genre. After a focused demonstration of how prose and haiku function together and how one establishes context and the other refracts it, participants will be guided through short, structured exercises. These will support the development of both components: a brief prose vignette grounded in sensory detail, and a haiku that provides contrast, resonance, or disruption. Writers will then combine the two into a draft haibun based on a remembered journey, a local walk, or an imagined landscape. Voluntary sharing will allow for immediate, constructive feedback.

Because the festival foregrounds genre as a site of experimentation, the workshop will also facilitate discussion about the pedagogical value of teaching emerging and hybrid literary forms. Participants will consider how haibun can expand the toolkit of creative writing classrooms: its utility in cultivating attentiveness, precision, and reflective practice; its suitability for multimodal or interdisciplinary assignments; and its capacity to support diverse forms of travel writing, including writing about migration, environmental encounters, and digital or interior journeys.

The workshop is aimed at writers and educators at all levels. No prior knowledge of haiku or Japanese literature is required — only an interest in how concise, hybrid genres can open new pathways for representing movement, place, and experience.

Presenter: Nelly Shulman, a fiction writer and essayist whose work explores memory, voice, and the ethical tensions between personal and historical experience. She is the author of four short story collections: The Voice (2023), The Drought (2023), The Silver Wind (2024), and Her Flesh and Blood (2025).

Mindful academic writing

Workshop by Evgeniya Lubennikova
HSE University 

This workshop explores the integration of mindful practices into academic writing to foster deeper self-awareness and more authentic writer identities. By embracing mindfulness—characterized by present-moment, non-judgmental awareness—writers can cultivate a reflective space that enhances creativity, joy, and self-acceptance. The session examines how mindfulness facilitates a nuanced understanding of the writing process, transforming it from a purely functional task into an act of self-expression and growth. Participants will explore strategies to develop openness to inner experiences, reducing reactivity and self-criticism, thereby promoting well-being and resilience. Through practical mindfulness-based activities, the workshop demonstrates how cultivating mindfulness can reframe academic writing as a compassionate practice that nurtures both the writer and their relationships with others. Attendees will leave with tools to integrate mindfulness into their writing routines, enriching their academic experiences and fostering a more inclusive, empathetic scholarly community.

Presenter: Evgeniya Lubennikova, a research psychologist and a lecturer currently pursuing her PhD at the department of Psychology, HSE. Evgeniya holds an MSc in Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology from the University of East London. Her current PhD research at HSE builds upon this interdisciplinary foundation, exploring the intersection of cognitive-behavioural approaches and the science of mindfulness and wellbeing.

Paraphrasing as a strategic toolkit for academic expression

Workshop by Anna Kascheeva
New Economic School

This interactive workshop redefines paraphrasing as an essential strategic tool for intellectual expression and scholarly voice. Moving beyond its traditional role as a plagiarism-avoidance exercise, we reframe paraphrasing as the vital strategy for integrating research, establishing credibility, and articulating complex ideas with precision.

Aligned with the Academic Writing Carnival track, the session highlights the creative and dynamic nature of academic writing. Participants will discover how effective paraphrasing transforms passive summarization into active participation in academic discourse, enabling writers to engage with, critique, and build upon existing knowledge.

Through practical activities, attendees will apply core paraphrasing strategies, including using synonyms and word families, choosing precise verbs of reference, changing sentence voice and tenses, and restructuring information. These techniques will be practiced via engaging exercises such as analysis of paraphrase quality, matching terms to their functions, multiple-choice, and text-completion tasks.

By the end of the workshop, both writers and instructors will be equipped with a practical framework and a teachable toolkit to use paraphrasing, strategically enhancing the critical depth, originality, and persuasive power of their academic writing.

Presenter: Anna Kashcheeva, a Senior Instructor at Humanities and Languages Department of the New Economic School delivering General English, Introduction to College Writing courses and multiple teacher training courses including CELTA and DELTA. She holds a pedagogical degree and MSc in Educational Management from University of Portsmouth, UK.

Reclaiming writing from chore to choice: Move from avoidance to inner motivation

Workshop by Heather Belgorodtseva

Writing is often perceived as a chore and avoided not only by novices but also by experienced writers such as academics, teachers of English, and, frankly, a large percentage of any population. This holds true whether we are talking about writing in a first, second or fourth language.

But I love writing! And I firmly believe that valuing writing as a source of joy and intellectual play can help us when we need to write in higher stakes or more serious writing contexts too.

This session aims to give insight into how everyone can become more enthusiastic and effective wordsmiths, and present a list of tips that will make for better writers, but also encourage participants to do more of it.

The session will achieve this by illustrating the suggestions by reference to personal anecdotes and research into motivation and successful writing strategies. Attendees will also take part in engaging but purposeful writing tasks that reinforce the tips and the underlying proposition - that writing does not have to be tedious to be beneficial. 

Come to this session for inspiration about how to get started with regular writing, how to hone the craft of writing, how to keep going, and even how to pass this enthusiasm onto others.

Presenter: Heather Anne Belgorodtseva, a teacher, academic manager, and teacher trainer for 25 years, Heather has worked in Moscow and London, in language schools and further education colleges. She has also had four blogs, only one of which was teaching-related. Currently she is exploring the link between cooking and Formula One motor racing.

Supporting graduate writers from manuscript to publication

Workshop by Heather Price Boldt and Grace Unhie Song
Emory University

In addition to learning the general conventions of academic writing, graduate writers must also learn the writing conventions of their specific discipline and the process of publishing in discipline-specific publications. In this workshop, we will discuss the various ways we support doctoral students who are writing for publication, including credit-bearing courses, individual directed studies, and one-on-one writing consultations.   

To gain familiarity with academic writing in general as well as in their disciplines, students who are junior scholars can enroll in our 14-week 2-credit course Laboratory in Graduate and Professional Writing. In this course, students investigate writing for publication through genre analysis, an exploratory approach in which students analyze published research articles to identify discipline-specific features at the organizational and language levels. Simultaneously, students work on their own manuscripts, revising according to the findings of their genre analysis and instructor feedback.   

Workshop participants will have the opportunity to engage in sample instructional activities, such as those related to argumentation, the structure and language of the main sections of a research article, cohesion in research writing, and writing precisely and concisely.  
The content of directed studies and one-on-one consultations is tailored to the unique needs of the student. Presenters will also share examples of feedback and activities used in individual sessions.

Presenters: Heather Price Boldt directs Professional & Academic Communication Support in the Graduate School at Emory University, an R1 institution serving scholars in 40+ humanities, social science, and STEM programs. She has 20+ years’ experience teaching graduate and professional writing and serves on the Consortium on Graduate Communication’s executive board.

Grace Unhie Song, an instructor and Assistant Director of Professional & Academic Communication Support in the Graduate School at Emory University, an R1 institution serving scholars in 40 + humanities, social science, and STEM programs. She has over 20 years’ experience teaching graduate and professional writing.

Teaching academic writing: From structured drafting to AI-powered reviewing

Workshop by Ekaterina Isaeva and Alexander Tolstenko
MISIS University, Perm State University

Academic writing is a key skill in academic and scientific communication. However, mastering this skill is a time-consuming process that requires constant practice and feedback from a supervisor, tutor, or reviewers. In addition, many novice authors experience the so-called blank page syndrome, which further complicates the writing process. As a result, the development of academic writing skills involves not only linguistic training, but also considerable cognitive and psychological effort.

One possible solution to these challenges lies in applying artificial intelligence (AI) to academic writing instruction. Though AI has proven its efficiency in structuring and proofreading scientific texts, there is no agreement about its eligibility in developing academic writing skills in students.

We address the highlighted above problems by developing a program that helps to overcome the blank page syndrome by structured writing. The tool is aimed at reducing reliance on overseas software, whose availability is limited in Russia, and substitutes the OpenWriteful app, whose sentence palette feature used to teach students the IMRAD approach, has been deprecated. Additionally, we have devised an LLM-based text evaluation tool that simulates peer reviewing.

The purpose of the workshop is to demonstrate our software and discuss how it can be integrated into the teaching and reviewing process. The workshop is designed for everyone who does and teaches academic writing in English. It includes:

- semi-automated restructuring of an unstructured scientific text

- manual peer reviewing of a draft scientific article focusing on structure, style, and clarity

- performing the same task using a chatbot, with attention to prompt design

- text evaluation using the developed LLM-based tool, and

- comparison of results and discussion of educational applications.

As a result, participants will gain a clear understanding of the possibilities and limitations of AI-assisted academic writing for both research and teaching practice.

Presenters: Ekaterina Isaeva, a PhD in Philology, Head of the LSP Department at PSU and Associate Professor of the Department of Automated Management Systems at NUST MISIS, an editor of scientific volumes published by Springer, a lecturer in academic writing, and a computer linguist, author of over 80 publications including those indexed in Scopus and Web of Science.

Alexander Tolstenko, a 2nd year Master student in Computer Science (Natural Language Processing). He is a former business-analyst at "Technologies of Trust" (ex. PricewaterhouseCoopers): SOX audit, IT General Controls, Internal Control System

Think then ink: Analytical approach to teaching academic writing

Workshop by Inna Anokhina and Iuliia Sazanovich
ITMO University

The language of scientific publications has undergone significant transformations in style, structure, and rhetoric, driven by globalization, digitalization, and evolving scholarly norms. However, are the changes so dramatic?

Mastering academic writing skills for those doing their PhD course is critical, as knowledge sharing currently occurs through publishing research results and findings. In the academic writing classroom, ITMO’s EFL teachers focus on developing postgraduate students’ language skills, as well as teasing their critical thinking skills, such as text analysis, evaluation, and synthesis. 

This practical workshop will equip EFL teachers with hands-on adaptable activities to teach academic writing applying students’ critical thinking. The workshop participants will learn about an analytical approach to provoke classroom discussion aimed at formulating a set of essential academic writing guidelines by students themselves. The participants will engage with a set of classroom-ready tasks targeting text analysis: tenses and voice, cohesion and coherence, author’s voice, and use of AI. The workshop is designed for those seeking to transform their academic writing instruction from language-focused to thinking-focused, empowering their students to read critically and to produce more impactful and persuasive academic texts. 

Presenters: Inna Anokhina has coordinated the Academic Writing Lab at ITMO since 2016. She organizes and runs courses and workshops on Academic Writing as well as provides individual consultations for the university researchers, professors, students, and staff. With her 25-year teaching experience, she has co-authored Academic Writing courses for ITMO's bachelor, master students, and postgraduates. 

Iuliia Sazanovich, an EFL teacher at the Foreign Language Teaching Center (FLTC) and a tutor of the Academic Writing Lab (AWL) at ITMO University, Saint Petersburg. Iuliia has extensive experience in developing ESP courses and teaching materials. Her professional interests include Academic Writing, ESP, ESL methodology, and cross-cultural communication.

Two birds in one hand: Fixing Russian academese through academic English

Workshop by Irina Korotkina

Academic writing in English is commonly thought to be different from that in Russian, but if so, to what extent? Many would agree that text structure requires metalinguistic skills and can therefore be taught in either language, but when it comes to syntax, things become less obvious. However, a closer view reveals multiple similarities between the two languages, and English academic writing can provide easy-to-use strategies in coping with such common Russian faults as wordiness, excessive punctuation, nominalization, or the loss of the meaningful subject or verb. We can avoid obscurity by simply applying the standard model subject – verb – object, excessive punctuation by limiting the number of clauses, and nominalization by finding the right verb. Yet, as academic writing is not taught in Russian, not only authors but also reviewers and editors often disregard the lack of clarity, conciseness, and coherence even when it is easily detected. What is normally subject to correction is grammar, not logical, mistakes. Unlike other professionals, Russian teachers of academic writing in English are well aware of how to fix fragments, chains, or run-on sentences or how to use parallel structures. It is all the more strange therefore that they hardly ever apply this knowledge to writing research papers in Russian, and where teachers of other disciplines could be forgiven, teachers of academic writing should be reproached. The workshop will help participants transfer the English writing methodology to the Russian academic context and probably come up with the idea of teaching Russian academic writing in the not-too-distant future. Indeed, who would do it better?

The language of the workshop is Russian.

Presenter: Irina Korotkina, an expert in academic writing methodology in both English and Russian with over 100 publications, 17 of which are books. She started teaching writing in English in 1998 and pioneered the development of academic writing in Russian since 2008 by defending two dissertations and publishing the first manuals.

Writing in the AI Darkroom—self-diagnostic tool

Workshop by Olesya Petrenko
HSE University 

The rapid integration of generative AI into academic writing workflows has destabilized long-standing assumptions about what it means to be a “competent writer” and what it means to feel capable of producing successful scholarly texts. Writing research distinguishes between self-assessed writing competence—writers’ evaluative judgments of their own ability—and perceived writing efficacy, understood as confidence in performing specific writing tasks. However, these constructs have rarely been examined under conditions in which academic writing is increasingly co-produced with intelligent tools. This workshop addresses this gap by introducing a novel, metaphor-driven questionnaire that conceptualizes scholarly writing as an image developed in an AI-augmented “darkroom.”

Drawing on the metaphor of photographic adjustments—brightness, contrast, highlights, shadows, midtones, saturation, sharpness, and tonal curves—the questionnaire invites researchers to reflect on how they perceive their ability to control key dimensions of writing and how confident they feel doing so in situated, AI-mediated contexts. Each dimension is operationalized through paired multiple-choice and reflective prompts explicitly mapped to writing competence, writing efficacy, or hybrid constructs.

During the workshop, participants complete the questionnaire in relation to their own research writing and produce brief written statements about their current projects. These responses are used to diagnose individual writing patterns, strategies, and dependencies on AI tools. The design enables participants to generate a concise “writing snapshot” that captures points of alignment and tension between perceived ability, task confidence, and tool use.

The workshop is explicitly reflective rather than skills-based. Collective discussion focuses on how researchers negotiate agency, authorship boundaries, scholarly voice, and epistemic responsibility in AI-supported writing. The workshop contributes conceptually by extending models of writing self-beliefs into AI-mediated environments and practically by offering a portable diagnostic tool for research training, AI literacy, and ethical AI use.

Presenter: Olesya Petrenko, PhD in Economics and Management, is a researcher and academic writing specialist with extensive experience in supporting faculty and doctoral candidates at research-intensive universities. Worked in the Czech Republic with local and international students and staff for seven years, currently a postdoc at HSE. Over 17 years of teaching experience with her CELTA qualification.

Writing for an academic website: Challenges and tips

Workshop by Maria Nikitina
HSE University

As chief editor of the HSE University English-language website, I understand the challenges academics face when writing for websites of their departments, projects, and events. In my workshop, I would like to address these challenges and offer effective techniques for improving the international versions of academic websites.

The main topics I will cover in my workshop are:

• Why are websites still relevant?

In 2025, some people think that websites are no longer important, but this is far from true (I will provide evidence).

• How do we adapt texts for online readers and international audiences?

To deliver a clear message and achieve their objectives, website texts should be written and structured in a certain way and should take the audience into account.

• What types of information do we publish, and how should we work with each?

News pieces, announcements, program descriptions, and department pages all have their own specifics. We will discuss how to write each of them effectively.

• How do we choose and maintain a consistent style?

We will discuss why a consistent style is important and how to maintain it across a large institution.

• How can we use AI wisely?

I will give examples of prompts that facilitate writing and editing, and discuss situations in which one should not rely on AI.

As part of the workshop, I will engage the audience in the following activities:

• Surveys to gather feedback on participants’ experience

• Surveys that encourage participants to think critically and defend their opinions

• Discussion of example websites, including their advantages and disadvantages, and ways to improve them

• A competition for the best title and lead paragraph, and

• “AI as a writing assistant” practice.

Presenter: Maria Nikitina, has been working as an editor for the HSE University English-language website for 15 years, and for the past three years she has been Chief Editor, managing a team of editors and translators. Maria also have experience in literary translation and recently launched a blog on English–Russian translation tips.

Writing for olympiads: An integrated approach

Workshop by Ekaterina Mashurova
Educational center “Fine”

The workshop aims to equip teachers with a practical set of pre-writing and writing strategies necessary to meet the specific genre and format requirements of the writing tasks in the All-Russia and National Olympiads in the English language.

Effective writing for these competitions relies on a complex integration of various skills. First and foremost, the necessary language competence enables students to consciously select appropriate grammar, sentence structures, vocabulary, and style to achieve a specific communicative goal. Furthermore, successful writing   depends both on critical thinking skills, including the ability to evaluate arguments, determine the author's stance, and assess the validity of reasoning; and creative thinking such as generating ideas, drawing on personal experience, activating background knowledge, etc. Finally,  cultivating  the reading-into-writing approach in students’ preparation is considered a priority. This includes :

-          distinguishing main ideas from supporting details

-          accurately describing and elaborating on details

-          structuring information chronologically, and

-          comparing and contrasting ideas effectively.

After mastering this integrated approach, teachers will be able to provide their students with an effective toolkit for analyzing tasks, presenting coherent arguments, and producing writing pieces that fulfill the rigorous assessment criteria of Olympiad-level writing.

By participating in the workshop, teachers will acquire ready-to-use strategies for teaching students pre-writing (e.g. genre-specific brainstorming, target audience analysis, layouts), and writing (e.g. following distinct genre conventions, structuring arguments, crafting openings/closings, using cohesive devices, self-editing checklists) tailored to meet the requirements of Russian language Olympiads. Teachers will also learn how to create checklists derived from specific Olympiad assessment criteria to foster their students’ greater autonomy and enhance progress.

Presenter: Ekaterina Mashurova, an EFL teacher, NATE Board Member (National Association of Teachers of English, Russia),  holder of DELTA M3 certificate. She is currently the head of the educational center “Fine” in Smolensk,  teacher-trainer,  EGE/OGE expert, ESP, EAP,  and curriculum developer.

The art of adequacy: How to write a strong motivation letter

Workshop by Natalia Fedorova
HSE University

Whether you would like to apply for an educational program, participate in a professional contest, or earn a grant, a motivation letter is a pre-requisite. Seemingly undemanding, this genre may prove to be challenging because of somewhat vague requirements. This workshop will guide you through the process of writing a strong motivation letter from making sense of what is asked of you to planning and structuring your text. You will look at both strong and weak examples of motivation letters, practice making choices about language and structure, and take away strategies and tips. Join us to beat your competitors at this game!

Presenter: Natalia Fedorova, manager at the HSE Academic Writing Center, has 20 years of experience in teaching English in a variety of contexts. Her professional interests include EAP, ESP, teacher training, and project management in education. Natalia has presented at international conferences and run courses and workshops on academic writing and the use of AI in research writing.

A contemporary EAP textbook: Why, what, and how?

Teaching practice presentation by Anna Smirnova and Alexey Bakulev
HSE University

Although the market is quite full of coursebooks for English for Academic Purposes (EAP), there is always a need to replenish their number and update materials those coursebooks contain. Besides, coursebooks for such specific purposes as linguistics and related fields are quite scarce. In this presentation, we share the experience of designing and using an EAP textbook for those fields making a humble yet verbally ambitious attempt to answer the question: “What should a contemporary EAP textbook look like?”. Our approach rests on three principles. Firstly, we operate on dual development by building vocabulary for special purposes alongside general academic discourse and research skills. Secondly, our materials bridge linguistics, translation, foreign language teaching, and intercultural communication to fit in demands of students’ specialisations and future careers in the respective areas. Thirdly, we foster digital literacy by including a unit dedicated to modern digital tools including AI that facilitate academic research. In our presentation, we will walk participants through the task design, choice of authentic materials, and digital tools training integration. Our goal is not to present a perfect product but to share our faculty and materials design perspective and practice about balancing academic rigour with usability. We believe this talk will be of a particular interest for language professionals and educators including university professors along with course and curricula materials experts.

Presenters: Anna Smirnova, an HSE alumna. She has been teaching at HSE since 2019. Her interests scope general linguistics, foreign language teaching in different contexts, and using digital tools in education and research writing. She has  authored several articles and co-authored a coursebook of academic writing.

Alexey Bakulev has been teaching English for various purposes for almost 20 years. Currently, he is an academic supervisor of a graduate program at the School of Foreign Languages, HSE University. He has authored and co-authored a number of articles and books including ones on academic writing.

Academic writing as a pre-production tool: Teaching the proposal genre to film and TV production students

Teaching practice presentation by Anna Sebryuk
HSE University

Film and TV production students often approach academic writing with skepticism, viewing it as disconnected from their creative practice. A key challenge in this teaching context is overcoming students’ resistance to academic approaches that feel irrelevant to hands-on media production. This practice-based presentation focuses on practical strategies and classroom activities aimed at reframing academic project proposal writing as a vital aspect of creative development—specifically, as a form of pre-production thinking.

Rather than positioning project proposals as purely academic exercises, students are guided to develop them as working documents that mirror industry-standard pre-production materials. In this approach, the proposal serves not only as a blueprint for the bachelor's thesis but also as a foundational tool that clarifies and supports the development of the final screen project. The aim is to integrate academic writing conventions with the types of decisions students are already making—from genre and audience to production scope, narrative structure, and aesthetic choices.

The focus of this presentation will be on the techniques and activities used to teach the proposal genre within a production-focused curriculum. Rather than emphasizing genre characteristics in the abstract, the session will offer concrete pedagogical tools and exercises. These include strategies to help students articulate creative intent, justify artistic and logistical choices through targeted research, and translate practice-based knowledge into structured written argument.

All strategies shared have been developed in response to the specific challenge of engaging students who are often reluctant to engage with academic discourse. By positioning academic writing as a tool for reflection, planning, and risk assessment, this approach supports stronger alignment between the written and practical components of media production education.

Presenter: Anna Sebryuk, a lecturer at HSE University, where she teaches academic writing and linguistics-related disciplines. She is a Fulbright alumna. Her research interests include American Studies, teaching methodology, and discourse analysis, and she publishes regularly in academic journals.

AI-powered or AI-assisted translation? Dos and don'ts for young researchers

Teaching practice presentation by Natalia Gunina
Tambov State Technical University

The rapid diffusion of neural machine translation and large language models has fundamentally changed how students and early-career researchers access, produce, and disseminate academic texts in additional languages. While AI-powered translation tools can dramatically lower linguistic barriers to international scholarship, uncritical reliance on them risks misinterpretation of sources, erosion of disciplinary terminology, academic integrity issues, and a gradual loss of students’ own writing and critical reading skills. This presentation distinguishes between AI-powered translation (where the machine effectively performs the translation task with minimal human intervention) and AI-assisted translation (where human users remain in control of meaning, evaluation, and ethical decisions), and argues that this distinction should become explicit in research writing pedagogy.

Drawing on classroom experience with postgraduate students in engineering programs, the talk maps typical student uses of AI translation at different stages of research: reading foreign-language literature, drafting and revising articles and theses, and handling academic correspondence, submission documents, and reviews. It then highlights recurrent problems: mistranslated technical concepts, distorted stance and hedging, inappropriate register, cultural and genre mismatches, and borderline plagiarism when AI‑translated passages from other authors are reused without adequate citation or recontextualisation.

The session proposes a set of do’s and don’ts that teachers can integrate into courses on academic writing, ESP, and research methods. The focus is on helping students (a) recognise when AI‑powered translation is unsafe or insufficient, (b) develop transparent, ethical AI‑assisted workflows, and (c) cultivate critical literacy towards machine-generated text. The presentation will include practical classroom tasks and discussion prompts that teachers can adapt for their own disciplines, with the goal of reframing AI translation not as a threat, but as a practical tool for developing responsible authorship and research literacy.

Presenter: Natalia Gunina holds a PhD (Linguistics) and has led the Department of Foreign Languages and Professional Communication at Tambov State Technical University since 2013. Her interests include AW, ESP,  AI pedagogy. She has presented at international events such as  TESOL Colloquium (Paris, 2017), IATEFL Hungary (2018);  she has initiated Annual AW School to help students improve their writing skills.

AI-speak: Pitfalls of AI editors

Teaching practice presentation by Alexander Grebennikov
ITMO University

Using AI-editors has become a commonplace for both students and researchers. While these editors offer undeniable benefits in terms of clarity and efficiency, they also introduce subtle but significant pitfalls that threaten the core of authentic scholarship. This roundtable proposes a focused discussion on what we, as educators of bachelor’s, master’s, and postgraduate students, must warn our writers about.

Generally, those pitfalls may include: overusing of some cliché words and phrases from other text genres; using improper technical terms (too wide, too specific, or the terms from another subject field); and, the most important, flattening the author’s voice and homogenizing scientific texts. The central focus of our discussion, however, will be the erosion of the author's voice. I invite participants to analyze the mechanisms of this erasure: what specific elements of style, argumentation, and personality are lost when text is passed through an AI filter? Why is preserving this unique voice, with all its nuances, vital for academic discourse?

Analyzing some examples from my own papers and papers of my students would demonstrate that AI response needs critical evaluation, prompt refining, and final synthesis. This roundtable aims to collaboratively develop pedagogical strategies that reframe AI not as a sole author, but as a "thought partner"—a tool to augment rather than replace the researcher's own critical thinking and distinctive scholarly identity.

Presenter: Alexander Grebennikov graduated from the Faculty of Philology, St. Petersburg State University. He holds a PhD in Linguistics). He teaches academic writing for bachelors, master, and post-graduate students. He is also a staff member of the Academic Writing Laboratory at ITMO. My scientific interests include stylometry, statistical methods in linguistics, and lexicography.

Cultivating critical authorship: An AI-integrated pedagogy for business writing

Teaching practice presentation by Elena Sorokina and Aida Rodomanchenko
HSE University, NUST MISIS

The aim of this proposal is to present an evidence-based practice that we implemented in an advanced Business English course at the School of Foreign Languages of the Higher School of Economics. The teaching practice was designed to leverage the generative AI as a catalyst for developing writing skills and critical thinking among EFL learners. During the course, the students were expected to take on the role of critical editors and go beyond mere consumption of AI generated texts. They drafted a range of business correspondence with AI support at the initial stages of the course but completed the final assessment without it, ensuring authentic skill transfer. The comparative analysis of AI-free writing samples against CEFR C1-C2 descriptors was complemented with a dual survey (immediate at the end of the course and three-month follow-up) to measure longitudinal development.

Students participated in simulated business projects, engaging in collaborative brainstorming sessions to develop company profiles and correspondence scenarios. This project-based approach provided cognitive scaffolding that mitigated writing anxiety aka “empty page syndrome.”  Teams employed AI to generate initial ideas and document templates to study genre specific conventions, after which learners independently produced final AI-free documents infused with role-specific details.

Overall, the results revealed that 87% of students progressed in logical structuring and genre adherence, with 79% showing a consistent recognition to critically evaluate AI outputs. Students evolved from accepting AI generations uncritically to actively adapting  them to their needs and writing style. This practice cultivated metacognitive awareness: learners began distinguishing their own voice from the algorithm; thus, reducing the risk of plagiarism. 

Ultimately, this practice demonstrates that AI integration can boost students’ critical engagement with language, preparing them for ethically informed communication in AI-augmented professional landscapes.

Presenters: Elena Sorokina, an EFL specialist with over 20 years' experience advancing academic and business writing proficiency. A former Cambridge speaking examiner and holder of CELTA and Delta qualifications, she has been recognized three times by HSE's Fund for Educational Innovations for integrating novel approaches and critical literacy into language instruction.

Aida Rodomanchenko, PhD, is an Associate Professor at HSE and NUST MISIS, a state item writer for Russia's Unified National Exam, and an Olympiad expert. She is a teacher trainer, honoured with the Best HSE Teacher Award for three consecutive years, alongside multiple recognitions for innovation in language education.

ERPP course as an alternative solution for universities without academic writing centers

Teaching practice presentation by Elena Belyaeva
Saint Petersburg State University

Many Russian higher education institutions lack dedicated Academic Writing Centers (AWCs), creating a significant gap in supporting students and faculty in English academic writing and publication. This presentation addresses the central question: How can universities without an AWC systematically enhance the quality of academic writing in English? It proposes English for Research and Publication Purposes (ERPP) courses as a scalable, pedagogical alternative.

The session will present a case study of an ERPP course integrated into the Master’s programme “Teaching English for Specific Purposes in Higher Education” at St. Petersburg State University. The syllabus design framework is grounded in the approach to ERPP introduced by Dr. Ivan Eubanks (Skolkovo) and some Liberal Arts education model, where writing is big and is closely linked to thinking. The presentation will explicitly outline the teaching context, course aims and objectives, participant profile, and interactive classroom methodologies employed.

Results from the first student cohort will be critically analyzed, demonstrating the course's effectiveness in building practical ERPP instructional skills. Participants will be invited to evaluate these outcomes and their transferability. Furthermore, the session will provide and discuss the complete course syllabus as a replicable model.

This contribution is believed to be directly relevant to conference themes of academic writing pedagogy and institutional support. It articulates the problem of AWC scarcity and aims to present a concrete, research-informed alternative. The methods are thoroughly described and results should contribute to knowledge on scalable writing support, with high potential to stimulate professional discussion.

Presenter: Elena Belyaeva, PhD, an Associate Professor at St. Petersburg State University. Her expertise spans EAP/ESP, ERPP, and EMI. She academically leads a master's program for training ESP teachers in higher education and is actively engaged in in-service training for foreign language teachers. Her scholarship includes a co-authored chapter on Russia in Englishization of Higher Education in Europe.

Exploring linguistic personalities in academic settings: Postgraduates’ insights

Teaching practice presentation by Elina Savitskaya
Moscow City University

Teaching linguistic subjects with PhD students from a range of disciplines is often a challenging process. First, it is necessary to find touchpoints between, for example, Physics, Philosophy, Biology, and Philology students. This is exactly the educational context at our university. For the past two years, therefore, I have been searching for the common ground and using the touchpoints to set the aims and outcomes of a course in Linguistics and a Foreign Language.

In this presentation, I will present the experience of students’ reflection on their own linguistic personality as specialists in Russian and English academic contexts. All postgraduate students publish articles and present their research results at international conferences. Mastery of academic language across different linguistic contexts is precisely what brings together students from different disciplines. Within linguistic courses with postgraduate students, our primary task is to understand what a linguistic personality is, how to analyze it, and how to evaluate one’s strengths and new areas for growth for successful future work in various academic environments.

Presenter: Elina Savitskaya (Chuikova), Doctor of Education,  Professor, Head of FL Teaching Department, Head of Philological Faculty at Moscow City University (Samara Campus). She is a specialist in FL teaching methods, an academic writing tutor, the author of more than 70 published books, articles, and teaching guidebooks – 50 of them are about academic writing skills and their development.

Film as a writing engine: Designing tasks from screen to page and giving effective feedback

Teaching practice presentation by Artem Sigaev
ITMO University

This teaching practice presentation examines how film and television can function as engines for developing students’ writing, guiding learners from multimodal input to structured written output and effective feedback cycles. The presentation draws on research in multimodality, cinematic literacy, narrative development through series, audiovisual input in L2 learning, and feedback with and without generative AI.  The presentation describes a practical framework for turning screen-based content into pedagogically grounded writing tasks. It focuses first on how films and series are transformed into sequenced handouts with pre-viewing scaffolding, guided viewing tasks, and post-viewing writing prompts aligned with learning outcomes with attention to narrative structure, multimodal processing, and vocabulary development. It then describes what happens after students write, presenting hybrid feedback models that combine teacher, peer, and AI-supported commentary, including rubric-based feedback, reflective response tasks, and feedback loops from first draft to revision, while preserving student voice and avoiding over-reliance on automated tools.

Presenter: Artem Sigaev, a lecturer at ITMO University, teaching English for academic and professional purposes. His work focuses on film-based pedagogy, writing instruction, and feedback practices, including the responsible use of AI in language education.

Generative opposition: A pedagogy for writing definitions

Teaching practice presentation by Melvin Hall
Moscow Finance and Law University

Perhaps the most important cognitive and expressive form in any kind of scientific, academic, and legal composition is the definition. Indeed, borrowing from Alasdair MacIntyre, we can define scientific and academic discourse communities as “an argument extended through time in which certain fundamental agreements are defined and redefined.” In other words, critical thinkers, researchers, and scholars dispute about, write about, think about, and traffic in definitions. Given the importance of definition to scholarly writing, this paper addresses the following pedagogical questions: How can writing instructors teach the form of definition as a heuristic tool used to invent thought and organize written discourse? How can writing instructors use the form of definition to demonstrate and teach how writers, students, and scholars can use generative opposites to stimulate critical thinking and to compose paragraphs?  I answer these questions by demonstrating lessons I use in my Legal English, critical thinking, and writing courses to teach definition as a close reading, critical thinking, and composition skill. The results and implications are the following: (1) a series of scaffolded lessons that can be used in the writing and critical thinking classroom; (2) rigorous analysis of examples of definition taken from published scientific and academic articles; and (3) a deeper theoretical understanding of the complexities and nuances of definition as a cognitive and expressive form made present throughout academic argument and published writing.

Presenter: Dr. Melvin Hall has a Ph.D. in Composition and Rhetoric from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and has taught academic writing, argument, and critical thinking for over fifteen years, with an emphasis on the cultural role of rhetoric and comparative rhetoric. He currently teaches English language courses at Moscow Finance and Law University.

How to boost creative writing skills: Effective activities for EFL students

Teaching practice presentation by Alla Sidorenko and Olga Timofeeva

In general, acquiring writing skills is of paramount importance for university students double-majoring in English and Pedagogy – developed writing skills are an unalienable component of communicative competence. Mastering the latter is a crucial requirement of the Federal State Educational Standards and other regulatory documents. While studying towards a bachelor's degree, students should develop soft skills with creativity being on the list of top five personal characteristics. 

However, many years of English teaching experience give the presenters confidence to conclude that creative writing skills are among the most challenging ones to acquire. Teachers have to search for effective strategies, methods, and techniques to train students to write creatively. 

The authors intend to present a series of activities designed to be systematically used in class. They proved to dramatically improve students’ skills of creative writing. The materials were tested:  about 20 Samara Polytech sophomores received Writing classes once a week for three months. By the end of the period, the group demonstrated considerable progress and heightened interest in creating stories, poems, riddles, and mottoes. The effectiveness of the tasks manifested itself in forming communicative competence in the students.  

Presenters: Alla Sidorenko, PhD in Linguistics, graduated from Samara State Pedagogical University with honors; she majored in Teaching English and German and, with more than 20 years of teaching experience, has developed strong expertise in communicative language teaching, academic writing instruction, and cross-cultural communication.

Olga Timofeeva, PhD in Linguistics, graduated from Kuibyshev State Pedagogical Institute with honors. She majored in Teaching English and French. Having 38 years of teaching experience, living and teaching in many parts of Russia and abroad have helped her to acquire academic and cultural knowledge.

Put a new spin on writing an email for the state exam

Teaching practice presentation by Anastasia Khodakova
Language center "Hi Time"

Preparing for an exam in English can be a tedious job because of drills and repetitive tasks. Moreover, teachers have to use exam tasks over and over again to train students for the format. The added stress of school-leaving exams which determine students' future can also explain extra pressure and negative emotions teenagers feel when facing the same exam tasks. As shown in many findings, emotions influence the effectiveness of language teaching to a great extent (Richards, 2020; Arnold, 2009). That is why it is crucial for teachers to engage students using non-standard approaches to do exam tasks. However, such practices are hardly covered in methodological literature in relation to exam preparation.

The presenter will demonstrate three unusual teaching activities to practice writing an email for the national state exam (EGE) tested in the author's exam preparation course for 7 years. The audience will see or try activities which proved to engage students in writing an email according to the beaten and a bit boring format (Verbitskaya, 2025): 1) unusual constraints, 2) hidden song lyrics (Dudley, 2018), 3) outwrite my questions.

The activities can be adapted to other writing formats and will show how to kill two birds with one stone and combine engaging practices with effective preparation for writing exams.

Sources Cited:

Richards, J.S. (2020). Exploring Emotions in Language Teaching. RELC Journal, 1-15.

Arnold, J. (2009). ELIA 9, 2009. pp. 145-151.

Dudley, E. (2018). ETPedia: Teenagers. 500 ideas for teaching English to teenagers. Series Editor: John Hughes. www.myetpedia.com. Pavilion Publishing and Media Ltd. 

Verbitskaia, M.V. Rodomanchenko, A.S. Khodakova, A.G. Shchukina, I.V. (2025). EGE. The English Language: typical exam tests: 20 tests. Textbook. Moscow. National Education Publishing. 368 p.

Presenter: Anastasia Khodakova, PhD, member of the NATE Experts Board, head of the Language center ‘Hi Time’, has 18 years of experience in teaching English and teacher-training. She has worked on exam materials development for 14 years, and has authored and co-authored more than 20 books on methodology and exam preparation.

Silent discussion: Scaffolding microgenres through inclusive dialogue

Teaching practice presentation by Uliana Smirnova
Moscow City University

In English language classrooms, many students, particularly those who are introverted or experience anxiety about public speaking, struggle to participate meaningfully in oral discussions. Consequently, they miss valuable opportunities to articulate their perspectives and rehearse essential rhetorical moves such as questioning, agreeing, disagreeing, and building on peers' ideas. Moreover, conventional discussion formats often privilege rapid verbal responses over reflective, text-mediated dialogue. Silent discussion offers a pedagogical alternative to this limitation. As documented in classroom practice literature (e.g., “Big Paper” strategy), this approach leverages writing and silence to allow students to explore topics in depth while ensuring equitable participation.

Although students routinely engage in informal digital writing – from social media comments to chat messages – they often lack practice in purposeful academic dialogue that demands evidence, courtesy, and rhetorical precision. Silent discussion can be strategically redesigned not merely as a substitute for speaking but as a scaffolded space for practicing multiple writing microgenres, such as analytical comments, polite rebuttals, and evidence-based questions. This teaching practice presentation aims to demonstrate how silent discussion creates an inclusive, low-stakes environment where students can rehearse these microgenres simultaneously. The guiding question is: How can silent discussion be intentionally designed, using prior listening or visual/text stimuli, to develop students' genre awareness and rhetorical flexibility? The session will demonstrate: (1) the instructional design of silent discussion, from stimulus selection through structured execution to reflective synthesis; (2) a practical "language bank" that scaffolds students' production of academic microgenres (e.g., polite agreement/disagreement, evidence-based questioning, concise critique); and (3) authentic examples of student writing illustrating how a single dialogue generates multiple genre moves.

Presenter: Uliana Smirnova, Associate Professor at Moscow City University, teaching English to third- and fourth-year students. She is passionate about English and continuously refining teaching practice. She finds great satisfaction in engaging learners and creating spaces where every student can develop confidence and have their say.

Targeting your writing to the journal requirements: Course teaching experience

Teaching practice presentation by Varvara Sosedova

The presenter will share her teaching experience of the course “Targeting Your Writing to the Journal Requirements: Preparatory Stage,” organized annually at HSE Academic Writing Centre and aimed at faculty members and researchers. 

The goal of the course is to help researchers analyze language features of articles in their disciplinary fields with regards to the requirements of selected journals. The course comprises four weekly online classes, four academic hours each, and eight hours of home practice and assignments. 

The main topics of the program are metrics and features of academic journals, strategies of journal selection, journal requirements; scholarly databases and AI tools to collect literature for references, bibliographic managers for literature storage; use of language corpus for journal analysis (AntConc software).

As a result of this practical course participants (1)  choose an international journal  for publication, (2) collect a list of literature for further use in their paper, and (3) create a language corpus of articles in their own disciplinary field/journal and identify key language features and patterns.

The speaker is going to present participants’ feedback collected over four years and her observations, concerns, and recommendations regarding the course. This presentation will be of most interest for those who are planning to introduce such practices into their curriculum or those having similar programs.

Presenter: Varvara Sosedova, an education specialist at Clarivate, Web of Science. She holds a degree in Philology and has authored publications in Linguistics and Cultural Studies. Her areas of expertise are academic writing, writing grant proposals, and database search. She is a co-author of English for Research Publication Purposes course, Coursera.

Teaching academic tone with AI tools in a bilingual classroom

Teaching practice presentation by Elmira Khamutaeva

Teaching academic tone is one of the most challenging aspects of speech culture courses for bilingual undergraduate students. Even when students have sufficient grammar and vocabulary, they often struggle with appropriateness, politeness, and the overall communicative norms expected in academic writing in English. This challenge becomes more complex in bilingual classrooms, where cultural norms of communication may differ significantly.

This short teaching practice presentation shares one practical classroom activity that uses AI tools to help undergraduate students develop awareness of academic tone. In a speech culture course, AI was introduced as a supportive assistant rather than a replacement for teacher feedback. Students worked with short academic texts and prompts, asking AI to analyze tone, suggest revisions, and explain why certain formulations sound more appropriate in academic contexts.

The activity helped students notice differences between neutral, informal, and academic tone, as well as culturally sensitive aspects of academic communication. The presentation focuses on how AI-supported tone analysis can be integrated into regular classroom practice with minimal preparation and without advanced technical skills.

This teaching idea may be useful for instructors working with bilingual or multicultural student groups who aim to develop students’ academic communication skills while maintaining ethical and reflective use of AI tools in the classroom.

Presenter: Elmira Khamutaeva, a university lecturer working with undergraduate students, teaching speech culture and academic communication in a bilingual educational context. Her teaching interests include academic tone, communicative norms, and the use of AI tools to support students’ writing development.

Teaching and testing genre for bachelor degree engineers

Teaching practice presentation by Polina Ermakova and Olga Rossikhina
MISIS University

Facing the reality of reduced language hours, this presentation outlines a strategy to embed professional genre preparation directly into an existing General English Trajectory for Year 1,2 engineers. 

We detail a departmental initiative where teachers at the General English Track of Evolve series systematically integrate genre activities on four key tasks. They are: Self-Presentation, Oral Comment, Email, and Summary. This is arranged to happen across the entire General English track.

This approach maps genre tasks onto the themes and linguistic functions already present in the Evolve syllabus. For example, a unit on people and jobs becomes the context for crafting a professional self-introduction, while a unit on problems and solutions provides the framework for structuring an oral comment. We treat these genres not as additional content, but as targeted applications for the language skills being taught.

We will present our collaborative framework for identifying these points, alongside practical classroom activities that add minimal preparation time. A core focus will be on building coherent, cross-level assessment: how to design simple, consistent rubrics that track a student’s developing genre competence from A2 to B2 , using language provided by the coursebook.

This integrated model ensures continuous, low-stakes genre practice, making professional communication a visible thread throughout the program. It maximizes the relevance of the standard curriculum within constrained hours, preparing engineers not after their General English track, but as it unfolds.

Presenters: Polina Ermakova, an associate professor at the Department of Foreign Languages and Communication, and the Head of the English Language program for Bachelor Degree engineers at University MISIS, Moscow. She supervises academic affairs such as academic management of the language program, teacher development, and syllabus design. Her research interests focus on teaching EAP and ESP.

Olga Rossikhina, Cand.Sci (Biology), Associate Professor,  she works at the Department of Modern Languages and Communication, University MISIS, Moscow.  She teaches  General English to technical undergraduates and Academic English to students of linguistics. She also coordinates ESP and Projects tracks.

Tell me and I forget; let me watch and I write

Teaching practice presentation by Tatiana Skopintseva
New Economic School

The rhetoric of written and oral texts goes hand in hand in terms of structure, organization, clarity of thought, and narrative style. In linguistics, communication studies, and rhetoric, a text—oral or written—is judged appropriate when it suits a particular purpose, audience, and context. The connection between writing skills and oral performance is clear, yet they are rarely taught together or allowed to inform one another in classroom practice. 

To illustrate this link, we selected famous movie speeches—excellent models of carefully crafted rhetoric. By analyzing how four cognitively salient prosodic features—pace, power, pitch, and pause (the “four Ps”)—operate in these speeches, participants will be able to identify a text’s central message, structure, the speaker’s rhetorical strategy and pragmatic intent, and the corresponding linguistic resources. We will then show how this inventory of prosodic and linguistic features from oral texts can inform the planning and organization of written compositions. 

During the workshop, we will provide examples of exercises based on movie and other speeches that can help boost writing skills. At the end of the workshop, the participants will be given a blank text to analyze, put proper punctuation and prosodic marks according to a given context and intended for a designated audience. Once the meaningful analysis is done, participants will be given an opportunity to express their vision by voicing the text and then comparing it with the original. 

Through exercises based on movie-speech analysis, we aim to bridge oral and written discourse and demonstrate how language instructors can use these materials to make instruction more effective and economical.

Presenter: Tatiana Skopintseva, Chair of the Humanities and Languages Department at New Economic School in Moscow, Ph.D. (MSLU), VAK Associate Professor (Phonetics and Phonology). Invited speaker at about 30 national and international events and author of over 15 publications. Expertise: Phonetics and Phonology, Public Speaking in English, ELF, World Englishes.

Using neural networks in scientific and technical translation: Pros and cons

Teaching practice presentation by Gulnaz Fakhretdinova and Maria Suntsova
Kazan National Research Technological University

Contemporary demands for the translation of research papers in engineering disciplines involve processing large text volumes within tight deadlines, a requirement relevant both for professional translators and for scientists in their research. Neural networks (namely, neural machine translation (NMT) systems) can significantly increase translation speed. This is why they are widely used now. However, this often comes at the expense of the quality of the final text. This proposal aims to provide some methods for improving translation quality when utilizing neural networks. Challenges, such as selecting appropriate translation tools, the diversity of available NMT systems, and inconsistencies in the outputs provided by different systems, can be overcome with proper training for translators or researchers.

In teaching translation from and into foreign languages to postgraduate students and young researchers, we recommend incorporating peer review sessions that focus specifically on identifying and correcting typical NMT errors. These include translationese (calques), violations of the grammatical and stylistic norms of the target language, issues with lexical collocation, etc.

Presenters: Gulnaz Fakhretdinova, a foreign language teacher working with students from Rostec Corporation. She oversees research and grant activities and has participated in the creation of a number of online courses (Digital Teacher Workshop, English in the Academic Field). She is an expert in international programs (Fulbright, CERGE-EI) and digital technologies in education. She regularly conducts methodological seminars for university teachers on interactive methods and the integration of artificial intelligence into the educational process.

Maria Suntsova teaches German and English to students of different levels at an engineering university (Kazan National Research Technological University). She is also a practicing translator/interpreter and a member of the Russian Union of Translators (since 2011). She was also engaged in developing some online courses for the university's under- and postgraduate students.

When errors become insights: Mining student writing for better teaching

Teaching practice presentation by Anna Chaikina
New Economic School

This presentation reports on a classroom-based study of learner writing that examines how systematic error analysis can inform EFL writing instruction. The project draws on a corpus of student paragraphs produced in an upper-intermediate academic writing course and represents a range of paragraph types (definition, process, cause and effect, compare and contrast, argument, persuasive, problem–solution, etc.). Each text was analysed along five dimensions: grammatical accuracy and range, lexical range and appropriacy (including style and register), paragraph structure, content development, and overall flow/cohesion.  Particular attention was paid to the effectiveness of topic and concluding sentences, and to the use of discourse markers typical of academic paragraphing.

The analysis reveals several recurrent patterns across texts. The most frequent issues are structural, including weak or missing topic sentences, underdeveloped or loosely connected supporting sentences, ineffective or absent concluding sentences, and problems with logical progression within the paragraph. These are followed by cohesion issues such as over-reliance on additive connectors, missing or unclear referents, and abrupt shifts between ideas. Lexical problems (especially non-standard collocations and register mismatches in more formal contexts) and grammatical errors such as subject-verb agreement in complex noun phrases and relative clauses also emerge as persistent areas of difficulty. 

The presentation argues that such error analysis is pedagogically valuable when learner texts are used as classroom data. It demonstrates how the identified patterns were translated into concrete decisions about revising the syllabus, sharpening learning outcomes, sequencing grammar and lexis work more deliberately, and designing materials that target typical problem areas (e.g. academic collocations, topic and concluding sentence frames, and revision-focused tasks). In doing so, the talk offers a practical model of data-informed error analysis for EFL writing classes and suggests ways in which teachers can use learners' own texts to guide ongoing curriculum and instructional planning.

Presenter: Anna Chaikina, PhD in cognitive linguistics, is a linguist with over twenty years of teaching experience. She has  taught at several Russian universities, delivering a range of courses in English language and academic skills. Currently, she works at the New Economic School, where she runs courses in academic writing and general English.

Writing from scratch: An online course

Teaching practice presentation by Evgeni Kolyadin

The presentation is intended for EL educators engaged in teaching writing. It aims at demonstrating a way of creating a course from an idea to presenting it to students on an LLS. 

The presenter will dwell on the principal stages of creating a training course in pattern-based writing, using the essay task of the Russian Unified Exam. Sharing the course he designed himself for secondary school graduates, he will present his analysis of how flexible writing patterns can help both well-performing and struggling students to clearly understand the textual functions in order to complete the task efficiently.The course leads students to mastering language skills necessary to compose a well-structured piece of writing,  which meets the assessment requirements.

The presentation includes an overall design of an online course and an overview of selected types of exercises, which are dependent on the functionality an LLS can provide.

The participants will trace the process of creating a course to train students to create a piece of writing according to an exam task. They will analyze the underlying principles of material selection, identify necessary language points to be trained in regard to the students’ language level, and discuss learning needs, anticipating potential challenges through focused activities. The information can be further applied for creating any course in writing.

Presenter: Evgeni Kolyadin, PhD in Linguistics, teacher of English, French, Spanish, and Latin. He is the President of Yamalia ELTA, a member of the Coordination Council of NATE-Russia. He takes interest in general EFL teaching methodology, language assessment, text linguistics, and digital teaching tools. He has authored a number of courses in different language aspects.

Writing job resumes: Developing ESP competence and building professional self-presentation

Teaching practice presentation by Natalya Kubrakova
Saratov State University

This teaching practice presentation focuses on one of the ways to incorporate ESP vocabulary into the university English language course, raise students’ professional awareness, and assist them in building professional self-presentation, that is, through creating job resumes. The project was carried out three times (in 2023, 2024, 2025). The project involved 73 second-year undergraduate students pursuing non-linguistics degrees (Psychology, Forensic Science, Jurisprudence, Pedagogy) and was divided into several stages. Firstly, the participants were instructed on how to choose the most appropriate type of a resume for different types of job-hunters. This stage was followed by analyzing job descriptions and job advertisements, identifying key responsibilities, skills and personal qualities for one of the job positions suggested by the teacher for each major. The subsequent stages of the project were aimed at conveying personal information, describing hard and soft skills, professional achievements, talking about qualifications, and writing a winning personal statement. At the final stage, the students created their own resumes to land the job. While writing their resumes, the students had to stick to three basic principles: be honest; make the most of the experience, knowledge, and skills acquired at school and university; establish connections between the experience, knowledge, skills, and job responsibilities / requirements stated in a job description or job advertisement. While moving through the project stages, the participants did a set of activities designed by the teacher. Special focus was on the vocabulary activities (identifying ESP vocabulary, choosing the best action verb to describe skills / experience and the most suitable adjective to grab a prospective employer’s attention; replacing action verbs with their synonyms; filling in the gaps with correct prepositions; organizing words into topic groups). Classroom discussions triggered students’ reflections on their academic performance, extracurricular activities and volunteer work as sources of skills for their career.

Presenter: Natalya Kubrakova teaches English to undergraduate and graduate students pursuing their degrees in Jurisprudence, Customs Service, Forensic Science, and Psychology at Saratov State University. Her professional interests include teaching EAP and ESP courses.

Writing tasks in task-based language teaching: Theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical perspectives

Teaching practice presentation by Tatiana Alenkina

In the world of L2 teaching, most professionals consider language instruction to be divided into discrete macro-skills, such as speaking, listening, reading, and writing; the discrete-point language testing system eagerly supports such understanding. However, the “focus-on-form” approach, promoted by discrete skills development, doesn’t reflect the much more complex real-life language performance and communication and thus seems to be ineffective. The presentation is aimed at reconsidering the form-meaning relationships with the modern approach called “task-based language teaching.” There are two major questions that need to be addressed. First, what is a “task” as a semantic and structural focus of a language course design? Second, how are writing tasks grouped and what is the role of writing in the integrated task design?

A task is “an activity which requires learners to use language with emphasis on meaning, to attain an objective” [Bygate et al, 2001; Long 2015]. In contrast to the strictly interventionist paradigm of synthetic language teaching, non-interventionist analytic syllabuses have a focus-on-meaning, in the battle of learning vs acquisition [Krashen 1981]. Pedagogic tasks are selected with reference to the real-world or target tasks [Nunan 2001]. While considering the relevance of authentic tasks for learners of the elective course “English for Academic Mobility” at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, we divide all writing tasks into three groups:

1.    Reflective tasks within the writing for self-expression paradigm. We find digital multimodal assignments to be most rewarding in the age of AI.  While following a personal-to-professional path, students seemed to enjoy writing an audio essay while reflecting on their experience of watching the film Oppenheimer.

2.    Analytical tasks that develop cognitive skills within the “writing-to-learn” perspective. These are source-based essays that foster the academic literacy model: reading-into-writing or reading and listening-into-writing type.  

3.    Transactional tasks within the  “writing-to–communicate” methodology. While falling into the socialization model of writing, the tasks include the genres most needed across academic mobility contexts: a CV/ resume, a motivation letter /cover letter, a personal statement.

The presentation addresses a writing task within the theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical perspective of task-based language teaching (TBLT). In line with the proponents of TBLT and writing studies, the presenter gives a classification of tasks: reflective, analytical, and transactional. The results might be helpful both for teacher-scholars and  ELT course designers.  

Presenter: Tatiana Alenkina's field of interest is genre analysis and genre pedagogy, which she develops both in her scholarly work and her pedagogical activity.  Being a teacher-scholar, Tatiana provides guidance on the coherent and stimulating course design, with a focus on writing assignments.

Writing with pictures: Developing writing skills through the picturebook format

Teaching practice presentation by Elena Isakova
Tver State University

In this presentation, we are going to explore the pedagogical potential of picturebooks and silent picturebooks as powerful tools for developing writing skills in academic and educational contexts. While picturebooks are traditionally associated with early literacy, recent research demonstrates their value for learners of all ages, particularly in fostering narrative competence, critical thinking, and multimodal awareness. Drawing on theoretical work by Uri Shulevitz (1997), Maria Nikolajeva and Carole Scott (2006), as well as visual approaches to teaching writing proposed by Eve Bearne and Helen Wolstencroft (2007), the workshop places picturebooks at the intersection of visual literacy and writing pedagogy.

Presenter: Elena Isakova, Candidate of Philological Sciences (PhD), Associate Professor at the Department of Hermeneutic Linguodidactics and English Philology, Tver State University, with 24 years of teaching experience; “Best Young Lecturer of the South of Russia 2025” in the field of Humanities and Pedagogical Sciences.

Plagiarism and the culture of ESOL students

Ready-to-use “food” stalls by Ksenia Naumova

Based on a paper by Colin Sowden “Plagiarism and the culture of multilingual students in higher education abroad” (online ELT Journal Volume 59/3, July 2005), the students are asked to present their critical response to the issues raised by the author, endorsing or challenging some of the arguments. Firstly, there is a pre-reading activity and initial reading with True / False statements. Secondly, they answer the tutor's questions and take notes about each section of the paper (this can be done in small groups divided for each section). Then they need to prepare a summary of 400 words of the key ideas. Finally, they build upon the summary by adding a critical review, conclusion, and introduction. To do a peer-review they may use a Feedback paper given by the tutor. The seminar ends up with discussion questions and, optionally, the reading of a paper by Dilin Liu “Plagiarism in ESOL students” (the same on-line source) to provide a broader understanding of the notion of plagiarism. So, the students will get the idea of plagiarism in detail, understand its types and definition, as well as practice summary writing and critical  thinking

Presenter: Kseniia Naumova graduated from Novosibirsk State University with a degree in Linguistics and Intercultural Communication. She worked as a teacher at the English language center.  She passed TKT exam. She continued studying Chinese culture at Saint-Petersburg State University and got PhD. Now she is teaching Academic Writing and other English courses.

Creative uncreative writing

“Confetti” of teaching ideas by Elena Shchur
Lomonosov Moscow State University

More often than not writing is about trying to meet certain requirements, be it an exam, report, research proposal or paper abstract. These genres are far from being creative. Students of the Chemistry Department at MSU have to demonstrate their writing skills in English by producing a summary of a chemistry-related article. The format is rather rigid in terms of contents, register, and language. The challenging part of mastering the required skills is not only teaching students to generalize ideas and to single out the key messages, but also motivating them, making them believe that this type of writing is one of the essential skills for would-be researchers. Within the presentation, the presenter will adduce examples of written and oral tasks that add on creativity and fun to pretty uncreative genres: the who/where/when game, paraphrasing, journal clubs, article pitching, etc. As a result, students develop their skills to generalize and summarize ideas, learn distancing language structures, master formal register, and of course successfully pass their exams.

Presenter: Elena Shchur, PhD in Philology (the English language), has been teaching English at the Chemistry Department of MSU since 2023. She also holds a CELTA certificate (Grade B). Her major foci now are ESP and EAP. She has experience in teaching Russian as a foreign language in Cambridge (UK) and Berkeley (US).

Peer review for graduate/PhD students and the use of AI

“Confetti” of teaching ideas by Gulnaz Fakhretdinova and Maria Suntsova
Kazan National Research Technological University

We will consider the possibilities of using artificial intelligence tools to train engineering graduate/PhD students to write in foreign languages. Graduate students often struggle to prepare scientific papers in English for publication and to interpret foreign sources for their research. Peer review is a key skill that helps graduate students and early-career scientists develop the ability to critically evaluate the text. However, in practice, peer review often results in subjective and superficial comments, as well as a lack of clear evaluation criteria. How can this process be transformed into an effective learning tool? We propose creating a structured, detailed rubric - a table with specific criteria. Clear criteria for structure, argumentation, scientific style, and methodology can shape graduate students' reviewer thinking. AI can create a draft version of such a rubric for a specific discipline or topic, providing graduate students with scientific writing tools. With AI tools, they can quickly create and adapt rubric templates, organize "training" reviews to practice the criteria, and delegate the routine checking of texts for logic, style, and clarity to AI. This allows graduate students to focus on substantive expertise.

Presenters: Gulnaz Fakhretdinova, a foreign language teacher working with students from Rostec Corporation. She oversees research and grant activities and has participated in the creation of a number of online courses (Digital Teacher Workshop, English in the Academic Field). She is an expert in international programs (Fulbright, CERGE-EI) and digital technologies in education. She regularly conducts methodological seminars for university teachers on interactive methods and the integration of artificial intelligence into the educational process.

Maria Suntsova teaches German and English to students of different levels at an engineering university (Kazan National Research Technological University). She is also a practicing translator/interpreter and a member of the Russian Union of Translators (since 2011). She was also engaged in developing some online courses for the university's under- and postgraduate students.

Plagiarism case: Consequences and apology

“Confetti” of teaching ideas by Lyubov Zavarykina
Presidential Academy

This activity is aimed at students who start studying academic writing. It is focused on the problem of plagiarism.

This activity includes three sub-activities:

1) Reading the article:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/jan/06/harvard-claudine-gay-plagiarism 

2) Case discussion:

A. What problems are discussed in the article?

B. Do you agree with the decision of Harvard University? Why/Why/not?

3) Writing a letter of apology: 

Claudine Gay wrote a letter of apology. Put yourself in her shoes and write such a letter (up to 200 words).

Presenter: Lyubov Zavarykina, a senior teacher at the Presidential Academy, Moscow. Her professional interests include teaching Academic English to bachelor's and master's students and materials design. She holds a degree in linguistics from Moscow State University and an MA in Professional Development for Language Education from Chichester University.

Postcrossing as a method of teaching writing emotionally

“Confetti” of teaching ideas by Kseniia Naumova

When I just started teaching Academic Writing for Master degree students, I understood that for some of them the subject used to be boring and unemotional. I started experimenting with my Postcrossing cards (around 100). I managed to show my students that it can be fun and thought-provoking just to imagine the author and their personality as reflected in the card. We discussed some new vocabulary, the topics chosen, and the postcard outline depending on the authors' culture peculiarities. Then the students were asked to bring their own postcards and send them to the group mates, paying attention to the creativity and their emotions, depicting what they found most amazing during writing. The results surprised all of us. Since students enjoyed the activity, they decided to film postcards to their distant friends, thus practicing some oral presentation skills as well. Needless to say, at the end of the term the graduates mentioned that lesson as one of the greatest ones in their lifetime not only because of its format and authenticity, but also because they understood the meaning of written communication. They realized that this tiny piece of writing can make your friend or a grandma happy.

Presenter: Kseniia Naumova graduated from Novosibirsk State University with a degree in Linguistics and Intercultural Communication. She worked as a teacher at the English language center.  She passed TKT exam. She continued studying Chinese culture at Saint-Petersburg State University and got PhD. Now she is teaching Academic Writing and other English courses.

Unleashing the muse: Crafting killer reviews with university students

“Confetti” of teaching ideas by Yulia Chanturidze
HSE University

The presentation is going to shed light on an attempt to transform formulaic and cliched review writing into a more up-to-date and entertaining activity. Students often see review writing as a routine university task rather than a real-world skill. Therefore, the objective of the presentation is to demonstrate how contemporary review formats (social media-style reviews, star rating, comment threads, etc.) alongside quick drafting activities and the use of AI could let students immerse into the review writing process. The learning outcome of such practice is greater student engagement in writing activities, seen in increased participation and a greater number of submitted drafts during the “practice” stage.

Presenter: Yulia Chanturidze, PhD on African-American political discourse from Lomonosov MSU, has dedicated her whole career to the English language. Currently she is an English language instructor at HSE University. She teaches English for General Communication Purposes, Upper-Intermediate Course.

Writing classroom: A new old strategy?

“Confetti” of teaching ideas by Inna Anokhina and Iuliia Sazanovich
ITMO University

Language used in Academic Writing is sometimes regarded as a low key toolkit to translate complex scientific ideas. This can provoke neglecting how an academic writer benefits from developing writing skills needed in fiction, storytelling, and self-narration. However, when these different aspects of writing are mastered, an academic writer becomes armed with a complete communicator's toolkit. Writing is a foundational sharing skill. In today’s world of struggling for the audience’s attention, researchers cannot lag behind not to get lost in the currents of information. A solution can be developing students’ general writing skills to extend their existing repertoire to refine their voice, lexical precision, and syntactic fluency and express themselves in a more advanced way. Grammatical accuracy alone is not a formula for success if a text overlooks rhetorical aims and the author’s voice. This practical session addresses this challenge and offers a set of hands-on customizable activities to shift students’ focus from avoiding mistakes to making compelling and effective choices in vocabulary, sentence structure, style, and information flow to meet the communicative purposes required.  We will share our experience and demonstrate how sensory description and personal narration can be adapted to make a personal statement more persuasive for the reader.

Presenters: Inna Anokhina has coordinated the Academic Writing Lab at ITMO since 2016. She organizes and runs courses and workshops on Academic Writing as well as provides individual consultations for the university researchers, professors, students, and staff. With her 25-year teaching experience, she has co-authored Academic Writing courses for ITMO's bachelor, master students, and postgraduates. 

Iuliia Sazanovich, an EFL teacher at the Foreign Language Teaching Center (FLTC) and a tutor of the Academic Writing Lab (AWL) at ITMO University, Saint Petersburg. Iuliia has extensive experience in developing ESP courses and teaching materials. Her professional interests include Academic Writing, ESP, ESL methodology, and cross-cultural communication.

Center for Academic Writing "Impulse"

Poster presentation by Valeria Evdash
University of Tyumen

The talk will share the practices of integrating AI tools into activities  of the Center for Academic Writing"Impulse" at the University of Tyumen in the era of  rising AI. Although AI tools can assist researchers in generating ideas and improving their writing, they often lack the nuanced understanding of context, audience, and argumentation that the Center's  tutors provide. The Center for Academic Writing  offers personalized feedback, helping researchers develop their unique voices. 

Presenter: Valeria Evdash, the Director of the Center for Foreign Languages & Communication and the Director of the Center for Academic Writing “Impulse," the University of Tyumen. Her expertise covers Continuing Professional Development, English language acquisition and methodology, and academic writing. At national and international conferences, she has shared her insights through engaging presentations.

From initiative to institution

Poster presentation by Natalia Zharkova
HSE University

Fifteen years ago, the Academic Writing Center at HSE University started as a small initiative with a big goal. It aimed to support researchers in a context where publication success existed, but structured support for academic writing did not. Today, the Center has become a dynamic institutional hub. It works across disciplines and connects different academic communities.

This poster shows how that transformation happened. It is organized around four areas: Research, Education, Consultancy, and Resources. It traces how the Center has responded to changing institutional needs, growing publication pressure, and the challenges of working in a non-Anglophone environment. It also highlights key milestones, major projects, and the numbers behind this growth.

This presentation invites participants to reflect on their own institutional journeys. It does not offer a single model. Instead, it shares a lived experience that may resonate with those who are building, expanding, or rethinking writing support in their own contexts.

Presenter: Natalia Zharkova, manager at the HSE Academic Writing Center, the author and organizer of the AI Geeks project. She holds a degree in history from HSE University. Her professional interests include using AI for academic purposes.

From neglect to mastery: A case study on teaching punctuation in academic writing at MGIMO

Poster presentation by Anna Lepenysheva
MGIMO University

Punctuation—often overlooked by both instructors and students—plays a crucial role in academic writing. Beyond signaling grammatical correctness, proper punctuation enhances readability, clarifies meaning, and can even alter interpretation. Despite its importance, punctuation instruction at all levels of education has historically been fragmented, inconsistent, and rarely reinforced across courses or textbooks. At MGIMO, the situation was similar: students encountered isolated rules on comma usage sporadically in second- and third-year writing textbooks, with no systematic review.

The analysis of student essays and exam papers from 2020–2024 revealed minimal improvement in punctuation accuracy over time. In response, a comprehensive punctuation textbook was developed and introduced in 2025 for second-year students specializing in academic essay and research report writing. Grounded in British and American style guides (e.g., Chicago Manual of Style, APA, Oxford Guide), the textbook offers systematic coverage of all core punctuation rules, detailed explanations, and extensive self-study exercises with full answer keys.

Initially, the textbook was assigned for independent study, with in-class time reserved only for Q&A and monthly mini-quizzes on specific topics. However, noticeable progress was limited primarily to high-achieving students (scoring ≥80/100 across language tasks).

To address this gap, a third intervention phase was launched: spiral micro-assessments — short, 5-minute quizzes administered every 1–2 weeks. Each quiz integrates current punctuation topics while recycling previously covered material (a “snowball” or spiral approach). Crucially, each answer key includes a reference table linking correct answers to specific textbook pages, rule names, and supplementary exercise numbers for incorrect responses — enabling immediate, targeted remediation.

Preliminary results are promising. Average punctuation errors per paper dropped from 7.1 to 4.9 (stage 1), from 6.8 to 3.3 (stage 2), from 7.2 to 1.6 (stage 3) in 2025. Even less-motivated students showed marked improvement due to repeated exposure through snowball quizzes.

Presenter: Anna A. Lepenysheva, a senior lecturer at MGIMO University. Holding a PhD in Linguistics from St. Petersburg State University, she teaches Academic Writing, English Speech Practice, and Language for Professional Purposes. Her research focuses on language teaching methodology, multimodal and corpus linguistics; she has published 19 papers, advises theses, and serves as a journal peer reviewer.

Integrating techniques: How process writing, peer review, and genre analysis build academic writing

Poster presentation by Elena Nikolaeva and Elena Nasibullina
Saint Petersburg State Transport University

This presentation explores effective pedagogical strategies for teaching academic writing to university students. It outlines key challenges learners face, including structuring arguments, integrating sources, and maintaining an appropriate academic tone, and offers a range of practical classroom activities to address these issues. The session will demonstrate how process‑writing techniques, peer review protocols, and genre analysis can be combined to build students’ confidence and competence in producing scholarly texts across disciplines.

Presenters: Elena Nikolaeva, PhD, Associate Professor. For 20+ years, she has been teaching foreign languages at university, blending traditional methods with the latest educational technologies. She believes in creating dynamic, tech‑enhanced learning environments that empower students to master languages effectively. She is passionate about sharing knowledge and exploring new pedagogical frontiers.

Elena Nasibullina, a senior lecturer at the Department of Foreign Languages, Petersburg State Transport University. She uses an academic teaching style to foster strong writing and speaking skills in her students. Her goal is to empower them to engage confidently with scholarly discourse. She focuses on practical exercises in essay writing, research paper structure, and effective presentation techniques.

Publishing activity and academic writing in Russian universities

Poster presentation by Gulnur Kamalova, Evgeniia Opfer, Anna Garmonova and Daria Shcheglova 

From closure to reconfiguration: AI, translation, and writing centers in the Brazilian context

Panel discussion by Ana Raquel F. F. Campos and Andressa Cristina Molinari
Midwestern State University of Paraná

The widespread adoption of generative artificial intelligence tools has affected writing centers globally in uneven and highly contextual ways. While much of the international debate remains speculative, this proposal presents a situated Brazilian experience in which AI has already produced concrete institutional consequences. It examines the closure of CITE (Centro Integrado de Tradução e Escrita) at the Universidade Federal Fluminense and the continued operation of CERTA (Centro de Escrita, Revisão e Tradução Acadêmica) at UNICENTRO, emphasizing the role of institutional choices, AI addition and power dynamics.

CITE’s closure was associated with the rapid incorporation of AI-based translation tools into academic publishing practices. Translation services, previously central to the center’s visibility and funding, came to be perceived as replaceable or financially unjustifiable. However, the decision also reflected institutional priorities that privileged productivity-oriented views of academic work while undervaluing the pedagogical dimensions of writing and translation support. 

Although AI-powered tools can assist with grammar, spelling, and textual coherence, they do not substitute for human guidance in structuring texts, developing arguments, or making rhetorical decisions throughout the writing process. When such mediation is removed, students risk becoming increasingly dependent on automated solutions, potentially weakening critical thinking, authorship, and academic agency.

CERTA’s continued operation represents a different, though not idealized, response to similar pressures. Its permanence should be read as the result of sustained efforts to articulate its relevance to higher institutional levels. Despite reduced funding and a decrease in scholarships, the center remains active by strategically emphasizing its pedagogical role. Initiatives such as discipline-specific writing workshops—often requested by department heads—have helped legitimize its work within the university. Together, these cases highlight that writing centers’ futures in the age of AI depend less on technology itself than on institutional negotiation and strategic positioning.

Presenters: Ana Raquel F. F. Campos holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR). She is currently an assistant professor in the Language department at the Midwestern State University of Paraná - UNICENTRO, in Guarapuava, Brazil, and the coordinator of the Writing Center at the same university.

Andressa Cristina Molinari, a PhD in Education and a MSc in Applied linguistics from Universidade Estadual de Londrina, and was a visiting research scholar at The University of Georgia. She is an Assistant Professor at Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF). Her research interests include English Language teacher development, language policies, digital technologies.

Knowledge gives choice: Writing tutor as a holder of unique knowledge

Panel discussion by Elina Savitskaya
Moscow City University

Writing is a chain of infinite conscious choices: of intent, words, constructions, genres, presentation forms, language of presentation, means of enhancing effect or attracting attention, and much more. Each choice in this chain produces a new product: your text, a unique one - in your own style. However, before learning to make choices, you must become aware of them. Artificial intelligence can make choices for you—you'll end up writing in AI style, which is not the end, after all. Still AI will not tell you that choice possibilities exist. Only an experienced writing tutor can do that. The audience will identify and discuss key areas for writing tutor consultations. We will compare them with AI possibilities to see the contrast.

Presenter: Elina Savitskaya, Doctor of Education,  Professor, Head of FL Teaching Department, Head of Philological Faculty at  Moscow City University (Samara Campus). She is a specialist in FL teaching methods, an academic writing tutor, the author of more than 70 published books, articles, and teaching guidebooks – 50 of them are about academic writing skills and their development. 

Will AI make writing centers die?

Panel discussion by Sergio Álvarez Uribe
Antonio de Nebrija University

Since 2018, the ECO Writing Center has been operating at the Universidad del Norte, located in the city of Barranquilla, Colombia. This center is defined as a collaborative, personalized, and stimulating space that aims to promote responsible writing through writing review sessions and workshops to build a culture of writing planning and review. During an academic hour, the meanings of writing are negotiated through dialogue between a tutor and a user.

The ECO Writing Center attempts to reflect the conception of writing centers as spaces of academic culture that promote collaboration and reflection around writing, understood as a fundamental learning process for the construction, appropriation, and socialization of knowledge.

The current problems of the Writing Center at Universidad del Norte are related to the massive use of AI and the lack of interest in delving into the processes of meaning construction involved in writing. A possible guiding question for discussion could be: What does the technology of writing do for humans that AI technology cannot do?

Presenter: Sergio Álvarez Uribe, PhD in Applied Linguistics for Language Teaching from Antonio de Nebrija University, with a thesis on the assessment of academic writing in Spanish L1. He is a research professor in the Spanish Department and director of the Writing Center at Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla, Colombia.