Developing syntactic complexity in writing is an important goal for many adult language learners. However, little is known about the effect of different writing practice tasks on the development of syntactic complexity. Furthermore, it is unclear to what degree syntactic complexity is related to writing quality. The main purpose of this study was to compare the longitudinal effects of three types of writing tasks on the development of syntactic complexity and writing quality. In order to investigate these relationships, a mixed-methods design was used. A quantitative component that was a quasi-experimental, longitudinal investigation was combined with an embedded qualitative component which involved eliciting stimulated recalls from participants from two of the experimental groups in the study. For the quantitative component, the participants (N = 105) were first-year, non-English majors at a four-year, co-educational university in western Japan. The participants were randomly divided into two groups: a sentence-combining group and a translation group. These two experimental groups were compared to an intact timed-writing group, which served as a comparison group. Writing samples were collected at three points throughout the year and analyzed based on five measures of syntactic complexity: mean length of sentence, mean length of T-unit, mean length of clause, clauses per T-unit, and T-units per sentence. Repeated-measures ANOVAs were used to analyze the five measures to investigate statistical differences across time for each group. One-way ANOVAs were used to analyze the five measures to ascertain differences between groups at each time. Furthermore, all the writing samples were evaluated by human raters for writing quality using an analytic rubric. Ratings were analyzed and investigated for changes in quality across time and between groups, as well as to examine the overall relationship between syntactic complexity and quality. For the qualitative component, seven participants were selected from the experimental groups to participate in stimulated recalls. The data were analyzed and coded to investigate the cognitive processes underlying each task. The results of the quantitative study indicated that the participants in the translation and sentence-combining groups made small, but significant gains in syntactic complexity across time. The translation group made significant growth on clauses per T-unit while the sentence-combining group made significant growth across time on mean length of sentence, mean length of T-unit, and T-units per sentence. The timed-writing group was not able to sustain significant growth across time. In the between-groups analyses, there were significant differences between the sentence-combining group and the other groups on mean length of sentence and T-units per sentence, indicating that the participants in that group demonstrated more coordination, and to a lesser degree, more subordination in their writing. In terms of quality of writing, the results indicated an overall weak, statistically significant positive correlation between measures of syntactic complexity and human rating judgments. Among all of the syntactic measures, T-units per sentence correlated the strongest with rating scores. The results of the qualitative component indicated that the participants practicing sentence-combining tasks focused most of their attention toward syntactic aspects of language while the participants in the translation group focused their attention on lexical aspects of language while performing the tasks. The findings of this study show that the development of syntactic complexity is influenced by writing practice tasks and that tasks that direct learners’ attention toward features of the language are more likely to hasten the development of syntactic complexity. Among the tasks, sentence-combining showed the most potential in developing syntactic complexity, particularly for increasing the use of compound sentences. However, none of the writing practice tasks led to significant gains in writing quality, in part because syntactic complexity was shown to have a moderately weak relationship to overall writing quality. / Teaching & Learning

Academic writing in U.S. higher education often involves textual borrowing, referred to as the integration and documentation of reading sources and carried out with summaries, quotes and paraphrases. Second language (L2) English students are likely to use sources inappropriately and consequentially are accused of plagiarism based on a moral judgment. A body of research on textual borrowing including this study has provided strong evidence that these students' inappropriate source use does not result from their intention to steal other's intellectual property and language, but from their cultural backgrounds or situated factors in their U.S. academic contexts. Few research studies, however, offer a thorough view of how both cultural backgrounds and situated factors are associated with L2 students' textual borrowing practices; much empirical attention has focused on a more limited examination of Chinese student populations. In this respect, this study explores the complex and dynamic nature of Korean graduate students' source use by investigating faculty expectations both in Korea and in their L2 academic setting and these students' perceptions and practices of textual borrowing. For these investigations, a qualitative research study was conducted, and multiple sources of data were analyzed: (a) interviews with two faculty informant groups and the student participants, (b) observations of the Master's meeting and group study meetings, (c) tutoring sessions at the Writing Center, and (d) written texts, including institutional and instructional documents, email messages, and multiple handouts, outlines, and essays. These sets of data were analyzed using two different methods: content analysis and text analysis. The findings of this qualitative research revealed that both cultural and situated factors were associated with the Korean students' understandings of and changes in textual borrowing practices. With regard to their initial understandings, the results showed that although the participants understood textual borrowing in terms of citation methods and writing skills, their practices were not aligned with their perceptions nor with faculty expectations. However, I noted that in the process of the research period, most of them were able to achieve the textual purposes by utilizing reading sources strategically and appropriately and thus fulfill the academic goals required in the situated context. Based on these findings, pedagogical implications are discussed. / CITE/Language Arts

Assessment of writing skills is a part of teachers’ everyday life. According to previous studies on a similar subject, teachers’ education in assessing writing is limited. The lack of education for teachers may lead to negative consequences for the whole educational system. For this reason, the purpose of this study focused on the analysis of English upper-secondary school teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and practices in assessing writing in Sweden.  The method for this study was adapted from Crusan et al. (2016) research. An Internet survey was used in order to receive information about teachers’ cognition. Firstly, the survey was published in different Facebook groups, and secondly, it was sent to upper-secondary teachers of English in different counties in Sweden via email. In total, 52 English teachers from upper-secondary schools participated in this study.  The results showed that teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and practices are co-dependent. Teachers need to be aware of their cognition regarding knowledge, beliefs, and practices. In-service teachers need to receive more training as a form of professional development, while institutions for pre-service teachers need to re-evaluate their educational plans. More research about teachers’ cognition and assessment of writing is needed in Sweden.

Second language (L2) teacher cognition has in recent years attracted the attention of an increasing number of researchers. While much L2 teacher cognition research focuses on the teaching of grammar (e.g. Phipps & Borg, 2009), L2 writing teacher cognition has received considerably less attention. It has, however, been suggested that L2 writing teachers’ perceptions of themselves as writers (Casanave, 2004) and as language learners may play a crucial role in their decision making as teachers of L2 writing. In an attempt to address this gap in the L2 teacher cognition literature, this study investigates English as a second language (ESL) writing teachers' beliefs about themselves as language learners and as writers in their first and/or second language(s). The purpose is to discover how ESL writing teachers’ beliefs about and practice of teaching L2 writing are influenced by their experiences in writing in their first and/ or second languages. Three native (NES) and two non-native English-speaking (NNES) teachers teaching L2 writing took part in the study. During a 15-week semester, their ESL writing classes were periodically observed and audio-recorded. Additionally, each teacher was interviewed two times using stimulated recall regarding both their classroom instructional practices and instruction provided in the margins of student papers. Findings revealed that, language learning in general was an important contributor to both NNES and NES teachers’ cognitions. Even NES teachers who were not advanced in their respective second and/or additional languages still referred to their language learning experiences. The NNES teacher participants also commented that they sometimes had to step out of their own language experience in order to better help their students. Results also indicated that L2 writing teachers without advanced L2 literacy skills were influenced primarily by their L1 writing experiences. L2 writing teachers with advanced L2 literacy skills, however, were greatly influenced by their L2 writing experience. In all of the cases, being an advanced writer, whether in their L1 or L2s, was an important contributor to L2 writing teachers’ cognitions.

Includes vita. / Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 323 pages. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: Peer response in which students work together in dyads or small groups to critique and provide feedback on one another's writing is compatible with communicative approaches to foreign language teaching and process approaches to the teaching of writing. Computer-mediated communication has been considered a viable tool for both the teaching of languages and the teaching of writing. There is, however, scant information on how computer-mediated peer response functions in the foreign language classroom. This dissertation investigated how college Spanish learners provided feedback to their peers and the impact of feedback on revision. It also examined the factors that influenced how students wrote their comments, and how they perceived the use of computers for peer response. Case study methodology was used to collect and analyze data from two writing tasks performed as part of a semester-long course. / ABSTRACT: Data sources consisted of written feedback, first and second drafts, interview transcripts, learning journals from 12 participants and the teacher-researcher field notes. Analysis of data indicated that peer response is a complex event, influenced by a variety of contextual factors. Results also indicated that the participants used feedback depending on their needs. Students used reacting, advising and announcing language functions when providing feedback, and focused mostly on content. The revisions made by the participants contradicted the idea that peer feedback directly influences revision; more than half of the revisions made by the participants originated in the writers themselves and not in the suggestions given by their peers. Analysis of the revisions made, based on peers' suggestions indicated that the impact of peer response was strong on the length of the essays, limited on their language below the clause level, and weak on the essays' communicative purpose. / ABSTRACT: The participants' language proficiency and the characteristics of the writing task were perceived by the participants as factors that influenced how they wrote feedback for their peers. Finally, although the students considered that using the word processing language tools allowed them to learn about language and focus on content, the role of technology was perceived as supplementary to oral peer response / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Among scholars of applied linguistics and composition studies, the notion of academic literacy has generated discussions regarding L2 students' intellectual growth and academic performance in the college context. Several studies provide a detailed account of how students adapt their literacy practices in response to their perceived needs for task completion; however, as the notion of academic literacy has gradually been linked to concerns of disciplinary enculturation, a situated process of becoming involved in disciplinary discourse, there has been a call for attention to the disciplinary discourse communities into which students are initiated through literacy tasks. Although some previous studies have forged early linkages and integrated disciplinary discourse into the notion of academic literacy, the empirical data comes from graduate students (Casanave, 2002; Prior, 1998) or L1 students (Hass, 1994; Herrington, 1985; Sternglass, 1997). The study reported in this dissertation, however, investigates the situated and enculturating literacy practices of L2 students in undergraduate settings. Also, as compared to previous studies that describe the literacy strategies in or students' views of disciplinary discourse, the present study attempts to schematize the connection between literacy practice and disciplinary enculturation, drawing on the notion of genre and its framework. This study has a clear focus of analysis by discussing the literacy practice of two L2 students as they engage in genres, mostly written work, in class, herein referred to as genre practice or genre-mediated literacy practice. This study follows the L2 students' learning throughout their undergraduate college experience, providing an analysis of their genre practice across disciplines from their first year to graduation, and at the same time tracing the factors that contextualize their genre practice, such as previous genre encounters, class work, writing assignment guidelines, cultural norms, individualized perceptions of disciplinary expectations, etc. Through careful textual analysis and interviews, this study focuses on the L2 students' developing academic literacy as mediated by discipline-specific genre practice in three different learning contexts: writing in general education courses, writing in business writing courses, and writing in courses in their majors. The results of the study show that both students' genre practices varied, depending on how genre was cued, interpreted, and performed, by social affordances such as lectures, class readings, class discussions, and interactions with peers and instructors. The study shows the students' genre practice taking shape in the way they were situated in disciplinary discourse, while at the same time their understanding of disciplinary discourse was mediated by their engagement in genre. In addition, by looking at the students' genre practice in four different knowledge dimensions—formal, rhetorical, procedural, and subject matter (see Tardy, 2009)—this study documents a detailed process of constructing discipline-specific literacy. Despite its context-dependent, individualized positioning in disciplinary discourse, this study captures a series of patterns of literacy practice cutting across the two L2 students' approach to genre and highlights the issues inherent in classroom-based instructional settings. The theoretical and pedagogical implications of this study suggest the need to reexamine the role of writing for discipline-specific literacy, both to enhance college writing instruction and to advocate for writing across the curriculum.

While studies have shown that teacher and peer feedback are beneficial to students, research has also found that teachers can appropriate students' texts in their feedback, taking away authorship in the process (Brannon & Knoblauch, 1982; Goldstein, 2004). The present study addressed the type of written feedback that I gave my ESL composition students and the type of feedback they gave each other during the writing process, and it examined their responses to the feedback they received. As the response stance taken when providing feedback is a determiner of the level of control the feedback conveys (Straub & Lunsford, 1995), I investigated the stances that both I and my students took while providing feedback. Since my goal had been to avoid text appropriation, I wanted to learn if I was successful in taking a less controlling stance in the feedback that I gave to my students. In addition, I wanted to discover whether the stance my students took while giving feedback would change over the course of the semester. Further, I used a consciousness-raising pedagogical tool — the Cover Sheet — to examine the responses of the students to the feedback to determine if they thought critically about the feedback they had received. At the end of the study, I discovered that my intention to only provide feedback that was not considered controlling was too idealistic and that at least for ESL students, it is easier to understand feedback if it is more direct. Additionally, I found that those students who had an easier time understanding the feedback I gave them and used it to revise their papers ended up getting a higher grade in the course.

In the theoretical and epistemological frameworks of Vygotsky’s cognitive theory and French intellectuals’ written legacy (Cixous, Deleuze, Derrida, Foucault, Kristeva, and Lyotard), the research explores philosophical, psychological, and educational migrations of a second language (L2) learner among cultures and languages in her comprehension and further nativization of an L2 through her comprehension and nativization of the culture of the language. The role of Canadian culture in Canada’s second/additional language education (SLE) is the research focus. In this research, the concept of Canadian culture is interpreted narrowly as literature, music, arts, and history of its people, and broadly as creations of its people. The dissertation consists of 3 parts: Pre-Theory, Theory, and Post-Theory. The Pre-Theory part is built according to the conventional thesis design: introduction, theoretical framework, literature review, research question, methodology, credibility, and significance. Narrative inquiry (Connelly & Clandinin, 2006) as the initial methodology of the research unfolds in innovative ways as literary-philosophical essays in the Theory part, and later as a music-poetry work in the Post-Theory part. The Theory part is a conceptual philosophy-arts piece of writing that develops based on the principle “writing as a method of knowing”. The Post-Theory part is the researcher’s music-poetry work “I-Migrations: Psychedelic Story” that is a practical epitome of her research theory. Based on her own way of learning English, first, as a foreign language (FL) in Russia, and then as an L2 in Canada, the researcher theoretically substantiates her postulate of the underestimated role of Canadian culture, in terms of literature, music, arts, and history in Canada’s SLE and proposes to make Canadian culture an integral part of Canada’s SLE curricula. This research fulfils the gaps in the literature on an older L2 learner’s experience across a lifetime and the inclusion of arts and culture alongside of language learning in SLE. Keywords: second language, second language culture, writing, second language writing, second language education

Peer response in which students work together in dyads or small groups to critique and provide feedback on one another's writing is compatible with communicative approaches to foreign language teaching and process approaches to the teaching of writing. Computer-mediated communication has been considered a viable tool for both the teaching of languages and the teaching of writing. There is, however, scant information on how computer-mediated peer response functions in the foreign language classroom. This dissertation investigated how college Spanish learners provided feedback to their peers and the impact of feedback on revision. It also examined the factors that influenced how students wrote their comments, and how they perceived the use of computers for peer response. Case study methodology was used to collect and analyze data from two writing tasks performed as part of a semester-long course. Data sources consisted of written feedback, first and second drafts, interview transcripts, learning journals from 12 participants and the teacher-researcher field notes. Analysis of data indicated that peer response is a complex event, influenced by a variety of contextual factors. Results also indicated that the participants used feedback depending on their needs. Students used reacting, advising and announcing language functions when providing feedback, and focused mostly on content. The revisions made by the participants contradicted the idea that peer feedback directly influences revision; more than half of the revisions made by the participants originated in the writers themselves and not in the suggestions given by their peers. Analysis of the revisions made, based on peers' suggestions indicated that the impact of peer response was strong on the length of the essays, limited on their language below the clause level, and weak on the essays' communicative purpose. The participants' language proficiency and the characteristics of the writing task were perceived by the participants as factors that influenced how they wrote feedback for their peers. Finally, although the students considered that using the word processing language tools allowed them to learn about language and focus on content, the role of technology was perceived as supplementary to oral peer response.

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