Innovation in Language Learning

The discussions of this study is about establishing the problems that computer science (CS) students at UB encounter in technical writing. CS students at UB are second language (L2) users of the English which is the official language of instruction of the Botswana Education System. Many literature has already proven that most L2 users do have problems encounter problems when writing in L2 and CS students are no exception. Most of the science disciples require that the learners be conversant with knowledge and skills of technical writing as is the case with CS students at UB. Technical writing is a form of writing used in subject matters of science, engineering and business (Britton 1965). It exhibits some of the following elements;

1. Communication about technical or specialized topics, such as computer applications.
2. Provides communication through technology, such as web pages and help files.
3. Provides instructions about how to do something, regardless of the task's technical nature.

Mostly these elements are embedded in the both the cognitive, issues that pertain to the pedagogical approaches that the students have been exposed to when learning both the L2 language and skill to do technical writing. The research method used is mixed research method. The research intends to carry out this investigation by using a corpus of existing project reports submitted by CS year three students in academic year of 2017/18. The corpus will be used to identify the problems of report design formats such as use of appropriate systematic, logical and cohesive presentation of the report discussions that cognitively will impact on the students’ technical writing and the technical communication understanding that the reader makes out of reading the report. Other elements that the analysis of the corpus will look at is comprehensive technical semantical use of L2 grammar and punctuations that the student use. The discussions will conclude with future works of minimizing learning barriers at university in Botswana.

Keywords: Problematic, rhetorical patterns, academic technical writing;