CONCLUSIONES

It is generally agreed that writers need different strategies for FL writing than for L1 writing, and that they are best served by distributing their cognitive capacities differently among the writing processes (e.g. Bereiter and Scardamalia 1987: 356 ff., Hayes 2008: 29, Pritchard and Honeycutt 2008: 279). For example, in FL writing, better results are achieved when writers spend more time on final revision than they might do in L1 writing, because the revising that is executed during the formulation process is less successful in the FL than it is in the L1 (Sasaki 2000: 261, Zimmermann 2000: 89).

Fig. 5.5 Mean time spent on the different writing processes (%)

As could be predicted from the data regarding the overall time required to complete the tasks, the distribution of time spent on the different writing subprocesses varied between the L1 and the FL as well as between the two different planning conditions. Figure 5.5 visualises the percentage of time spent on the different writing processes in the different writing conditions.

In the SE task, the distribution of time among the different writing subprocesses differs distinctly from that in the academic essays: the participants spent 92.11% of their time on formulating the text, 3.12% on planning, and 3.44% on revision. The remaining 1.33% of the time was spent on preparation (reading the task). The distribution of time

the processes in speaking, and the writers were in a knowledge-telling condition (Bereiter and Scardamalia 1987: 8). Seven of the ten participants spent no time on revising the SE at all. Sarah is an exception in that she spent 22.7% of the time on revision, thus somewhat skewing the total rate of revisions.

In the academic essays, the distribution of time was clearly different. The percentage of time spent on formulation was markedly lower than in the SE, although it still occupied the greatest proportion: 69.61% in L1N, 65.67% in FLN, 64.60% in L1F and 59.08% in FLF. The rest of the time (between 30.02% and 40.02%) was spent on the other writing sub-processes. The distribution of time among the subprocesses differed among the assignments. In all of the academic essays, the time spent on preparation was higher than in the SE; this was expected, since in order to fulfil the task, the participants had to read the more complex assignments as well as the source texts. However, in all of the conditions, the proportion of time spent on preparation differed distinctly: they were lowest in the L1N condition (9.74%, compared to L1F 10.21%) and highest in the FLF condition (17.14%, compared to FLN 12.15%). As the source texts were of approximately the same lengths, reading the source text in the L1 was likely accomplished more quickly because of the higher language proficiency (Yamashita 2002: 82). Because note-taking is the planning condition that the students are best acquainted with, they were ready to start taking notes sooner in this condition than they were in the unfamiliar freewriting condition. This might have been an effect of the participants ‘preplanning’ the freewriting text: some stated that they did not ‘trust’ the efficiency of freewriting as planning method. For example, Artilleryman noted in his questionnaire on FLF that planning by freewriting seemed to him

“confused, muddled”, whereas note-taking allowed him to build up a “clear, concise, step-by-step structure”. Babs wrote that she liked the freewriting planning method because it made it “easier to write”, but at the same time “there are also problems because you are not allowed to think” – a statement which indicates that she did not experience writing as thinking (electronic appendix, folder “4_Questionnaires”).

The amount of time spent on planning also differed distinctly between the different planning conditions and the different languages. A noteworthy result is that the lowest proportions of time spent on planning occurred in the FLF task (14.47%) and in the L1N task (14.85%); that is, the time spent on planning was lowest and most similar in the task conditions that were most distinct. The highest amount of time spent on planning occurred in the FLN task (19.40%). Here the participants performed under the foreign language condition using the planning method they were best acquainted with. The result points

towards a high usage of L1 in planning, which made the participants literally translate the ideas they generated into the FL, as was found by Manchón, Roca de Larios and Murphy (2000: 21) or Sasaki (2000: 274). The percentage of planning time in the L1F task (17.16%) lay between the two extremes.

It is necessary to be careful when generalising these findings, however, because planning times differed distinctly among the individual participants (Fig. 5.6). In contrast to the results on the number of characters in the final essays, no overall pattern can be made out here. What all participants share in common, however, is that none took more than 10% of the entire time contingent for planning the SE, and the differences between the planning times for the academic essays were lowest for the FLF essay (5.2%). Most of the participants stopped planning after they were told that the time frame of five minutes was over. In the case of German freewriting, this also held true for most of the participants, but here more of them entered into a text-and-idea-generation process which led them to continue freewriting after the obligatory planning time was over. This means that the process of thinking through writing worked better in the L1 than in the FL.

The individual results in the time spent on planning differed most markedly in the note-taking condition: here the difference was 29.15% in the L1N and 29.62% in the FLN.

Since the participants did not have any set time frame for taking the notes, they were free to decide how much time they wanted to spend on planning. Because of this, they could work planner-type appropriately (Boehm 1993): that is, those who need a detailed plan before starting to write (Mozartians) could spend a greater amount of time on planning, while those who tend to plan during the writing process (Beethovians) could start more immediately. For example, James is a prototypical Beethovian in that he needed less time for planning the L1N essay (2.63% of the total amount of time) than for planning the SE (3.03%). He did not write down any information about the content to be provided, but simply sketched the intended text structure (“Einleitung”, “Hauptteil”, “Schluss” = introduction, body, conclusion) and the metacontent to be provided (e.g. “Problemaufriss”

= description of problem, and “Tese” [sic] = thesis). That is, he did not use note-taking in order to relieve his working memory by writing down his ideas (Piolat 2007: 111), but kept

Fig. 5.6 Time for planning per participant

them in his head or generated them during the writing process; as a result, his was the text with the highest number of characters (Chapter 5.1.3).

Still, the planner type cannot be the only explanation for the differences in planning time; rather, there are other relevant factors. Siebenmorgen, for example, spent almost the same amount of time on planning the FLN (7.75% of the total amount of time) as on planning the SE (7.64%), but more time on planning the L1N (11.08%). On the questionnaire, this participant stated that she had attended a seminar on Aristotle’s Analytic Posteriora during the previous semester and because of this felt at home with the topic. It seems that she solved the task by telling rather than by knowledge-transforming.

With respect to revision, for 70% of the participants the SE did indeed resemble speech written down, in that they did not revise the texts at all, although they would have had the time to do so. Only Sarah spent a significant proportion of the available time on revision (22.66%). In the academic writing processes, the amount of time dedicated to revision again differed distinctly between the planning conditions and the language conditions: revision took the least time in the FLN (2.78%) and the most under the FLF condition (9.49%). In the FLN, the low revision rate in most of the cases cannot be seen as the result of a conscious choice by the participants, but in many cases was simply due to a lack of time. In this condition, Krebs, Babs and Gio did not have any time left over for revision once they had finished writing, while Marissa and Sarah had barely 1% of the time left. Many participants had to stop writing the essay before having properly finished it. In the L1N, 5.8% of the time was spent on revision, and in the L1F 8.03%.

% SE L1N FLN L1F FLF

James 0.00 6.11 1.02 1.08 4.69 Siebenmorgen 4.81 5.19 6.08 23.93 25.90 Marissa 0.00 13.58 0.31 0.62 13.66 IPhone 7.23 0.00 7.36 7.36 0.00 Sarah 22.66 6.43 0.76 0.00 19.99 Artilleryman 0.00 2.98 7.56 7.84 11.76 Krebs 0.00 14.91 0.00 17.42 7.07 Babs 0.00 9.15 0.00 10.93 7.59 Owlet 0.00 0.00 4.46 8.88 4.26

Gio 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Table 5.5 Percentage of available time used by each participant for revision

Table 5.5 shows the percentage of time spent on revision by the individual participants. It is interesting that the low revision rate was not necessarily a consequence of the lack of

time in every case. iPhone, for example, who spent only 7.36% of the time for revision in the L1F, had nearly 9.17 minutes left when he finished the task. Similarly, Artilleryman, Babs and Owlet had more time left over for revision after the formulation process than they actually used. All read their texts through only once – although they claimed differently in the questionnaires, which does not conform to the keylog protocols. This strongly suggests that these participants did not use a strategy for revising their texts in a structured way, as is taught for example in writing guides or writing classes; such classes usually recommend that writers revise in (at least) three steps, concentrating successively on content, structure and orthography. Since their texts would in fact have benefited from more revision, as is shown in Chapter 6.1, the participants in the study fit the profile of novice or insecure writers rather than accomplished ones in this respect (Becker 2006: 30).

Generally, it is clear that the writers felt most constrained by the time limit when writing the FL texts: compared to the L1, the preparation process was slower, more time was necessary for planning by note-taking, and planning by freewriting was less extensive.

However, in the FL tasks, the shorter amount of time dedicated to planning meant that a longer time contingent was left over for final revisions, whereas the higher productivity that resulted from planning by freewriting in the L1 led to a higher interaction between text and writer, which in turn left some of the participants with less time for revision. Still, the distribution of time among the different writing processes varied across the different tasks and between individuals. This points to the existence of individually varying strategies for dealing with the tasks and with the different language and planning conditions. Writers may respond to different planning conditions differently in different languages: in the L1, freewriting might activate the thinking process, whereas in the FL, the same strategy might be ineffective, or vice versa.