L2 Students’ Academic Literacy Development Guided by Teacher Written Feedback: A Writing-to-Learn Perspective

L2 Students’ Academic Literacy Development Guided by Teacher Written Feedback: A Writing-to-Learn Perspective Rui Cheng — Carine M. Feyten ABSTRACT: Non-native graduate students need to master specialized disciplinary knowledge and genre conventions to perform academic writing tasks. The learning practice is always a process of legitimate peripheral participation where students are inducted into their chosen discipline through collaboration and interaction with people in their social and academic network. Adopting a writing-to-learn perspective, the study sought to examine how teacher written feedback guided L2 graduate students to engage in legitimate, peripheral, and participatory activities with the purpose of understanding teacher expectations, learning disciplinary conventions and developing academic literacy in the discipline of applied linguistics. The exploration demonstrated that teacher written feedback provided opportunities for students to engage in dialogic interaction with various parties through interpreting and/or clarifying teacher written feedback. These legitimate peripheral participation activities not only enabled L2 students to gain necessary disciplinary knowledge for successful papers, but also situated them in relation to more experienced members and by extension to the field. KEY WORDS: academic literacy, applied linguistics, learning-to-write, legitimate peripheral participation, teacher written feedback, writing-to-learn 1. INTRODUCTION There is some discussion between learning-to-write and writing-to-learn perspectives in both first language (L1) and second language (L2) contexts. Learning-to-write paints the scenario where students learn to use language to express themselves in writing, which for L2 students, often occurs outside the contexts of the discipline in language learning classrooms. Writing-to-learn is a process where students use writing to develop their expertise, their disciplinary knowledge, and their familiarity with the conventions of the discipline. In the writing-to-learn contexts, writing is often not taught explicitly. These two approaches “have developed almost independently from each other, have been informed by different theoretical frameworks, and have resulted in different pedagogical procedures” (Manchón, 2011, p. 3). However, they are “fundamentally inseparable because educational knowing itself occurs at the intersection of language, learning and knowledge” (Byrnes, 2011, p. 147). In the majority of the content area courses (business, education, etc.) in higher education in the United States (US), writing takes a significant percentage toward the grade students earn, showing somewhat the consensus of recognition that writing is widely used to measure learning in content area courses. In such contexts, writing is usually not taught explicitly for multiple reasons: professors teaching within the 8 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY 2/2015 content area, especially those at graduate levels may expect students enrolled in those classes to have sharpened English writing skills elsewhere such as in composition classes, language classes or through the support from writing centers. Furthermore, the high demand of curricula in many disciplines does not allow professors the chance to spend limited course time on writing instructions or training. The main interaction between faculty and students on whether learning has occurred through writing is on feedback students received on their academic papers (if there is any) and their grades. The present case study captures how two non-native L2 graduate students utilized written feedback the instructor of a course provided to learn both the disciplinary knowledge and the conventions in the field of applied linguistics. 1.1 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Students in any field of study need to write in the specific ways that conform to their disciplinary conventions. Learning of the specialized academic literacy is always a process of legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) (Lave — Wenger, 1991) in which novice students are gradually inducted into the community of practice (CoP) (Lave — Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998) through participating in its discursive practice such as collaborating with professors (e.g. Belcher, 1994; Dong, 1996) and writing for publication (e.g. Casanave, 1998; Cho, 2004; Flowerdew, 2000; Li, 2006). It is legitimate because students are potentially members of the CoP of their choice. Peripherality indicates they are engaged in literacy activities at the margin because they are novices in the field and in the process of learning and familiarizing with the disciplinary conventions. Participation means they are acquiring the knowledge through their involvement with it. Through these legitimate, peripheral, and participatory activities, they move closer to the center and gain fuller participation in the CoP. Feedback itself is not equivalent to learning. It only provides possibilities or opportunities for further learning to occur. Feedback provides students with the potential to engage in additional legitimate peripheral participation, which eventually may lead to further learning. In reality, many major writing assignments in content area classes are only submitted to the course instructor toward the end of the semester. There is either no feedback provided or feedback received when students move on to other tasks or interests. Furthermore, some students do not treat writing as a learning tool, but a way to receive course credits. Students’ agency (Duff, 2012; Flowerdew — Miller, 2008) also plays some roles on how students treat their feedback. Agency is people’s “socioculturally mediated capacity to act” (Ahearn, 2001, p. 112). A sense of this agency to learn allows students to take an action as a reaction to the feedback they received and provides them the opportunity to interact with other people in or outside the CoP (Duff, 2012). The higher the agency the students hold, the more investment they would put into their learning. Agency should be encouraged as agent learners actively engaged in the terms and conditions of their learning (Lantolf — Pavlenko, 2001). Much is involved after students’ receipt of the teacher written feedback. Students’ understanding of, and reaction to the teacher written feedback on academic papers serves as a channel for legitimate peripheral participation through which students can be engaged in inner or outer dialogical interaction (Casanave, 2002) with various parties. However, this aspect of feedback has not been explored in detail. RUI CHENG — CARINE M. FEYTEN 9 1.2 WRITING-TO-LEARN IN SECOND LANGUAGE WRITING L2 writing is not only an ability that students acquire and teachers teach and evaluate, it is also a tool and foundation for students to learn both language and writing itself. Disciplinary professors play important roles in this learning process, but mainly through instructions of the concepts and content of a subject which will help students familiarize themselves with the conventions and norms of the writing of their discipline. Furthermore, content professors can set some specific writing assignments that will help initiate students to think their way into their discipline via their writing activities (Currie, 1993; Hyland, 2013). Writing demonstrates students’ understanding of both the disciplinary knowledge and conventions. A writing-to-learn perspective sees writing as a mode of learning, of both content and conventions of communication (Hyland, 2013). This mode of learning is particularly difficult for L2 writers as they must attend to both writing and language with greater efforts and it is not a skill set acquired easily or quickly (Hirvela, 2011). Studies (e.g. Hirvela, 2005; Spack, 1997; Smoke, 1994) focusing on understanding the relationship between writing and learning showed a gradual but powerful effect of writing on learning. Participants of these studies ultimately learned more about disciplinary knowledge and conventions when utilizing writing for content learning than when studying it as a subject (Hirvela, 2011). One important, but often ignored aspect in the writing-to-learn perspective is the role of feedback from teachers. Feedback is a key way for faculty members to communicate their expectations and evaluations of students’ learning. The current study looks at feedback from a writing-to-learn perspective and intends to contribute to the existing literature by strengthening the importance of feedback in students’ learning of disciplinary knowledge and conventions. 1.3 FEEDBACK IN THE WRITE-TO-LEARN APPROACH Feedback is generally viewed as an important tool for scaffolding second language writing and one of the most powerful influences on learning. Hattie and Timperley (2007) ranked feedback as the third most influential area in learning just below explicit teaching and students’ cognitive abilities. Most feedback research so far has been conducted in learning-to-write contexts (e.g. Bitchener — Knoch, 2009; Ferris — Roberts, 2001; Truscott — Hsu, 2008), and focused mainly on error correction (Ferris, 2006; Truscott, 2009) as well as the improvement of writing. In cases like these, writing tasks are often isolated from the students’ development of academic literacy in their field of study. The interactive and social dimensions of feedback have been mostly ignored (Goldstein, 2001). Students’ active participation and engagement with feedback and the strategies they adopted to understand and respond to feedback have not been examined in detail. Hyland (2003; 2011) investigated writing-to-learn dimensions of writing in learning-to-write contexts. She made efforts to study students’ active participation and engagement with feedback and individual differences in the strategies chosen by them to utilize feedback. Several student participants used spouses, friends and flat-mates as informants to help them revise their assignments after feedback. They were not asking someone else to “fix up” their writing, but instead sought to expand valuable language learning 10 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY 2/2015 opportunities. Hyland’s reports provided a useful lens to investigate teacher feedback from the writing-to-learn perspective, but she still focused on the learning-to-write context. Furthermore, Hyland (2003) called for more studies focusing on individual students to help build a picture of how students incorporate feedback. This study aims to explore various legitimate peripheral participation activities the students are involved in to utilize teacher feedback from the writing-to-learn perspective and context and tries to make pedagogical suggestions. 2. METHODOLOGY 2.1 PARTICIPANTS AND SETTINGS Data for this study were derived from a larger research study on the academic literacy experience of a group of ten non-native English speaking graduate students in a MA program in applied linguistics in a large public university located in the south east of the United States (US). Ten participants in the larger research study contributed to our knowledge of their acquisition of academic literacy in different ways. Two participants of this case study: Pinky and Park (Pseudonyms) stood out for the purpose of this study because their experience represented writing to learn disciplinary knowledge and academic conventions through teacher written feedback on genre specific papers in applied linguistics. Their demographic information and academic writing backgrounds are listed in Table 1. Name Park Pinky Country of origin South Korea Germany Gender Male Female Age Late 20s Early 20s Semester in the program 1st 1st Length of stay in the US 3 weeks 9 months Bachelor’s degree Linguistics Physical Ed & German English Proficiency High Intermediate High Intermediate Academic writing experience and attitude Limited AW experience in Korea Wrote some research papers in German Limited AW experience in English Limited AW in English Only wrote essays and free writing Regarded AW as a learning process Assumed AW difficult Nervous writing in new genres Believed practice and review important in writing tasks Believed practice brings success table 1: Participants demographic information and backgrounds in academic writing. Note: AW stands for academic writing. RUI CHENG — CARINE M. FEYTEN 11 Apparently neither Pinky nor Park has extensive experience writing academic papers in applied linguistics. They were somewhat nervous about the upcoming writing tasks, but they were all eager to practice and learn. Both Pinky and Park were enrolled in the Methods of Teaching ESOL (MTE) class, which was designed for graduate students to build some foundations in the theories and practices in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL). Students learned the major characteristics of different methods, observed, taught and reflected on real ESL classes in the English Language Institute (ELI), conducted peer teaching sessions in the class and developed their Statements of Teaching Philosophy (SOTP) in which they described what kind of teacher they are or aim to be through various components such as role of the teacher, role of students, teaching style. The teacher provided detailed feedback for SOTP, which served as a lens to examine the legitimate peripheral participation that Pinky and Park had experienced as their reaction to the teacher written comments on their SOTP. 2.2 DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS The data collection for the larger research study lasted for two semesters. During the data collection process, one of the researchers assumed the role of a participant observer. She was present at all the class meetings (except exams), taking extensive notes of participants’ activities in the class such as their communication with the teacher or peers. She also participated in some of the after class group meetings or teacher student conferences especially when these activities took place immediately after class. Multiple sources of data were collected for this study. A questionnaire was distributed to Pinky and Park to complete. The questionnaire elicited their personal information such as their national origin, native language, language study experience as well as their academic background and goals, previous disciplinary affiliations, and previous experience in academic writing in both L1 and English. The students’ SOTPs with the teacher written feedback were collected. Other writing correspondence such as emails and online postings were assembled as the evidence for the “conversation” outside the classroom. Discourse-based interviews where the researcher and each student scrutinized each feedback and discussed whether or how they impacted students’ revision of the paper and learning of the disciplinary knowledge served as another main source for data collection. The same researcher served as the interviewer to elicit information on what activities they had been engaged in as their efforts to respond to specific comments provided by the instructor on their written assignment: SOTP. The interviews focused on students’ perception and understanding of teacher written feedback, their activities to address teacher written comments and their revisions. The purpose of this discourse-based interview was to explore whether teacher written feedback on discipline specific papers would facilitate L2 students’ acquisition of academic literacy through providing opportunities for legitimate peripheral participation. All possible feedback points for both Pinky and Park’s SOTP were identified. For the long comments, they were chunked into meaning units. For example, feedback like “This is a good point, but can you be more specific about it?” will be chunked into two meaning units. All the feedback points were categorized as “feedback needs no 12 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY 2/2015 action” (such as good point, super) and “feedback needs action” (such as I’m not sure what you mean? How?). Table 2 indicates number of feedback points Pinky and Park each received. Among the feedback points that need action, a number of them were at grammatical level. They were not the major focus of this study. Name Park Pinky Total feedback points 21 25 Feedback needs no action 10 5 Feedback needs action 11 20 table 2: Feedback on SOTP Participants Received. The obtained interview, email or online posting data were analyzed mainly using the constant comparative method (Lincoln — Guba, 1985). The data were transcribed and read multiple times for common themes. A second rater not related with this study was invited to read the data independently. Themes identified by both readers were compared and any differences were resolved. The identified themes were reported below. 3. RESULTS 3.1 PARK’S LEGITIMATE PERIPHERAL PARTICIPATION GUIDED BY TEACHER WRITTEN FEEDBACK Park received both brief marginal and lengthy end-of-paper comments on his SOTP assignment from his instructor. While a majority of feedback was either positive or at the grammar level, some comments expressed the instructor’s constructive criticism. Park disclosed during the interview that although he cared a lot about the grade he received on the assignment, it was the constructive feedback from the instructor that made him learn. One piece of brief marginal feedback Park received was “Transition needed”. Park related this feedback back to two terms he just learned in the program: Coherence and Cohesion. I know transition. We just talked about coherence and cohesion in the class. But I guess these two word[s] look too similar. We just talked about them, but I already forgot the difference between them. I know one is related with transition. But I am confused it is a cohesion or coherence problem (Interview, December, 2005). This feeling of uncertainty made him review his class notes and straighten the definitions of confusing terms. I finally know it is cohesion. There are lots of words in English I cannot tell the difference between them because they look so similar. But if I can relate the words RUI CHENG — CARINE M. FEYTEN 13 to something I know, I will get it… I guess I won’t be confused by these two words anymore because I can always remember this (Interview, December, 2005). After clearly targeting the problem, Park realized what he needed to do was to add transitional words in multiple places within his SOTP. In the example above, the teacher written feedback guided the student to review and reflect on the concept of discourse in the field of applied linguistics. Coherence and cohesion refer to distinguishable features of discourse. The teacher written feedback made the student realize his lack of disciplinary knowledge in effectively differentiating these two important terms and take action by reviewing his class notes. This activity promoted the development of Park’s academic literacy. Park used multiple sets of metaphors in his SOTP assignment, such as driving directions and serving a meal, to prove how important it is for teachers to provide guidance and directions to students in their learning. The comments he received from the instructor were like this: Although metaphor is ok with this type of academic paper, we are taught not to mix metaphors. So, stay with the driving analogy. I really enjoyed your use of the driving metaphor throughout your statement of teaching philosophy, and believe it was very effective. It allowed you to make various important points without over-doing it. Congratulations! My only concern is that you sometimes lose the specificity of your message because occasionally it gets “lost” in the metaphor. In other words, make sure you support each aspect of the metaphor (maps, directions, getting lost, etc.) with specific example from the classroom (Teacher written comments, 2005). When discussing these comments in a discourse-based interview, Park revealed that he was involved in multiple activities as he attempted to understand and respond to the written comments. Park was curious why the professor was against the use of multiple sets of metaphors after he received the comments. To him, the utilization of multiple sets of metaphors in SOTP avoided boredom and unnecessary redundancy and enhanced the readability of the paper. In order to figure out this issue, Park posted his question on some online Listserv groups (the course instructor helped student enroll in some Listservs at the beginning of the semester) and received some responses: One of the responders commented: You should not use metaphor at all in the academic paper. I thought metaphors are for novel, essays and even poetry (Email). Another person responded with a different opinion: Most often, people don’t use metaphors in an academic paper because metaphors are descriptive but an academic paper is more serious. But a statement of teaching philosophy is not a strictly defined research paper. So I guess using 14 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY 2/2015 metaphor is all right. I also feel you’ll lose focus by using too many different metaphors (Email). The identities of the people who responded were not clear to Park. They may be international students just like him. So Park could not totally trust their opinions. In addition their views were different. This activity did not solve Park’s problem completely, but allowed Park to reflect on the use of metaphor in papers like SOTP. “It seemed metaphor is not a close friend with the paper. I’d better just keep[ing] driving” (Park, Dec, 2005). It is noticeable, though, at that moment, he still did not entirely decipher the metaphor comments from the instructor. Park did not approach his instructor who provided the comments for explanation as he felt the teacher had no obligation to meet him after the last class. However, this was not the end of the story. He expanded his communication with some experts in the field of applied linguistics in the following semester. He raised his metaphor questions on two occasions: at a guest speech session and in a new class he enrolled in when it was time for him to write another paper. It seemed to me they all think limited use of metaphors in papers. I should not use metaphors to show off, like how much I learn in English, I should focus on my topic. That should be my main purpose. I guess too many different metaphors blocked my real purpose. I should come back to teaching (Chat, March, 2006). Finally, Park felt he had a much better understanding of this issue. Park disclosed from his own experience that he learned more from these legitimate peripheral participation activities than from a single lecture. It was disclosed by him that metaphor was only briefly mentioned in one of the class sessions on semantics. There were neither intensive discussions on metaphor nor any explanations on how to use it in an academic paper. Park was fascinated by some examples of metaphor and believed utilizing metaphors represented higher English proficiency. The essence of successful use of metaphor in disciplinary academic papers of applied linguistics was not acquired until he was engaged in the legitimate and peripheral activities guided by the teacher’s written feedback on his SOTP. Park finally learned that, conventionally, people tend not to use multiple sets of metaphors in a single academic paper in applied linguistics: “I guess it is easy to confuse the reader if I use many metaphors in the paper.” He realized that using driving metaphor might actually express his points more clearly and effectively. He also realized that the purpose of using the metaphors was to illustrate his ideas of teaching. Metaphors should not be the focus of the paper. He needed to always switch back to the main point, that is, classroom teaching. Park was engaged in multiple legitimate peripheral participation activities as a way for him to understand the teacher’s written comments. For non-native English speakers, many terminologies and the use of metaphor are not intuitive but learned through hard work. Park tended to demonstrate his learning in the assignments as a representation of his efforts and achievements. Classroom instructors might lead him to the door of terminology and metaphor; however, the accurate understanding RUI CHENG — CARINE M. FEYTEN 15 of terminologies and appropriate use of metaphor were often learned through writing, making mistakes and eventual understanding. In Park’s case, it was initiated by the teacher’s written feedback on his academic paper. In order to have better understanding of teacher feedback on his SOTP, Park reviewed course content, communicated with people in the virtual community by posting his question in online Listserv forum and discussing the questions with the more experienced members in the field. Although Park did not always receive answers that he considers satisfactory from any specific venue, he at least was more engaged in thinking and reflecting, which might be beneficial for his future journey in the field. 3.2 PINKY’S LEGITIMATE PERIPHERAL PARTICIPATION GUIDED BY TEACHER WRITTEN FEEDBACK Pinky received more constructive feedback from the professor on her SOTP. She picked four areas of focus: the role of the teacher, the role of the learner, promising methods, and control and evaluation and listed these four topics at the beginning of the paper. This format of presentation was apparently not approved by the professor, by commenting “announc[ing] each of these at the beginning of the appropriate sections. They all seem to blend in together and the focus gets lost” (Appendix). Also in the papers, there were several marginal notes like “Is this where you begin to address the role of the teacher?” (Appendix), “Is this where promising methods begin?” etc. Upon receiving these comments, Pinky reflected on her thoughts about listing all four topics at the beginning of the paper. When I learned to write in English, especially when I prepare for the English test, I got to know I present main idea first and use several paragraphs to support the main idea and make the conclusion. So when I am writing the SOTP, I did the same thing. I present my main focus and I explain each of them in detail. But I do feel a little bit not sure whether, I mean, to put all the topics at the beginning or not because this is quite different. I used to write only 4 or 5 paragraphs. It’s easy to tell the beginning and ending of main idea, idea one, idea two and the conclusion. SOTP is a longer paper. Yeah, I did find it is hard to tell different sections, I mean, if I put all the topics at the beginning (Interview, December, 2005). Pinky was glad that the instructor pointed that out because it confirmed that her doubt was reasonable. It also conformed to what she just learned about the writing style of American English which greatly emphasizes being reader friendly: “I guess I ignored this might be a problem for readers to tell where the section ended and the new section began. The reader had to do extra work to tell the beginning and ending of each section” (Interview, December, 2005). Pinky realized she needed to announce each topic at the beginning of the appropriate section, but did not want to just remove the list at the beginning of the paper. Pinky conducted some research by browsing several SOTP from the Internet and made the conclusion that she can have both the list at the beginning of the paper and restate each topic at the corresponding section. She mentioned for future writing tasks: “I will be more reader friendly. Maybe it is not a bad idea to introduce the 22 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY 2/2015 Hirvela, Alan (2005): Computer-based reading and writing across the curriculum: two case studies of L2 writers. Computers and Composition, 22(3), pp. 337–356. Hirvela, Alan (2011): Writing-to-learn in content areas: research insights. In: Rosa M. Manchón (ed.), Learning-to-Write and Writing-to-Learn in an Additional Language [Language Learning and Language Teaching, 31]. Amsterdam — Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins, pp. 37–59. Hyland, Fiona (1998): The impact of teacher written feedback on individual writers. Journal of Second Language Writing, 7(3), pp. 255–286. 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Spack, Ruth (1997): The acquisition of academic literacy in a second language: a longitudinal case study. Written Communication, 14(1), pp. 3–62. Truscott, John (2009): Arguments and appearances: a response to Chandler. Journal of Second Language Writing, 18(1), pp. 59–60. Truscott, John — Hsu, Angela Yi-ping (2008): Error correction, revision, and learning. Journal of Second Language Writing, 17(4), pp. 292–305. Wenger, Etienne (1998): Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press. RUI CHENG — CARINE M. FEYTEN 23 APPENDIX: PINKY’S SOTP WITH TEACHER COMMENTS 24 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY 2/2015 RUI CHENG — CARINE M. FEYTEN 25 ABSTRAKT: Rozvoj akademické gramotnosti v L2 u studentů na základě psané zpětné vazby učitele: pohled z perspektivy „od psaní k učení“. Postgraduální studenti — nerodilí mluvčí — potřebují zvládnout speciální oborové znalosti a žánrové konvence, aby dostáli nárokům akademického psaní. Učební postup je vždy procesem založeným na vnější participaci, kdy jsou studenti postupně uváděni do oboru díky spolupráci a interakci s lidmi ze své sociální a akademické sítě. Přijetím perspektivy „od psaní k učení“ se studie snaží zjistit, jak učitelova psaná zpětná vazba vede postgraduální studenty v L2 k zapojení do náležitých okrajových i významných aktivit s cílem porozumět učitelovým očekáváním, osvojit si oborové konvence a rozvinout akademickou gramotnost v oblasti aplikované lingvistiky. Výzkum ukázal, že učitelova psaná zpětná vazba poskytuje studentům šanci zapojit se do dialogických interakcí s různými subjekty na základě interpretace a/nebo vyjasnění učitelovy psané zpětné vazby. Tyto okrajové participační aktivity umožňují studentům v L2 nejen získat nutné oborové znalosti pro psaní kvalitních studií, ale též získat kontakt se zkušenějšími kolegy i s daným oborem. Rui Cheng | Language, Literacy, and Technology Department, Nazareth College, Rochester, NY <[email protected]> Carine M. Feyten | Texas Woman’s University, Denton — Dallas — Houston, TX