Writing tasks are central in the subject of Swedish, and they can be designed in various ways. The variation in design when teachers construct their own writing tasks can be due to differing views of the teaching of writing and exercises in writing. The aim of this work is to investigate how different discourses about writing and learning to write become visible in teachers’ constructions of writing tasks, and whether there are different degrees of steering in the tasks in relation to the discourse(s) to which they can be said to belong. Twelve writing tasks were examined in the study with the aid of Ivanič’s (2004) framework for analysis of discourses about writing and learning to write, and the result shows that the creativity discourse dominates among the tasks and that the sociopolitical discourse is sparsely represented among them. Several tasks have features of more than one discourse and can therefore be called hybrids. The degree of steering by the designer of the task differs between the tasks. In tasks that can be linked to the skills discourse there is usually a high degree of steering of the content, and in tasks that can be linked to the creativity discourse the designer of the task uses a different form of steering with questions which mean that the teacher gains access to personal information about the pupils.

This study mainly aimed at investigating the academic writing needs and writing self-efficacy beliefs of graduate students studying at an English-medium university, Ankara. Furthermore, such areas that have a crucial role in determining writing needs as the frequency of writing tasks, usefulness of written sources, perceived importance of academic writing, and role of Turkish while writing were explored. In this study, quantitative data via &ldquo / Academic Writing Needs Assessment Survey for Graduate Students&rdquo / were collected from 213 graduate students enrolled at Graduate School of Social Sciences. Descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, and multiple regression analyses were employed to analyze the data. The results of descriptive statistics indicated that the graduate students need a wider vocabulary repertoire in order to cope with the challenges of academic writing and they are mostly assigned longer research papers. In addition, using journal articles published in the area of specialization during writing was the most common method and more than half of the graduate students stated that when stuck with finding the right word, they first look for a Turkish word first. The exploratory factor analysis produced two factors and the regression analyses were carried out. The results yielded that the predictors accounted for 24% of the variance in productivity-related academic writing needs, and 22% of the variance in accuracy-related academic writing needs. For the productivity-related academic writing needs, writing self-efficacy and academic status made a significant contribution and for the accuracy-related academic writing needs, writing self-efficacy and English proficiency exam score were significant.

Although much research has reported the effectiveness of task repetition on oral performance (Bygate, 2018), few studies have investigated its effectiveness on writing performance (Manchón, 2014), especially in languages other than English. For instance, Nitta and Baba’s (2014) longitudinal study revealed that EFL undergraduates considerably progressed their syntactic complexity and lexical aspects, but not fluency, through repeating a timed writing task. In relation to the task repetition, however, whether and how L2 learners develop their grammatical accuracy and communicative adequacy (Pallotti, 2009) has remained unclear in the literature. Furthermore, in addition to the linguistic measurements and the qualitative assessments, scant research has attempted to investigate whether any significant changes are brought about in terms of learners’ perceptions through repeating language tasks. <br>Therefore, the current study has shed new light on the developmental changes in the writing performance of Japanese-as-a-foreign-language (JFL) learners. It investigated whether any remarkable changes are brought about in terms of overall complexity, complexity by subordination, accuracy, and fluency through repeating a weekly “15-Minute Writing Task” throughout one academic semester (16 weeks) and one academic year (32 weeks). The writing task topics were considered in terms of the Cognition Hypothesis (Robinson, 2001), which states that different cognitive demands of tasks will lead to different L2 output. Regarding this point, this study explored whether there were any significant differences between two task types: descriptive and argumentative essays. JFL learners who were enrolled in an intermediate-level course at an American university engaged in the two different types of timed writing tasks.<br>First, the one-semester investigation, based on the pre/posttest analysis, revealed different patterns between the two types of writing tasks. For the descriptive essays, despite the improvements in overall complexity, complexity by subordination, and fluency with a large effect size (r ≥ .6) (Plonsky & Oswald, 2014), no significant findings were confirmed for accuracy. In contrast, in the argumentative essays, the learners improved all the linguistic aspects but with a medium effect size (.4 ≤ r < .6).<br>Second, in the one-year investigation, the JFL learners significantly improved overall complexity, complexity by subordination, and fluency during the study period. The dynamic systems approach (Verspoor & van Dijk, 2011) also unraveled the developmental trajectories to show how different variables interacted in the two different types of writing tasks, respectively, throughout the measurement period. Although there were no statistically significant differences in grammatical accuracy measures, the process of L2 writing development showed fluctuations, demonstrating that the improvements in syntactic complexity seemed to have caused many grammatical errors temporarily. Lastly, the learners’ compositions, which were also assessed qualitatively by two native Japanese speakers in terms of readability, indicated significant improvements in communicative adequacy.<br>Finally, to investigate any changes in the learners’ beliefs toward Japanese writing before and after the task repetition, the JFL learners completed the Belief Questionnaire About Writing in Japanese (Ishibashi, 2009). In addition, to examine any changes in foreign language anxiety with a focus on Japanese writing, the learners were required to complete the second-language version of the Daly-Miller Writing Apprehension Test (Cheng, Horwitz, & Schallert, 1999). The study found that the extensive writing experience had a positive impact on the JFL learners’ confidence and willingness when writing in L2 Japanese.<br><br>

<p>The question as to which language should be used as a medium of instruction in schools in multilingual societies is a controversial one. In South Africa, the question is often posed in binary terms: Should the medium of instruction be a familiar local language such as Xhosa or a language of wider communication like English? This study is an attempt to answer the above question. The study profiled the writing abilities of Grade 4 and Grade 7 pupils at Themba Primary, a school located in Khayelitsha in the Western Cape, in both their mother tongue, Xhosa, and in English, their official medium of instruction at school since Grade 4. Three written tasks, which consisted of a narrative piece of writing, a reading comprehension exercise, and an expository piece of writing, were administered to the pupils in English and Xhosa. The purpose of the exercise was to examine some of the implications for educational language policy of the differences in performance in the two languages. All the tasks were authentic, in that they were based on aspects of the pupils&rsquo / curriculum and written in the formal academic language pupils were expected to be exposed to in their respective grades. All the tasks were graded systematically under controlled conditions.</p>

<p>The question as to which language should be used as a medium of instruction in schools in multilingual societies is a controversial one. In South Africa, the question is often posed in binary terms: Should the medium of instruction be a familiar local language such as Xhosa or a language of wider communication like English? This study is an attempt to answer the above question. The study profiled the writing abilities of Grade 4 and Grade 7 pupils at Themba Primary, a school located in Khayelitsha in the Western Cape, in both their mother tongue, Xhosa, and in English, their official medium of instruction at school since Grade 4. Three written tasks, which consisted of a narrative piece of writing, a reading comprehension exercise, and an expository piece of writing, were administered to the pupils in English and Xhosa. The purpose of the exercise was to examine some of the implications for educational language policy of the differences in performance in the two languages. All the tasks were authentic, in that they were based on aspects of the pupils&rsquo / curriculum and written in the formal academic language pupils were expected to be exposed to in their respective grades. All the tasks were graded systematically under controlled conditions.</p>

O Curso de Espanhol/Português de Intercâmbio – CEPI é um curso a distância que tem como objetivo preparar os estudantes intercambistas participantes do Programa Escala, no âmbito da Associação de Universidades Grupo Montevidéu (AUGM), para a experiência de intercâmbio antes de a mobilidade espacial ocorrer. A partir da realização de tarefas que antecipem situações com as quais deverão lidar durante seu intercâmbio propriamente dito (SCHLATTER et al, 2007), buscou-se elaborar tarefas relevantes para tal contexto de intercâmbio na plataforma Moodle. Tendo em vista que as relações humanas ocorrem através do uso da linguagem e que essa, por sua vez, se dá por meio de gêneros, pode-se afirmar que são esses gêneros que organizam nossa comunicação (BAKHTIN, 2003). Para compor as condições de produção para os diferentes usos da língua em cenários relevantes para os intercambistas, as informações contidas nos enunciados das tarefas são fundamentais para orientar a compreensão dos alunos no que diz respeito ao que lhe é proposto. É a partir da leitura do enunciado da tarefa que o aluno encontrará uma motivação para a leitura do texto e para a produção de seu próprio texto em resposta à leitura feita. Essa motivação pode ser apresentada através da explicitação da situação comunicativa proposta: uma interlocução (quem lê/quem escreve), um propósito (para que) e a composição do texto (de que maneira). O foco deste trabalho é analisar as 23 tarefas de leitura e produção escrita elaboradas para a terceira edição do CEPI com o intuito de verificar se: 1) as ações projetadas nas tarefas refletem o que está proposto nos objetivos gerais e específicos do curso; e 2) as produções escritas dos alunos atualizam as ações projetadas por essas tarefas. Para isso, analiso os enunciados das tarefas com o intuito de verificar a explicitação dos componentes necessários para projetar a configuração da interlocução, critério fundamental para a realização da ação e, portanto, para cumprir a tarefa de leitura e escrita (SCHOFFEN, 2009; GOMES, 2009; CARILO, 2009). Analiso também 15 produções escritas de alunos do CEPI para verificar como esses textos atualizam as ações projetadas pelas tarefas. A análise apontou que os enunciados das tarefas analisadas explicitam o gênero discursivo de recepção e produção e que essas tarefas estão adequadas às ferramentas do Moodle na qual se apresentam para leitura/escrita. Além disso, é possível, a partir das produções dos alunos, verificar a realização das ações projetadas para tais tarefas. Com base nesses resultados, sugiro alterações nos enunciados das tarefas que explicitem mais detalhadamente as condições de produção para as ações projetadas, esperando contribuir para a discussão acerca da elaboração de tarefas de leitura e produção escrita no ensino de Línguas Adicionais no contexto a distância. / The Spanish and Portuguese Courses for University Exchange Students – CEPI is an online course that aims at preparing exchange students who are part of Programa Escala, within Montevideo Group Universities Association (AUGM), to the exchange experiences before their spatial mobility. By developing tasks that anticipate situations with which those students will deal during their exchange itself (SCHLATTER et al, 2007), we sought to develop tasks that would be relevant to this exchange context having Moodle as our online platform. Considering that human relationships arise through the use of language and that occurs through genres, it can be said that these genres organize our communication (BAKHTIN, 2003). In order to set production conditions to different uses of language in relevant scenarios for those exchange students, the information included in the tasks’ rubrics is crucial to guide students’ comprehension regarding what is being proposed. It is by reading the tasks’ rubrics that students will find motivation to read the text and to write their production as a response to that text they have read. This motivation might be presented by clarifying the communicative situation proposed in the rubrics: an interlocution (who reads/who writes), a purpose (what for) and the text composition (how). The present study has the objective of analyzing the twenty three reading and writing tasks developed to the third edition of CEPI in order to verify is 1) the actions projected by the tasks reflect what is proposed by the course’s general and specific objectives; and 2) the students’ written productions confirm those actions projected by the tasks. For that purpose, I analyze the tasks’ rubrics in order to verify the clarity regarding necessary components to project interlocution configuration, fundamental criterion to perform those actions and, therefore, to accomplish the reading and writing task (SCHOFFEN, 2009; GOMES, 2009; CARILO, 2009). I also analyze fifteen written productions from CEPI students to verify how those writings confirm the actions projected by the tasks. The analysis indicated that the tasks’ rubrics which were analyzed clarify discourse genres for reception and production and that those tasks are adequate to the tools of Moodle they are presented to be read/written. Furthermore, it is possible to verify that the students perform the actions projected by the tasks through their written productions. Based on these results, I suggest to alter some rubrics so that the tasks might further clarify production conditions to the projected actions, hoping, thereupon, to contribute to the discussion concerning reading and writing tasks development for Additional Language teaching in online context.

O Curso de Espanhol/Português de Intercâmbio – CEPI é um curso a distância que tem como objetivo preparar os estudantes intercambistas participantes do Programa Escala, no âmbito da Associação de Universidades Grupo Montevidéu (AUGM), para a experiência de intercâmbio antes de a mobilidade espacial ocorrer. A partir da realização de tarefas que antecipem situações com as quais deverão lidar durante seu intercâmbio propriamente dito (SCHLATTER et al, 2007), buscou-se elaborar tarefas relevantes para tal contexto de intercâmbio na plataforma Moodle. Tendo em vista que as relações humanas ocorrem através do uso da linguagem e que essa, por sua vez, se dá por meio de gêneros, pode-se afirmar que são esses gêneros que organizam nossa comunicação (BAKHTIN, 2003). Para compor as condições de produção para os diferentes usos da língua em cenários relevantes para os intercambistas, as informações contidas nos enunciados das tarefas são fundamentais para orientar a compreensão dos alunos no que diz respeito ao que lhe é proposto. É a partir da leitura do enunciado da tarefa que o aluno encontrará uma motivação para a leitura do texto e para a produção de seu próprio texto em resposta à leitura feita. Essa motivação pode ser apresentada através da explicitação da situação comunicativa proposta: uma interlocução (quem lê/quem escreve), um propósito (para que) e a composição do texto (de que maneira). O foco deste trabalho é analisar as 23 tarefas de leitura e produção escrita elaboradas para a terceira edição do CEPI com o intuito de verificar se: 1) as ações projetadas nas tarefas refletem o que está proposto nos objetivos gerais e específicos do curso; e 2) as produções escritas dos alunos atualizam as ações projetadas por essas tarefas. Para isso, analiso os enunciados das tarefas com o intuito de verificar a explicitação dos componentes necessários para projetar a configuração da interlocução, critério fundamental para a realização da ação e, portanto, para cumprir a tarefa de leitura e escrita (SCHOFFEN, 2009; GOMES, 2009; CARILO, 2009). Analiso também 15 produções escritas de alunos do CEPI para verificar como esses textos atualizam as ações projetadas pelas tarefas. A análise apontou que os enunciados das tarefas analisadas explicitam o gênero discursivo de recepção e produção e que essas tarefas estão adequadas às ferramentas do Moodle na qual se apresentam para leitura/escrita. Além disso, é possível, a partir das produções dos alunos, verificar a realização das ações projetadas para tais tarefas. Com base nesses resultados, sugiro alterações nos enunciados das tarefas que explicitem mais detalhadamente as condições de produção para as ações projetadas, esperando contribuir para a discussão acerca da elaboração de tarefas de leitura e produção escrita no ensino de Línguas Adicionais no contexto a distância. / The Spanish and Portuguese Courses for University Exchange Students – CEPI is an online course that aims at preparing exchange students who are part of Programa Escala, within Montevideo Group Universities Association (AUGM), to the exchange experiences before their spatial mobility. By developing tasks that anticipate situations with which those students will deal during their exchange itself (SCHLATTER et al, 2007), we sought to develop tasks that would be relevant to this exchange context having Moodle as our online platform. Considering that human relationships arise through the use of language and that occurs through genres, it can be said that these genres organize our communication (BAKHTIN, 2003). In order to set production conditions to different uses of language in relevant scenarios for those exchange students, the information included in the tasks’ rubrics is crucial to guide students’ comprehension regarding what is being proposed. It is by reading the tasks’ rubrics that students will find motivation to read the text and to write their production as a response to that text they have read. This motivation might be presented by clarifying the communicative situation proposed in the rubrics: an interlocution (who reads/who writes), a purpose (what for) and the text composition (how). The present study has the objective of analyzing the twenty three reading and writing tasks developed to the third edition of CEPI in order to verify is 1) the actions projected by the tasks reflect what is proposed by the course’s general and specific objectives; and 2) the students’ written productions confirm those actions projected by the tasks. For that purpose, I analyze the tasks’ rubrics in order to verify the clarity regarding necessary components to project interlocution configuration, fundamental criterion to perform those actions and, therefore, to accomplish the reading and writing task (SCHOFFEN, 2009; GOMES, 2009; CARILO, 2009). I also analyze fifteen written productions from CEPI students to verify how those writings confirm the actions projected by the tasks. The analysis indicated that the tasks’ rubrics which were analyzed clarify discourse genres for reception and production and that those tasks are adequate to the tools of Moodle they are presented to be read/written. Furthermore, it is possible to verify that the students perform the actions projected by the tasks through their written productions. Based on these results, I suggest to alter some rubrics so that the tasks might further clarify production conditions to the projected actions, hoping, thereupon, to contribute to the discussion concerning reading and writing tasks development for Additional Language teaching in online context.

O Curso de Espanhol/Português de Intercâmbio – CEPI é um curso a distância que tem como objetivo preparar os estudantes intercambistas participantes do Programa Escala, no âmbito da Associação de Universidades Grupo Montevidéu (AUGM), para a experiência de intercâmbio antes de a mobilidade espacial ocorrer. A partir da realização de tarefas que antecipem situações com as quais deverão lidar durante seu intercâmbio propriamente dito (SCHLATTER et al, 2007), buscou-se elaborar tarefas relevantes para tal contexto de intercâmbio na plataforma Moodle. Tendo em vista que as relações humanas ocorrem através do uso da linguagem e que essa, por sua vez, se dá por meio de gêneros, pode-se afirmar que são esses gêneros que organizam nossa comunicação (BAKHTIN, 2003). Para compor as condições de produção para os diferentes usos da língua em cenários relevantes para os intercambistas, as informações contidas nos enunciados das tarefas são fundamentais para orientar a compreensão dos alunos no que diz respeito ao que lhe é proposto. É a partir da leitura do enunciado da tarefa que o aluno encontrará uma motivação para a leitura do texto e para a produção de seu próprio texto em resposta à leitura feita. Essa motivação pode ser apresentada através da explicitação da situação comunicativa proposta: uma interlocução (quem lê/quem escreve), um propósito (para que) e a composição do texto (de que maneira). O foco deste trabalho é analisar as 23 tarefas de leitura e produção escrita elaboradas para a terceira edição do CEPI com o intuito de verificar se: 1) as ações projetadas nas tarefas refletem o que está proposto nos objetivos gerais e específicos do curso; e 2) as produções escritas dos alunos atualizam as ações projetadas por essas tarefas. Para isso, analiso os enunciados das tarefas com o intuito de verificar a explicitação dos componentes necessários para projetar a configuração da interlocução, critério fundamental para a realização da ação e, portanto, para cumprir a tarefa de leitura e escrita (SCHOFFEN, 2009; GOMES, 2009; CARILO, 2009). Analiso também 15 produções escritas de alunos do CEPI para verificar como esses textos atualizam as ações projetadas pelas tarefas. A análise apontou que os enunciados das tarefas analisadas explicitam o gênero discursivo de recepção e produção e que essas tarefas estão adequadas às ferramentas do Moodle na qual se apresentam para leitura/escrita. Além disso, é possível, a partir das produções dos alunos, verificar a realização das ações projetadas para tais tarefas. Com base nesses resultados, sugiro alterações nos enunciados das tarefas que explicitem mais detalhadamente as condições de produção para as ações projetadas, esperando contribuir para a discussão acerca da elaboração de tarefas de leitura e produção escrita no ensino de Línguas Adicionais no contexto a distância. / The Spanish and Portuguese Courses for University Exchange Students – CEPI is an online course that aims at preparing exchange students who are part of Programa Escala, within Montevideo Group Universities Association (AUGM), to the exchange experiences before their spatial mobility. By developing tasks that anticipate situations with which those students will deal during their exchange itself (SCHLATTER et al, 2007), we sought to develop tasks that would be relevant to this exchange context having Moodle as our online platform. Considering that human relationships arise through the use of language and that occurs through genres, it can be said that these genres organize our communication (BAKHTIN, 2003). In order to set production conditions to different uses of language in relevant scenarios for those exchange students, the information included in the tasks’ rubrics is crucial to guide students’ comprehension regarding what is being proposed. It is by reading the tasks’ rubrics that students will find motivation to read the text and to write their production as a response to that text they have read. This motivation might be presented by clarifying the communicative situation proposed in the rubrics: an interlocution (who reads/who writes), a purpose (what for) and the text composition (how). The present study has the objective of analyzing the twenty three reading and writing tasks developed to the third edition of CEPI in order to verify is 1) the actions projected by the tasks reflect what is proposed by the course’s general and specific objectives; and 2) the students’ written productions confirm those actions projected by the tasks. For that purpose, I analyze the tasks’ rubrics in order to verify the clarity regarding necessary components to project interlocution configuration, fundamental criterion to perform those actions and, therefore, to accomplish the reading and writing task (SCHOFFEN, 2009; GOMES, 2009; CARILO, 2009). I also analyze fifteen written productions from CEPI students to verify how those writings confirm the actions projected by the tasks. The analysis indicated that the tasks’ rubrics which were analyzed clarify discourse genres for reception and production and that those tasks are adequate to the tools of Moodle they are presented to be read/written. Furthermore, it is possible to verify that the students perform the actions projected by the tasks through their written productions. Based on these results, I suggest to alter some rubrics so that the tasks might further clarify production conditions to the projected actions, hoping, thereupon, to contribute to the discussion concerning reading and writing tasks development for Additional Language teaching in online context.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The question as to which language should be used as a medium of instruction in schools in multilingual societies is a controversial one. In South Africa, the question is often posed in binary terms: Should the medium of instruction be a familiar local language such as Xhosa or a language of wider communication like English? This study is an attempt to answer the above question. The study profiled the writing abilities of Grade 4 and Grade 7 pupils at Themba Primary, a school located in Khayelitsha in the Western Cape, in both their mother tongue, Xhosa, and in English, their official medium of instruction at school since Grade 4. Three written tasks, which consisted of a narrative piece of writing, a reading comprehension exercise, and an expository piece of writing, were administered to the pupils in English and Xhosa. The purpose of the exercise was to examine some of the implications for educational language policy of the differences in performance in the two languages. All the tasks were authentic, in that they were based on aspects of the pupils' curriculum and written in the formal academic language pupils were expected to be exposed to in their respective grades. All the tasks were graded systematically under controlled conditions. / South Africa

By combining qualitative and quantitative methods, this study investigates which writing tasks Swedish as a second language teachers use in their teaching of the different school-related text types, how they justify their choices and adaptations of the writing task, and whether any connections can be seen to the national tests in Swedish as a second language writing tasks. The material used is survey responses and previous national tests whose results are then analysed through theories, such as genre pedagogy and Ivanic writing discourses to answer these questions. Previous research shows how factors such as writing task design and real readers can contribute to writing development in students. Previous research also shows how to work with text types in a language development way and how writing instruction is influenced by teachers' writing discourses. This paper shows from the survey responses that a trend among writing tasks in the different text types can be seen and how 8 out of 10 can be linked to previous national tests in Swedish as a second language. The results show that the teachers' reasons for their choice of writing tasks could be linked to previous national tests, to their suitability in writing the text type and the teacher's writing discourse. The teachers' adaptations of the writing tasks have been more about their way of working than the design of the writing task, but adaptations such as simplified language and adapted language have been mentioned. These results are important because they indicate how established genre pedagogy and its circular model have become in Swedish as a second language teaching and how much influence the national test in Swedish as a second language has on the teachers' choice of writing tasks in the different text types.