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Volume 1, Number 1 (1992)
Ideology in Composition:
L1 and ESL
TERRY SANTOS
Humboldt State University, USA
This article looks at the
ideological view of writing in L1 composition and attempts to answer the
question of why a similar view has not been propounded in ESL writing. The
claim is that the difference can be attributed to: 1) the different
affiliations of L1 and L2 composition, that is, L1 with literature and L2
with applied linguistics, 2) the scientific model for L2 research, 3)
ESL's primarily pragmatic aims, and 4) the conservatizing effect of EFL.
The article concludes by considering whether L2 composition might move in
the direction of L1 by developing a similar ideological perspective.
Instructional Routines in
ESL Composition Teaching: A Case Study of Three Teachers
ALISTER CUMMING
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Canada
Findings are reported from
a naturalistic case study aiming to identify common instructional routines
in the classroom performance of three experienced ESL composition
instructors. Six routines were found to account for all of the teaching
practices of the three instructors over the period of their courses.
Analyses showed frequent alternations between these routines, consistency
in the proportions of the routines across the classes documented, little
change in their use over the duration of courses, as well as much
embedding of the routines within one another. These experienced ESL
composition instructors appeared to alternate and embed their uses of
these routines to allocate equivalent but varied attention to divergent
teaching functions, for example, responding to individual learning while
managing class activities. Sequential and conceptual models of these
processes are outlined, suggesting that the instruction observed
systematically focused on student task performance rather than the
presentation of content as in conventional instruction. Implications are
cited for future studies of second language composition teaching and
curriculum innovations as well as advancing the scope of research on
second language composition in educational settings.
Becoming Biliterate:
First Language Influences
JOAN G. CARSON
Georgia State University, USA
Since schooling is an
important determinant of specific literacy capabilities, it is reasonable
to assume that a student's educational background will have an effect on
the development of literacy skills. However, in addition to learning the
forms and functions of literacy in school, students also learn how to
learn literacy skills. As a result, readers and writers develop a sense
from their first language educational experiences both of what being
literate means, as well as of what becoming literate entails. This paper
will explore ways in which first language literacy learning strategies can
be understood as either enhancing or complicating acquisition of second
language literacy skills. Three aspects of literacy development for
Japanese and Chinese elementary and secondary school students will be
discussed: (1) the social context of schooling; (2) the cognitive
considerations of the written code; and (3) the pedagogical practices most
often used in teaching reading and writing. Implications for second
language writing classrooms will be considered.
Cognitive Strategies and
Second Language Writers: A Re-evaluation of Sentence Combining
KAREN E. JOHNSON
Pennsylvania State University, USA
Despite scant empirical
evidence and questionable theoretical support, sentence-combining
continues to be one of the most widely used instructional alternatives to
formal grammar instruction in second language writing instruction. This
study explored the cognitive strategies that second language writers
engaged in during sentence-combining tasks in order to determine: 1) the
cognitive demands of sentence-combining tasks, 2) if different types of
sentence-combining tasks require different levels of cognitive strategies,
and 3) the extent to which sentence-combining tasks require second
language writers to attend to aspects of cohesion and evaluation. Nine
advanced-level second language writers participated in think-aloud
protocols (Ericsson & Simon, 1980, 1984) as they completed both controlled
and open sentence-combining tasks. The protocols were analyzed according
to the type of cognitive strategies used during sentence-combining tasks.
The results showed that these second language writers engaged in restating
content, constructing meaning, and higher and lower-level planning as they
completed sentence-combining tasks. Between-task comparisons indicated
that open sentence-combining tasks required significantly more
higher-level planning than controlled sentence-combining tasks. Finally,
these second language writers evaluated the appropriateness of their
constructions but did not attend to aspects of cohesion during
sentence-combining tasks. Relevant theoretical and pedagogical
implications for second language writing instruction are discussed.
Volume 1, Number
2 (1992)
A Computer Text Analysis
of Four Cohesion Devices in English Discourse by Native and Nonnative
Writers
JOY REID
University of Wyoming, USA
Nonnative speakers (NNSs)
of English in U.S. colleges and universities often have difficulty writing
adequate academic prose. One research area which has sought to identify
and solve the problems of English as a Second Language (ESL) writing is
contrastive rhetoric: the study of texts written in English by native
speakers (NSs) of different languages to determine syntactic and
rhetorical differences. This study examined 768 essays written in English
by native speakers of Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, and English in order to
determine whether distinctive, quantifiable differences in the use of four
cohesion devices existed between and among the four language backgrounds.
The corpus consisted of four essay prompts: two topic types and two topic
tasks for each topic. The Writer's Workbench (WWB), a computer
text-analysis program originally developed by AT&T Bel1 Laboratories, was
used to analyze the four cohesion variables in the corpus. Results of the
analyses showed frequent co-occurrence of certain cohesion devices that
differed significantly between and among language backgrounds and between
topic types.
University Faculty
Tolerance of NS and NNS Writing Errors: A Comparison
MICHAEL JANOPOULOS
University of Northern Iowa, USA
University faculty
tolerance of NNS writing errors is an issue that has been well researched.
However, the question of how a university faculty's tolerance of NNS
errors compares to its tolerance of similar errors committed by NS writers
is one that has not been systematically addressed. This issue is
significant in light of the growing trend within academia toward setting
more rigorous standards of literacy, especially as more and more
institutions are requiring candidates for graduation to demonstrate
writing competency on a standardized writing exam. This article describes
a study in which university faculty were asked to rate 24 sentences
containing errors commonly committed by NNS writers on a 6-point scale of
tolerance. Half the faculty were told they were rating NNS errors, whereas
the other half rated errors that were identified as NS in origin. Results,
although mixed, indicated that faculty were generally more tolerant of NNS
errors than they were of errors they perceived as being made by NS
students. These results raise the possibility that NNS university students
may not be held to the same classroom standards of writing competence as
their NS counterparts, and so may be placed at a disadvantage when obliged
to take a writing competency exam.
Research Writing and
NNSs: From the Editors
HUGH GOSDEN
Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
This article focuses on
the varied linguistic and sociopragmatic skills require for effective
international research reporting. In order to understand more clearly the
demands of the immediate audience many English NNS (nonnative speaker)
researchers are writing for, a survey of journal editors in North America
and the U.K. was carried out. This article reports the results of this
survey of particular interest are the language-related criteria which may
most influence consideration of NNS researchers' papers. As a result of
survey findings, implications and suggestions for the teaching of research
writing to NNS researchers are discussed.
Toward a New Contrastive
Rhetoric: Differences Between Arabic and Japanese Rhetorical Instruction
JOANNE D. LIEBMAN
University of Arkansas at Little Rock, USA
Contrastive rhetoric is
being updated to accommodate the new process rhetoric. An expanded
contrastive rhetoric focuses not only on finished written products, but on
the contexts in which writing occurs and on the processes involved in its
production. Two limitations exist in the early theory and research of
contrastive rhetoric. First, contrastive rhetoricians had a narrow view of
rhetoric, considering only the organization of finished texts. Second,
they had a narrow view of Western rhetoric. After discussing these
limitations and pointing out the need for a richer view of the contrasts
between the rhetorics of different cultures, this article reports on a
survey of Japanese and Arabic ESL students to investigate how writing is
taught in different cultures. The survey reveals that rhetorical
instruction does differ in these two cultures: In Japan, instruction
emphasizes the expressive function of writing, whereas in Arab countries,
it emphasizes the transactional function.
Volume 1, Number
3 (1992)
An L2 Writing Group: Task
and Social Dimensions
GAYLE L. NELSON
JOHN M. MURPHY
Georgia State University, USA
Although peer writing
groups are frequently used in ESL writing classes, little research has
been conducted on what actually occurs in these groups. This study
examined two aspects of L2 writing groups: the task dimension and the
social dimension. Using a case-study methodology, we videotaped one L2
writing group for six consecutive weeks. The data collected included (a)
the videotapes, (b) transcripts of the videotapes, (c) student
compositions, (d) student dialogue journals, and (e) student interviews.
Using transcripts of the six videotapes, coders divided the participants'
utterances into thought groups. Using a modified version of Fanselow's
(1987) classroom observation instrument, we then coded their thought
groups using the following categories: study of language, life general
knowledge, life personal knowledge, procedure, and format. Two trained
raters independently coded the transcripts. An inter-coder reliability of
.91 was determined by comparing their ratings. Results indicated that the
percentage of utterances relating to study of language ranged from 70% to
80% and increased slightly across the six sessions. These findings suggest
that students stayed on task by discussing each other's texts. To examine
the group's social dimension (i.e., group dynamics), all data were
examined. The literature on writing groups tends to idealize writing group
interactions as writers constructively helping each other. This present
analysis suggests otherwise. For example, one student was characterized by
the group as the attacker because of her sharp, negative comments. Due, in
part, to the attacker's critical comments, another student expressed
dissatisfaction with the writing group.
Interpersonal Involvement
in Discourse: Gender Variation in L2 Writers' Complimenting Strategies
DONNA M. JOHNSON
University of Arizona, USA
This article reports on
the use of complimenting as an involvement strategy in peer-review texts.
The analysis explores how L2 writers vary their complimenting style
according to gender of addressee. The data base is a set of 35 peer-review
papers written by advanced L2 women writers. Four complimenting strategies
that have been found to contribute to a female-female style are analyzed:
positive evaluation, intensifiers, personal referencing, and a framing
strategy. For each strategy, a comparison is made between texts addressed
to women and texts addressed to men. In addition, the audience
accommodation strategies of the L2 writers are compared to those of L1
writers. Results reveal that although L2 writers used some aspects of the
L1 writers' female-female complimenting style, they did not vary their
language use according to gender of addressee to the degree or in the same
ways that the L1 writers did. Implications for second language acquisition
and for writing effectiveness are discussed.
Coaching Student Writers
to Be Effective Peer Evaluators
JANE STANLEY
International University of Japan
Peer evaluation is used
widely in the ESL classroom, although many teachers express reservations
about the efficacy of this type of group work. Some of these complaints
focus on students' tendencies to respond to surface problems at the
expense of more substantive questions of meaning and to offer unhelpful or
unconstructive advice to their classmates. Consideration of these
complaints leads to questions about the way students are prepared to
participate as peer evaluators. Students in this study are prepared for
peer evaluation in a fairly lengthy coaching procedure, which includes
role-playing and analyzing evaluation sessions, discovering "rules" for
effective communication, and studying the genre of student writing. The
subsequent peer-evaluation sessions are analyzed for evidence of the
effectiveness of the coaching. Drafts are also analyzed for evidence of
revision in response to peer evaluators' advice. As a backdrop to this
coached group, another group of students is prepared for group work in a
shorter, and more typical, procedure of watching a demonstration
peer-evaluation session and then discussing it. These students'
peer-evaluation sessions and drafts are also analyzed. The participants in
this study who receive coaching demonstrate a greater level of student
engagement in the task of evaluation, more productive communication about
writing, and clearer guidelines for the revision of drafts.
ESL Student Response
Stances in a Peer-Review Task
KATE MANGELSDORF
University of Texas-El Paso, USA
ANN SCHLUMBERGER
Pima College, USA
Peer reviews are commonly
used in ESL composition classes to enable students to help each other
improve their writing. However, little research has been conducted
concerning how students actually respond to each other during review
sessions and what these responses suggest about their assumptions
concerning peer reviews and composition. In this exploratory study, we
asked 60 ESL freshman composition students to respond in writing to an
essay written the previous semester by another ESL student. We then
examined the stances the students took toward the writer of the text, the
characteristics of these stances, and what these stances suggest about the
students' assumptions concerning written classroom discourse. We discerned
three stances in the students' reviews: an "interpretive" stance, in which
students imposed their own ideas about the topic onto the text; a
"prescriptive" stance, in which students expected the text to follow a
prescribed form; and a "collaborative" stance, in which students tried to
see the text through the author's eyes. A majority of the students assumed
a prescriptive stance, suggesting that they believed that correct form was
more important than the communication of meaning. We conclude by
discussing how our students' responses to their peers' texts can reflect
characteristics of the collaborative stance.
Collaborative Oral/Aural
Revision in Foreign Language Writing Instruction
JOHN HEDGCOCK
University of Houston, USA
NATALIE LEFKOWITZ
Michigan State University, USA
Although L1 and L2 writing
research has demonstrated the positive effects of revision, few empirical
studies have investigated the effects of a collaborative revision-based
method in the foreign-language (FL) context. This investigation tests the
hypothesis that a multistep, oral revision process carried out in the FL
is measurably facilitative in developing basic composition skills and
written fluency among adult learners. The study involves two groups of
college-level learners of French (L1 = English) who were given two essay
assignments, each requiring three separate drafts. In the control group,
the instructor alone supplied written feedback; in the experimental group,
revision took place in small groups, with participants reading their own
papers aloud to their group partners, who responded orally according to a
written protocol. Analysis of the final versions of the two essays
collected from both groups showed that essays produced by the experimental
group received significantly higher component and overall scores than
those produced by the control group (p <.05). The findings suggest that
systematic, collaborative revision produces in learners an awareness of
the rhetorical structure of their own writing and an ability to
self-correct surface errors, thereby helping them overcome inhibitions
related to the formal aspects of writing.
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Volume 2, Number 1 (1993)
ESL Essay Evaluation: The
Influence of Sentence-level and Rhetorical Features
CAROL O. SWEEDLER-BROWN
San Diego State University, USA
This study compares the
relative influences of rhetorical and sentence-level features on the
holistic scores assigned by graders who are experienced English writing
instructors but who are not trained in ESL. Six intermediate ESL essays
were selected from a university developmental writing class in which NS
and ESL students were mixed. These essays were transcribed with the ESL
sentence-level errors corrected. Both the original and corrected essays
were holistically scored by graders who had no ESL training. Graders also
assigned analytic scores on two sentence-level and two rhetorical features
of the essays. T-test analyses indicated a significant difference between
the holistic scores of original and corrected essays. Correlation
coefficients revealed that the analytic scores on the sentence-level
features of sentence structure and grammar/mechanics correlated with
holistic score. Analytic scores on the rhetorical features of organization
and paragraph development showed no correlation with holistic scores in
either the original or corrected essays. In this study, graders who were
experienced writing instructors, but not trained in ESL, placed far more
scoring emphasis on the ESL sentence-level errors in these essays than on
the essays' strong rhetorical features.
Three Disk-Based Text
Analyzers and the ESL Writer
MARK N. BROCK
City Polytechnic of Hong Kong
Among the variety of
computer-based writing aids now available to ESL composition teachers,
computerized text analysis is one of the most popular and controversial.
As its name implies, computer text analysis utilizes computer technology
to analyze text and offer suggestions for improvement. This article
examines three popular disk-based text analyzers and considers their
effectiveness in analyzing texts written by ESL student writers. Results
of this examination raise doubts about the effectiveness of computer text
analysis as a stand-alone revision aid for ESL writers. The programs
examined sometimes offered incorrect advice and potentially could focus
the user's attention on relatively trivial surface-level matters rather
than more substantial meaning-level problems in need of revision. Teachers
who use text analysis with ESL writers should be prepared to offer careful
guidance in interpreting and using computer feedback productively.
Comparing Writing Process
and Product Across Two Languages: A Study of 6 Singaporean University
Student Writers
MARTHA C. PENNINGTON
City Polytechnic of Hong Kong
SUFUMI SO
Ontario Institute of Studies in Education, Canada
A number of studies have
attempted to probe the writing process of skilled and unskilled native and
nonnative speakers of English. However, very few investigations of the
writing process of students learning other languages have been published
to date. This article reports a study of 6 Singaporean university students
as they produced written texts in Japanese and, for comparison, in their
primary written language (English or Chinese). The study examines process
and product data separately to see if any relationship exists between an
individual writer's process skill and product quality in the two
languages. The findings indicate no clear relationship between process and
product data in either language, nor between written products in the two
languages. At the same time, the investigation uncovers a similarity in
writing process for individual subjects across the two languages and a
relationship between general level of proficiency in Japanese and the
quality of the subjects' written products in that language.
Examining L2 Composition
Ideology: A Look at Literacy Education
SANDRA LEE MCKAY
San Francisco State University, USA
This article seeks to
clarify the ideological assumptions that presently inform L2 composition
research and pedagogy and to suggest several alternate assumptions. In
clarifying L2 composition ideology, it is advantageous to consider
literacy education. Specifically, the article discusses three widely
accepted assumptions in literacy education, namely, that literacy is a
social practice, that there exists a plurality of literacies, and that
literacy educators must address issues of power. The implications of these
assumptions for defining L2 composition ideology are then explored.
Volume 2, Number
2 (1993)
Entering a Disciplinary
Community: Conceptual Activities Required to Write for One Introductory
University Course
PAT CURRIE
Carleton University, Canada
Although previous research
in both first and second language composition has called for the
examination of the various intellectual or conceptual activities required
for university content courses, this coil has gone largely unanswered.
This article presents the results of a study of one introductory
university course in Organizational Behaviour, a subcommunity or "forum"
within the academic community of business studies. It analyzes the
conceptual activities the students were required to carry out in order to
write their weekly assignments and shows how these activities determined
the nature of the expected discourse. The article argues that learning how
to carry out such activities can be profitably transferred from the
English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classroom to university content
classes. It suggests that nonnative-speaking (NNS) students can use these
activities to explore their own disciplinary communities and thus
facilitate their initiation into those communities. The results of this
study also offer important implications for first and second language
writing pedagogy as well as for course design and teaching assistant (TA)
preparation in academic content classes.
The Design of an
Automatic Analysis Program for L2 Text Research: Necessity and Feasibility
DANA R. FERRIS
California State University, Sacramento, USA
Several first and second
language (L1 and L2) text researchers have recently utilized automatic
analysis programs and computerized corpora to facilitate large-scale
multivariate analyses of written discourse (e.g., Biber, 1988; Connor,
1990; Connor & Biber, 1989; Grabe, 1987; Grabe & Biber, 1987; Reid, 1990).
Although it is clear that automated analyses make important quantitative
research much more feasible, there is a potential problem with applying
computer programs to L2 texts: Many lexical and syntactic features of L2
writing are in varying developmental stages, and programs created to
analyze L1 texts in "target" form may underestimate and/or mislabel
structures in L2 writing. This article explores the necessity for and
feasibility of the design of a computer program specifically for the
analysis of L2 texts. Using data from a large L2 text analysis (160 texts;
62 variables) in which automatic analysis was not used, it is demonstrated
that a program designed for L1 texts would not be accurate enough to
capture completely the structures used by L2 writers. Following this
analysis, suggestions are made as to how an L2 text analysis program could
be created and applied.
Perspectives on
Plagiarism From ESL Students in Hong Kong
GLENN D. DECKERT
Hong Kong Baptist College
This inquiry aimed to
discover how well students pursuing higher education in Hong Kong can
recognize plagiaristic writing, in what terms they perceive it as
inappropriate, and how they view students who plagiarize. The study
included 170 first-year and 41 third-year Chinese students all majoring in
fields of science in one of Hong Kong's tertiary-level institutions. A
questionnaire was administered to the first-year students prior to any
classroom mention of plagiarism. The results indicated these students had
little familiarity with the Western notion of plagiarism and poor ability
to recognize it. As for the inappropriateness of plagiarism, their chief
concern was its detrimental effect on learning. They expressed less
concern for the rights of the original writer or for the effect of
plagiarism upon one's classmates, academic institution, or instructors.
The questionnaire also determined that these students view persons who
plagiarize as weak and lazy. On the other hand, third-year students were
more able to recognize plagiarism and showed greater concern for the
original writer and the issue of honesty. It is concluded that these
first-year students need explicit orientation and training on how to avoid
plagiarism when writing in a Western academic community.
The Writing of Southeast
Asian-American Students in Secondary School and University
ELAINE TARONE
BRUCE DOWNING
ANDREW COHEN
SUSAN GILLETTE
ROBIN MURIE
University of Minnesota, USA
BEVERLY DAILEY
St. Paul Public Schools, USA
This article reports on a
study of the English writing skills of Southeast Asian-American immigrant
children in English as a Second Language (ESL) classes and in 8th-, 10th-,
and 12th-grade mainstream classes in a public secondary school in St.
Paul, MN. Their writing is compared at each level and is also compared to
the English writing of Southeast Asian-American immigrant students,
international students, and native-speaking undergraduates at the
University of Minnesota. All subjects wrote on the same topic, and scores
on four writing traits (accuracy, fluency, coherence, and organization)
were assigned to each essay. Results show that writing scores for the
mainstreamed secondary students were the same at the 8th-, 10th-, and
12th-grade levels and were the same as the scores of the nonnative
university students. Only the native-speaking university students obtained
scores which were significantly better. For the public school subjects, a
lower age on arrival, a lower grade at entry into the school system, and a
higher number of years in the U.S. were all significantly correlated (p =
.001) with success in the writing traits measured. Regression analysis
indicated that age on arrival was a more important factor than number of
years in the U.S. and grade at entry.
Volume 2, Number
3 (1993)
The Sociopolitical
Implications of Response to Second Language and Second Dialect Writing
CAROL SEVERINO
University of Iowa, USA
In response to Terry
Santos' (1992) "Ideology in Composition: L1 and ESL:" I argue that second
language/English as a Second Language (L2/ESL) pedagogy is as politically
charged as first language (L1) pedagogy, but its ideological implications
need to be openly articulated and discussed-the purpose of this article.
As classrooms become more multicultural and ESL students become more
difficult to distinguish from non-ESL students, L1 and L2 pedagogies will
begin to converge, possibly causing L2/ESL pedagogy to become more
expressly political, but also causing L1 pedagogy to become more
pragmatic. To demonstrate the political implications of L2/ESL pedagogy
and to make connections with L1 pedagogy, I offer a continuum of responses
to second language and second dialect writing, based on teachers'
political stances on linguistic and cultural assimilation. The three
response stances, related to those from ethnic studies, sociolinguistics,
and L1 composition, are the separatist, accommodationist, and
assimilationist. This response continuum is then used to analyze actual
and hypothetical responses to the writing of {a) an ESL international
student, (b) an ESL bicultural student, and (c) a Standard English as a
Second Dialect (SESD) student.
The Implications of
Cognitive Models in L1 and L2 Writing
JOANNE DEVINE
Skidmore College, USA
KEVIN RAILEY
State University of New York, College at Buffalo, USA
PHILIP BOSHOFF
Skidmore College, USA
Research has suggested
that metacognition is composed. of three general dimensions: knowledge of
cognition, regulation of cognition, and the use of compensatory strategies
when cognition fails. The first dimension, knowledge of cognition, can be
further divided into three types: personal, task, and strategy variables.
Knowledge of these variables is highly interactive in successful task
performance, and taken together they constitute an individual's cognitive
model of a cognitive task. Although research has investigated the role of
metacognition, particularly the impact of cognitive models, in first
language (L1) and second language (L2) reading performance, to date there
has been little research in writing-L1 or L2-about the role of
metacognition If generally or the impact of cognitive models on task
performance more specifically. The current study reports on the role of
cognitive models in L1 and L2 writing. Twenty first-year college
students-10 L1 basic writers and 10 L2 writers from various language
backgrounds-were surveyed to elicit information concerning their notions
about personal, task, and strategy variables in writing. Based on their
responses, writers were determined to possess various cognitive models of
writing. Subjects' writing samples were evaluated holistically; further
evaluation determined compositional and grammatical proficiency. Analysis
reveals that L1 basic and L2 writers hold different cognitive models and
perform differently on writing tasks, suggesting that cognitive models
have important implications for writing task performance.
A Critical Examination of
Word Processing Effects in Relation to L2 Writers
MARTHA C. PENNINGTON
City Polytechnic of Hong Kong
This article offers an
assessment of the effects of word processing with reference to writers for
whom English is a second language. A review of the findings reported in
the published literature on the application of word processing in English
first language (L1) and second language (L2) composition leads to an
attempt to find explanations for the conflicting results of different
studies. Method and context effects are identified which help to account
for the differential findings. These effects are attributable to variation
across studies in one or more of the following variables: (a) the nature
of the students, (b) the abilities and attitudes of the teachers, (c) the
setting for computer use, (d) the time span of the implementation, (e) the
type and amount of instruction offered in writing and in word processing,
(f) the nature of particular word processing software and hardware, and
(g) the measures used for assessing the effects and effectiveness of the
implementation. It is concluded that word processing can be of value for
nonnative writers if it is employed under certain conditions, and
recommendations are offered for research with such populations.
Computers, Revision, and
ESL Writers: The Role of Experience
MARIANNE PHINNEY
SANDRA KHOURI
University of Texas at El Paso, USA
Four advanced English as a
Second Language (ESL) writers enrolled in a second-semester university
composition class were observed while they used a computer to write and
revise a paper on an assigned topic. The writers were selected for English
proficiency (high vs. low) and computer writing experience (one semester
vs. two or more semesters). Each student was videotaped for two sessions
of writing and revising the paper. The tapes were transcribed and scored
using an adaptation of the categories described by Faigley and Witte
(1984). The results indicated that experience with the computer was a
stronger factor than writing proficiency in determining computer writing
strategies. The two inexperienced computer users spent less time revising,
made more surface changes, and used the computer functions less than the
experienced computer users. In post taping interviews, the experienced
users also showed a greater concern for content than did the inexperienced
users, who indicated apprehension about using the computer and concern for
correctness.
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Volume 3, Number 1 (1994)
Discourse, Artifacts, and
the Ozarks: Understanding Academic Literacy
LINDA LONON BLANTON
University of New Orleans, USA
As we teachers of ESL
reading and writing continue our discussions about preparing second
language (L2) students for the academic mainstream, we find ourselves on a
theoretical and pedagogical frontier that is largely uncharted. In
essence, we seem to be moving rapidly toward a broader social view of
language with hardly a border check as we cross from one paradigm to
another. In order to understand where we are headed and why we should
venture there, it seems important to survey the landscape and consider the
potential ahead. My survey proceeds as follows: (1) I wrestle with the
notion of academic discourse community, for without it we cannot
understand or even posit a concept of academic literacy; (2) in light of
the socially constructed nature of an academic literacy, I argue for a
different way of framing the questions we need to answer as we compose our
ESL classes; (3) I discuss the role of personal experience in learning,
language acquisition, and academic writing and reading, a role that I
claim is essential; and (4) I end with an assessment of the implications
for the ESL classroom.
Writing Groups:
Cross-Cultural Issues
JOAN G. CARSON
GAYLE L. NELSON
Georgia State University, USA
It may appear that writing
groups, used in many English as a Second Language (ESL) composition
classrooms, would be familiar to ESL students from collectivist cultures
where group work is common in school both as a means of knowledge
acquisition and as a vehicle for reinforcing the group ethic. However,
writing groups may be problematic for students from collectivist cultures
(e.g., Japan, the People's Republic of China) in at least three ways.
First, writing groups, as used in composition classes in the U.S.,
function differently than groups in collectivist cultures: instead of
functioning for the good of the collective, writing groups more often
function for the benefit of the individual writer. Second, as a result of
the dynamics of ingroup relationships in collectivist cultures, ESL
students may be concerned primarily with maintaining group harmony at the
expense of providing their peers with needed feedback on their composition
drafts. Finally, the dynamics of outgroup relationships for ESL students
from collectivist cultures may result in behavior that is hostile,
strained, and competitive-behavior that is likely to work against
effective group interactions.
Process Approaches in
ESL/EFL Writing Instruction
BERNARD SUSSER
Doshisha Women's Junior College, Japan
Process has been an
important and sometimes contentious concept in both first language (L1)
and English as a Second Language/English as a Foreign Language (ESL/EFL)
writing instruction. This article attempts to resolve this contention by
defining process approaches and examining their role in ESL/EFL writing
instruction. The article first discusses three different meanings of
process, showing that the term is not the name of a writing theory, and
then describes the two main elements of process writing pedagogies,
awareness and intervention. The ESL/EFL writing literature is analyzed to
show how process approaches have been accepted in ESL/EFL composition.
Finally, this article discusses some problems in implementing process
writing pedagogies in ESL/EFL writing instruction.
Examining Expert
Judgments of Task Difficulty on Essay Tests
LIZ HAMP-LYONS
University of Colorado, Denver, USA
SHEILA PROCHNOW MATHIAS
Associacao Alumni, Sao Paolo, Brazil
The question to which the
writer must respond (commonly called the prompt) is a key variable of an
essay test, and research to date has produced conflicting positions on
this variable's influence. Essay scorers, and language teachers who
prepare students for writing tests, often claim not only that some prompts
are harder than others, but also to know which are harder and which are
easier. This study investigated these "expert" judgments of prompt
difficulty in order to discover whether such judgments could be used as a
source of information at the item-writing stage of test development. The
results of the study show that "expert judges" share considerable
agreement about prompt difficulty, prompt task type, and difficulty of
prompt task type. However, the patterns shown by the score data ran in a
direction which was the reverse of that predicted by the "expert"
judgments. The findings contradict common assumptions in both testing and
teaching practice and suggest that close investigation of "expert judges"'
assumptions about tasks and other important variables of essay tests can
be a valuable research tool in understanding more about test design and
test difficulty.
Volume 3, Number
2 (1994)
Evaluating ESL Students'
Performance on Proficiency Exams
MARY K. RUETTEN
University of New Orleans, USA
Research suggests that
English as a Second Language (ESL) students have difficulty passing
holistically scored proficiency exams. To determine why, researchers have
investigated the role of error in regular coursework and exams, the nature
of the exam and scoring procedure used, and students' writing processes.
This study investigates the success of ESL students as compared to native
English-speaking (NES) students on an institutional exit proficiency exam.
It also compares the source of success (the exam or the appeals folder, a
portfolio of writing done during the semester) and the number of attempts
required by ESL students and NES students to pass the exam/course. The
results indicate that ESL students are twice as likely as NES students to
fail the exam, but they compensate for their failure by passing the
appeal, giving ESL and NES students a comparable pass rate in the course.
In addition, the results show no significant difference in the number of
times the two groups attempt the exam/course. This research suggests that
holistically scored proficiency exams are difficult for ESL students and
that some form of portfolio assessment may be more valid to judge their
writing. Suggestions for improving evaluations of ESL writing include
training non-ESL faculty to evaluate ESL error during holistic readings.
Journal Writing in the
Training of International Teaching Assistants
ISOBEL STEVENSON
University of South Africa, USA
SUSAN JENKINS
University of Cincinnati, USA
Research in international
teaching assistant (ITA) training suggests that four areas of competence
are critical for success, namely language proficiency, cross-cultural
communication skills, teaching skills, and personal and institutional
support. Journal writing has been used as a technique for developing
language skills, learning course content, and reflecting on educational
and personal experiences. Although journal writing has not been widely
used in ITA training programs, the uses to which it has been put in other
contexts seems to mirror the needs of ITAs in training. This article
reports a case study involving a detailed content analysis of the daily
journal writing of 20 ITAs to determine whether journal writing could
contribute to the previously identified needs of ITAs. Results showed that
the students' major focus of concern was language proficiency and the
resulting stress in their daily lives. The majority of students approved
the assignment and benefited from journal writing, particularly in
developing confidence and fluency in language use, and as an outlet for
stress management. However, there was little evidence that the
instructor's expectations for reflective or analytical journal writing
were met. Suggestions for modifying the assignment to appeal to differing
student backgrounds and to encourage greater reflectivity are made.
Speaking of Writing: Some
Functions of Talk in the ESL Composition Class
BOB WEISSBERG
New Mexico State University, USA
The social interactionist
view of emergent literacy holds that a learner's early attempts at writing
are grounded in speech and, therefore, that the development of written
language is best fostered within a supportive conversational environment.
Many second language (L2) teachers recognize that an interactive classroom
also benefits L2 writers by providing them with an enhanced oral language
environment in which to develop literacy skills. However, the specific
roles that oral discourse plays in the L2 writing classroom are not well
understood. This article explores the functions of oral language in
university English as a Second Language (ESL) composition classes. A case
study is reported describing instructional discourse in five ESL writing
classes. A set of discourse categories is employed that analyzes classroom
conversation specifically as it relates to writing. Findings indicate
relatively little classroom talk devoted to topic invention and
development or to oral rehearsal of potential written text. The majority
of teachers' speech moves functioned either to give direct instruction or
to analyze already written texts. Results also point to the critical role
that transmission-style instruction and textbook use play in determining
the oral discourse characteristics of composition classes. Finally,
techniques are suggested through which ESL writing teachers can better
manage the role that talk plays in their composition classes and allow for
a greater range of classroom discourse styles to best fit their
instructional goals.
Feedback on Feedback:
Assessing Learner Receptivity to Teacher Response in L2 Composing
JOHN HEDGCOCK
Monterey Institute of International Studies, USA
NATALIE LEFKOWITZ
Central Washington University, USA
Writing research has
generated impressive empirical data on composing processes, including text
production, recursive procedures, and the contribution of feedback to
revision. Second language (L2) intervention studies further indicate that
certain forms of teacher feedback affect text quality more positively than
others. Mixed findings suggest that we should look beyond the written
product to explore the cognitive effects of intervention as they influence
the mediational processes of text construction and modification. Few
studies have accounted for learner reactions to teacher intervention
behaviors which impact emerging composing skills and ultimate proficiency.
This study focuses on the following research questions: (1) How do L2
learners react when they receive teacher feedback? (2) How do these
responses affect the evolution of students' perception of text quality and
their composing processes? (3) Do English as a Second Language (ESL) and
foreign language (FL) learners differ systematically in terms of
self-appraisal patterns and responses to feedback? Quantitative data based
on an analysis of an in-depth survey of 247 basic L2 (110 ESL and 137 FL)
writers' responses to feedback conventions employed by their composition
instructors are presented. The findings provide insight into teacher
behaviors which function positively and negatively as apprentice writers
create and modify text.
Volume 3, Number
3 (1994)
Language Development in
Students' Journals
CHRISTINE PEARSON CASANAVE
Keio University, Japan
In this article, I examine
changes in the writing of a small group of intermediate English students
over three semesters of their intensive language program in Japan. The
purpose of the study was to find concrete ways that language development
could be demonstrated in students' journal writing, in the absence of
testing and systematic instruction in writing, grammar, or vocabulary.
T-unit analysis demonstrated that the writing of all the students changed
over time, but in a variety of ways not necessarily predicted by the
T-unit research. The same individual diversity was revealed with simple
measures of coordination and vocabulary. Samples of the students' writing
demonstrate that improvement cannot be measured only quantitatively
through group averages, but that it must be identified in a variety of
ways that differ for individual writers. I conclude that the notion of
"improvement" needs to be reconceptualized and that students need to be
convinced of the many ways that their English can improve.
Explanatory Variables for
Japanese Students' Expository Writing in English: An Exploratory Study
KEIKO HIROSE
Aichi Prefectural University, Japan
MIYUKI SASAKI
Nagoya Gakuin University, Japan
The present study
investigated the relationship between Japanese students' English L2
expository writing and several factors that might influence the quality of
the writing product. Nineteen Japanese university students provided both
quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative analysis showed that the
students' L2 proficiency and L1 writing ability accounted for a large
proportion of variances in L2 writing quality. The finding that L1 writing
ability was highly correlated with L2 writing ability is important because
it suggests the existence of composing competence across L1 and L2 even
for EFL students. There was also a significant interaction between this
composing competence and L2 proficiency. Qualitative analysis suggested
that the students' composing competence was related to: (a) use of several
good writers' strategies, (b) writing fluency, and (c) confidence in
writing. Furthermore, probably due to the input-poor EFL environment, the
amount of self-initiated L2 writing experiences seemed to play an
important role in determining students' L2 writing quality.
Guidelines for Designing
Writing Prompts: Clarifications, Caveats, and Cautions
BARBARA KROLL
California State University, Northridge, USA
JOY REID
University of Wyoming, USA
Regardless of the pedagogy
of any given writing program, in the academic world, students are
frequently evaluated on the basis of writing products they produce in
response to various writing topics in a variety of circumstances. In
testing situations, the stimulus for the student to respond to is referred
to as a prompt. Special consideration should attend the preparation of
writing prompts when there is a significant number of test-takers who are
nonnative speakers of English. Writing prompts must be carefully prepared
by test developers so that the student has the best possible chance to
demonstrate accurately his or her true level of writing skills. This
article proposes that there are six categories that test developers must
consider and control as they develop appropriate prompt items: contextual
variables, content variables, linguistic variables, task variables,
rhetorical variables, and evaluation variables. Using a variety of
examples from topics developed for the Test of Written English (TWE) and
for other testing purposes, we show step by step how to distinguish
between well-developed prompts and problematic ones by detailed
exploration of each of these six variables.
Peer Response Groups in
ESL Writing Classes: How Much Impact on Revision?
ULLA CONNOR
KAREN ASENAVAGE
Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, USA
The purpose of this
research was to investigate the impact of peer responses on subsequent
revisions, comparing comments from the teacher with other sources. The
revisions in essays from two groups of freshmen ESL students were
evaluated over several drafts. The peer collaboration was audiotaped;
written comments by the teacher or others were noted. Faigley and Witte's
(1981) taxonomy of revisions was used to identify the types of revisions:
surface or text-based. There are six specific types of revisions in each
of these broad categories. The results show that the students made many
revisions but that few of these were the result of direct peer group
response. Students who made the greatest number of changes made
predominantly more text-based changes. Students who made fewer changes
generally made more surface changes. The results of this research raise
questions regarding group formation and types of modeling done for group
work.
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Volume 4, Number 1 (1995)
Assertions and
Alternatives: Helping ESL Undergraduates Extend Their Choices in Academic
Writing
DESMOND ALLISON
The University of Hong Kong
English as a second
language (ESL) undergraduates in various educational contexts are likely
to make assertions in their writing that experienced academic readers
judge to be unwarranted or unnecessary, or to qualify their assertions in
ways that appear inappropriate to subject lecturers and ESL teachers.
After reviewing reasons why this should be so, this article presents and
discusses short extracts from essays written by first-year undergraduates
following an ESL-medium humanities curriculum at the University of Hong
Kong. Some of the choices of wording carried what were apparently
unintended consequences for knowledge claims and relations with readers.
Class and tutorial feedback sessions on students' essays looked into ways
in which a writer's factual or evaluative claims might be advanced,
qualified, or assumed in linguistic choices from word to sentence level
and beyond. The suggestion is made that, in a "general" academic-purpose
context, focused explorations of warding can begin to relate writers'
textual choices to questions that matter in academic communication.
Designing and Assessing
Effective Classroom Writing Assignments for NES and ESL Students
JOY REID
University of Wyoming, USA
BARBARA KROLL
California State University, Northridge, USA
Academic writing is a form
of testing; moreover, for most writing tasks across the U.S.
college/university curriculum, the designer of the writing assignment is
also the audience and the evaluator, and that designer-evaluator expects
student-writers to demonstrate specific knowledge and skills. Therefore,
like all test designers, designers of writing assignments should carefully
consider the purpose(s), the parameters and constraints, and the
evaluation criteria for each writing assignment. In this article, we
discuss a range of issues in the design and assessment of classroom
writing tasks assigned in courses across the U.S. college/university
curriculum. We use a framework we designed previously to discuss the
preparation and evaluate the design of writing tasks. We then analyze
successful and unsuccessful writing across the curriculum assignments,
particularly from the perspective of English as a second language writers,
and offer suggestions that will enable teachers to design and assess
effective writing tasks.
Writing Across the
Curriculum, Writing Proficiency Exams, and the NNS College Student
MICHAEL JANOPOULOS
University of Northern Iowa, USA
The growing trend in
American universities toward establishing stricter standards of writing
proficiency is an issue that directly affects students who are nonnative
speakers (NNSs) of English. Traditionally, institutions have attempted to
address NNS writing needs through a variety of means, including special
composition courses and Writing Center-based tutorial assistance. However,
the adequacy of such methods is now being tested as NNS students attempt
to satisfy new and presumably more stringent institutional writing
requirements. In brief, where it may once have been possible for NNS
students to graduate without being expected to write as often--or as
well--as students who are native English speakers (NESs), today's Writing
Across the Curriculum (WAC) programs mandate (theoretically, at least)
that they be held to the same standards of writing proficiency as native
speakers. This article explores issues concerning instruction and
evaluation of NNS students in institutions employing WAC programs. It
examines faculty expectations of NNS writing quality, NNS performance on
Writing Proficiency Exams, and support options available to NNS students,
and concludes that NNS students are being held to o double standard that
places them at risk. Finally, it discusses alternatives for recognizing
and dealing with discrepancies in WAC policies and practices on both the
individual and institutional levels.
Objective Measurement of
Low-Proficiency EFL Narrative Writing
SANDRA ISHIKAWA
Osaka University, Japan
Two groups of
low-proficiency English as a foreign language students were given
different practice tasks (writing out or answering questions about the
same picture stories) in order to determine which task type was more
related to increase in writing proficiency. One task forced a holistic
approach, while the other allowed students to focus on shorter,
unconnected segments. Since no suitable objective measures for
low-proficiency levels have been established, 24 measures and a high
criterion level for significance (p < .001) were used. The class which
practiced writing out picture stories (the holistic approach) showed more
improvement. To determine which of these objective measures would best
discriminate between extremely low and extremely close levels of second
language writing, the data obtained in this study were reanalyzed. Scores
for each student on each measure were converted to z scores and summed.
The sums were correlated with scores on each of the 24 measures to
determine which measures showed the highest and most reliable correlations
with the z-score sums. The best measure was found to be total words in
error-free clauses. The next-best measure was the number of error-free
clauses per composition. These measures discriminate well among samples of
low-proficiency writing.
Volume 4, Number
2 (1995)
Teachers' Conceptions of
Second Language Writing Instruction: Five Case Studies
LING SHI
ALISTER CUMMING
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Canada
We interviewed five
experienced instructors weekly about their ESL writing classes in selected
courses over 2 years at a Canadian university, aiming to document the
qualities of their thinking about their pedagogical practices as well as
the ways in which three of the teachers' thinking accommodated a specific
instructional innovation. Analyses of 48 tape-recorded interviews showed
each instructor's conceptions to be highly consistent in their individual,
expressed views about their teaching practices but also individually
grounded in a specific set of personal beliefs about teaching ESL writing.
The instructors using the pedagogical innovation focused much of their
attention initially on composing processes (seemingly in response to the
innovation). This focus then declined markedly over time as they
incorporated the innovation into their existing beliefs about teaching ESL
writing. These findings suggest that curricular changes in second language
writing necessarily need to be situated in reference to the individual
qualities of teachers' pedagogical conceptions as well as long-term views
on the accommodation of pedagogical change.
L2 Writers and the
Writing Center: A National Survey of Writing Center Conferencing at Graduate
Institutions
JUDITH K. POWERS
JANE V. NELSON
University of Wyoming, USA
Writing centers have
become increasingly important resources for L2 academic writers across the
United States. This article reports and analyzes the results of a survey
of writing centers at 75 graduate institutions nationwide regarding their
work with L1 and L2 graduate writers. It discusses the kinds of L2 writers
writing centers serve, the training of writing center staff for L2
conferencing, the types of assistance L2 writers most frequently request,
the differences writing centers perceive in working with L1 and L2
graduate writers, and the difficulties they encounter in meeting the needs
of L2 clientele. Survey results suggest that collaborative efforts between
ESL and writing center specialists, particularly in the area of tutor
training, would greatly increase the benefits of writing center
conferencing for L2 writers.
The Relationship of
Lexical Proficiency to the Quality of ESL Compositions
CHERYL A. ENGBER
Northeast Missouri State University, USA
The extent to which
impartial readers take into account lexical richness and lexical errors
when assigning a quality score to compositions written by learners in an
intensive English program is discussed in this article. For placement
purposes into both ESL programs and academic programs, the writing of
these students is often assessed by anonymous readers who base their
judgments on timed writing tasks. Much remains to be known, however, about
the relationship between language proficiency, specifically lexical
proficiency, and reader judgments of the overall quality of timed essays.
This study reports on the role of the lexical component as one factor in
holistic scoring. Sixty-six placement essays written by students from
mixed language backgrounds in the intermediate to advanced range of an
intensive English program were holistically scored. These quality scores
were then compared to four lexical richness measures: lexical variation,
error-free variation, percentage of lexical error, and lexical density.
High, significant correlations were found for (a) lexical variation, that
is, the ratio of the number of different lexical items to the total number
of lexical items in the essay adjusted to length; and (b) lexical
variation minus error. The latter measure, error-free variation,
correlated best with score.
ESL Composition Program
Administration in the United States
JESSICA WILLIAMS
University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
A survey of 78 colleges
and universities was conducted (a) to ascertain the degree to which native
speakers (NSs) and nonnative speakers (NNSs) are instructed separately in
composition classes, and (b) to discover what kinds of instructors
generally teach the NNS composition courses. Results show that academic
NNS composition classes are still generally isolated from NS composition
programs and that they continue to be viewed as remedial at many
institutions. In addition, a well-prepared, permanent staff for the NNS
courses appears to be the exception rather than the rule. Most instructors
are hired part-time and from term to term, often with limited experience
in teaching writing to this population. Suggestions are given for
improvements in teacher preparation and modification of instructional
strategies.
Volume 4, Number
3 (1995)
Reexamining the Affective
Advantage of Peer Feedback in the ESL Writing Class
SHUQIANG ZHANG
University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA
Various arguments have
been made on affective grounds to justify peer feedback in teaching
composition in English as a first language (L1). Those arguments have had
considerable influence on the teaching of English as a second language
(ESL) writing. Based upon current assumptions about the affective values
of teacher-, peer-, and self-directed feedback, hypotheses were formulated
concerning the relative appeal of the three types of feedback in the ESL
writing process. Eighty-one academically oriented ESL learners who had
experienced the three types of feedback responded to a questionnaire, and
their preferences were statistically analyzed. The results show that
claims made about the affective advantage of peer feedback in L1 writing
do not apply to ESL writing. ESL students overwhelmingly prefer teacher
feedback. The findings are discussed in conjunction with the larger issue
of the appropriateness of L1 writing theories as guidelines for ESL
writing research and instruction.
A Contrarian View of
Dialogue Journals: The Case of a Reluctant Participant
VICKI LO HOLMES
MARGARET RO MOULTON
University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA
Dialogue journal writing
has become a much heralded activity by researchers and practitioners
alike, yet few studies explore the efficacy of this practice from the
students' perspective. Still fewer studies examine the benefits of
dialogue journal writing with adult English as a second language (ESL)
students in a university setting. This study reports the case of Dang, one
of 21 university ESL students who participated in an ethnographic study
exploring students' perspectives on dialogue journal writing. Dang's case
is described because he represents a view contrary to currently made
claims about the benefits of dialogue journal writing. While Dang
benefited from and enjoyed formal writing assignments, he resisted and
disliked the informal writing of the dialogue journals. Implications from
the case of Dang suggest the need for researchers and practitioners to
consider students' perspectives when employing nontraditional writing
assignments like dialogue journal writing.
The Use of Metadiscourse
in Good and Poor ESL Essays
PUANGPEN INTARAPRAWAT
MARGARET S. STEFFENSEN
Illinois State University, USA
A text is composed of two
parts: propositional content and metadiscourse features. Metadiscourse
features are those facets of a text which make the
organization of the text explicit, provide information about the writer's
attitude toward the text content, and engage the reader in the
interaction. In this study, we analyze the metadiscourse in persuasive
essays written by English as a second language (ESL) university students.
Half of the essays received good ratings and half received poor ratings.
Differences between the two sets were found in the number of words, number
of T-units, and density of metadiscourse features. When features were
analyzed as a proportion of number of T-units, differences were found in
all categories. Furthermore, the good essays showed a greater variety of
metadiscourse features within each category than the poor essays. It is
proposed that skilled writers have an awareness of the needs of their
readers and control the strategies for making their texts more considerate
and accessible to the reader. Poor writers, on the other hand, are not
able to generate considerate texts.
NNS Performance on
Writing Proficiency Exams: Focus on Students Who Failed
PATRICIA BYRD
GAYLE NELSON
Georgia State University, USA
An increasing number of
U.S. universities require students to pass a writing proficiency
examination before receiving undergraduate degrees. It is often assumed
that these exams present special problems for nonnative speakers of
English (NNSs). Johns (1991) reported on a case study of one student's
difficulties with a writing proficiency exam. The student performed well
in other courses but failed the required writing exam twice-and had not
passed it prior to publication of the study. In our study, academic
records of 191 NNSs who took a writing examination in 1991 were analyzed
to assess their performance on the writing examination at Georgia State
University (GSU). In addition, profiles of the students who failed were
compiled, in part to determine how common the type of student profiled by
Johns is at GSU. Of the original 191 NNSs, 16 were shown in the
Registrar's record keeping system as still not having passed the writing
exam by December 1994. The analysis shows that only 3 of these 16 students
closely match the Johns profile. Of the remaining 13, 4 have C averages
and 9 have failing grade point averages (GPAs). For these nine, failing
the writing exam is part of an overall pattern of academic difficulty.
Questions remain about the relationship between English proficiency and
academic preparation and about responsibilities for academically weak
students.
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Volume 5, Number 1 (1996)
Chinese Students'
Perceptions of ESL Peer Response Group Interaction
JOAN G. CARSON
GAYLE L. NELSON
Georgia State University, USA
This study investigated
Chinese students' interaction styles and reactions to one particular
pedagogic technique: peer response groups in ESL composition classes. In a
microethnographic study, three peer response groups in an advanced ESL
composition class were videotaped for 6 consecutive weeks. After
videotaping, the interviewers met with individual Chinese-speaking (n = 3)
and Spanish-speaking (n = 2) group members. The Spanish-speaking students
were interviewed in order to have a point of comparison. In each of the
sessions, the interviewer and the student viewed the videotapes of the
peer response group in which the student had participated and discussed
the group's interactions. The interviews were audiotaped, and the tapes
were transcribed. The transcripts from the interviews were examined
recursively by the researchers; merging patterns or theses were noted; the
data were analyzed again using these themes as coding categories; and the
data were organized according to these codes. This analysis yielded a
description of the key Informants' perceptions of their construction of
peer response group interaction. The analysis indicated that the Chinese
students' primary goal for the groups was social-to maintain group
harmony-and that this goal affected the nature and types of interaction
they allowed themselves in group discussions. The Chinese students were
reluctant to initiate comments and, when they did, monitored themselves
carefully so as not to precipitate conflict within the group. This
self-monitoring led them to avoid criticism of peers' work and to avoid
disagreeing with comments about peers' or their own writing.
Audience and Voice in
Current L1 Composition Texts: Some Implications for ESL Student Writers
VAI RAMANATHAN
University of Alabama, USA
ROBERT B. KAPLAN
University of Southern California, USA
Many freshman writing
programs use an inductive approach to writing instruction. Students are
encouraged to discover form in the process of writing. This approach views
the acquisition of writing skills as a tacit, unconscious process we find
problematic for students whose first language is not English. Drawing from
10 widely used freshman writing textbooks, our study demonstrates the
problem of implicitness which exists in regard to two notions central to
writing instruction in the United States: "voice" and "audience." Both
notions, as presented in these textbooks, are predicated on a set of
assumptions that do not translate well in L2 classrooms because they draw
heavily on shared cultural knowledge that is often inaccessible to
non-native students. Our article calls attention to ways in which textbook
presentations of these concepts disadvantage L2 student writers. We
propose that a discipline-oriented approach to freshman composition will
facilitate an easier grasp of these concepts. Such an approach will expose
students to the particularities of specific disciplines and provide a more
clearly defined discourse community within which to form their views and
responses. Knowing for whom they write will create a clearer sense of
audience for these students and enable them to present clearer and
strongly individualized voices.
ESL Writing Assessment
Prompts: How Students Choose
CHARLENE POLIO
MARGO GLEW
Michigan State University, USA
This qualitative study
examines how ESL students choose a prompt from several options on a
timed-writing exam. This issue is worth investigating for several reasons:
Little is known about the writing process on timed-writing tests; previous
quantitative attempts to examine factors affecting student choice have
been inconclusive; and opinions vary on whether or not students should be
given a choice. Twenty-six students were observed taking a writing exam
and were interviewed upon completion. We conclude that students spend
little time making a decision; that several factors including their own
background knowledge, question type, and specificity of the topic
influence their decision; that attention to the time factor is an
overriding consideration.
Peer Revision in the L2
Classroom: Social-Cognitive Activities, Mediating Strategies, and Aspects of
Social Behavior
OLGA S. VILLAMIL
MARIA C. M. DE GUERRERO
Inter American University of Puerto Rico
Little is known about what
actually happens when two L2 students are involved in peer revision of
written texts. This article reports the results of a study conducted among
Spanish-speaking students in Puerto Rico which sought to investigate (a)
the kind of revision activities students engage in while working in pairs,
(b) the strategies peers employ in order to facilitate the revision
process, and (c) significant aspects of social behavior in dyadic peer
revision. The participants were 54 intermediate ESL college students
enrolled in a writing course. Interactions between pairs of students
during two revision sessions were recorded and transcribed. Analysis of
the transcripts yielded seven types of social-cognitive activities the
students engaged in (reading, assessing, dealing with trouble sources,
composing, writing comments, copying, and discussing task procedures),
five different mediating strategies used to facilitate the revision
process (employing symbols and external resources, using the L1, providing
scaffolding, resorting to interlanguage knowledge, and vocalizing private
speech), and four significant aspects of social behavior (management of
authorial control, affectivity, collaboration, and adopting reader/writer
roles). Results reveal an extremely complex interactive process as well as
highlight the importance of activating and enhancing cognitive processes
through social interaction in the L2 writing classroom.
Volume 5, Number
2 (1996)
ESL Students in
First-Year Writing Courses: ESL Versus Mainstream Classes
GEORGE BRAINE
Chinese University of Hong Kong
In first-year writing
courses, ESL students are usually mainstreamed or placed in specially
designated ESL classes. Although ESL writing specialists, backed by
research into second language writing, strongly advocate the placement of
ESL students in ESL classes, mainstreaming appears to be the norm. This
article is based on a year-long study conducted at a medium-size
university where ESL students have the option of mainstreaming or
enrolling in ESL classes in first-year writing courses. The study
describes the preferences of ESL students for ESL or mainstream classes,
their performance on a holistically scored exit examination, and the
reasons for the high rate of withdrawal of ESL students from mainstream
classes. The study shows that the majority of ESL students preferred to
enroll in ESL classes and performed better on the exit exam in these
classes.
Verbal Reports of
Japanese Novices' Research Writing Practices in English
HUGH GOSDEN
Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
This article presents
interview data from a group of Japanese novice researchers who were asked
to comment on their writing practices in preparing their first scientific
research articles to be published in English. The verbal reports and
subsequent commentary and analysis provide insights into cross-cultural
aspects of academic writing from a social-constructionist perspective
under the headings: (a) the construction of NNS novices' research article
drafts; (b) translation from L1 to L2; (c) revision in response to
external critique and the concept of audience. To better understand the
language and subculture of the scientific community, findings stress the
importance for both EAP practitioners and for NNS novices of feeding
relevant background literature from the fields of sociopragmatics and the
sociology of science into advanced courses in English for Academic
Purposes.
U.S. Academic Readers,
ESL Writers, and Second Sentences
Joy REID
University of Wyoming, USA
Traditionally, ESL writing
teachers have taught the concept of the topic sentence to introduce
academic paragraphs. However, ESL students frequently develop paragraphs
that do not fulfill the expectations of native English speaker (NES)
readers proffered by the topic sentence. Recent writing-reading connection
research suggests that different contextual and rhetorical schemata may
result in ineffective ESL written communication. This article describes
exploratory research focusing on the sentence that immediately follows the
topic sentence in an American-English paragraph and seeks to answer the
following: Can second sentences be (a) consistently predicted by
experienced NES readers; (b) successfully predicted and written by
inexperienced and/or experienced NES student writers; (c) successfully
predicted and written by inexperienced ESL student writers? Results
indicated that whereas NES inexperienced writers sometimes used
unexpected, inappropriate second sentences, NESs were able to
appropriately predict the "expected" second sentences nearly twice as
often as ESL writers. Pedagogical implications are discussed.
Do English and ESL
Faculty Differ in Evaluating the Essays of Native English-Speaking and ESL
Students?
BAILIN SONG
ISABELLA CARUSO
City University of New York-Kingsborough, USA
This study investigates
the degree to which differences exist in the rating of two NES and two ESL
essays by 32 English and 30 ESL professors in the English Department of
CUNY's Kingsborough campus. The two faculty groups were divided into
subgroups, one rating the four essays holistically on a 1 to 6 scale and
the other rating them on a 1 to 6 scale but in light of 10 specifically
categorized features, 6 comprising rhetorical and 4 language features. The
results indicated that in holistic evaluation, English and ESL faculty
raters differed significantly, with English faculty assigning higher
scores to all four essay samples. In analytic evaluation, the two groups
did not evidence significant differences in rating the specifically
categorized features. Raters with more years of experience in teaching and
holistic evaluation tended to be more lenient in their holistic
evaluation, whereas with respect to analytic evaluation, experience in the
two areas was not an influencing factor. Also, in holistic evaluation,
English faculty seemed to give greater weight to the overall content and
quality of the rhetorical features in the writing samples than they did to
language use.
Volume 5, Number
3 (1996)
Tutoring Second Language
Text Revision: Does the Approach to Instruction or the Language of
Communication Make a Difference?
ALISTER CUMMING
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Canada
SUFUMI SO
Carnegie Mellon University,
USA
This study describes the
dynamics of problem solving through spoken discourse in one-to-one
tutoring of second language writing, aiming to determine if these
processes might vary according to the instructional approach or the
language of communication utilized. We tutored 20 adult students of
English as a second language (ESL) in 4 sessions of text revision on 4
similar compositions they had written, alternating these sessions between
provision of (a) conventional error correction versus procedural
facilitation and (b) use of the second language (English) or learners'
mother tongues (Cantonese, Japanese, and Mandarin)-forming a 2 (Approach
to tutoring) x 2 (Language of communication) factorial design. The
discourse of tutoring seems to have been highly normative in this context,
sequenced into transactions of problem identification, negotiation, and
resolution that did not vary appreciably across any of the conditions for
tutoring. Tutors' and students' cooperative efforts to solve problems in
the students' draft compositions focused primarily on local levels of the
compositions (i.e., grammar, word choice, spelling, punctuation), guided
mainly by the tutors' decision making, in all of the experimental
conditions. This finding parallels what has been found in most previous
studies of text revision. However, individual tutors tended to differ from
one another in the extent to which they solicited students' input to the
discourse, suggesting this is an important factor to be considered in
future studies of the impact of tutoring on ESL students' writing.
Explaining Hong Kong
Students' Response to Process Writing: An Exploration of Causes and Outcomes
MARTHA C. PENNINGTON
MARK N. BROCK
FRANCIS YUE
City University of Hong Kong
The purpose of this
investigation was to evaluate student reactions to the attempt on the part
of their English teacher, a native Cantonese speaker, to apply the
innovation of process writing in 3 multiple-lesson units. Answers to a
questionnaire revealed a variable reaction to the units across 8 classes
of Cantonese-speaking secondary-school students. For two groups in
academically achieving all-girl classes, the experience was judged as
positive, for two in lower achieving mixed-gender classes as negative, and
for the four other classes as mixed positive and negative. The teacher
judged at the beginning of the project to hove had the most positive
attitude toward process writing taught the students who evaluated the
experience as most positive. The class that evaluated the experience as
most negative had the teacher judged at the outset as having been most
conflicted about process writing. There is evidence that in the two
classes where the students had the most positive reaction the teacher made
a fuller adoption of the process approach than in the two classes where
students had the most negative reaction. In the former, the teacher
integrated elements of process writing into an overall teaching routine,
whereas in the latter, the focus was on traditional language exercise and
grammatical accuracy, and process approach elements were not well
integrated into the teacher's instruction. The results illustrate the
complex pattern of cause-and-effect relationships existing between
teachers' and students' attitudes and behaviors in the context of an
innovation. They further demonstrate how an innovation can be
reinterpreted when implemented in a new culture.
Issues in Using
Multicultural Literature in College ESL Writing Classes
STEPHANIE VANDRICK
University of San Francisco, USA
Multicultural literature,
and multicultural textbooks, are increasingly used in college ESL writing
classes. This is an appropriate and welcome development, but it is
essential that such literature and texts be chosen and taught carefully
and thoughtfully. ESL professionals need to define multiculturalism, and
multicultural literature, as those terms apply in ESL education and
particularly in the context of the writing class, and understand and
prepare for the fact that some students as well as fellow academics find
such concepts controversial. This article discusses the following related
issues in the ESL context: the "canon wars," the purposes and benefits of
teaching multicultural literature, possible pitfalls in emphasizing such
literature with ESL students, the selection of textbooks with appropriate
reading selections and editorial apparatus, and possible problems arising
during such teaching.
Second Language Learners'
Processes of L1 Writing, L2 Writing, and Translation from L1 into L2
KOZUE UZAWA
Western Washington University, USA
This study compares second
language learners' L1 writing, L2 writing, and translation from L1 into
L2, focusing on writing and translating processes, attention patterns, and
quality of language use. Thinking aloud, 22 Japanese ESL students studying
at a Canadian college performed 3 tasks individually. These think-aloud
protocols were analyzed, supplemented by observational notes and
interviews, and the writing samples were evaluated. The data were analyzed
with attention to theories of composing processes (Bereiter & Scardamalia,
1987), Schmidt's "conscious attention" (1990), and Swain's "i + 1 output"
hypothesis (1985). It was found that (a) most students used a "what-next"
approach both in the L1 and L2 writing tasks and a "sentence-by-sentence"
approach in the translation task, (b) attention patterns in the L1 and L2
writing tasks were very similar, but quite different in the translation
task. Attention to language use in the translation task was significantly
higher than in the L1 and L2 writing tasks and, (c) scores on language use
in the L1 and L2 writing tasks were similar, but scores on language use in
the translation task were significantly better than in the L2 writing
task.
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Volume 6, Number 1 (1997)
An Argument for
Nonadversarial Argumentation: On the Relevance of the Feminist Critique of
Academic Discourse to L2 Writing Pedagogy
DIANE D. BELCHER
The Ohio State University, USA
The feminist critique of
academic discourse has begun to heighten awareness of the agonistic,
competitive nature of much academic writing in English. This article
considers what the implications of this gendered discoursal consciousness
may be for L2 writing educators, both as teachers and as academic writers
themselves. Vignettes of two L2 writers who have successfully negotiated
nonadversarial academic texts are presented and discussed. Finally,
guideposts for a nonadversarial model of academic discourse are suggested.
Dictionary Use by EFL
Writers: What Really Happens?
KIEL CHRISTIANSON
University of Aizu, Japan
All of the words that 51
Japanese EFL university students had looked up in their dictionaries were
identified in a 41 ,024-word corpus of student writing. Forty-two percent
of these "dictionary words" were found to have been used incorrectly in
some way. An analysis of the errors themselves and of interviews with more
and less successful dictionary users was conducted in an attempt to better
understand why these errors were committed and what can be done to assist
students in avoiding such errors. The findings indicate that successful
dictionary users, regardless of their level of English proficiency, employ
a variety of sophisticated look-up strategies. Furthermore, this research
brings into question some of the claims of previous studies into FL
dictionary use.
Contrastive Rhetoric in Context: A Dynamic Model of L2
Writing
PAUL KEI MATSUDA
Purdue University, USA
The notion of contrastive
rhetoric was first proposed as a pedagogical solution to the problem of L2
organization, and the subsequent development in research has generated,
among other valuable insights, three explanations for the organizational
structures of L2 texts, including linguistic, cultural, and educational
explanations. However, the contribution of contrastive rhetoric to the
teaching of ESL writing has been limited because of the underlying
assumptions that have guided the early pedagogical approaches. This study
identifies a static theory of L2 writing that has been widely used in
teaching organizational structures and considers how the pedagogical
application of insights from contrastive rhetoric studies have been
limited by this theory. To overcome the limitations of the static theory,
an alternative model of L2 writing is proposed, and its implications for
further research and the teaching of L2 writing are discussed.
The Etiology of Poor
Second Language Writing: The Influence of Perceived Teacher Preferences on
Second Language Revision Strategies
GRAEME K. PORTE
University of Granada
Much previous L2 writing
research has sought to compare the so-called "skilled" and "unskilled"
writer, suggesting that one of the major differences between them may lie
in their respective approaches to revision. Specifically, unskilled
writers have been seen to revise from a narrow outlook and make changes
addressing the surface grammatical structure of compositions, usually at
the level of the word, rather than deeper issues of content and
organization. However, the issue of what may lead unskilled writers to
concentrate more on certain aspects in their revision remains unexplored.
Specifically, we have little information about how underachieving EFL
writers perceive the act of revision in academic writing contexts, and we
remain unaware of the possible effect of these opinions and contexts on
their revision strategies. This descriptive study focuses on what was
revealed from semistructured interviews over a 9-month period with 71
underachieving EFL undergraduates about their attitudes toward revision
and the possible effects of perceived teacher preferences in methodology,
feedback, and evaluation on revision strategies. The majority of
participants were able to reflect on their revision behavior and describe
their current revision strategies, which were often observed to be
pragmatically based and derived from perceived teacher preferences in past
or present classroom practice and from feedback on writing. Revision of
compositions was generally described as involving little more than a
proofreading exercise. Evidence was found that local teaching strategies
and evaluatory procedures might reinforce these pragmatic, yet ultimately
restrictive, revision practices. As a result of these findings,
suggestions are made with regard to revision strategy training with
underachieving learners.
Volume 6, Number
2 (1997)
Acquiring Disciplinary
Literacy: A Social-Cognitive Analysis of Text Production and Learning among
Iranian Graduate Students of Education
ABDOLMEHDI RIAZI
Shiraz University, Iran
The problem addressed by
this study was: how do non-native speakers of English acquire
domain-specific literacy suitable to their academic discipline in a
graduate program? The participants were four (one female and three male)
Iranian doctoral students of education in their second year of residency.
To investigate the problem, I used a naturalistic qualitative approach,
collecting data from four participants through questionnaires, interviews
(structured, unstructured, and text-based), written documents (texts
produced by the participants, their professors' feedback on the papers,
and course outlines), and process logs. I followed the participants
through their graduate seminars over a period of five months as they were
preparing for and performing assigned academic writing tasks in their
second language (L2), English. Weekly face-to-face interviews focusing on
participants' behaviours, decisions, and concerns were the central data
gathering method for the study. This study adds to the literature that
suggests that achieving disciplinary literacy in an L2 in a graduate
program such as education is fundamentally an interactive social-cognitive
process in that production of the texts required extensive interaction
between the individual's cognitive processes and social/contextual factors
in different ways.
The Impact of Writer
Nationality on Mainstream Teachers' Judgments of Composition Quality
DONALD L. RUBIN
University of Georgia, USA
MELANIE WILLIAMS-JAMES
Texas Department of Health, USA
Teachers' evaluations of
student writing are susceptible to the influence of extraneous factors,
including stereotyped expectations based on students' ethnolinguistic
identities. Even teachers' detection of surface errors in student writing
is vulnerable to such expectancy sets. Non-native speakers of English
(NNSs) who exit sheltered ESL classes may therefore be subjected to unduly
negative evaluations due to mainstream teachers' negative expectations. On
the other hand, it is possible that mainstream teachers overcompensate and
are especially lenient with NNSs. The present study attributed fabricated
student identities to a standard set of essays into which specific errors
had been intruded. The fictional students were either Southeast Asian,
Northern European, or U.S. native English speakers (NESs). Mainstream
composition teachers evaluated the writing samples using rating scales,
and they also wrote marginal comments and signs. Analyses indicated an
advantage favoring the Asian writers over the NES writers in ratings of
overall composition quality. No differences in the number of errors
detected for each writer nationality were found. On the other hand,
teachers' ratings of NNS writing were best predicted by the number of
surface errors they detected. Ratings of NES writing, in contrast, were
justified by marginal notations and comments; teachers tended to write
longer comments when they judged the writing to be poor. The significance
of the study is to enjoin composition teachers to reflect on their
differential dependence on surface error when evaluating NES and NNS
writing.
Teacher Commentary on
Student Writing: Descriptions & Implications
DANA R. FERRIS
California State University, Sacramento, USA
SUSAN PEZONE
American River College, USA
CATHY R. TADE
Winters High School, USA
SHAREE TINTI
Sacramento City College, USA
Teacher response to
student writing is a vital, though neglected, aspect of L2 composition
research. The present study adds to the previous research through the
development and implementation of an original analysis model, designed to
examine both the pragmatic aims and the linguistic forms of teachers'
written commentary. This model was used in the examination of over 1500
teacher comments written on a sample of III essay first drafts by 47
advanced ESL university students. It was found that the teacher changed
her responding strategies over the course of two semesters, that she
provided different types of commentary on various genres of writing
assignments, that the amount of her feedback decreased as the term
progressed, and that she responded somewhat differently to students of
varying ability levels. The study raises several implications for L2
writing instruction as well as for analyses of teacher commentary.
Qualification and
Certainty in L1 and L2 Students' Writing
KEN HYLAND
City University of Hong Kong
JOHN MILTON
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
A major problem for second
language students writing academic essays in English is to convey
statements with an appropriate degree of doubt and certainty. Such
epistemic comments are crucial to academic writing where authors have to
distinguish opinion from fact and evaluate their assertions in acceptable
and persuasive ways. Despite its importance however, we know little about
how second language writers present assertions in their writing and we
often measure their attempts to master appropriate forms against the work
of expert writers. Based on a corpus of one million words, this paper
compares the expression of doubt and certainty in the examination scripts
of 900 Cantonese speaking school leavers writing in English with those of
770 British learners of similar age and educational level. A detailed
analysis of the texts reveals that these L2 writers differ significantly
from the NSs in relying on a more limited range of items, offering
stronger commitments, and exhibiting greater problems in conveying a
precise degree of certainty. The authors highlight a number of issues
raised by the research and make some pedagogical suggestions for
developing competence in this important pragmatic area.
Volume 6, Number
3 (1997)
Traditional Chinese Text
Structures and Their Influence on the Writing in Chinese and English of
Contemporary Mainland Chinese Students
ANDY KIRKPATRICK
Centre for International English, Curtin University of Technology
It has been argued that
traditional Chinese text structures, in particular the four-part
qi-cheng-zhuan-he and the ha gu wen (eight-legged essay) structures
continue to influence the written English of Chinese students. In this
article, the origins of these two traditional Chinese text structures will
be described and examples of them given. In considering their influence
upon the contemporary writing of mainland Chinese students, it will be
argued that, as these structures do not influence the writing in Chinese
of these students, they are unlikely to exert a great influence upon their
writing in English. A survey of contemporary Chinese textbooks on
composition suggests that the prescriptive advice given in these texts
reflects contemporary " Anglo-American" rhetorical style more than
traditional Chinese style.
Student Annotations: What
NNS and NS University Students Say About Their Own Writing
NEOMY STORCH
JOANNA T APPER
University of Melbourne, Australia
Although teacher feedback
has long been considered an integral part of developing students' writing,
seeking student perceptions of their own writing is equally important. The
articulation of such perceptions assists students to be independent
learners and also guides teacher feedback. One way to gain insights into
student perceptions is to invite them to make annotations on their own
work before submission. Although this is not a new pedagogic technique,
there is a lack of research on many aspects of student annotation
behavior, particularly of second language writers. In this project,
student annotations were analyzed for the areas of writing about which
students annotate and for the distribution of positive annotations and
expressions of concern. Annotations were made by NNSs and NSs on their own
research papers. There were some differences between the two groups of
students in the categories and sub-categories of their annotations. The
value for both students and writing instructors of encouraging L2 writers
to annotate their work is discussed, and areas for further research are
noted.
Writing Instruction at
the German Gymnasium: A 13th-Grade English Class Writes the Abitur
MELINDA REICHELT
University of Toledo, USA
The field of contrastive
rhetoric has until fairly recently focused for the most part on the
features of texts written by writers composing in English as a second
language in English-speaking environments. Current research in contrastive
rhetoric, however, points to interest in broader concerns, including
inquiry into the educational contexts around the world in which writing
and writing instruction take place. This article reports on an
investigation of the context of writing at a secondary school (Gymnasium)
in Germany. In addition to reporting contextual information related to the
Gymnasium and the Abitur, an exit exam required by all Gymnasiums in
Germany, this article reports the responses to the English section of the
Abitur of 13th-grade students who elected English as one of their Abitur
subjects. Students' responses are reported concerning their perception of
the purpose of this exam; their means of preparing for it; their
expectations of it before taking it and their reactions to it afterwards;
their descriptions of their writing process during the exam; and their
perceptions of the differences between writing in a first language and
writing in a second language.
Critical Thinking in ESL:
An Argument for Sustained Content
MARCIA PALLY
City University of New York, USA
This article suggests that
in adult ESL learners, development of critical thinking skills, as defined
by EAP, cognitive psychology and transformative pedagogy, benefits from
sustained content study (or studying one area over time). Sustained
content study is recommended because: it allows students to accrue
information, without which they are less able to question, synthesize, and
evaluate what they read; it allows students to become familiar with the
rhetorical conventions of a discipline; and, as these are the skills
needed for university study, today's workplace and to understand the
socio-political factors that affect students' lives, sustained study
allows students to practice in the ESL class what they will need outside
it. This article: defines critical thinking, discusses who should learn it
and why, reviews the role of content in ESL and the literature supporting
sustained study, and discusses content that engages ESL students with
varied majors and goals. Three courses are described, one on selected
economic/political issues, one on language acquisition itself, and one on
film and society. Selections from student discussion and writing are
examined.
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Volume 7, Number 1 (1998)
Staying Out of Trouble:
Apparent Plagiarism and Academic Survival
PAT CURRIE
Carleton University, Canada
Textual borrowing by
second language students in academic settings has traditionally been
viewed as an intentional violation of Western norms and practices. As we
have learned from recent discussions, however, the issue is not that
simple, but fraught with complexities. In order to understand the degree
of complexity, it is worthwhile to examine one instance of such borrowing.
This paper explores the apparent plagiarism of one second language student
writer in a university course. It considers her behavior in relation to
the context of her course, the demands of her task, her developing English
language skills, and her general learning processes.
An Aspect of Holistic
Modeling in Academic Writing: Propositional Clusters as a Heuristic for
Thematic Control
HUGH GOSDEN
Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
It is a major challenge
for teachers of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) to devise meaningful
exercises and techniques which can function as research tools for EAP
practitioners and as heuristic procedures for L2 writers. If exercises are
to be authentic in helping students accomplish their real concerns, they
need to be holistic in their modeling of the academic writing process.
That is, they need to integrate attention to textual, cognitive, and
social aspects of the texts students are required to produce in order to
enter into the academic/discourse community. As a contribution to this
effort, this study presents one potentially valuable procedure,
Propositional Clusters (PCs), which aims to help L2 writers handle one
crucial aspect of text organization, namely thematic control. The use of
PCs is demonstrated with reference to Japanese graduate students drafting
their first research papers in English.
"If I Only Had More
Time:" ESL Learners' Changes in Linguistic Accuracy on Essay Revisions
CHARLENE POLIO
CATHERINE FLECK
NEVIN LEDER
Michigan State University, USA
This study examines
whether or not English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students edit for
sentence-level errors during revision and whether or not additional
editing instruction helps reduce sentence-level errors in revised essays.
Examining 64 ESL students' 30-minute drafts and 60-minute revisions, both
at the beginning and at the end of a semester, we found that students'
linguistic accuracy improved both over the semester and from draft to
revised essay. However, an experimental group, who received additional
editing instruction and feedback, did not perform any better than the
control group on measures of linguistic accuracy. We conclude that while
the improvement in accuracy on the revised essays is statistically
significant and theoretically interesting to researchers in the areas of
second language acquisition and second language writing pedagogy, it may
be too small to have practical implications in the context of writing
assessment.
An Investigation of L1-L2
Transfer in Writing among Japanese University Students: Implications for
Contrastive Rhetoric
RYUKO KUBOTA
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA
Many studies of
contrastive rhetoric have confirmed that Japanese writers prefer an
inductive style which is negatively transferred to ESL writing, whereas
one study found similarities in rhetorical patterns used by good Japanese
and English LI writers. This study investigated whether individual
Japanese students use the same discourse pattern in L1 and ESL writing and
how each individual's use of similar/dissimilar patterns affects the
quality of ESL essays. University students in Japan wrote one essay in
Japanese and another in English. A total of 22 students wrote on an
expository topic, and 24 students wrote on a persuasive topic. Each
participant was interviewed later about their writing and views on
rhetorical styles. Both Japanese and ESL essays were evaluated in terms of
organization and ESL essays were also rated in terms of language use. The
location of the main idea and the macro-level rhetorical pattern were
coded for each essay. Results showed that about half of the writers used
similar patterns in L1 and L2. Results also revealed a positive
correlation between Japanese and ESL organization scores, but no negative
transfer of culturally unique rhetorical patterns. The data suggest that
L1 writing ability, English proficiency and composing experience in
English affect the quality of ESL essays.
Volume 7, Number
2 (1998)
ESL Students' Perceptions
of Effectiveness in Peer Response Groups
GAYLE L. NELSON
JOAN G. CARSON
Georgia State University, USA
This study investigated
Chinese and Spanish-speaking students' perceptions of their interactions
in peer response groups in an ESL composition class. In a
microethnographic study, three peer response groups in an advanced ESL
composition class were videotaped for six consecutive weeks. After
videotaping, researchers met with individual Chinese (N = 3) and
Spanish-speaking (N = 2) group members. In each session, the researcher
and the student viewed the videotapes of the peer response group in which
the student had participated, and the students answered researcher
questions about the group's interactions. The interviews were audiotaped,
and the tapes were transcribed. The transcripts from the interviews were
examined recursively by the researchers, and patterns were noted. This
analysis yielded a description of the key participants' perceptions of
their construction of peer response interaction. The analysis indicated
that both the Chinese and Spanish-speaking students preferred negative
comments that identified problems in their drafts. They also preferred the
teacher's comments over those of other students and viewed grammar and
sentence-level comments as relatively ineffective. The Chinese and
Spanish-speaking students had different views, however. about the amount
and kind of talk that was needed to identify problems.
Searching for Kiyoko:
Bettering Mandatory ESL Writing Placement
RICHARD H. HASWELL
Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi, USA
This essay proposes ways
to improve mandatory college placement for ESL writers and explores them
through theory, an experiment, and a case study. Current methods of
placement have problems with reader bias and instructional validity and
sometimes disregard common facts of writing diagnosis. The proposed new
method intends to avoid the problems by combining and balancing these
cognitive acts. It divides readers into two tiers. The first is
non-specialist faculty, who read essays with information about the writer
hidden, but who can only place students into the most desired course; the
second tier is specialist faculty who read with foreknowledge of the
writer's name and background. Six years of placement outcomes of this
system are reported at one university. Results are also reported of an
experiment (participant N= 124) in the reading of the placement writing of
a Japanese student (Kiyoko) in which foreknowledge about the writer was
systematically varied. Results supported the proposed new system in that
ethnic and language-status inferences about the writer (some incorrect)
and foreknowledge about the writer's background were systematically
associated with changes in evaluation and placement. Finally, the actual
placement history of Kiyoko and the possible effects of knowledge about
contrastive rhetoric on the placement are considered as further support of
the method.
Transitions: The
Balancing Act of Bilingual Academics
CHRISTINE PEARSON CASANAVE
Keio University, Japan
Grounded in Lave and
Wenger's (1991) notion of situated learning, this qualitative case study
examines the Japanese and English academic writing activities and
attitudes of four bilingual Japanese scholars, educated at the graduate
level in the United States, who then returned to work at a Japanese
university. In particular, the study focuses on the transitional
experiences of the two younger scholars who were just starting their
academic careers. On returning to Japan, they found themselves juggling
two sets of values and expectations. Residing in Japan, yet not wishing to
forego ties with the English speaking academic community, they faced
difficult decisions regarding what scholarly activities to pursue, what
values to place on those activities, and what shape their professional
identities would take. All four informants found writing in Japanese and
English to be central in their professional lives, and all perceived
differences in the two writing worlds, in spite of many broad
commonalities. I conclude this paper by reflecting on the complex and
local nature of the informants' writing experiences, on the impossibility
of situating these scholars in one cultural camp or the other, and on the
expanded view of academic writing that seems called for.
The Composing Processes
of Three Southeast Asian Writers at the Post-Secondary Level: An Exploratory
Study
SUSAN BOSHER
College of St. Catherine
The purpose of this study
was to explore the writing processes of Southeast Asian students with
different educational backgrounds. The secondary purpose was to determine
if the methodology used was valid and reliable. Students were given an
article to read and then asked to write their opinion about the topic.
Students were videotaped as they wrote, with the camera focused
specifically on the movement of their pen on paper. They were then
interviewed about their writing process and about what they had been
thinking during selected pause times, which had been captured on videotape
and were played back to stimulate recall of the students' thought
processes. Their responses were transcribed and then categorized according
to what aspect of their writing they had been attending to during their
pauses as well as what strategies they used to help generate a solution to
a perceived problem in their writing (Cumming, 1989). The students
differed in their degree of metacognitive awareness, their ability to
integrate information from the reading into their writing, the amount of
attention paid to different aspects of their writing, and the quantity and
variety of problem-solving strategies employed. Directions for future
research are discussed.
Volume 7, Number
3 (1998)
The Impact of Teacher
Written Feedback on Individual Writers
FIONA HYLAND
Open University, Hong Kong
This study investigates
ESL writers' reactions to and uses of written feedback. Using a case study
approach and a variety of data sources including observation notes,
interview transcripts and written texts, overall findings on six students'
use of written feedback throughout a course will be briefly discussed. The
paper then focuses on two student writers who show contrasting patterns of
feedback use and who also both become much less positive about their
writing during the course. The student revisions after receiving teacher
written feedback are analyzed and contextual data is used to gain a deeper
understanding of the students' motivations and responses to the feedback.
The data show that use of teacher written feedback varies due to
individual differences in needs and student approaches to writing. It also
appears to be affected by the different experiences students bring with
them to the classroom setting. Some implications for teachers giving
feedback are also given. It is suggested that there needs to be a more
open teacher/student dialogue on feedback, since the data suggest that the
feedback situation has great potential for miscommunication and
misunderstanding.
Undergraduates Arguing a
Case
SUSHEELA A. VARGHESE
SUNITA A. ABRAHAM
National University of Singapore
This essay describes an
instructional study in which students were trained in two key aspects of
argumentation, namely, the structural and interpersonal components. The
structural aspects were taught and measured in terms of Toulmin's (1958)
framework of argument analysis (i.e., the quality of claims, grounds and
warrants used). The interpersonal aspects in turn were measured in terms
of the creation of a clear persona, audience adaptiveness (the appropriate
use of rational and emotional appeals), and stance towards the unique
discourse of argumentation. Students performed a pre-instruction writing
task, underwent eight weeks of explicit instruction in argumentation, then
performed the task again. Findings contrasting pre-and post-test results
reveal statistically significant improvement in students' abilities to
formulate claims, to offer specific and developed grounds, and to use more
reliable warrants. Students also showed improvement in the interpersonal
aspects of argument, building better writer credibility, developing fuller
rational and emotional appeals, and conveying both sides of an argument in
order to resolve the problem at hand.
Feedback on Student
Writing: Taking the Middle Path
GEORGE M. JACOBS
SEAMEO Regional Language Centre, Singapore
ANDY CURTIS
Chinese University of Hong Kong
GEORGE BRAINE
Chinese University of Hong Kong
SU-YUEH HUANG
Tunghai University, Taiwan
Among the many
controversies in second language writing instruction is the issue of
whether or not to employ peer feedback. The current study collected
anonymous questionnaire data on whether second language learners prefer to
receive peer feedback as one type of feedback on their writing.
Participants were first-and second-year undergraduate ESL students of
lower intermediate to high proficiency, 44 in a university in Hong Kong
and 77 in a university in Taiwan. All were enrolled in writing courses in
which peer, self, and teacher feedback were used. The chi-square test was
used to analyze the questionnaire data, with the alpha level set at .05. A
statistically significant percentage of participants (93% ) indicated they
preferred to have feedback from other students as one type of feedback on
their writing. This finding, as well as students' written explanations of
their choices, is discussed with reference to how best to incorporate peer
feedback into second language writing instruction.
Effects of Prewriting
Discussions on Adult ESL Students' Compositions
LING SHI
University of Hong Kong
This study assessed
whether peer talk and teacher-led prewriting discussions affected the
quality of students' compositions. Forty-seven adult ESL students from
three pre-university writing classes participated. Each student wrote
three drafts of opinion essays under conditions of peer discussion,
teacher-led discussion, and no discussion. Nonparametric tests of rating
scores showed no statistically significant differences overall in the
writing under the three conditions. However, students were found to write
longer drafts in the condition of no discussion, shorter drafts after
teacher-led talk, and drafts with a greater variety of verbs after peer
talk. Comparison of students' use of verbs in both written and spoken
texts traced the effects of various prewriting conditions. Whereas the no
discussion condition led to longer drafts (presumably because students had
more time to write than in the talk-write sessions), prewriting
discussions provided social contexts where either the teacher scaffolded
students In the whole class situation to conceptualize their thinking, or
students assisted each other in peer groups to explore more freely and
generate diverse vocabulary and ideas for the writing tasks. These results
imply that teachers may usefully balance these prewriting conditions to
generate various types of thinking and discourse processes that facilitate
adult ESL students' writing. The study also highlights the importance of
the time factor and the relationship between length and quality in L2
writing.
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Volume 8, Number 1 (1999)
The Case for Grammar
Correction in L2 Writing Classes: A Response to Truscott (1996)
DANA FERRIS
California State University, Sacramento, USA
John Truscott's 1996
Language Learning article, "The case against grammar correction in L2
writing classes:' has led to a great deal of discussion and even some
controversy about the best way to approach issues of accuracy and error
correction in ESL composition. This article evaluates Truscott's arguments
by discussing points of agreement and disagreement with his claims and by
examining the research evidence he uses to support his conclusions. The
paper concludes that Truscott's thesis that "grammar correction has no
place in writing courses and should be abandoned" (1996, p. 328) is
premature and overly strong and discusses areas for further research.
The Use of Restructuring
Strategies in EFL Writing: A Study of Spanish Learners of English as a
Foreign Language
JULIO ROCA DE LARIOS
LIZ MURPHY
ROSA MANCHON
Universidad de Murcia, Spain
This article presents two
small-scale studies which analyze how Spanish learners of English use
Restructuring, an important formulation strategy in L2 composing.
Restructuring is the search for an alternative syntactic plan once the
writer predicts, anticipates or realizes that the original one is not
going to be satisfactory for a variety of linguistic, ideational or
textual reasons. Data for Study 1 were obtained from think-aloud protocols
of five intermediate EFL subjects on two tasks. Results indicate that
Restructuring has different functions in L2 composing processes: it can
compensate for the lack of linguistic resources typical of L2 learners,
but it can also serve stylistic, ideational, textual and procedural goals.
In Study 2 we analyze the protocols of students at two proficiency levels
in order to find the effects of L2 proficiency on the different uses of
Restructuring uncovered in Study 1. Results show that while both groups
used Restructuring in L2 writing, the intermediate group restructured for
compensatory purposes significantly more than the advanced group, whose
main goals were of an ideational and textual nature. Thus, L2 proficiency
seems to playa role in determining the focus of concerns of Restructuring
in L2 composing.
Individualism, Academic
Writing, and ESL Writers
VAI RAMANATHAN
DWIGHT ATKINSON
University of Alabama, USA
Recent research has
pointed to the cultural values implicit in L1-oriented composition
pedagogy-a form of pedagogy which is increasingly being encountered by
university ESL writers. In this article we examine four principles and
practices of L1-oriented composition which appear to tacitly incorporate a
U.S. mainstream ideology of individualism: voice, peer review, critical
thinking, and textual ownership. We discuss ways in which these principles
and practices may not comport well with the cultural approaches taken by
many ESL students, depending substantially on past studies to support our
discussion. In concluding, we argue that the ideology of individualism
described in this article also underlies recent critiques of
cross-cultural writing research, and we end by restating the primary
rationale of cross-cultural writing research-that sociocultural knowledge
regarding our students contributes vitally to knowing who they really are.
Local Coherence and its
Limits: A Second Look at Second Sentences
DESMOND ALLISON
SUSHEELA VARGHESE
WU SIEW MEI
National University of Singapore
Our article takes up Joy
Reid's (1996) proposal that "second sentences deserve a second look" in
academic writing research and pedagogy. Reid's data and commentaries
indicate that second sentences, the sentences following topic sentences,
make important but generally underrated contributions to the (in)coherence
of students' written paragraphs. Her study, in a U.S. university, found
that English as a second language (ESL) student writers often developed
paragraphs that did not meet the expectations of experienced native
English speaker (NES) readers. We offer a contextualized critique and
partial replication of Reid's exploratory study. Our research, in
Singapore, investigates second sentence writing by English-knowing
bilingual (EKE) students, and the expectations of experienced EKE academic
readers. A comparison of our findings with Reid's yielded differences on
the same three prompts as in the original study. These results lead us to
conclude that our student writer sample is interestingly distinguishable
from Reid's NES and ESL groupings. Special attention will be paid to
responses, both by students and by academic readers, which did not conform
to Reid's expectations for paragraph development in second sentences. Our
discussion pursues questions about local and global coherence in academic
writing, including expectations about topic development, and suggests
implications for an investigative writing pedagogy.
Volume 8, Number 2
(1999)
The Case for "The Case
Against Grammar Correction in L2 Writing Classes": A Response to Ferris
JOHN TRUSCOTT
National Tsing Hua University
Ferris ( 1999) rejects my
case against grammar correction in L2 writing classes (Truscott, 1996) and
attempts to build her own case for the practice. This paper responds to
her criticisms. I argue that these criticisms are both unfounded and
highly selective, leaving large portions of my case unchallenged and, in
some cases, even strengthening them. If the case for correction has any
appeal, it rests on a strong bias-that critics must prove beyond any doubt
that correction is never a good idea, while supporters need only show that
uncertainty remains.
Writing for Scholarly
Publication in English: The Case of Hong Kong
JOHN FLOWERDEW
City University of Hong Kong
With English becoming
increasingly dominant as the international language of research and
publication, there is a need to empirically investigate the question of
international scholarly publication in English on the part of non-native
speakers of English, This paper presents the results of a large-scale
survey concerning publication in international refereed journals in
English by Hong Kong Chinese academics who have Cantonese as their first
language. The survey seeks answers to the following questions: What
exposure to English have these Hong Kong scholars had? What are their
attitudes towards publishing in English? What are their problems? What are
their strategies for successful publishing? And what change to the
language of publication, if any, do they see accompanying the reversion of
sovereignty over Hong Kong from Britain to China?
ESL Student Revision
after Teacher-Written Comments: Text, Contexts, and Individuals
SUSAN M. CONRAD
Iowa State University, USA
LYNN M. GOLDSTEIN
Monterey Institute of International Studies, USA
In this study, we
investigate the relationship between written comments and students'
subsequent revisions for one teacher and three students in an advanced ESL
composition course. Data include the teacher's comments, the students'
drafts before and after the comments, and discussions during conferences
that shed light on the students' revision processes. Associations between
characteristics of the comments and the success of students' subsequent
revisions are first examined. While it initially appears that certain
formal characteristics of the comments were associated with successful
revision (e.g., declaratives rather than questions), further analysis
reveals that only one feature typically related to revision success: The
type of revision problem that was addressed. Students tended to be
successful in resolving many types of revision problems (e.g., adding
examples, increasing cohesion), but they were unsuccessful in revising
problems related to explanation, explicitness, and analysis. However,
there were exceptions to this typical pattern, and to better understand
these exceptions, we describe each student's revision process. Factors
such as content knowledge, strongly-held beliefs, the course context, and
the pressure of other commitments provide explanations for students'
revision decisions and account for unexpected success or lack of success
in their revising. The study shows that, in order to understand how
students revise in response to written feedback, we must look not only at
the nature of the comments themselves, but also at the types of problems
students are being asked to revise and at individual factors affecting the
students.
Toward a More
Comprehensive View of L2 Writing: Foreign Language Writing in the U.S.
MELINDA REICHELT
University of Toledo, USA
In order to be accurate
and inclusive, a theory of second-language writing must take into account
information about foreign language (FL) (i.e., non-English) writing. This
article reviews over 200 published works concerning FL writing and
research pedagogy in the United States and proposes directions for inquiry
in FL writing, focusing especially on the need for discussion of the
purpose of writing in the FL course. The article also outlines ways in
which ESL writing specialists can benefit from becoming familiar with FL
writing research and pedagogy.
Volume 8, Number 3
(1999)
The Effects of Trained
Peer Response on ESL Students' Revision Types and Writing Quality
E. CATHRINE BERG
University of Pennsylvania, USA
Since the late 1980s, peer
response to writing has gained increasing attention in the English as
Second Language (ESL) field. Whereas affective benefits have been reported
in the literature, little is known about the effects of peer response on
ESL students' revision and writing outcomes. This study investigates these
effects and also considers an often-cited suggestion for successful peer
response, that is, training students to effectively participate in the
peer response activity. The principal question addressed by the study is
whether trained peer response shapes ESL students' revision types and
writing quality. Effects of trained peer response were investigated
through a comparison of 46 ESL students divided into two groups, one
trained in how to participate in peer response to writing and the other
not trained. Revision types were identified based on a taxonomy that
discriminates between two types of changes: those that affect text meaning
and those that do not (Faigley & Witte, 1981). Writing quality was
determined by a holistic rating procedure of first versus revised drafts.
Results of the investigation indicate that trained peer response
positively affected ESL students' revision types and quality of texts.
Problems in Writing for
Scholarly Publication in English: The Case of Hong Kong
JOHN FLOWERDEW
City University of Hong Kong
Through in-depth
interviews, this paper identifies a range of problems which confront Hong
Kong Chinese scholars in writing for publication in English and which they
feel put them at a disadvantage vis-a-vis native speakers of that
language. These problems are as follows: they have less facility of
expression; it takes them longer to write; they have a less rich
vocabulary; they find it difficult to make claims for their research with
the appropriate amount of force; their process of composition may be
influenced by their L1; qualitative articles are more problematic than
quantitative articles; they are restricted to a simple style; and the
introductions and discussions to scholarly articles are particularly
problematic parts. Given the reduction of emphasis on English in Hong Kong
following the reversion to Chinese sovereignty, these problems are likely
to increase. A number of recommendations are made to remediate the
situation.
The Effect of Peer and
Teacher Feedback on Student Writing
TRENA M. PAULUS
Indiana University, USA
Although teacher and peer
feedback, together with required revision, is a common component of the
process-approach English as Second Language (ESL) writing classroom, the
effect that the feedback and revision process has on the improvement of
student writing is as yet undetermined. The researcher analyzed II ESL
student essays in detail: categorizing the types and sources of revisions
made according to Faigley and Witte' s ( 1981) taxonomy of revisions,
evaluating the first and final drafts of the students' essays, and
recording students' verbal reports during revision. While the majority of
revisions that students made were surface-level revisions, the changes
they made as a result of peer and teacher feedback were more often
meaning-level changes than those revisions they made on their own. It was
also found that writing multiple drafts resulted in overall essay
improvement.
Rhetorical Consciousness
Raising in the L2 Reading Classroom
SIMA SENGUPTA
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
This article outlines how
rhetorical consciousness was developed in a group of L2 tertiary student
readers and examines how such consciousness influenced students' reading
and writing. The participants were 15 Chinese, Year-1 EA students
attending small-group tutorials that aimed to help them with their
readings for a course entitled "Language and Society ." Rhetorical
consciousness was developed through regular discussions regarding the
features of texts that students perceived as "reader-friendly." The
classroom discussions were recorded and analyzed. In-depth interviews were
conducted, and the essays written were analyzed. These data were
complemented by retrospective protocol data. Students identified and
elaborated four textual elements as reader-friendly, which, they believed,
had enabled them to formulate a more acceptable overall gist of a text,
thus making them "better" readers. However, they did not apply the
reader-friendliness features to their texts although they perceived an
increased ability to detect their textual problems. The interview data
suggested that with evolving rhetorical consciousness, these L2 students
had become more aware of the nature of written discourse. As readers, they
effectively used devices that make texts reader-friendly to get a gist of
a text read, and as writers, they were able to explain why they saw school
sponsored writing as a distinct genre.
Thoughts on Some Recent
Evidence Concerning the Affective Advantage of Peer Feedback
SHUQIANG ZHANG
University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA
This paper is a response
to Jacobs, Curtis, Braine, and Huang's paper (1998) that critiqued Zhang's
study (1995) on the oft-claimed affective advantage of peer feedback over
teacher feedback in the English as Second Language (ESL) writing class. An
examination of the results reported by Jacobs and associates (1998)
revealed that their findings validated Zhang's (1995) finding, as well as
his summary of research conclusions drawn prior to 1995, that peer
feedback does not have an affective advantage over teacher feedback in the
ESL writing class. This paper addresses the methodological concerns raised
by Jacobs et al. ( 1998) and emphasizes the need to reexamine assumptions
about the ESL writing process in order to better address the affective
disadvantage of peer feedback relative to teacher feedback in the ESL
writing class.
Individualism and the
Teaching of Writing: Response to Vai Ramanathan and Dwight Atkinson
PETER ELBOW
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA
I am grateful to the
editors for inviting me to respond to "Individualism, academic writing,
and ESL writers" by Vai Ramanathan and Dwight Atkinson, (JSLW 8.1 [1999]).
I was invited because the authors refer repeatedly to my work as a problem
for ESL students. I can say that I am largely in agreement with what I
would call their root claim, namely, that certain common principles and
practices of U.S. university writing pedagogy can carry individualistic
implications that can be problematic for some ESL students. But I have
some substantial reservations about the various ways in which they pursue
this general point. I will focus my response on two key ambiguities that I
find central to their essay-treating the first one briefly and the second
one at length.
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Volume 9, Number 1 (2000)
On the Future of Second Language Writing: A Colloquim
TERRY SANTOS
Humboldt State University, USA
DWIGHT ATKINSON
Temple University, Japan
MELINDA ERICKSON
University of California, USA
PAUL KEI MATSUDA
TONY SILVA
Purdue University, USA
Editors' note:
Publishing the articles read at an L2 writing colloquium is new for the
Journal of Second Language Writing. Furthermore, we would not
normally publish our own work in this journal. However because of its
focus on the future of L2 writing, we felt that JSLW readers would
find this discussion particularly vital and asked Terry Santos to guest
edit the articles read at the TESOL Colloquium she organized in order to
include them in this first of the year/century/millennium issue of the
JSLW. (I.L.)
"On the future of second
language writing" originated as a colloquium at the 1999 TESOL Convention
in New York. The topic arose from what seemed to a few of us on the panel
as an interesting, or even alarming, paradox: that on one hand, L2 writing
has become an independent field in applied linguistics for the first time
in 60 years, i.e., the modern history of TESOL. On the other hand,
however, the number of L2 writing specialists with Ph.D.s in applied
linguistics does not seem to be increasing; the major
figures in L2 writing can be counted on the fingers of two hands, and of
those, only a few teach in Ph.D. programs. If these facts are true, what
will they mean for the future of the field? As the following articles make
clear, the five of us were by no means of one mind on this question, and
as we outlined our various positions, we tended to fall at different
points along a continuum of pessimism to optimism, which became the basis
for the order of presentation of our articles. In sharing our views with a
wider audience, we would like to open the discussion to all of you and
invite you to join it. (Introduction by Terry Santos)
Literature and L2
Composition: Revisiting the Debate
DIANE BELCHER
ALAN HIRVELA
Ohio State University, USA
The role of literature in
the composition classroom has long been controversial. In this article, we
examine the arguments both for and against the use of literature by,
first, surveying the main stances taken in L1 composition pedagogical
theory, which predate and have significantly influenced L2 composition,
and then by reviewing L2 compositionists' own perspectives on literature.
The L2 arguments can be seen as resonating, but at the same time,
diverging from those of L I writing theory. Yet, all can be interpreted as
responses to by now familiar themes in both L2 and L1 compositions, such
as process versus product, academic discourse community initiation versus
preparation for life, and hegemony of the established elite versus
empowerment of the less privileged. Our goal in this review of the
long-standing debate is not to encourage polarization for or against
literature, but rather to provide, through the varied perspectives
presented, a basis for informed decisions about the possible value of
literature in particular contexts in which teachers and their students
find themselves.
L2 Professional Writing
in a US and South American Context
BARRY L. THATCHER
Ohio University, USA
Using research methods
that assess cross-cultural rhetorical differences at three levels, this
study explores two cases of professional writing among US and South
American personnel in one multinational organization in Quito, Ecuador.
One major rhetorical difference was the pronounced need of many of the
South Americans for historical and contextual information. In addition,
the US writer consistently re-worked the concrete and particular patterns
of the South Americans into more abstract and universal patterns for his
US audiences. Finally, many of the South American documents exhibited
accumulated logical structures, which the US writer revised to be more
analytical for his US audiences. These differences in history, context,
particularism, and accumulative logic seemed to reflect very predominant
cultural patterns because they correlated closely with other
cross-cultural studies. However, some rhetorical differences such as
originality and hypercodification reflected local usage while others, such
as distance and procedures, seemed based on personal choice and adaptation
to specific audiences. Thus, this study exemplifies the larger, cultural
and rhetorical patterns that seem central to basic theories of contrastive
rhetoric, but it also highlights the exceptions and preferences that are
based on local and individual needs.
Volume 9, Number 2
(2000)
Professional Writing and
the Role of Incidental Collaboration: Evidence from a Medical Setting
SUSAN PARKS
Universite Laval, Quebec, Canada
Despite a long-standing
interest in the workplace, research that explores how employees working in
a second language develop competence in written genres is scant. Drawing
on a 22-month qualitative study, which involved francophone nurses
employed in an English-medium hospital, the present article reports on how
incidental' collaboration played a significant role in enabling them to
appropriate genre-specific language. Analysis revealed that interventions
targeted three levels of text structure-linguistic, rhetorical and
informational. Although most interventions were initiated by the nurses
themselves (self initiated), colleagues also offered help
(other-initiated). The pattern of interaction shows that nurses were most
likely to interact with colleagues with whom they were linked in an
official or semi-official capacity. The way in which more experienced
colleagues provided support for new nurses and the nature of the support
are discussed in relation to Lave and Wenger's notion of legitimate
peripheral participation and activity theory. It is further suggested that
the role of the writing instructor within the workplace be reconceived to
take into account the socioculturally embedded nature of writing.
Using Computer-Tagged
Linguistic Features to Describe L2 Writing Differences
LESLIE GRANT
Central Michigan University, USA
APRIL GINTHER
Purdue University, USA
This study examined the
extent to which a computerized tagging program was able to capture
proficiency level differences of second language (L2) learners' essays. A
sample of 90 Test of Written English (TWE) essays, written at three levels
of proficiency as defined by TWE ratings, were tagged for features of
essay length, lexical specificity (type/token ratio and average word
length), lexical features ( e.g., conjuncts, hedges), grammatical
structures (e.g., nouns, nominalizations, modals), and clause level
features (e.g., subordination, passives). The results indicate that
computerized tagging can be used to reveal detailed differences among
proficiency levels, but that additional coding into the program or tagging
by hand is necessary to gain a more complete picture of differences in L2
students' writing.
Do Secondary L2 Writers
Benefit from Peer Comments?
AMY B. M. TSUI
University of Hong Kong, People's Republic of China
MARIA NG
Carmel Secondary School, People's Republic of China
The bulk of the studies
conducted on the effectiveness of teacher comments and peer comments have
been done with tertiary L2 learners, and conflicting findings have been
obtained. While some found that peer comments were viewed with skepticism
and induced little revision, others found that they did help learners to
identify and raise awareness of their strengths and weaknesses in writing.
This article reports on a study of the roles of teacher and peer comments
in revisions in writing among secondary L2 learners in Hong Kong. Both
quantitative and qualitative data were obtained and triangulated. The
findings show that some learners incorporated high percentages of both
teacher and peer comments, some incorporated higher percentages of teacher
comments than peer comments, and others incorporated very low percentages
of peer comments. While all learners favored teacher comments and saw the
teacher as a figure of authority that guaranteed quality, only those who
incorporated very low percentages of peer comments dismissed them as not
useful. From the interviews with the learners, four roles of peer comments
that contributed positively to the writing process were identified. Peer
comments enhance a sense of audience, raise learners' awareness of their
own strengths and weaknesses, encourage collaborative learning, and foster
the ownership of text. This suggests that even for L2 learners who are
less mature L2 writers, peer comments do play an important part. The
implications of the findings of this study for the writing teacher are
also discussed.
Genres, Authors,
Discourse Communities: Theory and Application for (L1 and) L2 Writing
Instructors
VAI RAMANATHAN
University of California, USA
ROBERT B. KAPLAN
Emeritus Professor, University of Southern California,
USA
This article discusses
ways in which disciplinary practices contribute to the simultaneously
rigid and fluid nature of genres and the general importance of sensitizing
(Ll and) L2 writing instructors to genre-stability and genre-change.
Heightening genre awareness in L2 writing instructors is proposed as a
possible "in" toward developing their meta-awareness. Making them reflect
on social practices within their discourse communities that contribute to
ways in which genres remain stable and evolve will give them a sharper
sense of how they, through their participation in the communities, do/do
not effect changes. Genre knowledge is best conceptualized as a form of
situated cognition embedded in disciplinary activities (Berkenkotter &
Huckin, 1993, p. 477). Meta-knowledge is power, because it leads to the
ability to manipulate, to analyze, to resist while advancing. Such
meta-knowledge can make 'maladapted' students smarter than "adapted" ones
(Gee, 1990, pp. 148-149).
Volume 9, Number 3
(2000)
Writing English as a
Foreign Language: A Report from Ukraine
OLEG TARNOPOLSKY
Dnepropetrovsk State Technical University of Railway Transport, Ukranine
This report investigates teaching writing
in English in Ukraine. The past and present situations in teaching writing
and the reasons for avoiding teaching communicative writing skills in
English courses in that country are considered. The results of Ukrainian
EFL students' needs analysis are presented, these results indicating the
necessity of introducing writing into EFL courses. The process-genre
approach is postulated as a foundation for elaborating an effective
writing course for Ukraine, and the first version of the course based on
such an approach is analyzed. Causes of the failure of this course are
reported. It is demonstrated that a successful EFL writing course has to
be not only communicative but also state-of-the-art. To motivate students,
it also has to involve them from the beginning level in activities, making
writing itself fun. The second (successful) version of the course, with a
great part of learning organized as writing for fun, is presented, and its
advantages are shown.
Patterns of Teacher Response to Student
Writing in a Multiple-Draft Composition Classroom: Is Content Feedback
Followed by Form Feedback the Best Method?
TIM ASHWELL
Komazawa Junior College, Japan
In this study, four different patterns of
teacher feedback were given to foreign language students producing a first
draft (D1), a second draft (D2), and a final version (D3) of a single
composition. The pattern usually recommended within a process writing
approach of content-focused feedback on D1 followed by form-focused
feedback on D2 was compared with the reverse pattern, another pattern in
which form and content feedback were mixed at both stages, and a control
pattern of zero feedback. It was found that the recommended pattern of
feedback did not produce significantly different results from the other
two patterns in which feedback was given in terms of gains in formal
accuracy or in terms of content score gains between D1 and D3. A post-hoc
analysis of changes made by students revealed that students may have
relied heavily on form feedback and that content feedback had only a
moderate effect on revision. Explanations for these findings are put
forward and the implications for the classroom are drawn.
Toward an Empirical Model of EFL Writing
Processes: An Exploratory Study
MIYUKI SASAKI
Nagoya Gakuin University, Japan
The present study investigated EFL
learners' writing processes using multiple data sources including their
written texts, videotaped pausing behaviors while writing, stimulated
recall protocols, and analytic scores given to the written texts.
Methodologically, the study adopted a research scheme that has been
successfully used for building models of Japanese L1 writing. Three paired
groups of Japanese EFL writers (experts vs. novices, more- vs.
less-skilled student writers, novices before and after 6 months of
instruction) were compared in terms of writing fluency, quality/complexity
of their written texts, their pausing behaviors while writing, and their
strategy use. The results revealed that (a) before starting to write, the
experts spent a longer time planning a detailed overall organization,
whereas the novices spent a shorter time, making a less global plan; (b)
once the experts had made their global plan, they did not stop and think
as frequently as the novices; (c) L2 proficiency appeared to explain part
of the difference in strategy use between the experts and novices; and (d)
after 6 months of instruction, novices had begun to use some of the expert
writers' strategies. It was also speculated that the experts' global
planning was a manifestation of writing expertise that cannot be acquired
over a short period of time.
Topical Structure Analysis of Academic
Paragraphs in English and Spanish
JOELLEN M. SIMPSON
Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia
The present study examines 40 paragraphs
selected from articles published in academic journals in English and
Spanish from within the context of cultural differences in writing. Based
on earlier findings by Lux and Grabe, Montaño-Harmon, Reid, and Reppen and
Grabe, among others, that paragraphs composed in English and Spanish by
children and adolescents are different, an analysis was conducted of 40
paragraphs written by adult academics and published in academic journals,
focusing on the physical structure and the topical structure. The physical
characteristics of the paragraphs included the number of words, sentences,
and clauses. Results of this quantitative analysis reflect findings from
earlier studies describing English-Spanish differences. The topical
structure analysis (TSA), an analysis of coherence derived by examining
the internal topical structure of each paragraph as reflected by the
repetition of key words and phrases, provides insights into the
organizational patterns favored by professional writers in these two
languages. The results of the TSA show that English paragraphs tend to
have a high use of internal coherence, while Spanish paragraphs do not
generally tend to use immediate progression as a device for coherence.
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Volume 10, Number 1/2 (2001)
Special
Issue: Voice in L2 Writing
Guest Editors: Diane Belcher and Alan Hirvela
I am How I Sound: Voice
as Self-Representation in L2 Writing
ROZ IVANIC
Lancaster University, UK
DAVID CAMPS
Instituto Technologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Mexico
One of the characteristics
of writing is that it does not carry the phonetic and prosodic qualities
of speech. We will argue, however, that the lexical, syntactic,
organizational, and even the material aspects of writing construct
identity just as much as do the phonetic and prosodic aspects of speech,
and thus writing always conveys a representation of the self of the
writer. In this sense, "voice" is not an optional extra: All writing
contains "voice" in the Bakhtinian sense of reaccentuating "voice types,"
which locate their users culturally and historically. Writers may, through
the linguistic and other resources they choose to draw upon in their
writing, ventriloquate an environmentally aware voice, a progressive
educator voice, a sexist voice, a positivist voice, a self-assured voice,
a deferential voice, a committed-to-plain-English voice, or a combination
of an infinite number of such voices. We will illustrate this argument
with examples from the writing of six graduate students studying in
British universities. We will recommend that an L2 writing pedagogy that
raises critical awareness about voice can help learners maintain control
over the personal and cultural identity they are projecting in their
writing.
Voice in Japanese Written
Discourse: Implications for Second Language Writing
PAUL KEI MATSUDA
University of New Hampshire, USA
While the study of written
discourse that informs the field of L2 writing has generated many insights
into its generalizable features, individual variations have largely been
neglected. This article explores the possibilities for the study of
divergent aspects of discursive practices by focusing on the notion of
voice and considers the implications for L2 writing research and
instruction. I begin by examining recent critiques of the notion of voice
that emphasize its strong association with the ideology of individualism
and argue that the notion of voice is not exclusively tied to
individualism. To demonstrate that the practice of constructing voice is
not entirely foreign to so-called "collectivist cultures," I present
evidence of voice in Japanese electronic discourse, focusing on how voice
is constructed through the use of language-specific features. Based on
this analysis, I argue that the difficulties that Japanese students face
in constructing voice in English written discourse are due not to its
incompatibility with their cultural orientation but to the different ways
in which voice is constructed in Japanese and English as well as the lack
of familiarity with the strategies available in English.
Voices in Text, Mind, and
Society: Sociohistoric Accounts of Discourse Acquisition and Use
PAUL PRIOR
University of Illinois, USA
Voice is often represented
either expressively as personal and individualistic or socially as a
discourse system. Drawing on sociohistoric theory (particularly Voloshinov
and Bakhtin), in this article, I argue for a third view in which voice is
simultaneously personal and social because discourse is understood as
fundamentally historical, situated, and indexical. Specifically, I explore
three key ways that voice may be understood from this perspective: voice
as a typification linked to social identities; voice as the reenvoicing of
others' words in texts (oral and written) through processes of repetition
and presupposition; and finally, voice as it is linked to the situated
production of persons and social formations. All three are central to
discourse acquisition and use in general and to literate activity in
particular. Finally, I conclude by considering the implications of this
theoretical perspective for second language writing pedagogies.
Coming Back to Voice: The Multiple Voices and Identities of Mature
Multilingual Writers
ALAN HIRVELA
DIANE BELCHER
The Ohio State University, USA
Compositionists often speak of the need to help students acquire a
voice or identity in their writing. This interest in teaching voice is
understandable but also problematic. Satisfactorily defining "voice,"
especially from a second language (L2) point of view, is one of those
problems. Another is a reliance on various conceptualizations that
privilege a "Western" or a romantic or individualistic notion of voice in
classroom situations where many students do not share such a background.
In this paper, we use three case studies to address a third problem: a
tendency in L2 writing instruction and research to overlook the voices, or
identities, already possessed by L2 writers, many of whom at the graduate
level bring a history of success as professional/academic writers in their
native language and culture to the L2 writing classroom. We examine the
role voice can play not as a teaching device but rather as a means by
which to investigate and understand the voice-related issues these mature
writers encounter in L2 contexts.
Volume 10, Number 3
(2001)
What Develops Along
with the Development of Second Language Writing? Exploring the
"By-products"
HELEN KATZNELSON
Tel Aviv University, Israel
HADARA PERPIGNAN
Bar-Ilan University, Israel
BELLA RUBIN
Tel Aviv University, Israel
The intuitive notion that students undergo
unexpected yet profound changes as participants in writing courses has
been shared by many writing teachers but, to our knowledge, has not been
systematically examined. This exploratory study investigates predicted and
unpredicted changes that learners undergo as they develop writing skills
in EFL Academic Writing courses. These changes--considered to develop
along with the writing skills--were examined quantitatively and
qualitatively in an earlier study (Katznelson, Perpignan, & Rubin, 1999).
Writing courses as agents of transformation: an exploratory study [CD-ROM.
Proceedings of the TDTR4 IATEFL Conference, Leuven, Belgium.]. In the
present study, we report on the qualitative data elicited from learners'
self-reports which yielded three perceived categories of changes: outcomes
in writing in English, outcomes in writing in general, and our major
category--"by-products" of writing courses, some of which expressed
learners' perceptions of intrapersonal and interpersonal development. Many
of these perceived outcomes corresponded to the highest of six levels of
learning outcomes defined by Marton, Dall'Alba, and Beaty (1989) as
"changing as a person." These findings may lead to a better understanding
of the nature and range of changes learners undergo in Academic Writing
courses, providing a basis for reviewing the aims of such courses and
leading us to reexamine the overall educational value of the teaching of
Academic Writing to university students.
Error Feedback in L2
Writing Classes: How Explicit Does It Need to Be?
DANA FERRIS
BARRIE ROBERTS
California State University, Sacramento, USA
Though controversy continues as to whether
error feedback helps L2 student writers to improve the accuracy and
overall quality of their writing (Ferris, 1999a; Truscott, 1996; Truscott,
1999), most studies on error correction in L2 writing classes have
provided evidence that students who receive error feedback from teachers
improve in accuracy over time. One issue which has not been adequately
examined is how explicit error feedback should be in order to help
students to self-edit their texts. In this experimental classroom study,
we investigated 72 university ESL students' differing abilities to
self-edit their texts across three feedback conditions: (1) errors marked
with codes from five different error categories; (2) errors in the same
five categories underlined but not otherwise marked or labeled; (3) no
feedback at all. We found that both groups who received feedback
significantly outperformed the no-feedback group on the self-editing task
but that there were no significant differences between the "codes" and
"no-codes" groups. We conclude that less explicit feedback seemed to help
these students to self-edit just as well as corrections coded by error
type.
Sugaring the Pill: Praise and Criticism
in Written Feedback
FIONA HYLAND
University of Hong Kong,
China
KEN HYLAND
City University of Hong Kong, China
This paper offers a detailed text analysis
of the written feedback given by two teachers to ESL students over a
complete proficiency course. We consider this feedback in terms of its
functions as praise, criticism, and suggestions. Praise was the most
frequently employed function in the feedback of these two teachers, but
this was often used to soften criticisms and suggestions rather than
simply responding to good work. Many of the criticisms and suggestions
were also mitigated by the use of hedging devices, question forms, and
personal attribution. We explore the motivations for these mitigations
through teacher interviews and think-aloud protocols and examine cases
where students failed to understand their teachers' comments due to their
indirectness. While recognising the importance of mitigation strategies as
a means of minimising the force of criticisms and enhancing effective
teacher-student relationships, we also point out that such indirectness
carries the very real potential for incomprehension and miscommunication.
Volume 10, Number 4
(2001)
The Effect of Corrections
and Commentaries on the Journal Writing Accuracy of Minority- and
Majority-Language Students
LUCY L. FAZIO
McGill University and Concordia University, Canada
This classroom-based experimental study
examined the effect of differential feedback (corrections, commentaries,
and combination of the two) on the journal writing accuracy of minority-
and majority-language students being educated in the same classrooms.
Journal writing samples were collected from 112 students (46
minority-language and 66 majority-language) over a period of four months
in four Grade 5 classrooms where the language of instruction is French.
The two student groups were randomly assigned to feedback conditions, and
feedback to writing was provided weekly. Extensive classroom observations
were carried out with the aim of determining the pedagogical orientation
of the French language arts lessons; individual interviews were conducted
to tap the extent to which students attended to their feedback. For both
student groups, results indicate no significant difference in accuracy due
to feedback conditions. Outcomes are discussed in light of students'
attentiveness to feedback and the pedagogical context of the study.
Interaction and Feedback in Mixed Peer
Response Groups
WEI ZHU
University of South Florida, USA
With the growing number of foreign
students on university campuses in the Untied States, mixed peer response
groups consisting of both native English speakers and English as a Second
Language (ESL) students are often seen in mainstream composition classes.
The study reported here examined interaction and feedback in mixed peer
response groups by inspecting participants' turn-taking behaviors,
language functions performed during peer response, and written feedback on
each other's writing. Data were collected from three mixed peer response
groups, each with a non-native speaker and two or three native speakers.
Transcripts of student discussion of peer writing as well as peer response
sheets with students' written comments were analyzed. Findings indicate
that the non-native speakers as a group took fewer turns and produced
fewer language functions during oral discussion of writing, particularly
when they were performing the writer role, but they were comparable to the
native speakers with respect to the number of global comments provided in
writing.
Exploring the Role of Noticing in a
Three-Stage Second Language Writing Task
DONALD S. QI
SHARON LAPKIN
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada
The importance of noticing as a cognitive
process in second language (L2) acquisition has been increasingly
recognized by applied linguistics researchers. However, issues concerning
how noticing is related to composing and subsequent feedback processing,
and what impact such noticing has on L2 writing improvement, need to be
addressed. We conducted a case study to investigate these issues with two
Mandarin background adult English-as-a-second language (ESL) learners. The
study documents the relationship of noticing, both in the composing stage
(Stage 1) and the reformulation stage (Stage 2, where learners compare
their own text to a reformulated version of it), to the improvement of the
written product in the posttest (Stage 3) of a three stage writing task.
The findings suggest that while composing and reformulation promote
noticing, the quality of noticing, which relates directly to L2 writing
improvement, is different from learners with different levels of L2
proficiency. We argue that while promoting noticing is important,
promoting the quality of that noticing is a more important issue to be
addressed in L2 writing pedagogy.
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Volume 11, Number 1 (2002)
Language-Switching: Using the First Language While Writing in a Second
Language (pp. 7-28)
BILLY R. WOODALL
University of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico
In a protocol analysis of L2 writing from 28 adult participants (9 L2
Japanese, 11 L2 English, and 8 L2 Spanish), this research observed how
language-switching (L-S), i.e., L1 use in L2 writing, was affected by L2
proficiency, task difficulty, and language group (i.e., the L1/L2
relationship). ANOVA results suggest that less proficient L2 learners
switched to their L1s more frequently than more advanced learners (P
= 0.004), and that more difficult tasks increased the duration of L1 use in
L2 writing (P ≤ 0.001). For students of a cognate language, longer
periods of L1 use were related to higher quality L2 texts; for students of a
non-cognate language, L-S was related to lower quality texts. Possible
reasons for L-S are discussed with examples from the protocols, and
suggestions for including L-S in L2 writing models are made.
Responding to Sentence-Level Errors in Writing (pp. 29-47)
ROBERT YATES
Central Missouri State University, USA
JAMES KENKEL
Eastern Kentucky University, USA
The debate between Truscott (1996, 1999) and Ferris (1999) on responding
to student errors in writing underscores how difficult this issue is for
writing teachers. Conventionally, pedagogies have looked at errors
separately from principles of text construction. From an interlanguage
perspective, we argue that many perplexing errors are the result of the
interaction between developing linguistic competence and basic principles of
ordering information in texts which learners already know. We show how this
interaction results in errors at the sentence-level. These insights are
applied to published comments and corrections of sentence-level errors in
student writing. Based on the interlanguage perspective we propose, our
analysis of these comments and corrections show how teachers may
misinterpret a learner's text. The framework we propose situates students'
sentence-level errors within their developing skill in constructing
target-like texts and provides teachers with another perspective on such
errors.
Using Portfolios to Assess the Writing of ESL Students: A Powerful
Alternative? (pp. 49-72)
BAILIN SONG
BONNE AUGUST
Kingsborough Community College, City University of New York, USA
This article describes a quantitative study that compared the performance
of two groups of advanced ESL students in ENG 22, a second semester
composition course. Both groups had been enrolled in ENG C2, a compensatory
version of Freshman English for students with scores one level below passing
on the CUNY Writing Assessment Test (WAT). At the end of ENG C2, one group
was assessed on the basis of portfolios, as well as the CUNY WAT; the other
was assessed using the WAT. Comparable percentages of students in both
groups passed the WAT at the end of C2. However, students from the portfolio
group with passing portfolios were permitted to advance to ENG 22 regardless
of their performance on the WAT, while students in the non-portfolio group
moved ahead only if they had passed the WAT. (The WAT remained a graduation
requirement for all students.) The study found that students were twice as
likely to pass into ENG 22 from ENG C2 when they were evaluated by portfolio
than when they were required to pass the WAT. Nevertheless, at the end of
ENG 22, the pass rate and grade distribution for the two groups were nearly
identical. Because portfolio assessment was able to identify more than twice
the number of ESL students who proved successful in the next English course,
however, it seems a more appropriate assessment alternative for the ESL
population.
Volume 11, Number 2 (2001)
High School Student Perceptions of First
Language Literacy Instruction: Implications for Second Language Writing
(pp. 91-116)
HIROE KOBAYASHI
CAROL RINNERT
Hiroshima
University, Japan
The overall goal of this study is to
clarify the nature of Japanese students' first language (L1) writing
experience and instruction in high school to help university second
language (L2) English writing teachers understand their students' needs.
Building on the results of a previous large-scale questionnaire study of
Japanese (N=389) and American students (N=66), this interview study
attempts to gain insight into Japanese L1 literacy instruction in high
school through individual students' experiences. The questionnaire study
had indicated that Japanese high school language classes provide
significantly more instruction in reading than writing and significantly
less emphasis on writing than American classes. However, analysis of the
data from in-depth interviews (N=21) presented here reveals a more complex
picture. Most notably, many Japanese high schools provide intensive
writing instruction and practice, outside of regular Japanese classes, to
help increasing numbers of individual students prepare for essay writing
on university entrance exams. The results of the study call into question
the common assumption that Japanese high school students receive little
training related to L1 writing. The findings suggest specific ways for
teachers to draw on students' strengths in terms of their literacy
background to help them bridge the gap between their L1 and L2 writing
skills.
Student/Teacher Interaction via Email:
The Social Context of Internet Discourse (pp. 117-134)
JOEL BLOCH
The Ohio State University, USA
While email has been used in L2
composition classrooms as a way to develop fluency, it can also be used as
a means of creating and sustaining relationships, as it is often used
outside the classroom. This paper examines the way students in a
graduate-level ESL course used email on their own initiative to interact
with their instructor. The paper examines 120 email messages received by
the instructor during the course and categorizes them into four areas: (1)
phatic communion, (2) asking for help, (3) making excuses, and (4) making
formal requests. From these categories, representative samples were chosen
to illustrate what rhetorical strategies the writers used to achieve their
purpose for sending the email messages. The results show that the students
were able to employ a wide variety of rhetorical strategies to interact
with their instructor outside of the traditional classroom setting. For
these students, email seemed to be an important means for interacting with
their instructor. Moreover, the students exhibited a good ability to
switch between formal and informal language, depending upon the rhetorical
context of the message. In the conclusion, some of the issues regarding
teaching the use of email are discussed.
Teaching Coherence to ESL Students: A
Classroom Inquiry (pp. 135-159)
ICY LEE
Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
"Coherence" is traditionally described as
the relationships that link the ideas in a text to create meaning for the
readers. It is often regarded as a fuzzy concept which is difficult to
teach and learn. This paper describes a classroom inquiry which
investigated the teaching of coherence. In this study, coherence was
defined in terms of a number of coherence-creating devices, and
pedagogical materials were designed accordingly to teach the concept to a
group of 16 ESL university students in Hong Kong. Data was collected from
their pre- and post-revision drafts, think-aloud protocols during
revisions, as well as post-study questionnaires and interviews. The
findings suggest that at the end of the explicit teaching of coherence,
students improved the coherence of their writing and directed their
attention to the discourse level of texts while revising. They also felt
that the teaching of coherence had enhanced their awareness of what
effective writing should entail. The paper concludes with insights gained
from the classroom inquiry.
Volume 11, Number 3 (2001)
Critiquing Voice as a Viable Pedagogical Tool in L2 Writing: Returning
the Spotlight to Ideas (pp. 177-190)
PAUL STAPLETON
Hokkaido University, Japan
The issue of voice, authorial identity, or authorial presence in L2
writing has recently received considerable attention from second language
researchers. Much of this research has concluded that voice is an integral
part of writing and that it should, therefore, become an essential
component of second language writing pedagogy. With a particular focus on
many of the discursive elements of voice, authorial identity, and
authorial presence isolated by this research, this paper critically
assesses the body of research and claims that the case for voice in second
language pedagogy has been overstated. Furthermore, it is argued that
extended discussions about voice may be misleading teachers and students
into believing that expressions of identity take precedence over ideas and
argumentation. It is concluded that research on L2 academic writing would
be better directed towards argumentation skills and ideas than voice.
A Modern History of Written Discourse Analysis (pp. 191-223)
ROBERT B. KAPLAN
University of Southern California (Emeritus), USA
WILLIAM GRABE
Northern Arizona University, USA
The term discourse analysis has been used interchangeably in two
separate contexts -- spoken discourse (i.e., multiple-source dialogic) and
written discourse (i.e., single-source monologic). Such a distinction,
however, oversimplifies the situation; while there are obvious overlaps
between the two, to some extent each has evolved in its own direction.
Written discourse analysis, the subject of our discussion, is obviously
closely connected with work in literacy, but it implicates a great
heterogeneity of topics and approaches, including at least some from
psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. Discourse analysis, in the sense in
which we are using it, emerged in the early 1970s. A modern history of
written discourse analysis is perhaps best covered within a 40-50-year time
span. In the course of that time, a number of new and emerging disciplines
and research fields have contributed to systematic analyses of the
linguistic features and patterns occurring in written texts. At the same
time, other continuing disciplines have provided contributions that have
been important and are ongoing. It should be fairly evident that any attempt
to cover such a broad spectrum of views and disciplines would not be
appropriate in a single article. We therefore intend to limit the scope of
this paper to analyses of written discourse that explore the actual
structuring of the text via some consistent framework. Our goal is to
highlight and describe historically the various efforts to find the
structures and linguistic patterns in texts that contribute to how they are
understood, interpreted, and used. It seems to us that, in order to
comprehend what has happened in the context of L2 writing research, it is
necessary to understand the extensive work that has been done in discourse
analysis.
L1 Use in the L2 Composing Process: An Exploratory Study of 16 Chinese
EFL Writers (pp. 225-246)
WENYU WANG
QIUFANG WEN
Nanjing University, PR China
This paper reports a study on how ESL/EFL writers use their L1 (first
language) when composing in their L2 (second language) and how such L1 use
is affected by L2 proficiency and writing tasks. Sixteen Chinese EFL
learners were asked to compose aloud on two tasks, narration and
argumentation. Analyses of their think-aloud protocols revealed that these
student writers had both their L1 and L2 at their disposal when composing in
their L2. They were more likely to rely on L1 when they were managing their
writing processes, generating and organizing ideas, but more likely to rely
on L2 when undertaking task-examining and text-generating activities.
Additionally, more L1 use was found in the narrative writing task than in
the argumentative writing. Finally, the think-aloud protocols reflected that
L1 use decreased with the writer's L2 development, but the extent of the
decline of L1 use in individual activities varied. Based on these findings,
an L2 composing process model is proposed.
Volume 11, Number 4 (2001)
Special
Issue: Early Second Language Writing
Guest Editors: Paul Kei Matsuda and Kevin Eric De Pew
Early Second Language Writing: An Introduction (pp. 261-268)
PAUL KEI MATSUDA
University of New Hampshire, USA
KEVIN ERIC DE PEW
Purdue University, USA
In this introduction to the special issue on early second language
writing, special issues editors discuss the need to pay more attention to
the issue of early second language writing--defined as the development of
L2 literacy from the writer's first encounter with a second language
through the completion of high school education. After a brief review of
studies in early L2 writing, possible reasons for the dearth of studies
addressing this important area is discussed, followed by an overview of
perspectives represented in this special issue.
Emergent Biliteracy in Chinese and English (pp. 269-293)
JAN K. BUCKWALTER
YI-HSUAN GLORIA LO
Indiana University, USA
Will teaching children to read and write in two languages in the school
environment lead to confusion and possible interference in the literacy
learning process? By focusing on the emergent Chinese and English literacy
of a 5-year-old boy from Taiwan, this research provides insights into the
debate within the field of bilingual education as to whether the
introduction of literacy in languages with two different writing systems
helps or hinders literacy development in both languages. The researchers
involved the participant in a variety of interactive reading and writing
activities and games, both in English and Chinese, for 1.5-2 hours a week
over the course of 15 weeks. Drawing on Cummins's (1991) Common Underlying
Proficiency Hypothesis, data was coded, analyzed and organized into two
categories: the Foundational Level Emergent Literacy Awareness and the
Surface Level Emergent Literacy Awareness. Results suggest that
Foundational Level Awareness, literacy awareness that applies to either
language, is characterized by the intentionality of print, the match
between written and spoken words, and the conventions of print. The
Surface Level Awareness, literacy awareness unique to each writing system,
is differentiated into two distinct categories that pertain to the
specifics of the writing systems of English and Chinese. Discussions
center on the relationship between Chinese literacy and English literacy,
the impact on biliteracy over time, and the participant's future literacy
development. Implications for biliteracy research, development, knowledge,
and pedagogy are suggested.
Seeing the Invisible: Situating L2 Literacy in Child-Teacher
Interaction (pp. 295-310)
LINDA LONON BLANTON
University of New Orleans, USA
The author revisits her earlier qualitative research on ESL children's
emergence into literacy, which she conducted with 5- and 6-year olds at a
multilingual K-12 school in Casablanca, Morocco. Through further
reflection and study, she arrives at the notion of "synchronicity"--a
dynamic oneness between teacher and child--as the distinguishing feature
of three classrooms where children's literacy development was taking place
at an extraordinary pace. This work presents readers with new insights
into the affective complexities of child-teacher interaction and its role
in literacy development.
Learning to Make Things Happen in Different Ways: Causality in the
Writing of Middle-Grade English Language Learners (pp. 311-328)
DUDLEY W. REYNOLDS
University of Houston, USA
This study addresses two issues: the similarity between L1 and L2
writing development and the nature of the developmental path. The
frequency of two types of causality markers in 5th-8th grade essays
written by 189 students in ESL and 546 students in regular language arts
classes is analyzed. Students wrote on one of two informative "how-to"
prompts. The regular language arts students were found to differ in their
usage of causality markers between the two topics, whereas the ESL
students used the markers similarly across both topics. There were no
differences between students at different grade levels in either group. In
addition, the ESL students were found to have higher usage of causality
markers in general than the regular language arts students. It is
suggested that the developmental path for both groups involves moving away
from primarily narrative expansion of topic towards display of diverse
language forms and discourse strategies.
The Role of Writing in Classroom Second Language Acquisition
(pp. 329-350)
LINDA HARKLAU
University of Georgia, USA
This paper argues that writing should play a more prominent role in
classroom-based studies of second language acquisition. It contends that
an implicit emphasis on spoken language is the result of the historical
development of the field of applied linguistics and parent disciplines of
structuralist linguistics, linguistic anthropology, and child language
development. Although writing as a communicative modality has been
marginalized, it is key to understanding second language acquisition in
contexts such as elementary and secondary level content area classrooms
where literacy plays a central role in communication and transmission of
subject matter. In all, the paper argues that while it is important for
classroom-based studies to investigate how students learn how to write in
a second language, it is equally important to learn how students learn a
second language through writing. Implications of this perspective are
noted for notions of learner and target language variation, multimodality
and language socialization, and interactionist approaches to classroom
research.
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Volume 12, Number 1 (2003)
Special
Issue: L2 Writing in the Post-Process Era
Guest Editor: Dwight Atkinson
L2 Writing in the Post-Process Era: Introduction
(pp. 3-15)
DWIGHT ATKINSON
Temple University Japan
In this introduction to the special issue,
I attempt to lay out a coherent if still-heuristic notion of
"post-process." I do so by first investigating four components of
Trimbur's (1994) definition of "post-process": the social; the
post-cognitivist; literacy as an ideological arena; and composition as a
cultural activity. Next, I review studies in first and especially second
language writing/literacy research which have attempted to move beyond
process pedagogy and theory, and which for me, at least, provide a sound
conceptual basis for further developments in that direction. I then
conclude by stating my own summative definition of post-process, and
briefly introducing the main contributions to this special issue.
Genre-Based Pedagogies: A Social
Response to Process (pp. 17-29)
KEN HYLAND
City University of Hong Kong, China
Process theories have been extremely
influential in the evolution of L2 writing instruction. Responding to
purely formal views of writing, proponents borrowed the techniques and
theories of cognitive psychology and L1 composition to refine the ways we
understand and teach writing. While remaining the dominant pedagogical
orthodoxy for over 30 years, however, process models have for some time
found themselves under siege from more socially-oriented views of writing
which reject their inherent liberal individualism. Instead, genre
approaches see ways of writing as purposeful, socially situated responses
to particular contexts and communities. In this paper, I discuss the
importance of genre approaches to teaching L2 writing and how they
complement process views by emphasising the role of language in written
communication.
New Approaches to Gender, Class, and
Race in Second Language Writing (pp. 31-47)
RYUKO KUBOTA
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Gender, class, and race are constitutive
elements essential to writers' agency and identity. However, these
categories are not typically paid substantial attention in second language
writing as well as in the larger field of second language acquisition and
bilingual development, although issues of gender have been explored to a
greater extent than the other two categories. This article summarizes
constructivist and poststructuralist approaches to gender discussed
recently in the larger field of second language learning and applies key
concepts to issues of gender, class, and race in second language writing
as well as interrelations among them. Recent discussions on gender and
language have problematized fixed understandings of the gender binary in
relation to language use. They have explored how gendered use of language
is socially and discursively constructed and how gender, language, power,
and discourse are related to each other in dynamic and transformative
ways. It is suggested that new approaches to gender, class, and race be
dialectic in that they should both explore differences between social
categories in a non-essentialist way and expose discourse and power
relations that are embodied in these differences. Future research agendas
on gender, class, and race in second language writing that incorporate
these approaches are suggested.
Writing and Culture in the Post-Process
Era (pp. 49-63)
DWIGHT ATKINSON
Temple University Japan
Does the notion of culture, currently
under wide-ranging critique across the social sciences, still have a
future? In this paper I discuss three possible uses of the culture concept
in the field of second language writing for the 21st century: (1) Turning
the cultural lens back on ourselves (where "ourselves" means the very
academics who have found the concept most useful in the past); (2)
Investigating continuity, universality, and hybridity, whereas the culture
concept has traditionally been used to investigate difference,
localization, and cultural "purity"; and (3) Expanding, contracting, and
complexifying the scope of the culture concept. I conclude by arguing for
a view of L2 writing that takes into account the full range of social and
cultural contexts impacting L2 writing, rather than focusing narrowly on
skills and processes of writing (in the classroom) in themselves.
Process and Post-Process: A Discursive
History (pp. 65-83)
PAUL KEI MATSUDA
University of New Hampshire, USA
While the term post-process can be useful as a heuristic for
expanding the scope of the field of second language writing, the
uncritical adoption of this and other keywords can have serious
consequences because they often oversimplify the historical complexity
of the intellectual developments they describe. In order to provide a
critical understanding of the term post-process in its own
historical context, this article examines the history of process and
post-process in composition studies, focusing on the ways in which terms
such as current-traditional rhetoric, process, and
post-process have contributed to the discursive construction of
reality. Based on this analysis, I argue that the use of the term
post-process in the context of L2 writing needs to be guided by a
critical awareness of the discursive construction process. I further
argue that the notion of post-process needs to be understood not as the
rejection of process but as the recognition of the multiplicity of L2
writing theories and pedagogies.
Looking Ahead to More Sociopolitically-Oriented
Case Study Research in L2 Writing Scholarship: (But Should it Be Called
"Post-Process"?) (pp. 85-102)
CHRISTINE PEARSON CASANAVE
Teachers College, Columbia University, Japan
In this essay I argue that three familiar areas of inquiry in future L2
writing research need to be investigated in more sociopolitically-oriented
ways: written products, writing processes, and writer identity, and that
qualitative case studies are well suited to explore the extraordinary
diversity of L2 writers and writing contexts from an expanded
sociopolitical perspective. However, although substantive changes in how
we think about these areas of inquiry appear to be taking place, some
resistance to these changes can be expected. Finally, I suggest caution in
using the label "post-process" to describe the substantive changes in how
we are beginning to view L2 writing scholarship.
Coda: Pushing L2 Writing Research
(pp. 103-105)
ILONA LEKI
University of Tennessee, USA
In the form of a coda to this collection of papers, I would like to
make something of an observation and an appeal. The idea for the
colloquium on which these papers are based was to try to begin to open
up some new areas for L2 writing research and for the discussion of L2
writing. Like the colloquium convener, Dwight Atkinson, others too have
had the sense that work in L2 writing has been somewhat undertheorized,
not in terms of developing or debating specific aspects of L2 writing
but in terms of connecting what we do to broader intellectual strands,
domains, and dimensions of modern thought and contemporary lived
experience. Whatever one may think of the results, certainly discussions
of L1 English rhetoric and composition exhibit a more wide-ranging
outreach to other intellectual domains, such as cultural studies,
post-modernism, and critical theory. Even certain other sister
disciplines of TESOL, like Applied Linguistics (for example, in the
subareas of Critical Language Awareness, Critical Applied Linguistics,
and the New Literacy studies), seem to do so to a greater degree. L2
writing research seems at times oddly insular, not even referencing work
in second language acquisition much, not to mention other contemporary
thinking that might help both to clarify and complexify our project. Are
we in L2 writing missing out, being by-passed by the most interesting
intellectual trends of our times when we focus perhaps somewhat
single-mindedly on such functional and practical issues as peer
response, rhetorical strategies, and such? Certainly our work is, as
Terry Santos (2001) has noted, deeply and often beneficially grounded in
the practical. Nevertheless, we might do more to explore wider
dimensions and broader theoretical issues and claims in the context of
L2 English writing.
Volume 12, Number 2 (2003)
Written textual production and consumption (WTPC) in vernacular and
English-medium settings in Gujarat, India (pp. 125-150)
VAIDEHI RAMANATHAN
University of California, Davis, USA
This paper attempts a relatively
comprehensive sketch of some of the key facets in the larger
socioeducational machinery that shapes the written textual production and
consumption (WTPC) of "English-medium" (EM) and "vernacular-medium" (VM)
students in Gujarat, India. It lays out some ways in which particular
macro-structures align together to produce and shape conditions that
privilege the WTPC of EM students over their VM counterparts. The paper
also addresses some small ways in which institutions and individual
faculty work are mitigating the gulf between students socialized in the
different mediums of instruction by working indirectly on their WTPC.
Changing currents in second language writing research: A
colloquium (pp. 151-179)
PAUL KEI MATSUDA
University of New Hampshire, USA
A. SURESH CANAGARAJAH
Baruch College, City University of New York, USA
LINDA HARKLAU
University of Georgia, USA
KEN HYLAND
City University of Hong Kong, China
MARK WARSCHAUER
University of California, Irvine, USA
This article is based on an invited colloquium on second language
(L2) writing presented at the 2002 meeting of the American Association
for Applied Linguistics. The colloquium featured five L2 writing
researchers who discussed some of the important currents that have, over
the last decade, shaped the field of second language writing.
Comparing L1 and L2 organizational patterns in the argumentative
writing of Japanese EFL students (pp.181-209)
KEIKO HIROSE
Aichi Prefectural University, Japan
The relationship between first language (L1) and second language (L2)
writing has attracted the attention of L2 writing researchers. Recent
studies have pointed to not only differences but also similarities
between L1 and L2 writing. The present study compared L1 (Japanese) and
L2 (English) organizational patterns in the argumentative writing of
Japanese EFL student-writers. The study made within-subject comparisons
of L1 and L2 compositions in terms of organizational patterns,
organization scores, and overall quality. Student perceptions of L1 and
L2 organization were also investigated by incorporating their
comparisons of their own L1/L2 compositions into the analysis. The
results revealed that (a) a majority of students employed deductive type
organizational patterns in both L1 and L2; (b) despite similarities
between L1 and L2 organizational patterns, L2 organization scores were
not significantly correlated with L1 organization scores; (c) L2
composition total and organization scores differed significantly from
those of L1; and (d) some students evidenced problems in organizing both
L1 and L2 texts. Possible implications of the results are discussed as
they pertain to research, pedagogy, and the dispelling of stereotypes
about Japanese and English rhetoric.
Volume
12, Number 3 (2003)
Shapers of published NNS research articles (pp. 223-243)
JOY BURROUGH-BOENISCH
Science Editing and Translation, The Netherlands
En route from its author's screen to the printed page of an English-language
science journal, an NNS research article incorporates changes made or
suggested by various people. Considering a hypothetical Dutch-authored
research article, this paper describes these text shapers. They include
language professionals as well as members of the author's discourse community.
Their potential to change the text is discussed on the basis of a multidisciplinary
review of the literature. The cultural, social, and economic factors
influencing their reading and revisions are touched on, as are some implications
for research on NNS writing, for revision theory, and for ESP teaching.
Questioning the importance of individualized voice in undergraduate
L2 argumentative writing: An empirical study with pedagogical implications (pp.
245-265)
RENA HELMS-PARK
University of Toronto at Scarborough, Canada
PAUL STAPLETON
Hokkaido University, Japan
This paper contends that the L2 literature yields little empirical evidence
of a relationship between the features associated with L1 voice and the
quality of L2 academic writing. In fact, some of these features may be
of little consequence in certain L2 writing contexts. Writing samples
requiring learners to argue in favor of or against an aspect of Canada's
immigration policy were elicited from 63 students in a writing-intensive
first-year course. These samples were scored by (1) three raters for "voice," using
a special Voice Intensity Rating Scale with four components (assertiveness;
self-identification; reiteration of central point; and authorial presence
and autonomy of thought), created especially for this study, as well
as (2) three raters for overall writing quality, using Jacobs et al.'s
(1981) ESL Composition Profile. Interrater reliability, based on the
Spearman–Brown Prophesy Formula, was found to be 0.84 for the ratings
of voice intensity and 0.73 for the ratings of overall quality. Most
importantly, no significant correlation was found either between overall
quality and overall voice intensity or between overall quality and any
of the four components of voice. The results suggest that there may not
be a connection between the linguistic and rhetorical devices commonly
associated with individualized voice (e.g., first person singular or
intensifiers) and the quality of writing, at least within some genres
and at some levels of writing proficiency.
The efficacy of various kinds of error feedback for improvement in
the accuracy and fluency of L2 student writing (pp. 267-296)
JEAN CHANDLER
New England Conservatory of Music and Simmons College, USA
This research uses experimental and control group data to show that
students' correction of grammatical and lexical error between assignments
reduces such error in subsequent writing over one semester without reducing
fluency or quality. A second study further examines how error correction
should be done. Should a teacher correct errors or mark errors for student
self-correction? If the latter, should the teacher indicate location
or type of error or both? Measures include change in the accuracy of
both revisions and of subsequent writing, change in fluency, change in
holistic ratings, student attitudes toward the four different kinds of
teacher response, and time required by student and teacher for each kind
of response. Findings are that both direct correction and simple underlining
of errors are significantly superior to describing the type of error,
even with underlining, for reducing long-term error. Direct correction
is best for producing accurate revisions, and students prefer it because
it is the fastest and easiest way for them as well as the fastest way
for teachers over several drafts. However, students feel that they learn
more from self-correction, and simple underlining of errors takes less
teacher time on the first draft. Both are viable methods depending on
other goals.
Volume
12, Number 4 (2003)
Academic writing: A European perspective (pp. 313-316)
ANN JOHNS
San Diego State University, USA
In June 2003 about 200 faculty, graduate students, and administrators
attended the Second Joint Biennial Conference of the European Association
for the Teaching of Academic Writing (EATAW) and the European Writing
Centers Association (EWCA), held in Budapest and hosted by the Central
European University. Because this is an important conference, and a new
field of interest for Europe, I have prepared this report and commentary
so that the JSLW readership can benefit from this experience--and
perhaps become involved in the European discussions.
Good and original: Plagiarism and patchwriting in academic second-language
writing (pp.
317-345)
DIANE PECORARI
Stockholm University, Sweden
Plagiarism is regarded as a heinous crime within the academic community,
but anecdotal evidence suggests that some writers plagiarize without
intending to transgress academic conventions. This article reports a
study of the writing of 17 postgraduate students. Source reports in the
student-generated texts were compared to the original sources in order
to describe the relationship between the two. Interviews were also conducted
with the student writers and their supervisors. The student writing was
found to contain textual features which could be described as plagiarism,
but the writers' accounts of their work and the textual analysis strongly
suggest absence of intention to plagiarize, thus providing empirical
verification of similar suggestions in the literature. Implications of
these findings are discussed and include a recommendation that the focus
on preventing plagiarism be shifted from post facto punishment to proactive
teaching.
Switching to first language among writers with differing second-language
proficiency (pp. 347-375)
LURONG WANG
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada
Switching interactively between first (L1) and second (L2) languages
has been recognized as one of the salient characteristics of L2 writing.
However, it is not clear how switching between languages is related to
L2 proficiency nor how switching to the L1 assists writers with differing
L2 proficiency in their composing processes. The present study investigated
these issues with eight adult Chinese-speaking English as a Second Language
(ESL) learners with two differing levels of proficiency in English performing
two writing tasks: an informal personal letter and an argument essay.
Data were the students' think-aloud protocols, retrospective interviews,
questionnaires, and written compositions. Quantitative and qualitative
analyses of these data show that the participants' frequencies of language-switching
varied slightly by their L2 proficiency, suggesting that L2 proficiency
might determine writers' approaches and qualities of thinking while composing
in their L2.
Exploring multiple profiles of highly rated learner compositions (pp.
377-403)
SCOTT JARVIS
Ohio University, USA
LESLIE GRANT
Central Michigan University, USA
DAWN BIKOWSKIA
DANA FERRIS
California State University, Sacramento, CA, USA
Recent research has come a long way in describing the linguistic features
of large samples of written texts, although a satisfactory description
of L2 writing remains problematic. Even when variables such as proficiency,
language background, topic, and audience have been controlled, straightforward
predictive relationships between linguistic variables and quality ratings
have remained elusive, and perhaps they always will. We propose a different
approach. Rather than assuming a linear relationship between linguistic
features and quality ratings, we explore multiple profiles of highly
rated timed compositions and describe how they compare in terms of their
lexical, grammatical, and discourse features. To this end, we performed
a cluster analysis on two sets of timed compositions to examine their
patterns of use of several linguistic features. The purpose of the analysis
was to investigate whether multiple profiles (or clusters) would emerge
among the highly rated compositions in each data set. This did indeed
occur. Within each data set, the profiles of highly rated texts differed
significantly. Some profiles exhibited above-average levels for several
linguistic features, whereas others showed below-average levels. We interpret
the results as confirming that highly rated texts are not at all isometric,
even though there do appear to be some identifiable constraints on the
ways in which highly rated timed compositions may vary.
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Volume
13, Number 1 (2004)
Special
Issue: Conceptualizing Discourse/Responding to Text
Guest Editors: Diane Belcher and Jun Liu
Conceptualizing discourse/responding
to text (pp. 3-6)
DIANE BELCHER
Georgia State University, USA
JUN LIU
University of Arizona, USA
Anyone who has taught second language writing will probably find
themselves nodding in agreement with Christine Casanave’s (2004)
recent assertion that "perhaps the most consuming of all dilemmas
for L2 writing teachers is how to best help their students improve
their writing" (p. 64). Casanave elaborates on this observation
by noting that this dilemma is two-pronged, as we not only need to
decide what we mean by improvement but which of the many varied and
often conflicting approaches to teaching writing will actually be "paths
to improvement" (p. 63). All four articles in this special issue
address various aspects of this dilemma. The first two articles,
by Ryuko Kubota and Al Lehner and by Wei Zhu, consider the big-picture
issue of how "good writing" has been and is currently conceptualized
by those of us in the TESOL profession and others—across cultures
(Kubota & Lehner, this issue) and across disciplines (Zhu, this
issue). The articles by Dana Ferris and Lynn Goldstein, on the other
hand, address the more immediately practical but no less challenging
issue of the role that teacher response to student writing plays
in actual improvement of writing and writers at both the micro (Ferris,
this issue) and macro (Goldstein, this issue) levels, plays in actual
improvement of writing and writers. As Ann Johns points out in her
response to all four articles, our field has been seeking answers
to these two vexing questions, i.e., how we should conceptualize
discourse and respond to text, for the past 40 years with little
resulting consensus. The contributors to this issue attempt to survey
the progress we have made so far and to push our thinking forward.
Toward Critical Contrastive Rhetoric (pp. 7-27)
RYUKO KUBOTA
University of North Carolina at Chapell Hill, USA
AL LEHNER
AKITA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY, Japan
A traditional approach to contrastive rhetoric has emphasized cultural
difference in rhetorical patterns among various languages. Despite
its laudable pedagogical intentions to raise teachers’ and
students’ cultural and rhetorical awareness in second language
writing, traditional contrastive rhetoric has perpetuated static
binaries between English and other languages and viewed students
as culturally lacking. Various criticisms that have challenged assumptions
behind traditional contrastive rhetoric as well as a critical scrutiny
of pedagogical issues, including the politics of explicit teaching
of linguistic forms, indicate a need for establishing alternative
conceptual frameworks. Such frameworks seek to critically understand
politics of cultural difference and explore situated pedagogy that
challenges essentialism. By incorporating poststructuralist, postcolonial,
and postmodern critiques of language and culture, critical contrastive
rhetoric reconceptualizes cultural difference in rhetoric from such
perspectives as relations of power, discursive construction of knowledge,
colonial construction of cultural dichotomies, and rhetorical plurality
brought about by diaspora and cultural hybridity. When put into practice,
critical contrastive rhetoric affirms multiplicity of languages,
rhetorical forms, and students’ identities, while problematizing
the discursive construction of rhetoric and identities, and thus
allowing writing teachers to recognize the complex web of rhetoric,
culture, power, and discourse in responding to student writing.
Faculty views on the importance of writing, the nature of
academic writing, and
teaching and responding to writing in the disciplines (pp. 29-48)
WEI ZHU
University of South Florida, USA
This study examined faculty views on academic writing and writing
instruction. Data reported in this article came from ten qualitative
interviews with business and engineering faculty members. Transcripts
of the interviews were analyzed inductively and recursively, and
two views on academic writing and writing instruction were identified.
One view held that academic writing largely involved transferring
general writing skills, and writing instruction would be most effectively
provided by writing/language teachers. The other view recognized
the unique thought and communication processes entailed in academic
writing and the role of both content course faculty and writing instructors
in academic writing instruction. However, content course faculty
and writing instructors each assumed a different set of responsibilities.
Implications of the findings for academic writing research and instruction
are discussed.
The "grammar correction" debate in L2 writing:
Where are we, and where do we go from here?
(and what do we do in the meantime ...?) (pp. 49-62)
DANA R. FERRIS
California State University Sacramento, USA
The efficacy of teacher error/grammar correction in second language
writing classes has been the subject of much controversy, including
a published debate in an earlier volume of this journal [J. Second
Language Writing 8 (1999) 1; J. Second Language Writing 8 (1999)
111]. In this paper, the state-of-the-art in error correction research
in L2 writing is described ("Where are we?"), directions
for future research are outlined ("Where do we go from here?")
and implications for current L2 composition pedagogy are suggested
("What do we do in the meantime?"). The primary thesis
of the paper is that, despite the published debate and several decades
of research activity in this area, we are virtually at Square One,
as the existing research base is incomplete and inconsistent, and
it would certainly be premature to formulate any conclusions about
this topic. Thus, findings from previous research on this controversial
yet ubiquitous pedagogical issue are recast as "predictions" about
what future research might discover, rather than "conclusions" about
what the previous research shows us.
Questions and answers about teacher written commentary and
student revision:
Teachers and students working together (pp. 63-80)
LYNN M. GOLDSTEIN
The Monterey Institute of International Studies, USA
Teachers and students agree that despite the time-consuming nature
of providing written commentary and revising using this commentary,
teacher feedback is both desirable and helpful. Nonetheless, teachers
express concerns about how to provide commentary in ways that their
students can effectively use to revise their texts and to learn for
future texts. This paper addresses these concerns by helping teachers
identify the issues to which they need to attend and by sharing effective
practices they can use in providing written commentary to rhetorical
and content issues in their students’ writing. The paper first
addresses the role of the context within which commentary and revision
take place, delineating the issues that teachers need to be aware
of and the questions they can ask about context to help guide decisions
about commentary. The paper next addresses the process of communication
between teachers and students, describing ways of providing such
communication that will enhance the effectiveness of the teacher’s
commentary and the students’ revisions. The final sections
discuss the shape of teacher commentary, with recommendations for
what factors teachers can consider in deciding what to comment on
as well as recommendations for the forms that effective commentary
take.
Searching for answers: A response (pp. 81-85)
ANN JOHNS
San Diego State University, USA
This special issue of JSLW addresses questions for which the profession
has yet to find adequate answers, issues that have complicated the
research and teaching of literacies to linguistically and culturally
diverse students for more than 40 years. What began in the 1960s
as fairly simple answers to questions about error, teacher response,
and linguistic and cultural variation, initially offered by a few
publications such as Robert Bander’s American English Rhetoric
(1971) and Kaplan’s (1966) "doodles" article, have
mushroomed into a rich literature that asks, among other things,
whether one can generalize about a language (Zhu, this issue); whether
teachers should be empowering students to resist cultural, linguistic,
and discursive hegemonies (Kubota and Lehner, this issue); whether,
and how, errors should be addressed in second language composition
classes (Ferris, this issue); and what factors should motivate teacher
and student responses to texts in these classes (Goldstein, this
issue).
Volume
13, Number 2 (2004)
"The Choice Made from No Choice": English Writing
Instruction in a Chinese University (pp. 97-110)
XIAOYE YOU
Purdue University, USA
Approaches to writing instruction developed in North America have
gradually made their presence felt in other parts of the world during
recent years. A curricular evaluation of the local needs, instruction,
assessments, teacher preparation, and other pedagogical factors is
crucial for the successful transmission and integration of those
approaches into the new contexts. Set against the background of recent,
exuberant scholarly discussions of the issue of transplanting Western
writing pedagogies, this article presents an observational report
of a typical college English curriculum for non-majors in China,
with a focus on its writing component. The study has found that English
writing is taught under the guidance of a nationally unified syllabus
and examination system. Rather than assisting their students to develop
thoughts in writing, teachers in this system are predominantly concerned
about the teaching of correct form and test-taking skills. Because
of their relatively low economic status in China, English teachers
have to work extra hours and have little time to spend on individual
students or on furthering their professional training. However, signs
of recent Western writing pedagogies, such as pre-writing and multiple-drafting
activities, are identified in classrooms and textbook publishing,
which indicate the possibility of successful adaptations of the recent
Western writing pedagogies in the Chinese context.
ESL Literacy: Language Practice or Social Practice? (pp.
111-132)
PAT CURRIE
ELLEN CRAY
Carleton University, Canada
This paper examines literacy policy and practice in six Language
Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) classrooms. The study
focused on three questions: (1) What literacy practices did these
newcomers participate in their new country? (2) How did their teachers
understand the role of writing in their learners’ lives? (3)
What and why did their learners write in their LINC classes? Our
results indicate that while the LINC learners had a broad and varied
understanding of the role of writing in their lives, both they and
their teachers viewed writing in LINC classes as a vehicle for the
development of linguistic accuracy rather than as a socially situated
practice.
Disciplinary Interactions: Metadiscourse in L2 Postgraduate
Writing (pp. 133-151)
KEN HYLAND
University of London
Metadiscourse is self-reflective linguistic expressions referring
to the evolving text, to the writer, and to the imagined readers
of that text. It is based on a view of writing as a social engagement
and, in academic contexts, reveals the ways writers project themselves
into their discourse to signal their attitudes and commitments. In
this paper, I explore how advanced second language writers deploy
these resources in a high stakes research genre. The paper examines
the purposes and distributions of metadiscourse in a corpus of 240
doctoral and masters dissertations totalling four million words written
by Hong Kong students. The paper proposes a model of metadiscourse
as the interpersonal resources required to present propositional
material appropriately in different disciplinary and genre contexts.
The analysis suggests how academic writers use language to offer
a credible representation of themselves and their work in different
fields, and thus how metadiscourse can be seen as a means of uncovering
something of the rhetorical and social distinctiveness of disciplinary
communities.
Volume
13, Number 3 (2004)
The Writing Center
and Second Language Writers (pp. 165-172)
JESSICA WILLIAMS
University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
CAROL SEVERINO
University of Iowa, USA
In this introduction
to the special issue on the writing center and second language
writers, the special issue editors provide a review of research
that investigate second-language writing issues in the writing
center, and discuss future research directions.
Tutoring and Revision:
Second Language Writers in the Writing Center (pp. 173-201)
JESSICA WILLIAMS
University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
There is little research
to link what happens during writing center (WC) sessions to how
student writers revise their subsequent drafts. This gap in the
literature is particularly evident concerning second language (L2)
writers who come to the WC for assistance. This study is an effort
to fill this gap, exploring the connection between WC interaction
and revision by L2 writers. Findings suggest a clear connection
between the two, especially as regards small-scale revision of
sentence-level problems. They also point to the higher level of
uptake of all tutor advice when suggestions are direct, when learners
actively participate in the conversation, and when they write down
their plans during the session. Also effective in stimulating revision
are scaffolding moves by the tutor, including marking of critical
features in the text, simplification of the task, goal-orientation,
and modeling. In spite of the considerable revision done by all
of the writers in this study, second drafts did not receive consistently
higher holistic evaluations.
Novice Tutors and
Their ESL Tutees: Three Case Studies of Tutor Roles and Perceptions
of Tutorial Success (pp. 203-225)
SARA CUSHING WEIGLE
GAYLE L. NELSON
Georgia State University, USA
This article presents
case studies of three tutor/tutee dyads, focusing on the negotiation
of tutor roles over a semester as part of a course requirement
for MATESOL candidates. Tutors were enrolled in the course "Issues
in Second Language Writing," and tutees were ESL student volunteers.
Data came from on-line discussions from the course, videotapes
of tutoring sessions, tutors’ and tutees’ retrospective
interviews, and the tutors’ final reflective papers for the
course. Results indicate that the dyads negotiated relationships
that differed from each other but were viewed as successful by
those involved. For each dyad, different factors emerged as influential
in negotiating the tutor’s role, including tutors’ and
tutees’ beliefs about writing, tutees’ language proficiency,
affective factors, and aspects of the tutorial setting.
What Are the Differences?
Tutor Interactions with First- and Second-Language Writers (pp.
227-242)
TERESE THONUS
California State University, Fresno, USA
This paper reports on
a decade of research into the nature of interactions between writing
center tutors and native speaker (NS) and non-native speaker (NNS)
tutees. It explores and describes the structure of this interaction
and the behaviors of NNS tutees, and of tutors when interacting
with both NS and NNS tutees. It characterizes writing center tutorials
with NNSs as a balancing act among potentially conflicting forces.
Finally, it suggests applications of these insights to tutor preparation
and practice.
Volume
13, Number 4 (2004)
ESL Student Attitudes
Toward Corpus Use in L2 Writing (pp.
257-283)
HYUNSOOK YOON
ALAN HIRVELA
The Ohio State University, USA
In recent years, there has been growing interest in the use of corpora
in L2 writing instruction. Many studies have argued for corpus use
from a teacher’s perspective, that is, in terms of how teachers
can develop instructional materials and activities involving a corpus-based
orientation. In contrast, relatively little attention has been paid
to investigations of learners’ actual use of corpora and their
attitudes toward such use in the L2 writing classroom. This paper
describes a study of corpus use in two ESL academic writing courses.
Specifically, the study examined students’ corpus use behavior
and their perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses of corpora
as a second language writing tool. The study’s qualitative
and quantitative data indicate that, overall, the students perceived
the corpus approach as beneficial to the development of L2 writing
skill and increased confidence toward L2 writing.
Error Correction in L2 Secondary Writing
Classrooms: The Case of Hong Kong (pp. 285-312).
ICY LEE
Hong Kong Baptist University, China
Error correction research has focused mostly on whether teachers should
correct errors in student writing and how they should go about it.
Much less has been done to ascertain L2 writing teachers’ perceptions
and practices as well as students’ beliefs and attitudes regarding
error feedback. The present investigation seeks to explore the existing
error correction practices in the Hong Kong secondary writing classroom
from both the teacher and student perspectives. Data were gathered
from three main sources: (1) a teacher survey comprising a questionnaire
and follow-up interviews, (2) a teacher error correction task, and
(3) a student survey made up of a questionnaire and follow-up interviews.
The results revealed that both teachers and students preferred comprehensive
error feedback, the teachers used a limited range of error feedback
strategies, and only about half of the teacher corrections of student
errors were accurate. The study also showed that the students were
reliant on teachers in error correction, and that the teachers were
not much aware of the long-term significance of error feedback. Possible
implications pertaining to ways to improve current error correction
practices were discussed.
A Measure of Second Language Writing
Aanxiety: Scale Development and Preliminary Validation (pp.
313-335)
Y.-S.
CHENG
National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
Evidence has been accumulating that shows the promise of multidimensional
conceptualizations of anxiety in investigating the effects of anxiety
on different aspects of human behavior and intellectual performance.
In view of the lack of an L2 writing anxiety scale explicitly developed
from a multidimensional perspective, this study aims to develop and
evaluate a self-report L2 writing anxiety measure that conforms to
a three-dimensional conceptualization of anxiety. Sixty-five EFL
learners’ reports of L2 writing anxiety were drawn upon to
generate an initial pool of scale items. A pilot test was conducted
on the initial pool of items to help establish a preliminary version
of L2 writing anxiety scale for further refinement and evaluation
in the formal study. A sample of 421 EFL majors enrolled in seven
different colleges in Taiwan participated in the formal study. Exploratory
factor analysis was employed to determine the final make-up of the
Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) that consists of
three subscales: Somatic Anxiety, Cognitive Anxiety, and Avoidance
Behavior. In addition to reliability coefficients, the validity of
the SLWAI total scale and subscales was assessed by means of correlation
and factor analysis. The results suggest that both the total scale
and the individual subscales of the SLWAI have good reliability and
adequate validity.
Volume
14, Number 1 (2005)
Rhetorical
education through writing instruction across cultures: A comparative
analysis of select online instructional materials on argumentative
writing (pp. 1-18)
LU LIU
Purdue University, USA
Recent studies on Chinese–English contrastive rhetoric have
argued that there is actually little to contrast and the traditional
qi (beginning), cheng (transition), zhuan (turning), he (synthesis)
structure has little influence on contemporary Chinese writing. A
comparative analysis of select online instructional materials on
argumentative writing for American and Mainland Chinese school writers
reveals that although the two groups agree on the purpose, tripartite
structure, and the use of formal logic, they differ in the discussion
of some fundamentals for argumentative writing. Specifically, the
American group considers anticipating the opposition a must while
the Chinese group demonstrates epistemological and dialogical emphases
and highlights the need to use analogies. The importance of analogies
and epistemological and dialogical emphases can be traced to ancient
Chinese rhetorical theories. This paper argues that the findings
may help us to understand the assumptions and beliefs that underlie
rhetorical conventions or textual features. Further comparative research
on Mainland Chinese and American pedagogical materials on argumentative
writing is suggested.
Linguistic correlates
of second language literacy development: Evidence from middle-grade
learner essays (pp. 19-45)
DUDLEY W. REYNOLDS
University of Houston, USA
This paper compares the development of linguistic fluency in the
writing of 5th–8th grade, U.S. students enrolled in English
as a Second Language (ESL, n = 189) and regular language arts (RLA,
n = 546) classes. Linguistic fluency is defined as the use of linguistic
structures appropriate to rhetorical and social purposes and is measured
using five sets of features shown by Reppen (1994, 2001) [Reppen,
R. (1994). Variation in elementary student language: A multi-dimensional
perspective. Doctoral dissertation, Northern Arizona University.]
[Reppen, R. (2001). Register variation in student and adult speech
and writing. In S. Conrad & D. Biber (Eds.), Variation in English:
Multi-dimensional studies (pp. 187–199). Harlow, UK: Longman.]
to vary in relation to age and topic differences in a large corpus
of texts produced by and for 5th grade English L1 writers. The same
broad variational patterns found by Reppen in her corpus are shown
to exist in the writing of the ESL and RLA students; however, more
careful analysis of the individual features associated with each
set indicates that the RLA students hold stronger associations between
the features and the rhetorical and social functions identified for
the set as a whole. It is suggested that the ESL students’ lack
of fluency results from both limitations in grammatical competency
and a lack of practice in writing for varying purposes and audiences.
Editing contributed
scholarly articles from a language management perspective (pp.
47-62)
ROBERT B. KAPLAN
University of Southern California, USA
RICHARD B. BALDAUF, Jr.
The University of Queensland, Australia
Taking language management as its initial perspective, this paper
examines some of the sorts of linguistic problems that second language
writers of English face when contributing to scholarly journals and
some of the issues that editors face when working with authors on
those problems. Language Management Theory (hereafter LMT) is briefly
explained. Drawing on a substantial corpus (slightly less than 500,000
words), illustrations of various categories of problem types are
provided. One finding shows that it is difficult, in practice, to
differentiate between simple language management issues and organized
language management issues, because what may appear to be simple
management issues may in fact have extended implications. Some problem
types are not unique to non-native speakers, but appear with different
frequency and distribution in non-native speaker texts as compared
with native-speaker texts. Some ethical questions implicit in editing
non-native speaker texts are explored.
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