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The purpose of this study is to enrich understandings of the major issues encountered when tutoring writing with beginner-intermediate level Japanese EFL students in a Japanese university. Specifically, the thesis examines how students and tutors perceive the challenges experienced in EFL tutoring and the various roles tutors adopt during EFL writing tutoring sessions with Japanese beginner-intermediate students. A mixed method approach is employed utilizing different methods that combine qualitative and quantitative data. Four data collection methods were utilized: pre and post-semester interviews with writing tutors: student questionnaires from a sample size of 24: 30 tutorial observations: and two tutor training workshops (quasi-focus group). Symbolic interactionism (SI) provided a framework for analyzing tutors‟ roles and their practices during EFL writing tutorials. This view assumes that roles emerge from, and are significantly shaped by, interactions in specific social settings. It was found that writing tutors adopt the following roles: proofreader, translator, coach, teacher, mediator, and timekeeper based on their interaction with the individual student. Each role was adopted as a reaction to a challenge but also created new problems. Many of the roles the tutors adopted in this study parallel the research on roles tutors adopt in the ESL writing center, however in EFL tutoring these roles are magnified. For example, in this study tutors play both the role of teacher and mediator to a much larger degree. The translator role however is unique to EFL tutoring. The roles put forth encompass a different way for tutors to think about effective tutoring in an EFL setting with beginner-intermediate students. This study contributes a deeper understanding as to how administrators and writing tutors can better conduct writing center tutorials with EFL students.

In recent years, US elementary and secondary education has put more emphasis on advancing students’ academic literacy. To address this need, many teachers have looked to systemic functional linguistics (SFL) theory to frame writing instruction. Drawing from this literature, this report identifies major pedagogical principles relevant for an English as a foreign language (EFL) instructional context, delineates the linguistic markers characteristic of academic registers, and expands on the existing literature in regards to feedback and error correction. SFL-informed literacy instruction can benefit English language instruction in countries such as South Korea, where learners’ writing development has traditionally been neglected. The report begins with a brief overview of systemic functional linguistics, and follows with a review of the literature on SFL-based writing pedagogy. Implications for EFL educational settings are discussed. / text

本研究旨在分析臺灣英語系大學生在英語故事寫作方面的表現。研究對象為二十位某大學英語系三年級學生，藉由分析這些學生寫作的故事所呈現出的敘事結構，期望能發現學生寫作故事的模式，寫作上的長處與弱點，在寫作方面遇到的困難，以及文化背景是否影響其寫作表現。 研究結果顯示，學生寫作的故事呈現不同的敘事結構，而這些敘事結構反映出他們對於英語故事的基本元素已有初步的了解，但仍需要老師進一步在文體區隔、內容、以及校訂等方面給予指導，以增強其故事寫作技巧。此外，學生的作品中表現了許多文化特徵，這些特徵也同樣可在泰國、越南、不丹等學生的故事作品中發現，因此，本研究或許可作為亞洲文化間具有高度相似性的證明。 / The purpose of this study is to investigate the story-writing performance of college English majors in Taiwan in terms of narrative structure. A total of twenty stories composed by twenty junior English majors of one national university were analyzed based on the conventional English story structure. The collected stories were part of the students’ normal school work rather than specially designed tasks. Through a narrative structure analysis of the collected data, different structural patterns were discovered, including (1) Description, (2) Abbreviated Story, (3) Complete Story, (4) Lengthened Story, and (5) Complex Story. The structural uses not only reflect the learners’ writing styles but also represent their strengths and weaknesses in writing. Overall, the results show that although these students have possessed the basic knowledge of the structural conventions, they still need instruction in terms of content, editing, genre-distinction, or formal devices to enhance their story-writing skills. In addition, cultural characteristics were discovered in the writings. The preferences observed coincide with the characteristics of narrative writings of Bhutanese, Vietnamese, and Thai cultures in many ways. Therefore, the findings of this study may also serve as evidence for the great similarities that existed among Asian cultures.

Although the benefits of peer feedback have been widely studied in the EFL classroom, fewer studies have focused on the perceived challenges of giving and receiving peer feedback from the perspective of upper secondary students in Sweden. Therefore, the aim of this qualitative study is to increase teachers’ knowledge of the challenges surrounding peer feedback for EFL writing as voiced by students. This study also discusses students’ suggestions to minimise such challenges. Using data collected from eleven semi-structured interviews with students, thematic analysis and the theoretical framework of Sociocultural theory, this study found that giving feedback was perceived as being more challenging than receiving feedback. Moreover, findings show that the majority of students perceive heterogeneous language proficiencies and negative emotions arising from negative feedback to be major challenges, hence students’ suggestions for homogenous language proficiency groupings and for anonymous feedback. It can be concluded that students’ beliefs about peer feedback in heterogeneous language proficiency pairings and various negative emotions related to peer feedback can influence language development negatively.

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Enabling learners to successfully use their second language (L2) in meaningful ways is a critical goal of instruction. Ultimately, most learners want to meet the L2 demands of the contexts in which they will use the language. To accomplish this, learners must develop linguistic knowledge and apply it in a manner that is contextually appropriate considering the requirements of the task at hand. In other words, learners must develop their L2 across both linguistic and communicative aspects to use it successfully. However, there is a paucity of L2 research in which linguistic and communicative performance have been simultaneously investigated.In this study, I investigated the development of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ L2 written production across the lexical and communicative dimensions of performance. The study involved 290 Japanese participants recruited from 20 intact EFL classes at four tertiary educational institutions in Japan, representing a wide range of L2 English proficiency levels and instructional contexts. The study used a non-intervention, repeated-measures design, allowing for the general development of participants’ L2 English writing to be examined. Participants’ L2 English written responses were collected using four argumentative writing tasks, which were administered at the beginning and end of the first and second semesters in a counterbalanced manner. Although a total of 952 responses were collected, responses shorter than 50 words were removed, leaving a total of 775 responses written by 250 participants. The 775 responses included in the primary analyses constituted a corpus of 89,122 words. Twenty-four single-word, multi-word, and lexical variation measures were calculated for the responses and subjected to an exploratory factor analysis. Seven latent lexical factors were identified in the data: High-Frequency Trigrams, Lexical Clarity, High-Frequency Bigrams, Lexical Variation, Lexical Breadth, Low-Frequency N-Grams, and Directional Association Strength of N-Grams. In addition, raters scored the responses for functional adequacy (i.e., Content, Comprehensibility, Organization, and Task Completion) and Lexical Appropriateness. The scores were analyzed using many-facet Rasch measurement, which converted the ordinal scores into equal-interval measures that had been adjusted for the influences of task and rater severity. The lexical factor scores and communicative Rasch measures were examined using linear mixed modeling, dominance analysis, and latent growth modeling to investigate (a) if and how lexical development had occurred, (b) if and how communicative development had occurred, (c) the relationships between the lexical and communicative components, and (d) the relationship between lexical and communicative growth. For the lexical factors, the results indicated that Directional Association Strength of N-Grams scores increased in a linear manner. Directional Association Strength of N-Grams comprised ΔP scores, which indicate the degree to which the first word(s) are predictive of the following word(s) in two- and three-word combinations. Thus, the results indicated that participants’ use of multi-word expressions improved. On the other hand, Lexical Clarity, which comprised imageability, concreteness, meaningfulness, and hypernymy scores, showed quadratic change, with scores improving and then regressing. Thus, the findings provide evidence of differing developmental trends for lexical aspects of L2 writing. For the communicative measures, the results indicated that Comprehensibility, Organization, and Lexical Appropriateness changed substantially over time. Improvement of Task Completion was dependent on the university context, and little change was observed for Content. Lexical Appropriateness showed the most improvement, with evidence of both linear and quadratic change. Bias interaction analyses also confirmed the presence of linear and quadratic trends for the communicative measures. Thus, the findings provide evidence of differing developmental trends for communicative aspects of L2 writing. For the relationships between the lexical and communicative components, the results indicated that two lexical factors were of key importance: Lexical Variation and Directional Association Strength of N-Grams. Lexical Variation was found to predict Content, Organization, and Task Completion; and Directional Association Strength of N-Grams was found to predict Comprehensibility and Lexical Appropriateness. The findings suggest that L2 performance assessments should not conflate measurement of lexical variation and use of multi-word expressions because they diverge in terms of the communicative outcomes they predict. The results also indicated a positive relationship between lexical and communicative development. A parallel process latent growth model was constructed that related lexical and communicative growth. The paths tested in the model suggest participants who had lower initial communicative scores were able to increase their lexical scores at faster rates, which in turn leveraged communicative growth. The findings highlight the potential for learners to improve their communicative ability through a targeted focus on multi-word expressions. / Applied Linguistics

This dissertation uses a mixed methods design to explore the process of EFL students' writing and peer review, setting up a paradigm of peer compared to self review, with teacher support. The findings that surfaced were identified in themes, with the most overarching theme being that the value of peer review came not from the actual feedback that the peers gave each other, but rather from the collaborative process of peer review. Students who were actively engaged in peer review often did not take the exact advice given, but the process of exchanging feedback followed by face-to-face discussion prompted them to think of new ideas of their own that they incorporated into their revisions. The following findings are related to this major one. (1) Both the writing proficiency of the student writers and the understanding they have of the feedback given have a symbiotic relationship and greatly affect how they apply feedback. In this study, students at higher writing proficiencies tended to include some abstract feedback, but regardless of the students' writing levels, their partners' were able to make revisions at their own level of proficiency. (2) Both peer and self reviewing students made revisions based more on their own inspirations and ownership of ideas rather than on the exact advice exchanged between partners. Often, students developed and incorporated ideas that appeared to be generated from the peer feedback and discussion, pointing to the significance of peer collaboration and discussion in the writing process. (3) Although previous studies have suggested that non-native speakers' tendency to give feedback on grammatical issues as a drawback, the in-depth examination here reveals a more positive perspective. Even when comments, such as regarding grammar, were rated as "incorrect," students were often able to make positive changes, such as rewording or reorganizing. The results brings insights to the impact of abstract feedback for varying proficiency levels, ownership of ideas, internalization of concepts, and interdependence in the collaborative peer review process within a Vygotskian framework of concept development and the ZPD. Implications for research, writing program administrators, and writing instructors are identified.

The present licentiate thesis aims to investigate pupils’ understanding and use of teacher written feedback in English as a foreign language (EFL). The study was carried out in two Swedish lower secondary schools in two different classrooms, one in year eight with 14-year-old pupils and one in year nine with 15-year-old pupils. A case study research design was adopted to gain insights into nine pupils’ understand-ing and use of feedback. The three participants in year eight wrote ‘a letter to Barack Obama’ and received teacher written feedback in their draft texts and on a separate paper with individualized comments. The six pupils in year nine wrote about ‘mov-ies’ and received teacher written feedback in their draft texts but were also provided with a writing checklist. Data were collected from multiple sources but the data used for analysis were comprised of pupils’ draft and final version texts and pupil reflec-tive interviews.  The findings suggest that pupils understand many of the issues addressed by the teachers in their written feedback. Most pupils express their understanding using everyday language and by resorting to different strategies such as explaining why the feedback is provided, suggesting adequate changes or just by providing a correc-tion. However, it seems hard for a few pupils to understand the use of implicit types of written feedback. The results of the present study also suggest that it is hard to know a priori what pupils will experience as difficult to understand when it comes to the language used by the teachers in their written explanations. The findings further show that the majority of feedback points trigger pupils to make revision operations that involve major text-based changes. In other words pupils make more changes than those addressed in the teachers’ written feedback. The results also highlight that most pupils do not challenge their teachers’ feedback.  The findings of this study contribute to research on foreign language (FL) writing by providing insights from pupils’ perspectives and may fill a gap in the field of FL writing, since there are not many studies based on pupils’ perceptions. The context in which this study took place, lower secondary level and EFL in Sweden, also makes an additional contribution to the field of FL writing.