Six Writers in Search of Texts by Arndt - Article Example

Running Head: A Critical Review of Researching in Writing in ESL/EFL Student’s Name: Instructor: Course Code and Name: Institution: Date Assignment is due: Article of Analysis Arndt, V. (1987). Six writers in search of texts: a protocol-based study of L1 and L2 writing. ELT Journal 41(4): 257-267. Word Count: 3426 words (Excluding Outline and References) A Critical Review of Researching in Writing in ESL/EFL Paper Title Researching ESL/EFL Writing Protocols from the Perspective of the Writing Activity and that of the Written Text: Valerie Arndt Research among Asian Post Graduate EFL Students Outline This paper details the findings of an empirical case study conducted by Valerie Arndt in China generalized among six postgraduate EFL students. The study’s main aim was to establish whether there are differences between the characteristics of EFL students in their writing processes based on the process they used to compose written texts and the texts they composed. The article thus analyzed helps critic the findings of the study, a contextualization of these findings to the contemporary body of knowledge in researching writing for ESL and EFL purposes while also highlighting some weaknesses and strengths of the study in question. To do this, the following structure has been used: a) Introduction The paper begins with an introduction, which illustrates the relevance, scope and context of the paper and the central thesis of exploration. The paper structure is also stated in the introduction. b) Overview of the Study In this section, the paper gives an overview of the text of analysis and illustrates what the main points the author of the article who is also the researcher, has written about. The overview introduces the general treatment the research study accorded writing research for ESL and EFL purposes c) Theoretical Consensus on Writing Research Inspiring the Study This section aims at contextualizing what previous research studies had found and concentrated on prior to Arndt’s research and what her findings could validate, modify, negate or expand on. d) Major Findings of the Study In this section, the paper highlights some of the major findings published in the text on accord of the writing research it documents and explains the significance of these findings in the context of other publications from the available body of knowledge on writing research. e) The Strengths of the Study In this section, the paper details the strengths of the study on whose findings the text of analysis has been published and why the research has relevantly added to the available body of knowledge on researching writing skills, methodologies and teaching in ESL/EFL settings. f) Weaknesses of the Study In this section, the paper highlights some weaknesses that the study documented in the text of analysis displays in the context of other empirical studies. g) Suggested Improvements In this section, the paper expresses some suggestions that could have helped overcome the research study weaknesses cited above as found in the text of analysis. h) Conclusion This section of the paper summarizes the overview of the text of analysis, its major findings and contributions in the context of other studies and publications and then on the suggested improvements to any of the weaknesses. Introduction The article of analysis is written by Valerie Arndt on a research study she conducted in China among post-graduate EFL students. Valerie Arndt is an expert in the subject of ESL and EFL writing research given that she had taught EFL/ESL applications such as writing, for over twenty years before conducting this study. She had taught in England as well as in many oversea nations. Indeed, she has actually taught abroad than in England, giving her a command over practical application of linguistic theories in true ESL contexts. During this study, she had been teaching writing in East Asia for over four years. Her continued research even after receiving an MA in TEFL at the University of Reading is widely published. To properly understand the relevance of Valerie Arndt’s research, it is important to note that for the most part before 1990’s, writing research was based on the structure and quality of the composed text by EFL and ESL students with the implication that the product is what determined the proficiency level of the writers (Martlew, 1983). Few studies ventured into the cognitive processes through which the writer went through before producing the text of whichever quality (Prior, 2004). Valerie Arndt’s study however took a different approach to seek any relevant significance of the writing process and the cognitive involvement of the writer, typically attributable to ESL and EFL students. For instance, the study found out that, what the EFL writers know and even verbalize during the process of writing is mostly left out of the written text, despite that omitted content being of great potential in improving the text (Arndt, 1987). In this line of thought therefore, Valerie Arndt’s study aimed at identifying the cognitive processes that EFL students went through while composing texts (marking the differences between individual EFL writers despite their similar language competence level). Then the study compared these processes to the texts they composed to identify the relevant variation factors such as the role of methodical writing, outlining, revisions and other writing approaches/tools to the teaching of writing in EFL settings (Arndt, 1987). That is the background on which this paper is composed. The paper reviews what the research study found in regards to writing research for applied linguistic applications. It begins with an overview of Valerie Arndt’s study in terms of methodology, setting, controls and research objectives before highlighting some of the major findings arrived at. The essay also reviews the study’s strengths and weaknesses and finally gives a few recommendations on how the study’s weaknesses could have been improved. This is then tied all together by a conclusion on the text. Overview of the Study Valerie Arndt’s study employed the case study approach to researching writing, using six EFL student writers (three females and three males) to generalize on EFL writing protocols (Arndt, 1987). The six subjects were all native speakers of Chinese and enrolled to the Nankai University. The writers were residents of the largest Chinese industrial city, Tianjin, lying to the north-east of the Chinese mainland. Again, the post-graduate students were all in their final study at which point most of their writing, in academic or non-academic settings was being done in English, their second language. The quality of their L2 written texts was in many instances the basis of judging their academic competence in general (Arndt, 1987). This meant that the students were very motivated in improving their writing skills and were thus indicate their improved L2 competence. During the study, the researchers used two single-hour writing sessions separated by a brief break. During each session, the writers were put in isolated booths within the language laboratory, where they wrote in L1 first and L2 in the second session. As part of their tasks, the writers were supposed to write provided discourse while verbalizing their thoughts and thought processes to a recording. The thoughts could be verbalized in any language they preferred, English or Chinese. Of special note is that the verbalized thoughts were allowed in either language while their written texts were limited to one of the two languages in either session. For both sessions, the subject, the target audience and the purpose of the written texts to be produced were similar so as to enable comparison by the researchers (Arndt, 1987). Tasks involved such topics as writing an article for the Nankai University student’s magazine about relevance of Chinese traditions in modern China in Chinese and one for an English newspaper in English (Arndt, 1987). To complement the research materials (written and recorded data), the researchers conducted open-ended interviews that aimed at developing a personal 'writing profile' for each writer based on Perl’s findings (1979). The interviews investigated their feelings, perceptions and attitudes towards writing in general and towards the specific tasks assigned (Arndt, 1987). In data analysis, the researchers coded the verbalized content in the recorded tapes using the modified coding scheme that was developed and propagated by Perl (1981). To distinguish writing processes from each other, the researchers identified and then grouped their data into 21 major categories such as planning, outline planning, rehearsing, repeating, re-reading, questioning, revising and editing. For each of these processes, the researchers identified variations between the writers in terms of intensity, frequency, time used on each and reliance during composition. These were referred to as the coded activities that each writer employed in the process of writing and part of what constituted his or her composing-style (Arndt, 1987). Theoretical Consensus on Writing Research Inspiring the Study Prior to this study, most of the research on the area of teaching writing to EFL and ESL students did not differentiate between writing as an activity and writing as the composition (product) (Prior, 2004). The term ‘writing’ could correctly refer to both the activity of generating a text and to the product of the activity (text or composition). It became an issue of contention when scholars started advocating for either to the emphasis of teaching writing where teachers concentrated on one aspect more than the other (the process or the product) (Prior, 2004). For the first time since the aspects became contentious, some researchers initiated a hitherto unknown emphasis and exclusive focus on the process through which writer developed their texts. Teaching writing was viewed as the process of enabling writers to grasp the highly specialized techniques that could help them craft type good texts that displayed communicative competence (Prior, 2004). The period starting from early 1980’s saw most pedagogy development and writing research based on the process rather than the product. The attention was centered on the acts of composing a text from the moment the initial idea is conceived, a meaning evolved and then translated from cognition to the written discourse. It is from that controversial standing that Valerie Arndt found it important to seek a middle ground between the two sides of the debate and establish how each of the two contested aspects could influence teaching writing in ESL and EFL settings or any other relevant area of applied linguistics. A divorce of the product of writing from the processes of generating the product was in itself proving an ill advised direction of writing research (Martlew, 1983). Indeed, as later scholars have confirmed in other studies, the ‘heart of an effective writing art, a competent writer and informed writing act, the techniques of attaining the text and the text itself must be fused together’ (Martlew, 1983). The text here helps shed light to the process through which a writer passed to encode his or her message into written words on the page while trying all the while to fit the language use to the relevant rhetorical context for the particular audience intended. To an extent, the trend of judging the quality of a written text from the level at which the writer is able to express the intended message, to communicate effectively through the process of transcribing thoughts to written words in an exact or near exact manner, found its genesis in this era from which Valerie Arndt was a prominent researcher. Martlew belongs also to this school of thought and he is documented to have said, 'examining critically the process of an individual’s language production process for research purposes is notoriously difficult and perhaps the easiest way is to determine how well thought has been encoded in written text, on its own a momentous endeavor' (Martlew, 1983:313). Towards this end, Valerie Arndt used the recorded tapes to conceive the thoughts of the six writers during the writing process as the comparative bar on which the written text could be evaluated for similarity or variance. Like many scholars since, Valerie Arndt understood the process of writing simply as a set of activities that involved what Britton (1975, 47) had called 'a dialectical interpretation and conversion of language from thought and cognitive meanings’. One thing to be noted here is that researchers ascribing to this school of thought readily concur that the cognitive processes a writer goes through during the writing process are observably elusive, inaccessible and sometimes misleading. A researcher can only approximate and infer the same from contextual details such as Valerie Arndt’s use or verbalized recordings to understand and generalize on what the writers were thinking during the writing process (Martlew, 1983). The dilemma in which writing researchers found themselves then was compounded by the fact that they were not just considering the writing processes of an L1 writer but also of the L2 writer who has a burden of incompetence in the syntax, lexicon and morphology of the adopted language. To this problem, Valerie Arndt takes a stance that the then growing body of the LI process-centered research findings suggested that the process of composing text for L2 was despite the obvious additional linguistic burden, similar in kind to the composing process of an L1 writer (Arndt, 1987). In this believe, Valerie Arndt decided to include as part of the research texts written by the same writers in their mother tongue (L1) and in English (L2) and then to compare both their processes in composition and their products (texts) (Arndt, 1987). The Text’s Major Findings In her study, Valerie Arndt established that despite being in the same level of L2 competence, the abilities of the writers varied based on individual factors of speed, revisions, errors in the final texts, attainment of the writing objective, volume of written text generated and more so quality of the text (Arndt, 1987). There emerged those who were more skillful in writing and thus determined as the ‘proficient writers’ who differed from the less skillful ‘incompetent writers’. This finding is relevant to modern writing research since it purports that there is a notable lack of similarity in the writing behaviour and competence among any group members assumed as relatively homogeneous based on their academic achievements and spoken language proficiency (Prior, 2004). As the researcher notes, she had expected the findings to be similar to previous L2 writing studies which had marked considerable similarity and equality between LI and L2 composition processes of writers in the same league. Secondly, the research study revealed that individual writers displayed distinct cognitive capacities and styles in the process of writing and in their written texts. Yet in this, the research noted certain problems that were faced by all the six writers (Arndt, 1987). Further, and what makes this finding relevant, and amounting to a third distinct finding for the study, is that the same, same difficulties the writers experienced in their L2 writing processes were experienced in the L1 writing processes (Arndt, 1987). The researcher emphatically uses this finding to proof that writing as had been conceived by earlier research findings, was similar across L1 and L2 language users despite there being language burdens delimiting the L2 writer (Arndt, 1987). A possible explanation of these phenomena has actually been given in this study by the second finding exemplified above. The fact that individual writers had differing problem areas and that these same areas were evident in L1 and L2 suggests that the writers were using the same writing skills in both L1 and L2 and just switching languages. To justify this conclusion, that L2 writers use their writing skills acquired in L1 use to compose texts in L2, was the fourth finding of Arndt’s research. The research found that in most incidences, the verbalized cognitive processes and outputs were in L1 even when the writers were in the second session during which texts produced were in English (L2). The research also concluded that despite the study subjects being post-graduate students with a formidable competence in language use, their capacity for a critical self-evaluation was relatively insufficiently developed, under-exploited or disregarded during the study. This probably indicates that writing skills in an L2 do not correspond to academic attainments. Interestingly, the study also found that during the activity of producing texts something that was not observable from the finished texts themselves (here showing that the researchers focus on both the process and the product was well thought) is that there is a paradox in overly zealous planning, overly strict adherence to the precise writing rules prescribed by many teachers. The study established that for all of the study cases, such rules as outlining turned out as a hindrance than help during the actual text generation. The same finding had paralleled by a previous study conducted by Rose (1980). The hitherto popular composition approaches of teaching writing using linear outlines, prewriting stages, paragraph construction, writing and re-writing models only made the writing process overly time consuming and rigorous while even better texts were produced by the study cases who displayed a limited of loose usage of the models. What seemed to work better were the post-writing strategies of revision (Arndt, 1987). Two more findings of the study are very relevant to the area of writing research. The first being, writers frequently discovered most of their meanings during the actual writing process and not before. Most of the initial ideas conceived and verbalized by the six writers ended up being absent, modified or complemented by new concepts developed during the process (Arndt, 1987). This perhaps confirms best the theory in ESL and EFL writing classes that writing is a self discovery process that makes things clear for the writer as he or she writes and another theory that the best way to teach ESL and EFL students how to write is get them writing(Ludwig 1983). Secondly and probably the most important finding of the study is that during the writing process writers abandoned most of their thoughts and excluded them from the text. What most writers generated in cognitive processes and as recorded in the booths was not incorporated into the final text (Arndt, 1987). Arndt notes that most of what was left out from the cognitive processes such as paragraph connectors and ideas would definitely have made the text more cohesive and better and the fact that they were verbalized and not written means that sometimes, the writing process is slower than cognitive ability (Arndt, 1987). The Study’s Strengths The strengths of the study have been contextualized in the discussion of theoretical application and even in the findings. The most important of these are a very comprehensive methodology that fully covers and then compares L2 writing processes and protocols with those of L1. The comparative methodology helps to better generalize on ESL and EFL application. Again, Arndt established the relevance of writing protocols not just from the product (finished text) as most of the studies had done leading to this one, but from both the process of writing and the finished product using a methodology that covered both perspectives. This is done by recording the thought processes of the writer while writing (think aloud) and then comparing these with the finished product (Arndt, 1987). More importantly, the methodology employed covers not just the observable context of writing but also an inspection into the cognitive processes that helped craft the written texts (Arndt, 1987). This is important because writing is much a cognitive process that it is a physical one. Understanding the cognitive processes made the research more applicable in writing teaching contexts (Ludwig, 1983). The Study’s Weaknesses The study was however limited by the fact that it de-contextualized the process of ESL and EFL writing from normal settings by placing the writers in an examination mode. While writing inside language laboratory booths, their writing was much more of projects for marking rather than natural acts of composing. This makes the finding to be highly superficial and to an extent inapplicable to normal ESL and EFL contexts. Secondly, the study adopted a case-study approach, which as technique of modern protocol analysis is only employed by empirical studies as source of data with reservations (Ludwig 1983). Case studies call into question the generalizability, validity, reliability and applicability of the investigating data (Arndt, 1987). The methodology adopted by Arndt has been criticized by several researchers such as Nisbett & Wilson (1977) who feel that the think-aloud method of data collection in not scientific and that it fails to in reflecting a writer’s realistic thoughts. Hayes & Flower (1983) also occurred with the criticism saying that psychological processes of an ordinary writer are unconscious and cannot appear explicitly just because a writer has been instructed for the thinking-aloud protocols. As Hayes & Flower (1983) noted, inexperienced writers especially think aloud with accommodation of their perceived audience and not as they would naturally. Another criticism for the methodology has been defines as reactivity where as Smagorinsky (1989, 45) says, “the act of talking while writing might alter the process from the way it would naturally occur’. Stratman & Hamp-Lyons 1994 also agree that thinking-aloud has two effects on the writer, it slows him or her down and disrupts the writing process. Arndt’s choice of think aloud method may thus provide the inaccurate picture and account of natural composing processes when a writer isn’t required to write thinking-aloud. Finally, Bosher says that in ESL/EFL studies, the students are incompetent in the L2 and may thus be using their L1 to think. When forced to think-aloud in a non-native language during composition, if becomes an additional that could result to a cognitive overload and thus distortion of a writing process (Bosher, 1998, 212). On the same point, the Chinese EFL students may still have had insufficient English prowess to verbalize their complex thought processes such thinking aloud omitted what they couldn’t verbalise (Polio, 2003, p.47). Suggested Improvements and Conclusion To add to the quality of the study and relevance or applicability of its findings, the study could have adopted a more casual approach to seeking the written texts than locking writers in language lab booths. The number of subjects covered could also have been increased to at least 100 EFL students, to make the results more applicable. This would definitely require much more time than the two weeks in which this study was conducted. These issues could be addressed by future studies with identical aims. This essay paper had the singular purpose of analyzing Valerie Arndt research covering ESL/EFL writing protocols. In so doing, it has found that Arndt choice of taking both perspective of the writing activity and that of the written text, the researcher captured the writing protocols very well and again the fact that the researcher investigated both L1 and L2 writing process and texts makes the findings very applicable (Arndt, 1987). These strengths help outflank such weaknesses posed by the case study approach employed, the small study sample and the de-contextualized setting in which the writers were placed. The study found that writing is similar across languages of an individual writer despite the obvious language burden of L2 incompetence. Writers rely on the language they are more competent in to conceive their writing processes and thus it is the skills that determine the quality of the written work and not the language employed (Arndt, 1987). Pre-writing approaches to teaching writing were found not as effective as post-writing approaches where those writers who spent time planning did not perform as well as those who spent time revising (Arndt, 1987). Finally, the study established that writing is a self discovery process where the product is conceived properly during writing and that most of what was thought was never incorporated in the texts since writing processes are slower that cognitive processes (Arndt, 1987). On the overall, the study established some very relevant insights to researching writing for ESL and EFL contexts, some that have been confirmed by later studies and some that needs further elaboration. References Arndt, V. (1987). Six writers in search of texts: a protocol-based study of L1 and L2 writing. ELT Journal 41(4): 257-267. Bosher, S. (1998). The composing processes of three Southeast Asian writers at the post- secondary level: an exploratory study. Journal of Second Language Writing. Vol. 7(2), pp. 205-241. Britton, J.et al. (1975). The Development of Writing Abilities. London: Macmillan Education. Hayes, J.R. & Flower, L.S. (1983). Uncovering cognitive processes in writing: an introduction to protocol analysis. In P. Mosenthal, L. Tamor, and S.A. Walmsley (eds.), Research On Writing: Principles and Methods. New York: Longman, pp.207-220. Ludwig, O. (1983). ‘Writing systems and written language’ in F. Coulmas and K. Ehlich (eds.): Writing in Focus, Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs 24. Berlin: Mouton. Martlew, M. (1983). ‘Problems and difficulties: cognitive and communicative aspects of writing' in M.Martlew (ed.). The Psychology of Written Language: Developmental and Educational Perspectives. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons. Nisbett, R.E. & Wilson, T.D. (1977). Telling more than we can know: verbal reports on mental process. Psychology Review. Vol. 84, pp. 231-159. Nystrand, M. (ed.). (1982). What Writers Know: the Language, Process and Structure of Written Discourse. New York: Academic Press. Perl, S. (1981). 'Coding the Composing Process: a Guide for Teachers and Researchers.' MS written for the National Institute of Education, Washington, D.C. Prior, P. (2004). Tracing process: how texts come into being. In C. Bazerman & P. Prior (eds.), What Writing Does and How It Does It. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 167-200. Rose, M. (1980). Rigid rules, inflexible plans, and the stifling of language: a cognitivist analysis of writer's block. College Composition and Communication. Vol. 31 (4). pp. 389-401. Stratman, J.F. & Hamp-Lyons, L. (1994). Reactivity in concurrent think-aloud protocols: issues for research. In P. Smagorinsky (ed.), Speaking About Writing: Reflections on Research Methodology. Thousand Oaks: Sage, pp.89-112. Smagorinsky, P. (1989). The reliability and validity of protocol analysis. Written Communication. Vol. 6(4), pp. 463-479. Read More