Myeonghui Heo

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

Metadiscourse has been recognized as an important aspect of effective persuasive discourse. In this study, we explore how metadiscourse features are deployed by 34 EFL undergraduate students to make their non-discipline persuasive texts effective. We find that students grasp at least some of the metadiscourse resources available to them, but are relatively limited in rhetorical sophistication. In fact, transitions, frame markers, code glosses and hedges were found to be critical elements contrib

Our study focused on the effects of input frequency through reading-writing connections on students’ emerging accurate use of specific English forms. Taking a dynamic usage based (DUB) perspective, we investigated whether any changes occurs through repeating reading-to-writing tasks over one semester. We also traced writing development of students individually over time from a dynamic systems theory (DST) approach. All four participants in this study were EFL college students enrolled in an Engl

This study analyzes a corpus of EFL, writing to identify four-word lexical bundles used by university students. The study includes structural analyses of four-word bundles identified in the corpus of EFL, writing and an analysis of the functions performed by these bundles with the examples of their use in context. To investigate four-word lexical bundles used by EFL students, a corpus of academic writing was complied from the essays of attending Korea University. The corpus consisted of 96 essay

In this study, using the concept of perezhivanie as an analytical tool, we were trying out new ways to investigate L2 identity taking the peripheral educational context into account. We examined how two graduates from non-academic high schools perceived their peripheral school situation through their perezhivanie, and described how this situation affected the individual trajectories of L2 identity development as well. When two students immersed themselves in marginalized classroom contexts, they

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

In more recent times, with changing philosophies of teaching writing in both L1 and L2 settings, the possible uses of literature in teaching writing has become an ongoing controversial issue in the field. In fact, the writing teachers constantly face curricular decisions about whether and how to use literature in writing classes. This paper summarizes arguments for and against the use of literature in writing classes and outlines the history of the controversy in both fields. The authors also pr

By examining two low-proficiency EFL students’ experiences of reading literature, and of writing about what they have read during a semester-long reading/writing course, we investigate literature’s place in EFL writing classes. We also observe whether using literature in EFL writing classes lead to successful synergies among LW (learning-to-write), WLL (writing-to-learn language), and WLC (writing-tolearn content). We adopt a case study methodology. The participants, Mia and Sun, are first-year

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 st

The purpose of this paper is to investigate text comprehension from a sociocultural perspective and then, to find out more about the ways in which L2 readers comprehend and recall L2 texts. While many analyses of written recall protocols focus on propositional contents or an analysis of syntactic error, Sociocultural Theory provides us with an additional analytic tool: the linguistic properties of the recall protocols. This follows from Vygotsky’s fundamental argument that speech, in addition to

This study investigated EFL college students’ culture-related templates of written texts along the possibility of inter-cultural transfer. We designed a case study to explore how certain cultural assumptions contribute to EFL students’ rhetorical decisions while writing an argumentative writing. The participants were four EFL college students. Multiple data sources include background questionnaires, argumentative essays, and in-depth retrospective interviews. To analyze rhetorical choices in the

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 individua