State of the Field, Works Cited

Works Cited

·        Bitchener, J. (2008).  Evidence in Support of Written Corrective Feedback.” Journal of Second Language Writing, 17(2),102–118.

·        Canagarajah, A. (2006) The Place of World Englishes in Composition: Pluralization Continued. College Composition and Communication, 57(4), 586-619.

·        Chandler, J. (2009). Dialogue: Response to Truscott. Journal of Second Language Writing, 18(1), 57–58.

·        Ferris, Dana (2004). 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 . . .?).  Journal of Second Language Writing, 13(1), 49–62.

·        Ferris, D. (2005) Preparing Teachers to Respond to Student Writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 16, 165-193. Web. 8 Feb. 2012.  (via Sharon’s blog citation)

·        Hyland, F. & K. Hiland (2001). Sugaring the Pill: Praise and Criticism in Written Feedback. Journal of Second Language Writing, 10, 185-212. JSTOR. Web 17 Jan. 2012. (via Sharon’s blog citation)

·        Jin.  “Learn Chinese.”  YouTube. Web. 15 Feb. 2012.

·        Kachru, B. (1985). Standards, Codification and Sociolinguistic Realism: the English Language in the Outer Circle. In R. Quirk and H. Widdowson (Eds.), English in the World: Teaching and Learning the Language and Literatures, 11-36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

·        Lee, I. (2003). How Do Hong Kong Teachers Correct Errors in Writing? Education Journal, 31 (1), 153-169. (via Anna-Liisa’s blog citation)

·        Lee, I. (2005). Error Correction in the L2 Writing Classroom: What Do Students Think? TESL Canada Journal, 22 (2), 1-25.  (via Anna-Liisa’s blog citation)

·        Mao, L (2005).  Rhetorical Borderlands: Chinese American Rhetoric in the Making. College Composition and Communication, 56(3), 426-469.

·        Nakamaru, S. (2010).  Lexical Issues in Writing Center Tutorials with International and US-educated Multilingual Writers.  Journal of Second Language Writing, 19(2), 95–113.

·        Tarnopolsky, O.  (2000). Writing English as a Foreign Language: a Report from Ukraine.  Journal of Second Language Writing, 9 (3), 209-226.

·        Truscott, J. (1996). The Case Against Grammar Correction in L2 Writing Classes. Language Learning, 46(2), 327-369. Web. 20 Feb. 2012. (via Sharon’s blog citation)

Colleagues Blogs

o   Nathan http://nathanserfling.blogspot.com/  

o   Anna-Liisa  http://mutaleni.blogspot.com/   

o   Naing http://naingtunlin.blogspot.com/   

o   Aaron  http://aawriter.blogspot.com/  

o   Sharon  http://slsalyer.blogspot.com/  

o   Damien  http://dtuft001.blogspot.com/   

o   Callie  http://calliecollins.wordpress.com/  

The State of the Field: Balance and Adaptation

Second Language (L2) Writing Pedagogy is a diverse field of study with many perspectives.  Some approach it from a Composition education perspective.  Others see it as an extension of Second Language (SL) or Foreign Language (FL) instruction.  English may or may not be the second or foreign language that the proponent is teaching.  In the case of one of my colleagues, Damien, his focus is French FL instruction.  Some of us are Linguists and some come from the English writing programs.  Regardless of our perspective or approach, we all see the value in incorporating Second Language writing in both Composition and FL/SL curriculums.  Writing is an essential element in language development and perhaps the hardest facet to teach to L2 students. 

There are numerous areas of debate within the discipline.  Error correction is a hot topic that stirs up lots of questions.  Is it good or bad?  Truscott does not see the value of grammar correction in L2 writing.  Students can succeed in writing without being corrected for every little grammar error they make.  In fact, too much grammar error correction can make L2 writers impotent out of fear of mistakes, anxious about writing and take focus away from developing content rich writing (Truscott 1996).  In her “Dialogue,” Chandler disagrees with Truscott’s ascertain that grammar error correction does not benefit the student’s writing development.  Her study results indicated a marked improvement in grammar and spelling accuracy in those students that received various kinds of error feedback, including grammar correction (Chandler 2009).

How much and what kinds of error feedback are most helpful to the student?  Chandler found that a combination of direct and indirect (indicating type of error with a code or underlining errors) error correction was helpful in her study (Chandler 2009). Ferris found indirect feedback was beneficial for higher level L2 proficient students because it “engages students in cognitive problem solving as they attempt to self-edit based upon the feedback they have received” (Ferris 2004). Ferris also advocated student revision/editing after error feedback and the student “maintenance of error charts” to track problem areas and improvement (Ferris 2004).  Bitchener also found that in addition to “written corrective feedback” the “focused approach to the treatment of recurrent linguistic errors” could be addressed through increasing levels from “plenary mini-lessons [to] small group meta-linguistic  sessions [to] one-to-one conferences” (Bitchener 2008).  Nakamaru points out that not all errors by L2 writers are grammatical, some are lexical.  Not all writing centers address this issue appropriately (Nakamaru 2010).  It should be noted that, with written feedback for L2 writers, direct and unambiguous, feedback is usually best as it avoids confusion for the student.  As summarized by my colleague Sharon in her review of Hyland and Hiland (2001), “Teachers, they insist, must balance their concern for student egos with honest, reflective responses that include suggestions for improvement” (Sharon, Blog Post, Jan. 2, 2012). 

Does too much error correction inhibit creative writing and development of personal voice in the language?  My colleague, Anna-Liisa, strongly argues that it does and she supports this with her blog article choices (Lee 2003, Lee 2005).  In response to Lee 2003, she states “as ESL composition teachers, I think we should evaluate our error feedback strategies and see whether they inhibit students’ development by forcing them to focus on what we want instead of their own purpose for writing” (Anna-Liisa, Blog Post, Feb. 29 2012)  My experience, while teaching business professional EFL students in Prague,

taught me how much certain cultures  value and expect error correction, especially grammatical correction.  Thus focusing only on content will not necessarily meet the expectations or needs of all L2 writers.  The secret is finding the right balance between providing enough feedback to help refine the students’ writing skills and nurturing an encouraging environment for creativity and expressive growth.  I think that given his particular EFL environment in the Ukraine, Tarnopolsky seemed to find a reasonable balance in his group’s second creative writing class experiment (Tarnoplosky 2000).  There was a heavy reliance on peer review and insight and group work.  “Silly” writing was encouraged and cleverly hid opportunities for self-error correction. 

Does peer review help or hinder?  For Tarnopolsky, the answer appears to be yes.  Bitchener, among others, has also advocated peer review along with selective follow up as a way to potentially reduce teacher workload while still assuring that students get the feedback they need and crave in order to gain confidence and proficiency in writing (Bitchener 2008 and Ferris 2005).

 Other issues that plague L2 writing are the same types of issues that plague EFL and ESL language instruction in general, such as the assumption that so-called native speakers have the monopoly on spoken and written English.  Many purport that English is in fact a Lingua Franca and is used as a  language of trade and industry throughout the world, even in countries where it is not an official language, an Inner Circle country (Kachru 1985), or a former English speaking colony.  English as a Lingua Franca may range from formally educated EFL speakers and writers to pigeon or creole dialects (Canagarajah 2006).  English has ceased to be the sole domain of inner circle countries like Great Britain, Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand.  It is in fact undergoing the same type of changes and evolution that Latin experienced in the rise of the modern Romance languages in the former Roman territories and around the so called “Known World” of early Medieval Europe.

  My colleague Aaron advocates for a codified written World English (WE) that would enable EFL and WE writers to submit and publish in academic  journals without the stigma they currently experience by not using the Inner Circle imposed “standard” written English (SWE) in their articles or research (Aaron, Blog  Post, Feb 22, 2012).  I tend to agree with him that such a standard, while potentially constraining, would enable non-native/EFL/WE speakers to gain voice and authority in the world-wide academic and professional community. 

Also of interest to L2 writing instructors is how adaptive rhetoric is to the needs of students.  In both Mao’s article (2005) and Jin’s “Learn Chinese” music video that we watched on YouTube, we see how the Chinese ESL community moves towards developing its own rhetoric, or specialized voice, in English to express itself while maintaining its own unique identity.  This adaptive rhetoric is what the best ESL and EFL teachers should seek to nourish within the context of writing exercises.  It is something that seems to be particularly dear to my colleagues Anna-Liisa, Callie and Nathan as evidenced both by the articles chosen for their respective blogs and by comments made during class discussions.  In our efforts to develop the best and most successful teaching practices, we must find the careful balance of error correction with rhetoric development thereby assisting our students in giving power to their voice so that it may be heard more clearly by the English speaking community as a whole.

As many of the authors we have read this semester for both assigned readings and our own personal research have said, more studies and review are needed.  Second language writing instruction is ever evolving, always adapting to the needs of our students for both correction and guidance.  As an EFL teacher, one must modify instruction and methods to the local needs of your students while keeping in an eye on world developments in the field and language.   Very little in this profession is concrete and unchanging.   Even grammar and spelling evolves over time.

Official Blog Entry #5

Tarnopolsky, O.  (2000). Writing English as a Foreign Language: a Report from Ukraine.  Journal of Second Language Writing, 9 (3), 209-226.

This article continues the theme of EFL education in Central and Eastern Europe.  It examines the history of English education in the Ukraine and where it is heading i.e. what are the current needs and expectations of students.  As in Poland, the initial main focus was on communication and reading.  However, as the Ukraine moves forward in its efforts to become more international and part of the greater world community, there is a greater need and desire for EFL writing skills both for business/academics and pleasure.

Tarnopolsky outlines the challenges of developing appropriate course curriculums.  At the time of the article’s publication, there was a lack of specialists.  That may or may not have changed in the intervening 12 years.  There is also the economic consideration of the expensive of materials and teachers’ time.  Also a problem is the modification of Western training and instructional materials, most ESL oriented, to the diverse needs of students studying in a given country, in this case the Ukraine, and the somewhat different needs of an EFL classroom. 

In 1996/1997, Tarnopolsky was part of a survey that polled the needs of English language learners.  What they found was that

70 percent of potential students needed an ESP course, and not less than 65 percent of those that were eager to learn ESP preferred it to be Business English.  At the same time, all potential learners without exception said they wanted a course of General English to precede ESP (Tarnopolsky 214).

Further survey questions noted that 85% of interviewees felt a need for the four main areas of language skills.  Out of this 85 %, 99 percent claimed that they “absolutely needed reading and writing for communication” (Tarnopolsky 214).  Still further 21 percent indicated that “they required reading and writing skills in that language (English) even more for their jobs [than speaking and listening]” (Tarnopolsky 214).  Tarnopolsky attributes this to “well-established and regular contacts on personal and professional levels…[that] requires dealing with foreign friends and/or partners not so much in person as through written papers, documents, letter, etc.” (Tarnopolsky 214).  Students wanted to learn the basics writing skills but they also wanted them to be adaptive.

This survey resulted in 2 versions of writing courses.  The first was highly structured and used both the process approach and the genre approach.  For various reasons the course was unsuccessful and had a high dropout/boredom rate.  The second version was more successful and focused on writing for fun and team writing.  Writing for fun turns out to be Tarnopolsky’s main argument and it was back up by the results from the 2 versions of the writing classes and interviews of the students.  More was gained by the students when they learned things in a fun, collaborative and inductive reasoning type environment. 

Would I recommend this article to others?  Definitely!  It is even better than the previous article in that it gives concrete ideas on types of creative EFL writing assignments and the reasons behind them.

Official Blog Entry #4

Reichelt, M. (2005). English-language Writing Instruction in Poland. Journal of Second

Language Writing, 14(4), 215-232.

 I chose this article for several reasons.  One is that the Polish language is related to the Czech language, more so than other Slavic languages like Russian or Serbian, and the two countries have some cultural similarities.  Another is that I privileged to interview a Polish classmate for another Linguistics class and was curious to see if I recognized any of the problems with the system that she had identified from a student’s perspective while working on her Master’s degree in in Poland.  Yet another reason was that Reichelt cites the Leki article that I blogged about in “Official Blog Entry # 3” last week.  I was curious to see what Reichelt had to say about the observations made by Leki.

 Some of Reichelt’s main points are that English holds a special privileged place in Polish foreign language education on the basis that it will positively influence one’s career options, writing instruction is “shaped significantly by pressure to prepare students for the writing sections of various English-language exams” (Reichelt 225), and fears regarding English’s “potential to erode local languages and values” (Reichelt 225) are largely unwarranted.  English is seen as a handy tool to interact in the European community and is in affect being “Europeanized.” (Reichelt 225).

To support this theory, Reichelt focused on a large metropolitan area of central Poland and studying English language learning at several levels:  “the university’s English Department, two secondary schools and the city’s largest private language institute.” (Reichelt 216)  Her interview questions, samples of a major writing exam, some writing assignments and writing samples are provided in the article appendices.  She discovered that following the fall of Communism English language learning became more popular than ever and surpassed Russian and German as the foreign language of preference in the schools.  Primary students receive basic grammar and language instruction.  Secondary students receive more and a little writing instruction.  The majority of L2 Writing instruction takes place at the college level and in private language instiutes.  While the writing assignments given at the college level are primarily for English majors and rely heavily on genre theory, they appear to neglect the reality of L1 writing tradition in Poland and are mostly geared to aiding the major required English writing exam.  Most adults that attend the private language institutes do so to further their careers or to aide in business communication throughout Europe and the world.  The fears of English surpassing Polish are not an issue as it is primarily a tool of international communication, not a replacement for Polish thought and literature and everyday interaction.

I would recommend this article to colleagues, particularly those interested in TEFLing in Central and Eastern Europe.  The insight into the system of this one particular country is invaluable.  It also helps solidify the reality of L2 language writing in a world environment.  It echoes the problems observed by my Polish friend during her studies and supports Leki’s arguments from last week’s blog post.  I consider this to be one of the most useful articles I have read so far for better understanding the EFL attitudes of my former Czech students and work environment.

Official Blog Entry #3

Leki, I. (2001). Material, Educational and Ideological Challenges of Teaching EFL Writing at the Turn of the Century. International Journal of English Studies, 1(2), 197-209.

The main point of Ms. Leki’s article is to outline the challenges facing English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Writing Instructors and programs and to challenge teachers and EFL language programs to include writing instruction in their boarder programs while acknowledging the inherent challenges and obstacles.  She does this by reviewing the 2 groups of challenges.  On one hand are the common problems language and writing teachers struggle with “such as class size, time constraints, accommodating local needs, and coping with the problems connected to lack of both teacher experience in teaching L2 writing and student training in L1 writing” (Leki 197).  On the other hand are the “more ideological” challenges of justifying the “large investment required…, the right to resist center imposed materials and methods, the need for dialogue with students about the role of writing in their lives, and the need to make L2 writing enhance learner options rather than limit them…” (Leki 197)

In the first group of challenges, the common problems, Leki points out the following problems:

·         Large classes of 30 or more severely challenge a writing teacher who must grade not only for obvious grammatical problems, but must also wade through multiple drafts per student per assignment in order to give essential and detailed feedback to the student for their overall writing development. 

·         Administrators are often unaware of these time requirements and may or may not be prepared to support the teachers in both their time needs and the material support/limited class size required for a successful writing program.

·         There is also a need to take into account the unique needs of the locale and to develop methods for meeting those needs and tailoring a program for meeting the writing goals accordingly.

·         It is not uncommon for EFL teachers without writing instruction training to be called upon to teach L2 writing and writing textbooks may or may not be available to assist the EFL teacher to improve their own L2 writing instruction skills.

·         As L1 writing is not always as valued or common in every society, it is wrong to assume that every EFL teacher has had the same personal writing experiences in their L1 language. 

·         Students also may have limited experience in L1 writing to draw on for developing their L2 writing skills.

·         There is often a heavy emphasis on grammatical “correctness” in both L1 and foreign language learning environments.  This in turn often inhibits the development of a sense of personal “voice” in the L2 as the emphasis tends to be on translating rather than expression.

·         Even those students with limited writing experience in both their L1 and their L2 have been exposed to the literature and rhetoric of their first language.  Allowances must be made by both teacher and student to adopt the rhetoric and cultural styles of their target L2 audience.  (Leki 200-202, paraphrased)

The group 2 “ideological” challenges are too many to list in detail in this brief summary and review.  Briefly, she points out once again the inherent expense of writing programs in both time and materials, the need to make L2 writing a reality and necessity for the student, and the appropriate times to resist externally imposed pedagogy from first tier English-speaking countries in favor of locally adapted methods.  In conclusion, Leki supports a “balancing act” of the challenges that face students in developing their L2 writing skills and the investments needed by both teachers and institutions to develop reflective and supportive writing programs that focus on the finding the writer’s voice and expand their skills to match their individual intellects.

I found this to be a very insightful and dense summary of the challenges facing EFL and L2 writing instruction in general.  I would recommend this article to colleagues that are particularly interested in L2 writing from an EFL perspective as this can have different challenges from an ESL environment.  Teaching English in a foreign country where it is not a primary language has unique problems that may not be found in an environment where English is the dominant language of business and everyday experience.

Official Blog Post #2

Zhai, L. (2008). Research Methods in the Study of Influencing Factors on L2 Writing Performance. Canadian Social Science, 4(6), 66-74.

The journal source for this week’s article is a little different than the usual selection of Linguistic, TESL, TESOL, TEFL or composition journals.  However, it is still refereed and pertinent to my focus for the semester.

Lifang Zhai’ article is a review of research studies and methods.  Ten studies are reviewed and analyzed for classification, method and effectiveness. Most of the studies selected for review are survey type studies and quantitative in the data gathered with most of the data being statistical in nature.

Again this is a scientifically arranged article with an abstract, an introduction, a review of methods/procedure and a conclusion.  The main goals of the article as stated in the introduction are to answer the following:

            What research methods are adopted in the study?

            What possible improvements can be made? (Zhai 67)

After discussing the various study methods used, Lifang Zhai returns to his 2 questions in the conclusion.  He has already answered the first question in great depth during the types of research, participant and instrument sections.  The part that most has my attention is the suggestions he offers for improvements based on his analysis.  He has specific areas that he sees could stand improvement in future studies.

1.    As for participants, future studies can be improved by increasing the size of samples to enhance the representativeness and generalizability of the results.

2.    And the proficiency level can be more accurately evaluated by a combination of several methods.

3.    …Future studies can pay more attention to controlling extraneous variables like time restriction, dictionary use, conducting pilot studies before the main ones and adopting more than one data analysis tool for cross-checking.  (Zhai 72)

Lifang Zhai’s recommendations are aimed at scientific objectivity of the studies and improving the chances of repeat results by other researchers under similar circumstances.

An observation…I suspect that either Lifang Zhai is a World English speaker or there is a yet another unnoticed difference between British or in this case Canadian English and American English.  At different times throughout the article, he comments on things like “the rest 8 studies” (Zhai 68).  My usual inclination as an American English speaker would be to say either “the remaining 8 studies” or perhaps in the right context “the rest of the 8 studies.”  I understand that British English sometimes has different approaches to collective nouns than American English and this may be one of those cases, or it may be a World English influence of which I am not aware.  Either way, I found it both interesting and mildly distracting (for the obsessive proofreader that I tend to be when reading other people's work...).

Would I recommend this article to colleagues or students?  Probably yes.  It is good to see what studies are being done on Second Language Writing performance and influences.  This study reviews a varied number of studies and analyzes them from both an objective and informed perspective.  It offers insight into how future studies can improve on the lessons learned in the test studies and hints at how teachers may adjust their teaching methods to better take advantage of L1 writing style and literacy in the L2 classroom.  This is a fairly valuable little tool regardless of quirks.  J

Official Blog Entry #1

Crossley, S. A., & McNamara, D. S. (2011).  Shared features of L2 writing: Intergroup homogeneity and text classification. Journal of Second Language Writing, 20(4), 271-285.  doi:10.1016/j.jslw.2011.05.007

This is a study reported in the style of a scientific report.  Not unlike the format used by the physical sciences for lab and research reports at both the academic and professional levels.  It rather reminded me of research reports that I referenced in college when I was Biology major.  The objective of the study “is to investigate the potential for linguistic features related to text cohesion, lexical sophistication and syntactic complexity to discriminate between texts written by L1 and L2 writers” (Crossley & McNamara, 2011).  In other words, they were hoping to identify and prove certain linguistic markers and patterns can be used to predict and identify L2 writers and L1 writers in a diverse collection of argumentative papers. 

                They compared a selection of 904 L2 argumentative papers (a mixture of German, Czech, Spanish and Finnish L1 writers) from the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE) and 211 L1 essays from “native English speaking college students in first year persuasive writing classes” (Crossley & McNamara, 2011).  Several tests and measures were used for data collection and analysis.  After presenting their reasons for the methods selected and presenting the results that they found, they discussed the findings.   They felt that the results supported their claim that “intergroup homogeneity exists in the linguistic patterns of L2 writers” (Crossley & McNamara, 2011).  They argue that their results show that L2 writers use “less sophisticated lexical features and less sophisticated morphological features” (Crossley & McNamara, 2011).  These are indicated in the four linguistic features of hypernymy, polysemy, stem overlap and lexical diversity.  L2 writers words are more general resulting in lower hypernymy scores and less ambiguous and so give lower polysemy scores (Crossley & McNamara, 2011).  For stem overlap, L2 writers are not as likely to use words that “share stems between sentences” (Crossley & McNamara, 2011).  That is they are not as likely to repeat the same root concept in different morphologies in the same paper or paragraph (i.e. artisic and artistically).   While L2 writers were found to employ a greater lexical diversity than the L1 writers that did not mean that they were more proficient than the L1 writers.  That is more an indicator of “rhetorical strategies” (Crossley & McNamara, 2011). 

While their study and findings appear to prove their point, I am not sure that this article has aided my focus for the semester or done anything for my personal development other than to add to my lexical knowledge of field specific terminology.  I will say that it has me wanting to explore the test and measures they used for future personal academic use.  Would I recommend this article to peers and scholars?  I would say ‘yes’ with qualifications.  If the individual is looking to determine factors that influence L2 writing styles or methods for identifying L2 writers from L1 writers in a mixed pool of essays, then yes this article could be a useful tool.  However, for myself, it did not offer as much insight into the Czech EFL psyche as I would like and only gave me limited clues as to how to specially tailor L2 writing exercises for Czech and other Slavic EFL students.