Although the benefits of group and pair work in the second language (L2) classroom have been extensively studied, most documented research has focused on the use of oral tasks and spoken interaction between learners. Recently however, researchers have begun to investigate the advantages of collaboration on written work. More specifically, with the advancements in computer technology and web-based collaborative platforms like wikis, there has been a growing awareness of the educational possibilities of wikis to enhance L2 writing instruction. This study followed a pretest/posttest repeated measures design to investigate the impact and students' perceptions of wiki-based collaborative writing activities on individual writing performance. The study involved 12 university students in a TOEFL preparation course at a large university in Bogota, Colombia. Students were divided into two groups: the experimental group (n=8) engaged in a series of wiki-based collaborative writing activities and focused practice between pre and posttests, while the control (n=4) received no treatment. Two individual writing samples (pre and posttest) composed by each participant under timed conditions were quantitatively analyzed using the three linguistic developmental measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency. While statistically significant differences were not evident for measures of fluency or accuracy, descriptive statistics showed an overall positive impact for collaborative writing on individual learners' written fluency. Analysis of complexity measures revealed mixed results with respect to learning gains. Further analysis of perception data reported by learners in an exit survey disclosed their positive attitude towards perceived linguistic benefits with regard to the wiki-based collaborative writing activities. Both theoretical and pedagogical implications of the study, limitations, and directions for future research are presented.

Chinese students learning English as a foreign language seem to get good marks in tests, but are poor or limited in their ability to write in English. This dilemma of China's EFL writing instruction seems to be related to the decontextualized EFL writing practices. This study aims to examine how Chinese EFL college students respond to changes in their writing instruction that pays attention to the context of EFL teaching and learning. In this study, context refers to three levels: linguistic context, situational context and cultural context. Using the mixed methods approach, I conducted the study by engaging 60 second-year undergraduate students from a university in China and five Chinese students studying in a joint program in a university in the United States. The Write-to-learn Model based on my context-oriented framework was used in the study. The findings of the study show that following a 5-month training with the Write-to-learn Model, the experimental group improved significantly more than the control group with respect to English writing, indicating that adding context to EFL teaching and learning created positive writing outcomes for EFL students. In addition, the results of this study also demonstrate that the Chinglish phenomenon was related to decontextualized EFL writing practices and thought patterns resulting from culture. Adequate comprehensible input of authentic materials was found to be a good remedy to minimize EFL students' Chinglish expressions. This study found that the Write-to-learn Model was an effective approach in China's EFL writing classes.

published_or_final_version / Applied English Studies / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

This study aimed to examine the relationship between teacher written feedback and change in the writing of tertiary students in their final year of undergraduate study through investigating: (i) the characteristics of final year undergraduate tertiary students’ texts prior to receiving feedback; (ii) the way these characteristics change after written feedback is given; and (iii) the relationship between the changes made and the types of feedback given. The study examined student texts and teacher written feedback that arose naturally out of a third year disciplinary-based unit in which the students each submitted a text three times over the course of a semester, each time receiving feedback and a mark prior to rewriting and resubmitting. Two in-depth non-quantitative analyses were conducted: one analysing the characteristics of each of the students’ texts and how these changed over the course of the process, the other analysing the relationship between the different types of feedback and the changes that occurred in the subsequent text. The analysis of the students’ texts and their changes covered: (i) coherence; (ii) the sources used and the manner in which these were cited and referenced; (iii) academic expression and mechanics; and (iv) additional expectations and requirements of the writing task. These characteristics and their changes were related to the instructional approaches to which all the students had been exposed in their first, second and third year studies. The analysis shows that, on their own accord, the third year students were able to produce a range of generalisable characteristics reflecting the “basics” in writing and demands specific to the tertiary context that had been revealed through the instructional approaches used. The problems in the students’ texts were mainly related to (i) executing and expressing the specific requirements of the task and (ii) their reading of the social context. Most of the changes in the texts were related to the feedback given. Some of these changes directly resolved problems, however, others did not. Some changes occurred to accommodate other changes in the text and some were made to satisfy a demand of the lecturer sometimes resulting in a problem that did not present in the previous text. These findings enabled insights to be drawn on two major views of tertiary student writing: the deficit view in which the problems in student’s texts are seen to be due to a lack of “basic skills”; and the view that students’ problems arise due to the new demands of the tertiary context. The study found that the deficit view and the “new demands” view were unable to explain all the characteristics of the students’ texts and their changes. Arising out of these findings, this study proposes that the characteristics of a student’s text show the end result of how that student negotiated and integrated his/her understanding of form, content and contextual demands at the time of writing. In analysing the relationship between the different types of feedback and the changes that occurred, the feedback was categorised according to the issue that was being addressed, the manner in which it was given, and its scope. The different types of feedback were directly related to the changes that occurred in the students’ subsequent rewrites. The analysis shows that clear direct feedback on which students can act is strongly related to change where it (i) addresses characteristics that could be readily integrated into the existing text without the need to renegotiate the integration of form, content and contextual demands OR (ii) addresses characteristics and indicates to students how to negotiate the integration between form, content and contextual demands where integration in the text needs to change. In addition, the analysis shows that change is further influenced by the balance between the various individual points of feedback and the degree to which they reinforced each other. The findings from both analyses in this study show that the use of feedback that is strongly related to change can improve the writing of all students beyond what they learn through other instructional approaches to writing.

The Grahamstown Tertiary Education Bridging Project (GRATEP) was formed in 1991 by a group of post-matriculants from Grahamstown who had not been accepted into any tertiary institution for 1991. The overall aim of GRATEP was to prepare these students for tertiary education. The Academic Skills Programme at Rhodes University offered a programme in English Language Development. The present study aimed to research the design, implementation and evaluation of the GRATEP English Language Development programme which was implemented from May through to October 1991. A multimethod approach has been used to assess the progress made by the students in terms of developing communicative competence in English and to evaluate the course itself. The data included writing samples, questionnaires, exercises in hierarchical organization, a clozetest, comments made by the students and the participant observers. The programme appeared to have been most effective in terms of building confidence, developing academic skills and encouraging the students to take greater responsibility for their own learning. Statistical comparisons of the first and final writing samples revealed no overall significant improvement in communicative competence in English. However, comparisons of the scores in the categories and sub-categories of communicative competence revealed that students had improved in their ability to structure and organize their writing. The research raised questions about the design, implementation and assessment of non-formal language courses of this kind and made suggestions for improvement and further research.

Many students when they arrive at university do not possess the “cultural capital” (Bourdieu 1977) which is favoured by the institution. The purpose of the English Language for Academic Purposes (ELAP) course and the drafting-responding process is to help students to begin to acquire the “cultural capital” required to succeed at university. The research reported on in this thesis examined the drafting-responding process as it is used to develop students’ writing in the ELAP course at Rhodes University. The process involved students submitting drafts of their essays on which they received constructive and formative feedback from their ELAP tutor. This feedback was then used to revise their essays before a final version was submitted for assessment. The research took the form of a case study with an essentially interpretive orientation. I examined the drafts (with the tutor’s comments) and final versions of seven students’ ELAP essays. Additional data was obtained by interviewing the students and the tutor. Underpinning my beliefs regarding the role of writing in learning as well as my orientation to research is an understanding of knowledge and learning as being socially constructed. All writing is embedded in and dependent on, not only the immediate social circumstances, but also the broader social and cultural context. In analysing and discussing the data in this research I used Halliday’s (1985) definition of context, in which he draws a broad distinction between the immediate context of situation and the broader context of culture The research findings showed that the drafting-responding process can help students with the process of developing the academic literacy they need in order to write essays within specific situational contexts, in this case, the context of the ELAP course. In addition, at a broader level, it can help students to begin the process of being initiated into the culture of the university as a whole.

This study compared cohesive devices in texts written by Japanese second-year junior high school learners with those in texts that appeared in the textbook they were studying. The purpose of the study was to determine which cohesive devices were being used in the textbook and which were used in the learners’ writing. The study used both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The quantitative analysis began by determining whether there was any significant difference between the textbook readings and the learners’ writing in terms of the frequency of cohesive devices. It then examined the kinds of devices that were used by both groups of texts. The qualitative analysis compared the patterns of reiteration in two textbook readings with those in a sample of six student texts of different levels of success. The results showed no significant differences between the student texts and the textbooks in terms of the overall frequency of cohesive devices. Among the individual devices, however, there was a significantly higher frequency of ellipsis and synonyms in the textbook readings than in the student texts. There was also a significantly higher frequency of conjunction and reference in the student texts relative to the textbook readings. In all other devices, there was no significant difference between the textbook readings and the student texts. The qualitative study revealed the importance of strong opening sentences, reinforcement of the main topic through repetition, as well as of linking new topics with the main topic in the textbook readings. However, the presence of these features varied in the selected student texts. Accordingly, stronger texts contained all these features, average texts contained some of them, and weaker texts contained few or none. This study consequently supports other studies that have shown that the way in which cohesive devices are used is far more important in determining text quality than the number of devices used. The findings of this study showed the strengths and weaknesses in the students’ writing, and highlighted the need for a greater awareness of cohesion by focusing more on sentence building, and the use of a greater variety of cohesive devices / English Studies / M. A. (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages)

Diante da imensa diversidade geográfica, social e cultural que caracteriza cada país, percebe-se que toda ela se reflete nos comportamentos, hábitos e costumes do seu povo e, conseqüentemente, na sua linguagem. Nomeada por variação lingüística, esta diversidade da linguagem, por sua vez, por ser variável a uma norma legitimada, por uma classe em ascensão, depara-se com uma excessiva carga de preconceito e estereótipos. No entanto, atribuem-se a este entendimento, concepções que impedem visualizar a historicidade do homem, a qual se configura no movimento contínuo, característica desse mesmo homem. E, entrelaçado a este movimento, encontra-se toda produção humana, inclusive a linguagem. Nessa perspectiva, este estudo buscou analisar categorias que apontassem para uma (in)compreensão no que diz respeito à variação lingüística na escrita dos alunos da turma do módulo 2 da Educação de Jovens e Adultos, em especial a variação diastrática. Tomam-se por categorias, os diferentes olhares destinados à variação lingüística: um lançado pela Gramática Histórica e, outro, pela escola. Ambos fundamentados, a partir das contribuições da Lingüística, Sociolingüística e Pedagogia, tendo, por aporte, os estudos de Bagno, Coutinho, Freire, Labov, Matos, Soares e Souza. Para a consecução dos objetivos propostos e atendimento aos pontos constitutivos do objeto, foi utilizado no encaminhamento metodológico o estudo etnográfico. E, dessa forma, houve integração da pesquisadora nas ações docentes em sala de aula, buscando-se, nelas, apreender e compreender os significados que esses docentes apresentavam sobre a temática da variação lingüística e, de igual modo, os demais que contribuíam para a aprendizagem do aluno e mediava na interação professor/aluno, como o livro didático. Paralelo ao estudo etnográfico, foi necessário, ainda, fundamentar, teoricamente, a análise de todo material coletado, no decorrer da Pesquisa, recorrendo, desde modo, aos estudos da Gramática Histórica. Confrontados os dados obtidos no campo de pesquisa com os relacionados ao estudo histórico da linguagem, percebe-se que as (in)compreensões alcançadas nesta investigação são oriundas de uma concepção de um homem em movimento, construtor de sua história e das demais histórias / Before the huge social, cultural and geographic diversity, which characterize which country, its been noticed that all of these aspects reflect on the behavior, habits, as well, the customs of the peoples country and therefore in their language. Named as linguistic variation, it may be considered unsteady according to the linguistic patterns of a privileged economical social class and it meets with an enormous load of prejudices and negatives pre-judgments. However, its been ascribed to this understanding, the concepts which prevent to visualize the human beings history, which is based in an on going process. Thus, in the middle of this on going process, the language is included. Hence, this research work aims at analyzing the categories which lead to a (mis)understanding in the written language of the students from the Educação de jovem e adultos (Education for the young and adults) at the second level, particularly, the diastratic variation. Here, its been considered two categories: one based on the historical grammar and the another one is based on the school concept. Both are based on the concepts of Linguistics, Pedagogy and Sociolinguistics, having as a support the studies of Labov, Bagno Coutinho, Freire, Matos, Soares e Souza. Thus, weve attended lessons in the classrooms in order to get to know how the teachers deal with the linguistic variations in a classroom with their students, as well as, how the didactic books deal with this subject. In order to reach the objectives of this work, concerning the methodology, its been chosen the ethnographic study. To make this ethnographic study, this work has been based on the theories of the historical grammar. According to the collected data originated from this research and the data taken found in the ground work of this subject, its been noticed that the (mis)understandings found in this research comes from the conception of a human being in an endless and an on going process of the history of the humanity

The aim of this research was to examine how university literacy is constructed at a university in the Arabian Gulf and to evaluate the appropriateness of this construction where students of a low level of English are exposed to academic English (Right from the Start). Unpacking this construction is a complex task and to gain even a limited insight into the numerous Discourses, epistemologies and pedagogies constituting the construction of university literacy at Gulf universities, a stratified approach that probes the layers of ‘reality’ is necessary. Therefore, a critical realist approach is engaged, along with a variety of methods to probe the layers of the phenomenon. In terms of thesis organization, the traditional empirical structure common to the Social Sciences and the argumentative structure common to the Humanities are integrated. While the information obtained by a variety of methods is analysed and conclusions are reached, this material is also used along with additional literature to support the central contention that university literacy and academic English are possible ‘right from the start’, if the students’ literacy is examined from a certain perspective and if there is an appropriate pedagogy which promotes the desired literacies. This combination of thesis structures would be deemed appropriate in the critical realist ontological framework since the rigour of the thesis lies both in its “reliability” resulting from the empirical data and its focus on the ‘real’; and its “reflexivity” and “persuasivness” arising from the transparently ‘critical’ argument of the thesis (Cadman 2002). In order to conduct the empirical research, the lenses suggested by each of the major views of literacy as outlined by Lea and Street (1998) - namely the “study skills” view, the narrow “academic socialization view” and the “academic literacies view” are utilized in succession. However, the central argument is revealed as the manifestations of each ‘view’ of literacy in the specific context are examined, the research outcomes obtained by utilizing each view in succession are outlined and both are critiqued from the perspective of the “academic literacies” view. Corpus research is undertaken from a “study skills” perspective and the effect of the vocabulary taught to the students on their use of vocabulary in their writing is examined. Also, using the “study skills” lens, the students’ “global language development” in terms of changes or fluctuations in “fluency, accuracy and complexity” (Wolfe-Quintero, Inagaki et al. 1998) over a period of at least three semesters is examined. Utilizing a narrow “academic socialization lens”, studies conducted at the University on learning strategies and motivation and the comments made by respondents in interviews and on an electronic discussion board are compared to comments made by teachers and lecturers. Major flaws in these views of academic literacy are acknowledged and the way each view manifests itself in the Discourse(s) prevalent at this particular university is demonstrated. Finally, Discourses evidenced in the student interviews in particular, are unpacked and then compared and contrasted with those in the lecturer interviews as well as the curriculum and other university documents. The limitations of the study are examined and suggestions for further research and ways to address ‘problems’ associated with university literacy are given.

This study examines the role of academic literacies and academic-writing practices at two diverse South African senior secondary schools and the implications that these practices have for academic-literacy teaching in Higher Education (HE). As student academic writing is central to teaching, learning and assessment in HE, learner academic-writing standards at schools will often impact on academic success in HE. This is a concern for HE as research from South African schooling contexts have found that students from secondary schools are seldom equipped to cope with the demands of HE writing practices. In addition, the introduction of a new curriculum (National Curriculum Statement – NCS) based on the principles of the South African constitution and informed by the Bill of Rights, impacted for the first time on senior secondary schools in 2006, when it was implemented in grade 10, and HE received its first cohort of matriculants with an NCS educational background in 2009. Therefore, this study specifically explores teachers' writing practices within an NCS writing-practice design for grades 11 and 12, and assesses its current implications for academic-writing practices in HE. Critical ethnography was selected as the primary methodology as it is concerned with multiple perspectives and explores local-practice contexts. Therefore, it provides a holistic understanding of the complexity of writing practices by examining the participants' writing-practice perceptions, observing their teaching practices and analysing their written responses or feedback to first and final drafts. The data/study sample consisted of three grades 11 and one grade 12 English Home Language and English First Additional Language teachers as well as selected learners from two secondary schools in the Port Elizabeth district. The data was collected by means of classroom observations, teacher interviews and learner samples of academic writing. Although this study focused on the teaching of academic writing by the four teachers, literacy understandings were also explored by describing what literacy practices subjectively meant to the four teachers by determining the meanings they collectively and individually gave to dominant literacy practices in academic writing, especially feedback practices in text production. A detailed examination of the new NCS requirements suggest that it offers an understanding of knowledge as a social construct, advocates a multiple literacies approach to teaching and learning, and allows for a process approach to cognitively-demanding writing which takes cognisance of the rhetorical, social and cultural dimensions of literacy. Collectively, the ASs in LO3 reflect a process approach to writing, from planning, drafting, feedback, revision to presentation of the final text. It also considers the specific rhetorical dimensions of purpose, audience, and context. Therefore, these NCS writing practices should benefit learners advancing to HE. This study argues that if teachers in secondary schools were to adhere more closely to the NCS's LO3 and its ASs implementation guidelines, learners would be better prepared to cope with HE academic-writing requirements. Instead, the study found that the teachers tended to reduce writing practices to the mastery of discrete sets of technical skills with a focus on surface features of language like spelling and grammar. In addition, the study found that when the teachers' perceptions of the NCS and their own classroom-writing practices were explored, they tended to resist a social-practice approach to academic writing, and, as a result, mostly adapted LO3 of the NCS rather than adopting it as intended by the policy-makers. Similar to other South African studies, this study concludes that teachers remain largely rooted in their autonomous teaching practices favouring traditional methods with which they are familiar over curricula policies which could emancipate learners toward levels of achievement which would better prepare them for both HE and the world of work. In other words, teachers in the sample tend to conserve their traditional methodologies which are predominantly informed by deficit views of learners‟ problems, selectively including new policy requirements which create the impression of compliance, rather than fundamentally altering their approaches pedagogically in the classroom and their academic-writing practices in particular.