Section 3.1 has discussed how the cultural concept of politeness, cross-cultural differences, and language and writing background can have a negative effect on the quality of writing in another language. Explicit training, on the other hand, can
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positively contribute to students’ writing improvements in the expected conventions. Gibbons (2002) explains what explicit teaching in this regard means:
It does mean that students are encouraged to reflect on how language is used for a range of purposes and with a range of audiences, and that teachers focus explicitly on those aspects of language that enable students to do this. Explicit teaching is related to real life use, so that understanding about language is developed in the context of actual language use. It aims to foster active involvement in learning, independence in writing, and the ability to critique the ways that language is used in authentic contexts, such as the way it is used to persuade. (p60)
The knowledge of “what is socially and culturally appropriate in terms of the writer roles, audience expectations, rhetorical and stylistic conventions, and situational or contextual features of written text” (Reid 1990, p201) contributes to the writing success of EFL learners. In Ha’s study (2001) mentioned in Section 3.1, the four Vietnamese students stated that when they became aware of the nature of English writing, they gradually wrote more directly and critically. The value of raising students’ awareness of the expected conventions of writing was also seen in a case study by Bojana Petric (2005) and in the Scaffolding Academic Literacy Project of University of Sydney (Rose et al. 2008).
Bojana Petric (2005) conducted explicit teaching on the placement of the thesis statement in argumentative essays written by Russian students. It was assumed that the Russian pattern of writing tended to be less linear and more tolerant of digression than English writing. Also, the argumentative essay is not part of writing instruction in Russia. Before the course 19 students were asked to compose an essay and it was found that the position of their thesis statement varied widely, with only one student stating it in the expected position, in the last sentence of the introduction. During the six 100-minute sessions, the students were asked to read Kaplan’s (1966) article “Cultural thought patterns in intercultural education”. They discussed the issue of audience’s expected conventions, and analysed an argumentative essay written by a former student. After the course, students’ awareness of the conventions of English academic writing had increased. So, when the students were asked to write another
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essay, all essays contained a thesis statement, with most students stating it in the expected position.
Another explicit training, the Scaffolding Academic Literacy Project delivered at the University of Sydney to Indigenous adults returning to formal study, received positive results in students’ literacy development (Rose et al. 2008). In this project, the students are Indigenous Australians who have been excluded from higher education but are now re-entering education for their tertiary studies. Many of them struggle with the level of academic literacy required, lacking experience in reading academic texts and writing academic essays. So, the Project was developed to train students in the patterns of written language through reading and applying these patterns in their writing. In the project, the students read increasingly difficult texts in class. Then, language patterns were elaborated so that the students would learn to recognise the patterns of academic language. In this way, part of the success of the Project lies in its equipping students with the right tools to use for writing, including the language features appropriate to the academic writing style.
As well as exploring how EFL learners cope with the demands of argumentative essay writing, this research is also interested in teacher intervention as part of explicit training. In the SFL genre-based tradition, teacher intervention in the student’s learning process is important (Christie 1991; Rothery 1996). In the EAP preparation programme in which the two participants in this present research were enrolled, feedback is an important part of teacher intervention. The students wrote several drafts which would in the end form a five-paragraph argumentative essay. In the writing process, their teachers intervened at each draft in the form of written feedback. More specifically, the students wrote one paragraph, then submitted it to their teachers, who in turn checked it and gave written feedback. After receiving that initial paragraph back, the students rewrote it and added a second paragraph, building on the first. The students then submitted this new draft and the same cycle of teacher giving written feedback continued until they had completed the whole five-paragraph argumentative essay. As will be clearly seen in Figures 4-1 and 4-2, this means that by the time a five-paragraph final essay is completed, students will have received feedback four or five times.
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Research on feedback has been conducted on several of its aspects, including attempts to find (1) the contribution written feedback makes to revision (Beason 1993; Hyland, F. 1998; Vardi 2003); (2) the relationship between different types of corrective feedback and L2 development (Alison 2006; Olson & Raffeld 1987; Bitchener, Young & Cameron 2005); and (3) students’ reactions to teacher feedback (Hedgcock & Lefkowitz 1994; Lee, I. 2008; Perpighnan 2003; Woodward-Kron 2002b). Recently, however, there has been a call for teachers to develop reflective, effective and more explicit feedback (Hill 2007; Hyland & Hyland 2001; Lee, I. 2008).
Explicit feedback may also include feedback on desirable linguistic characteristics of an argumentative essay. Despite the important role an argumentative essay plays in tertiary studies and the significant contributions of explicit feedback, little instruction on “linguistic features or grammatical structures that enable students to accomplish the tasks” (Schleppegrell 2006, p135) has been given to students, as well as teachers on whose feedback students rely.
Not only do the students need rhetorical awareness and linguistic awareness to construct a genre, but the teachers also need a linguistic toolbox to construct explicit feedback and assessment. Teachers need to be clear as to what to investigate regarding linguistic features of advanced language use when assessing argumentative essays written by language learners. As a theory of language, SFL has provided linguists with useful tools to analyse and demonstrate how linguistic features are employed to construct different text types (e.g. Corbett 2009; Hood 2004b; Martin 1993, 2001a; Thompson & Thompson 2009; Wignell 1998). SFL has also enabled analysts to pinpoint some characteristics of successful texts and make explicit the value of certain linguistic features (Christie & Dreyfus 2007; Hood 2005; Lee, S. 2006, 2008; Nakamura 2009; Schleppegrell 2004, 2006; Woodward-Kron 2002a; Wu 2007; Xu 2000). However, as Humphrey et al. point out, “while the expanded semiotic toolbox made available to educators from this research has enabled valued textual practices in the academic domain to be made far more explicit and accessible to students, there is a need to consider the implications of these elaborations in
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training the growing numbers of teachers needed in academic literacy programs” (Humphrey et al. forthcoming).
More and more literacy educators are interested in having a toolbox which describes key linguistic resources for assessing students’ writing tasks. In response to underspecified guidelines of advanced writing descriptors of language proficiency by the American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and English Language Development (ELD) Standard, Schleppegrell (2006), in an endeavour to eliminate teachers’ and assessors’ frustrations, suggests key linguistic resources for constructing ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings in exposition, as listed in Table 3-1. She also analysed two short essays to demonstrate “how teachers can respond to such writing in ways that scaffold the further development of this written genre”. Her focus is on “identifying the strengths writers bring to the writing task and the additional linguistic resources that they could develop to write more effectively” (Schleppegrell 2006, pp136-137).
Table 3-1: Linguistic resources for exposition (Schleppegrell 2006, p137)
• Nominal expressions for naming the points to be made • Verbs that construct relational processes for defining key terms
• Modality for constructing possibility and necessity in making judgements
• Markers of consequential relationships (purpose, condition, cause, concession) for drawing conclusions or supporting assertions
• Projection through verbs of thinking and saying for citing others or taking a stance • Thematic choices that enable smooth progression in presenting information • Internal connectors for signposting the organisation of the text
Similarly, in response to the needs of literacy tutors in the SLATE literacy project, Humphrey et al. (forthcoming) have suggested a linguistic toolbox for teaching academic writing, which they name “the 3x3 framework”. The framework allows viewing text in nine dimensions: three from the three metafunctions of language (ideational, interpersonal, and textual), combined with the other three from three strata of language (social activity/genre, discourse semantics, and grammar and expression). Selected part of this “trinocular and tri-stratal perspective of the 3x3” is demonstrated in Table 3-2. Using this toolbox in analysing one biology summary, these analysts demonstrate how the framework helps teachers “engage analytically with students’ draft texts and make explicit the expectations of academic writing”.
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Table 3-2: The 3x3 framework for describing linguistic resources of student writing in the academic domain
(Humphrey et al. forthcoming)
Metafunction Social Activity Discourse Semantic Grammar & Expression Ideational Language constructs
the technical,
specialised and formal knowledge of
discipline area (field)
Information is related in logical relationships (eg. time, cause, consequence, comparison)
Verb groups express processes relevant to the genre (eg defining, classifying; cause and effect, reporting)
Interpersonal The language presents points and arguments in authoritative, impersonal and objective ways (tenor)
The writer includes and controls the voices of external sources to develop points and guide the reader towards a preferred position
Interpersonal objective metaphors used to negotiate opinions and recommendations (eg. ‘It is clear that’ or ‘There is a need for..’ rather than ‘I think’ or ‘you should’) Textual The language
constructs coherent, signposted and abstract texts (mode)
Ideas are developed within phases (eg. paragraphs) with topic and summary sentences used to predict and summarise
Choices of unmarked Theme sustain orientation to the topic; selections for marked Theme mark shifts in orientation
While the current research shares a similar focus and intent as in the work by Schleppegrell (2006) and Humphrey et al. (forthcoming), this research involves analysis of two long essays (about 1,300 words each). The interpretation is also enriched by the students’ sets of drafts, teachers’ written feedback and student interviews.