College Students’ Identity Negotiation Through Teacher Feedback and Revision in EFL Writing

허명혜 한국응용언어학회 2014 응용 언어학 Vol.30 No.4

This qualitative study explores how EFL writer identities are negotiated, imposed, or assumed while they attend to teacher feedback and utilize it in their revisions. The study focused on two college students: K and J. The data came from interviews with each student and students’ drafts, first and final, for each of four assignments, along with their teacher’s comments. For K and J, some identities were ascribed by their native English-speaking teacher, while others were claimed by the individual her or himself. J was very comfortable with the assumed identity of a non-native speaker, while K struggled to negotiate her identity as an EFL writer, resisting the suggestions of her native English-speaking teacher in revisions. K, with a strong sense of self, made her own choices about which identity she would choose from her available repertoire. She quite deliberately gained a L2 writer identity. For J, his ideological subjectivity as a dependent foreigner in an EFL writing classroom did not foster a stronger sense of identity as a L2 writer. The teacher predominantly focused on language errors and tended to see EFL writing mostly as language practice. Consequently, his pedagogical decisions limited J’s access to a more desirable L2 writer identity.

Task Complexity and Writing Prompts and Performance in EFL High School Students’ Narrative Writing

허명혜,이종봉 한국영어교육학회 2018 ENGLISH TEACHING(영어교육) Vol.73 No.4

We explored whether task complexity, operationalized by the two types of writing prompts, affects EFL high school students’ narrative writing in terms of syntactic complexity, lexical complexity, fluency, cohesion, and text quality. 32 intermediate EFL students who were randomly assigned to two prompt groups completed a written narrative task based on a series of sixteen pictures. Task complexity was operationalized as a bare versus frame prompt. The results indicate that the task complexity had an impact on lexical sophistication measures. The students in the framed prompt group were able to include more sophisticated vocabulary in their narratives than those in the bare prompt group. The findings are discussed in terms of the Limited Attentional Capacity Model in that the students in the bare prompt group might have prioritized meaning rather than form in order to ease attentional overload. The findings of our study could assist teachers in selecting writing prompts that have the potential to elicit the targeted features of writing performance.

Causality in the Essays of Korean EFL College Writers

허명혜 한국영어영문학회 2006 영어 영문학 Vol.52 No.5

Kress (1994) presents two models of causality, the powers theory of causality and the regularity theory of causality, and argues that both modalities clearly exist in both speech and writing. However, if one goes deeper into his argument, one can discover the fact that the powers model of causality is more closely connected with writing than with speech, while the regularity model is more closely connected with speech than with writing. In other words, speech, with its chaining syntax co-ordinated in sequences, tends by its very structure to favour the regularity model. Writing, with its greater preponderance of subordination and embedding, leaves the regularity model as an option, but tends to favour the powers view. There has been very little work done in "the expression of causality" in L2 writing. Only recently, the use of two models of causality was examined in depth in a study by Reynolds (2002). Following closely the concept of two models of causality and being sparked by Reynolds's study, the present study examines how usage of causality markers is characterized in the essays of EFL college writers. The previous research by Reynolds compares changes in the way L1 and L2 writers between the ages 10 and 13 use Kress's set of causality markers. The present study differs from the analysis in Reynolds in that it focuses exclusively on the college writers' use of causality markers in their writing. The basis for this study is 7 essays written by five undergraduate students from a large, comprehensive university in Seoul. Students wrote two essays at home. Two TWE prompts were chosen because with both topics, the writers clearly need to express explicit causality in the form of justification for specific reasons. The results of this study show that EFL college writers have a relatively high usage of regularity markers and low usage of powers markers on both topics. In fact, in both texts the adjoining and co-ordination of simple clauses is the dominant structural form. And these writers use greater sequential connections between events on both topics. Though they have no need to sequence the reasons or establish a flow of events, their high usage of regularity markers in general may indicate greater reliance on narrative modes of development across both topics. The textual structures of 7 essays overall seem to be the writers' adherence to the regularity view of causality. The texts by five students contain significantly more instances of two of the markers, and and because. As a whole, the most common regularity markers are and and in. The problem that five writers have is that they avoid using complex sentences. They are overdependent upon simple sentences composed of clauses strung together with coordinating conjunctions. In addition, the results also support Reynolds' research, which suggests that the ESL students used the causality markers similarly across both topics whereas the regular language arts students were found to differ in their usage of causality markers between the two topics. Kress (1994) presents two models of causality, the powers theory of causality and the regularity theory of causality, and argues that both modalities clearly exist in both speech and writing. However, if one goes deeper into his argument, one can discover the fact that the powers model of causality is more closely connected with writing than with speech, while the regularity model is more closely connected with speech than with writing. In other words, speech, with its chaining syntax co-ordinated in sequences, tends by its very structure to favour the regularity model. Writing, with its greater preponderance of subordination and embedding, leaves the regularity model as an option, but tends to favour the powers view. There has been very little work done in "the expression of causality" in L2 writing. Only recently, the use of two models of causality was examined in depth in a study by Reynolds (2002). Following closely the concept of two models of causality and being sparked by Reynolds's study, the present study examines how usage of causality markers is characterized in the essays of EFL college writers. The previous research by Reynolds compares changes in the way L1 and L2 writers between the ages 10 and 13 use Kress's set of causality markers. The present study differs from the analysis in Reynolds in that it focuses exclusively on the college writers' use of causality markers in their writing. The basis for this study is 7 essays written by five undergraduate students from a large, comprehensive university in Seoul. Students wrote two essays at home. Two TWE prompts were chosen because with both topics, the writers clearly need to express explicit causality in the form of justification for specific reasons. The results of this study show that EFL college writers have a relatively high usage of regularity markers and low usage of powers markers on both topics. In fact, in both texts the adjoining and co-ordination of simple clauses is the dominant structural form. And these writers use greater sequential connections between events on both topics. Though they have no need to sequence the reasons or establish a flow of events, their high usage of regularity markers in general may indicate greater reliance on narrative modes of development across both topics. The textual structures of 7 essays overall seem to be the writers' adherence to the regularity view of causality. The texts by five students contain significantly more instances of two of the markers, and and because. As a whole, the most common regularity markers are and and in. The problem that five writers have is that they avoid using complex sentences. They are overdependent upon simple sentences composed of clauses strung together with coordinating conjunctions. In addition, the results also support Reynolds' research, which suggests that the ESL students used the causality markers similarly across both topics whereas the regular language arts students were found to differ in their usage of causality markers between the two topics.

Putting Images into Second Language: Do They Survive In The Written Drafts?

허명혜 한국영어영문학회 2010 영어 영문학 Vol.56 No.6

Much has already been learned about what goes on in the minds of second language writers as they compose, yet, oddly enough, until recently little in the L2 research literature has addressed writing and mental imagery together. However, images and imaging (visual thinking) play a crucial role in perception (the basis of mental imagery), in turn, affecting language, thinking, and writing. Many theorists of mental imagery also agree that more than just language accounts for how we think and that imagery is at least as crucial as language. All of these demands, to be sure, are compounded for EFL students,which is why I investigate EFL students’ writing process, focusing on the use of mental imagery and its relationship to the writing. First I speculate upon some ways that imagery influences EFL students’ composing processes and products. Next, I want to explore how and whether the images in a writer’s mind can be shaped effectively into a linear piece of written English in one’s writing. I studied two university undergraduate EFL students, L and J. They had fairly advanced levels of English proficiency and exhibited high level of writing ability, as measured by TOEFL iBT Test. Each student wrote two comparison and contrast essays: one written under specified time limitations and the other written without the pressure of time. In order to investigate whether the amount of time in itself causes differences within an individual in imagery ability, the students were placed under strict time constraints for Topic 1. But for Topic 2, they were encouraged to take as much time as necessary to complete this essay. Immediately after completing their essays, I conducted face-to-face retrospective interviews with students to prompt them for information about the role of imagery as they write. Both L and J have spent more time on their second (untimed) essays. Without time constraint, they produced longer texts on untimed essay (149 vs. 170; 186 vs 284 words). However, despite a relatively long period of time spent writing an essay, these students neither described their images nor detailed them in their essays. Although their mental imagery generated an explosion of ideas for their writings, most visual thinking must merely be a means toward an end—pictures that writers spent in purchasing the right words or ideas.

Capturing Second Language Writing Competence: Analysis of Shell Noun Use and Lexical Richness

허명혜,이인환,이종봉 한국응용언어학회 2019 응용 언어학 Vol.35 No.4

Flower and Hayes’ (1981) cognitive process model includes planning, translating, and reviewing. In this model, translating is practically the process of putting ideas into language. Researchers have found that vocabulary knowledge is an important factor in translating process. Shell nouns are frequently used as cohesive devices. Accordingly, this study focused on the relationship between the overall quality of a text and either frequency of shell nouns or lexical richness. Thirty-six students of varying proficiency levels participated in the study. The data was part of a mid-term exam in that students were given 30 minutes to write an essay. Proficient EFL writers in this study intuitively avoided repeating the same words, and retrieved more varied and advanced vocabulary from their mental lexicon. A unique but significant predictor of their writing was lexical sophistication, which explained a relatively large proportion of the variance in writing performance. In spite of the fact that the students used a greater range of vocabulary in their writing, lexical diversity was not chiefly a characteristic of their argumentative writing performance. Once again, proficient writers used more shell nouns. As a result, good writers wrote essays containing more shell nouns as cohesive devices, with their writing characterized by greater lexical sophistication.

An Activity Theory Approach to Korean EFL Students’ Dilemma in Teacher Written Feedback

허명혜 한국응용언어학회 2015 응용 언어학 Vol.31 No.3

Guided by Engeström’s (1999, 2001) activity theory, this study focused on three contrasting students and examined their participation in teacher feedback over a complete course. This study was to analyze how various factors may have influenced the way EFL students respond to teacher feedback, why students experience contradictions in teacher feedback, and how such contradictions can lead to dilemmas during the feedback process. The study revealed that student response to teacher feedback was an intricate matter, intertwined with the agency of the students' writerly selves. It was also influenced by several teaching factors, including the teacher’s practices, his/her native speakerhood, as well as the instructional context in which the feedback was given. The activity theory analysis showed that students’ different motives for participating in teacher feedback afford disparate representations of the teacher feedback activity. Therefore, while the three students may have appeared to be engaged in the same action, they may in fact have been transforming the given activity for their psychological/social needs and thus have been engaging in different activities. Student response to feedback often took unpredictable and unexpected directions filled with contradictions. These contradictions were a source of dilemma for the students. But, for the most part, they were a source of change or learning.

Mediation Through the First Language During the Second Language Writing: A Sociocultural Approach

허명혜,이양숙,이나라 한국영어교육학회 2013 ENGLISH TEACHING(영어교육) Vol.68 No.1

The purpose of this study is to explore L1 use in L2 writing from the perspective of Vygotskian Sociocultural Theory (SCT). We examine whether generating ideas in L1,compared to generating ideas in L2, results in inferior L2 writing. The participants were 42 Korean EFL students. As part of the course requirements, the students were required to hand in 400-word essays on a given topic. Once the writing was completed,they were asked to write down about what language(s) they used to prepare for the assignment and why they used this language or these languages. The data analysis used here stems from two ways in which the data were coded, use of language(s) during idea generation and a global-level essay analysis. This study has shown that more than half of students use their L1 while writing in L2 to some extent. Regarding the effect of L1use on L2 text quality, L1 use does not appear to be negatively related to L2 text quality. This does not confirm the results of earlier research, which suggested that L1use has a detrimental effect on L2 text quality. We argue that the L1 is an already internalized and very effective meditational means that learners will resort to,principally for discovering and shaping meaning and as support in moments of cognitive difficulty.

Reframing Task Condition: Repeating L1-L2 Writing and L2 Writing Performance

허명혜,좌수민,이종봉 한국영어교육학회 2020 ENGLISH TEACHING(영어교육) Vol.75 No.2

We examined the role of L1 writing on L2 writing performance by repeating the same topic twice through L1 writing first and L2 writing later. We designed what we call a ‘L1 + L2 writing task’ and a ‘L2-only writing task’ respectively. In the L1 + L2 writing task, students wrote a text in their L1, and wrote the same topic in L2, by removing the initial L1 essay. We focused on validating which task conditions (± L1 writing) account for the variation in linguistic performance in EFL high-school students’ writing. Our study was conducted with two intact classes (n = 60) assigned to the L2-only, and students from the other two classes (n = 60) assigned to the L1 + L2. The findings indicate that L1 writing may push students to direct their attentional resources toward effective text construction, thereby mitigating a large number of simultaneous demands on attention. We add to empirical knowledge on the effects of L1 writing in task repetition, by exploring how task repetition affected our students’ L2 writing performance.

Goals for L2 Writing Development in Literature-Reading-Writing Tasks: Activity Theory Analysis

허명혜,이종봉,하혜승 한국응용언어학회 2018 응용 언어학 Vol.34 No.3

Grounded by activity theory, we examined goals for writing that students developed in literature-reading-writing tasks. Using multiple case study design, we investigated the goals that four EFL college students expressed about their writing development related to their one-semester literature-reading-writing experiences. We also examined how goals determined individual students’ writing abilities. Data for this study came from students’ written texts, reflective diaries, and own stories. Students’ writing fluency was measured using the AntConc program, which provides the total number of words and word types in student writing. The findings show that the types, qualities, and range of goals that each student had for writing development differed greatly among them. Sometimes, the goal of the individual student was not to ratify the instructor’s goal. Such dissonance created contradictions in students’ activity system. From the perspective of activity theory, literature-reading-writing tasks can be best assumed as internal and external goal directed activities of the students. Picture books functioned as tools which stand between the individual students and the object. Indeed, picture books could bring the students closer to attaining the object of reading-to-writing tasks. As such, students’ goal for writing increased in frequency and in quality as they wrote about their experiences via connections made to picture books.

The Use of Private Writing in Written English Narratives

허명혜 한국영어영문학회 2008 영어 영문학 Vol.54 No.6

This study analyzes the linguistic features of private writing produced by college students of English as a foreign language, following Vygotsky’s claim that higher psychological functions are mediated by language. In this context, this study seeks to discover the way in which EFL students approach the task of narrative writing in light of the potential difficulties. Accordingly, this study adopts a functional analysis of linguistic data, in which linguistic features of private writing are analyzed in their regulatory functions in written English narratives. The subjects were all undergraduate students attending at Korea University. Each student was asked to write a story about a sequence of eight pictures, which was adopted from Can You Believe It? by Huizenga and Huizenga. Following Frawley and Lantolf’s classification scheme, this study analyzes two linguistic features of private writing produced by the EFL students: macrostructure and reference. The analysis of private writing forms reveals that the EFL students produced abundant examples of private writing in written narratives. Many of the private writing features observed in previous studies, such as the externalization of the macrostructure and ambiguous reference were present in written narratives. In addition, the EFL students, in their use of explicit macrostructural devices and pronominalization, manifest discourse behavior similar to that of native children of English observed in the research of Frawley and Lantolf. The similarities in EFL students and native children have a functional explanation in that the adult non-native speakers reverts to native speaking child-like knowing strategies to control the situation and gain self-regulation in difficult knowing situations. This can be explained by “the principle of continuous access,” which maintains that adults are able to re-access previous regulating strategies in other domains where self-regulation can not be achieved (Frawley & Lantolf 22). In this light, the presence of odd forms even in native discourse allows us to understand that not all errors found in non-native discourse are result of low proficiency or inadequate mastery of story grammar of English. On the other hand, the peculiarities of second language discourse such as odd pronominalization and ambiguous reference can be understood as functional for the EFL students. This study analyzes the linguistic features of private writing produced by college students of English as a foreign language, following Vygotsky’s claim that higher psychological functions are mediated by language. In this context, this study seeks to discover the way in which EFL students approach the task of narrative writing in light of the potential difficulties. Accordingly, this study adopts a functional analysis of linguistic data, in which linguistic features of private writing are analyzed in their regulatory functions in written English narratives. The subjects were all undergraduate students attending at Korea University. Each student was asked to write a story about a sequence of eight pictures, which was adopted from Can You Believe It? by Huizenga and Huizenga. Following Frawley and Lantolf’s classification scheme, this study analyzes two linguistic features of private writing produced by the EFL students: macrostructure and reference. The analysis of private writing forms reveals that the EFL students produced abundant examples of private writing in written narratives. Many of the private writing features observed in previous studies, such as the externalization of the macrostructure and ambiguous reference were present in written narratives. In addition, the EFL students, in their use of explicit macrostructural devices and pronominalization, manifest discourse behavior similar to that of native children of English observed in the research of Frawley and Lantolf. The similarities in EFL students and native children have a functional explanation in that the adult non-native speakers reverts to native speaking child-like knowing strategies to control the situation and gain self-regulation in difficult knowing situations. This can be explained by “the principle of continuous access,” which maintains that adults are able to re-access previous regulating strategies in other domains where self-regulation can not be achieved (Frawley & Lantolf 22). In this light, the presence of odd forms even in native discourse allows us to understand that not all errors found in non-native discourse are result of low proficiency or inadequate mastery of story grammar of English. On the other hand, the peculiarities of second language discourse such as odd pronominalization and ambiguous reference can be understood as functional for the EFL students.