A Critical Review of Writing in A FL and Pedagogy Approaches

A Critical Review of Foreign Language Writing Research on Pedagogical Approaches Author(s): Melinda Reichelt Source: The Modern Language
Journal, Vol. 85, No. 4 (Winter, 2001), pp. 578-598 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1193077 . Accessed: 29/03/2014 17:11
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A CriticalReviewof Foreign Research on Language Writing Pedagogical Approaches

MELINDA REICHELT English Department ofToledo University OH 43606 Toledo, Email: mreiche@uoft02.utoledo.edu in a foreignlanguage (not English) in the This articlereviews 32 studiesregarding writing betweenvariouspedagogiUnited States.It focuseson researchthatinvestigates relationships or task typesassigned (e.g., descriptive vs. cal practices (e.g., explicitgrammarinstruction) and the textsproduced byforeign narrative language (FL) writers. Topics addressed writing) include explicit grammarinstruction, computer use, task type,strategy training, process and feedback.This articlepointsto the lack of a unifiedsense of the purpose of instruction, FL writing withinthe field of FL and also points to design flawsin much of the existing forpedagogyand researchare discussed. research.Implications
WITHIN THE FIELD OF SECOND LANGUAGE mostof the existing researchrelates (L2) writing, in Englishas a Second or ForeignLanto writing guage (ESL or EFL; fromhere on, forsimplicity's such workis useful sake, ESL). In manyrespects, for foreign language (FL) writinginstructors, and manyFL writing researchers have drawnon in theirown research(e.g., studiesof ESL writing Aziz, 1995; Chastain, 1990; Koda, 1993). Howdifferences existbetweenwriting ever,significant in ESL and writing in a FL in the U.S. context. One main difference is that, unlikeESL students, FL students ifevercalled upon to write are rarely in the targetlanguage (TL) in classesoutside FL Furtherdifferences stemfromsevdepartments. eral sources.First, much ESL researchis done in contextsin which the TL is the language of the broader community, whichis not the case forFL research. Second, writing manyESL teachersare nativeEnglish speakers (at least in the research reported) whereasmanyFL teachersare not native speakers of the TL. Third, in contrastto otherTLs, Englishplaysa unique role as a world
TheModern 85, iv,(2001) LanguageJournal, 0026-7902/01/578-598 $1.50/0 @2001 TheModern Language Journal
language,includingthatofthemediumofhigher education in manycases. of researchabout writAlthoughthe majority ESL writing, a body of ing in a L2 investigates in a FL (other than Enresearch about writing as describedbythe author(Reichelt, glish) exists, 1999), who provided an overviewof over 200 sources related to research and pedagogical litin a FL. The present article erature on writing focuses on the resultsof part of that body of the research-namely,the workthatinvestigates betweenvarious pedagogical pracrelationships tices (e.g., explicitgrammarinstruction) or task vs. narrative writassigned (e.g., descriptive types and the texts FL in writers the ing) produced by United States.1 This reviewhighlights one particularly significant problem withinthe body of FL writing research:the lack of a unifiedsense of the purpose ofwriting within theFL curriculum. In the native language (L1; here, English) and ESL writing continueto debate the purliterature, specialists pose of composition instruction delivered through English departments.Whereas some have argued in favor of teachingstudents to write for various disciplines (e.g., Horowitz, 1986), Spack (1988) arguedthat"thebestwe can accomin whichstudents can plish is to createprograms
MelindaReichelt learn generalinquiry rhetorical strategies, princiand tasks that can transfer to other course ples, work"(pp. 40-41). And Silva,Reichelt,and LaxFarr (1994) have questionedthevery existenceof a generalwriting ability. Within the field of FL writing in the United States, given the fact that FL studentsare not likelyto be called upon to writein the TL in courses other than FL courses, questions about the purpose of writing in a FL are even more than in L1 (English) or ESL. those confounding need to discussthe Thus, FL writing professionals in the FL classroom;to begin purpose of writing to do this, it is necessary to grapple with the difficult issue of what role FL writing plays outside the classroomin thisera ofincreasedglobalization and culturaldiversity. WithEnglishas the new world language, will individualsbe able to achieve successwithwriting skills onlyin English, or willwriting in other proficiency languages be importantas well? In other words,what role, if in FLs play for studentsoutside any,willwriting the FL classroom?And withinthe FL classroom whatis the purpose of writing: Is it to work itself, on accuracyin orthography and morphology? to reinforceand learn new vocabulary? to practice various syntactic structures? to provide further in use of the TL through experience purposive interaction and creationof meaning?to learn to create compositionsappropriatefor some particularaudience and purpose?to learn and communicate about aspects of the TL, includingliterature and culture? to support acquisition of speaking, reading, and listening skills? (See discussionof Reichelt,1999,fora more extensive issues surrounding the purpose of writing in the FL curriculum.) Even if those involvedin the discussiondo not agree on the purpose or purin the FL curriculum, further poses of writing discussionof the issue would help FL professionals in examiningassumptions about the purpose of writingin the FL classroom and encourage informedpedagogical decision making regardinstruction. ing writing In additionto thelack ofclarity concerningthe in the FL curriculum, thereis purpose of writing a great deal of inconsistency in FL writing research in the means used to analyzestudent writing samples. In fact,withinFL writing research, there are almost as manywaysof defining what "good writing"is as there are FL writingresearchers. (See Leki, 1995, and Li, 1996, for a discussionof this issue withinESL and L1 writing.) For example, Lalande (1982) considered factors in his analysis of student onlygrammatical writing;Cooper and Morain (1980), Cooper
579 (1981), and Caruso (1994) consideredonlysyntactic complexity;and Herrmann (1990) and McGuire (1997) used holisticratings. More typihave used combinations of sevcally,researchers eral criteria in analyzing student writing samples. For example, Martinez-Lage(1992) considered grammaticalaccuracyand syntactic complexity; Chastain (1990) used the criteria of fluency, sentence lengthand complexity, accugrammatical racy,content,and organization;and Aziz (1995) used grammaticalagreement,content,and voin the criteriaused cabulary.This inconsistency for analyzingstudentwriting samples not only revealsa lack of clarity on the part of FL specialistsconcerningthe purpose of writing in the FL butit also makescomparisonoffindcurriculum, ingsacross studiesratherdifficult. The following overview of studiesofFL writing aims to familiarize readerswiththe bodyof work in FL writing, an important goal given the fact at thispoint,thereseems to be little sense of that, shared assumptionsand no comprehensiveresearch agenda regarding FL writing, and, in addiin the field tion,it oftenseems thatresearchers are not aware of each other'sworks.Topics addressed include the effectsof grammar treatment, computeruse, task type,classroomactiviand teacher ties,strategy use, processinstruction, feedback. This overviewalso points out design flawsin the currentresearch in the hope that researcherswill avoid such problems in the future. (See Appendix for information about the researchdesign,and claimsof focus,participants, the studiesreviewed here.) EFFECTS OF GRAMMARTREATMENT Four studies, Frantzen (1995), Manley and Calk (1997), Cooper and Morain (1980), and the effect of explicit Cooper (1981) investigated on students'writing with grammarinstruction results.In her studyof 44 intermediate varying Spanish studentsin a university-level Hispanic cultureand conversation course,Frantzenfound no clear overalladvantagein writing forstudents who received explicit grammarinstruction. In the study, students in a treatment received group 10 to 15 minutesper day (three timesper week) of grammarreview(conducted in the TL) that focused on verb and pronoun usage; theyalso wrote two in-classessays,on which all of their errors werecorrected, and fiveout-of-class essays, on which the location of their errorswas indicated but not corrected.For thesefiveessays, the students wereasked to correctthe errors, and the correctformswere supplied by the instructor at
580 the end. Studentsin anothergroup receivedno grammarreview;the errorsin all of theiressays were circledor underlined,but the correct forms were not supplied.Frantzencomparedthebeginof these two ning- and end-of-semester writing groups, who wrote about the same topic: their most memorable experience. Both groups showed improvementin tense, aspect, and a weighted grammar measure; the nongrammar whereas group improvedon use of the indicative the grammargroup worsenedslightly; and both groups decreased in accuracyon stem morphology,but the grammargroup decreased less than the nongrammar group. One problemwithFrantzen's(1995) research design is that there were two different experimental treatments: grammar reviewand error correction.It is possible thatone treatment had positive effectsand the other had negativeeffects,but because the two were combined, it is impossibleto determinewhetheror not thiswas the case. A better research design would have alternatedonlyone treatment variable.Additionbecause both received some sort of ally, groups grammar correction,it is impossible to determine whetheror not correctionhad an overall on grammatical helpfuleffect accuracy, giventhe factthatbothgroupsworsenedon theuse of stem If one group had receivedno grammorphology. mar correction, it would have been easier to determine the effectof the grammarcorrection. Finally,it is possible that the studentsshowed betweentheirfirst and second writimprovement because ing samplesbecause of a practiceeffect; werealreadyquite familiar withthe topicthe they second timethey wroteabout it,theymighthave been able to expend less effort on generating contentand more effort on improving theiraccuracy. Thus, the claim about improvementon tense,aspect,and a weightedgrammarmeasure mustbe viewedwithskepticism. Manley and Calk (1997) reportedpositiveresultsof grammarinstruction in theirstudyof 14 students in a university-level advanced French compositioncourse. The studentsturnedin five The compositionsover the course of a semester. first essaywas entitled"A Banquet"; the second was entitled "A Portrait"; the thirdwas about a culturaltopic of the student'schoice; the fourth was entitled"MyHopes and Projectsfor the Fuwas about an event of the ture"; and the fifth student's choice occurring in his or her past. Each set of the first fourcompositions was examined in order to finda grammar area withwhich students had significant and then a difficulty, lesson on thatpointwas given,in each grammar
TheModern 85 (2001) Language Journal case witha different language teaching approach. The researcherscompared the number of student errorsmade on the selectedgrammar point in each of the first four compositionsused for analysiswiththe number of errorson the same four grammarpoints in the fifth composition. Studentsmade significant in three improvement of the four grammarpoints targeted-noun-adjective agreement,possessiveadjectiveuse, and definitearticle use-but not in the use of the and final However,when the first passe compose. all errors but the (with essays targetedones corwith nativerected) were scored holistically, French-speakinginstructorsasked to decide whichof thetwoessays was "better," no significant differences werefoundbetweenthefirst and final essays. (The authors indicated that there were and lack of speciproblemswithraterreliability in instructions ficity given to raters.)A problem with this studyand the researchers'interpretation of its resultsas positiveis that withouta nontreatmentcontrol group, there is no evidence thattheimprovement in grammar resulted fromgrammatical instruction ratherthan from practice over time. This is an especiallysalient point in light of Frantzen's (1995) findingsof on grammatical improvement accuracyin writing even in her "nongrammar" group,as wellas other authors' findingsof improvement withpractice (e.g., Herrmann,1990; McGuire,1997). Cooper and Morain (1980) investigateda rather different type of grammar instruction-sentence combining-and found positive resultsin termsof improvement in the syntactic of students' Their invescomplexity writing. study of sentencecombiningon the tigatedthe effects of 130 third-quarter students syntactic complexity of French. The students in the experimental group receivedextensive(60 to 150 minutesper week) practicewith sentence combiningat the sentence,paragraph,and essaylevel,whereasthe studentsin the other group receivedthe "traditionalwriting offered workbook practice" bytheir exercises.Two typesof pre- and posttest writing werecollected:a rewrite of a kernel-sentence pasin addition,two composisage and a free-write; tionsfromnear the end of the quarterwere collected. Analysis of the writingindicated that studentsin the sentence-combining group outstudents in the othergroup on seven performed out of nine measuresof syntactic (No complexity. measures of the quality of the essays' content were taken.) Cooper (1981) described a similar a largercorpus of data (with325 studyinvolving one which also included informaparticipants), tionconcerningtheperformance ofGermanand
MelindaReichelt Spanish studentsas well as French students;he reportedsimilarresults. At this point, because so little research has been published on the relationship betweenexand gains in writing plicit grammarinstruction it would be inappropriateto draw proficiency, strongconclusions in this area. Given that stuin grammatidents appear to showimprovement cal accuracywithpractice,whetheror not they researchers receiveexplicitgrammar instruction, need to employcontrolgroupsin theirstudiesof if claims are to be made grammarinstruction about the effects of grammarinstruction on accuracy in writing.Given Cooper and Morain's (1980) and Cooper's (1981) findings regarding sentence combining,use of sentencecombining activitiesmay initiallyappear appealing. Howand results of thisstudy focus ever,the treatment on only one aspect of writing-syntactic comGivena broaderconceptionofFL writing plexity. as a communicative and given the fact activity, thatin Cooper and Morain's study, no ratings of the qualityof the contentor communicative effectiveness of the essayswere undertaken, implications of the findings can onlybe described as limited.Regardingall researchrelated to grammar instruction, if the purpose of studentsenin FL is to improvenot onlytheir gaging writing or grammatical accuracyor syntactic complexity, but also the qualityof the conboth, in writing, tent of their writing, then FL research should also investigate the overall communicative successfulness of the writing in their studproduced ies-especially in lightof the factthatin Manley and Calk's (1997) study, in despiteimprovement holisticratingsof student grammatical accuracy, essaysdid not improve. COMPUTER USE The issue of the purpose of writing withinthe FL curriculum is also raised by the researchconducted on the effectsof computer use on FL composition. Herrmann (1990), Leh (1997), McGuire (1997), Ittzes (1997), Florez-Estrada (1995), Trenchs (1996), and Nirenberg (1989) investigatedthe effectson FL composition of computer use, either for drill-type computerassistedlanguage learning(CALL), or interactive such as email, or wordprocessing. writing Herrmann (1990), Leh (1997), and McGuire the impact of computeruse (1997) investigated on gainsin writing all three proficiency. Although studies had problems in research design, their findingssuggestedthat computeruse may have little effecton students' subsequent writingof
581 24 students compositions.In Herrmann's study, enrolled in two sectionsof third-quarter univerFrenchused thecomputer fortwodiffersity-level ent purposes. One section,the agentivegroup, used it to drilland practicelanguage structures while the othersection,the instrumental group, used it collaboratively to produce a newspaper, whichinvolvedthe use of email communication Atboth thebeginning and among classmembers. the end of the quarter,each studentcompleted the same two at-homewriting dealassignments ofwhat life,one a description ing withuniversity lifemight be like in theyear2000, and university one a letter to a Frenchfriend about thestudent's currentlifein the university. Studentswere told to spend 1 hourwriting each assignment. Writing samples were rated on a 10-pointholisticscale; comparison of the ratingsindicated no significant gains or losses in writingproficiency in either group. Herrmann suggestedpossible explanationsforthislack of change: The language practiceinvokedin both the agentiveand instrumental contextsof computeruse may not have created conditionsthatfosteredgrowth in composition writing;and students may have been whenresponding bored, and thusless motivated, at the end of the studyto the same twowriting promptsused at the beginningof the study.In addition,the resultsof thisstudymustbe interpreted withcaution because studentswrotethe essaysunder noncontrolledconditionsand thus amountsof time to write mayhave used varying the essays and various amounts of outside resources. Leh (1997) also investigated the effects of interactive computeruse on students'subsequent compositions.In this studyof 35 fifth-semester Spanish studentsand email use, one group of students corresponded with email pen pals in Mexico for 10 weeks,while another group did not. Studentsin the email group were told they could do as much or littleemailingas theydesired; the amount theywroteranged fromone student who wroteno messagesto one who wrote 20 messages (4,865 words). A comparisonof the students' first threeand lastthreescoreson essays written forthe course (out of a totalof 12 essays written overthecourseofthesemester)indicated no significant difference betweenthetwogroups However,the factthatstuwriting performance. dentsin theemail groupvariedso widely in terms of how much they wrotemakestheseresults difficult to interpret. McGuire (1997) also investigated the relationship between interactive writingvia computer and gains in writing In thisstudyof proficiency.
582 127 fourth-semester Spanish students,particiin an pants experimental group were trainedin and used MundoHispano (www.umsl.edu/ -moosproj/mundo.html),a synchronouscomtool in which studentshave puter conferencing conversations withina text-based virtualreplica of famouspartsof Madrid,and were assignedto spend at least 1 hour per week (for12 weeks) out of class participating in computerconversations using MundoHispano. Students in the control "engroup were assigned 12 hours of out-of-class richmentactivities," such as watchinga filmin a synopsis of it in Spanish. Spanish and writing included some writ(Each enrichmentactivity and controlgroupparing.) Of the experimental 31% completedall assignedout-of-class ticipants, work related to the study, and more than half completed at least 90% of all the work.At the beginningand end of thetermin whichthestudy was conducted, all participants completed a 30minute in-classwritingassignment.The beginning-of-term promptasked studentsto writelettersto Spanish pen pals describingtheirholiday a typicalday of theircollege life,and activities, theirroommatesor a professor. The end-of-term promptasked studentsto describean important incidentin theirlives.Holistic ratingsof particiindicatedno statistically pants' writing significant gains in eithergroup'swriting proficiency. Like Herrmann (1990), McGuire (1997) sugof writing skills gested that the lack of transfer from MundoHispano activities to compositions may be due to the factthat the writing styleof participantsin MundoHispano is "spontaneous and conversationalin nature, with many starts and stops,incompletesentences, and comments, which receive short answers" repetitive questions (p. 79) and thus does not parallel the kind of writingdone for compositions.However,problemswithinterpreting theresults of thisstudy are not confinedto the lack of parallelismbetween the writing studentsundertookin the treatment elicited phase, on the one hand, and the writing on theotherhand. bythe measurement prompts, Besides thislack of parallelism, therewas no real control group because the so-called control in enrichment activities; group participated thus, the researchinvestigated not simply the effects of in MundoHispano on writing participation profibut ratherthe difference betweenparticiciency, pation in MundoHispano and participationin enrichment all of whichinvolvedsome activities, In addition,the factthattherewas wide writing. variation in how muchofeithertreatment participants actuallycompleted complicatesinterpretation of the results of thisstudy.
TheModern 85 (2001) Language Journal Despite the flawsin these three studies,they make an important contribution by pointingto the differencebetween interactive writingvia of compositions. This computerand the writing difference in turnpointsto the issue of whatthe in theFL classroomis; ifitis solely goal ofwriting to prepare students to writetraditional compositions,then interactive computerwriting maynot be appropriate for achieving those goals, alresearchis needed to test thoughbetter-designed the effects of interactive via computeron writing students' writing of traditional compositions. However, whatever the outcome of such research, interactive computerwriting maybe appropriateif studentshave a need forinteractive in the FL, or ifsuch writing is computerwriting deemed motivatingor a factor that supports overallL2 acquisition-especiallygiventhe find(1995), ings of Ittzes (1997) and Florez-Estrada which indicate that interactive computer-mediated writing is of higher qualitythan noncomputerwriting. Ittzes (1997) compared the writing produced by one group of 40 intermediateGerman students when theywere computer conferencing and when theywere writing among themselves in more traditional (non-computer-mediated) condition, group journals. Under each writing students weregivena choice of topics,some personal and some relatingto public life and political issues. Topics included, for example, the differencebetween a friend and an acquaintance and the factthat,in Europe as well as in the United States, the richare getting richerand the poor poorer.In the areas of grammatical accuracy,lexical richness,and comprehensibility, nativespeakerjudges gave higherratingsto the than to the writcomputerconferencing writing ing done in traditional journals. In Florez-Estrada's (1995) comparisonof interactivewriting via computerwithtraditional jourstudentsin naling,which involved28 university third-year Spanish, studentsin one group engaged in email exchange and online dialogue withnative-Spanish-speaking partnerswhile studentsin anothergroupwrotein interactive paper of the texts journals withtheirteachers.Analysis produced by studentsin each group indicated thatthecomputergroupoutperformed theother group on appropriateuse of keygrammar points the preterite vs. the imperfect, (servs. estar, and porvs. para) and on depth and breadthof content.The researchernoted that in interpreting theseresults, one mustkeep in mind thefactthat students in the computergroup spent-voluntaras did the ily-three timesas much timewriting
MelindaReichelt in the othergroup,presumably because students or appealtaskwas more motivating the writing in interpreting it is important ing. Additionally, in the two these resultsto considerthatstudents media withdifferent groupswerenot onlywriting audiences-their nativefordifferent but writing partnerson the one hand and Spanish-speaking theirteacheron the other. In lightof Ittzes' (1997) and Florez-Estrada's thattextsproduced under inter(1995) findings activecomputerconditionsare of higherquality thanwriting and more interactive producedwithmore researchon therole ofwritout computers, TL acquisitionneeds to be coning in fostering ducted. If writingcan be shown to fosterTL engage in such acquisition,then havingstudents writingcould be an important higher-quality means of promotingoverall TL development. Furthermore, given our society'sincreasinguse students of email forworldwide communication, in in more interactive mayengage writing the FL tradioutside the FL classroom than in writing tional compositions in the FL; this possibility would also supportuse of interactive computer in the FL classroom. writing use and FL Otherresearchrelatedto computer writingincludes work by Trenchs (1996) and Nirenberg (1989). Trenchs's qualitative,nonemailuse bymuch study comparative investigated learnersof Spanyoungerwriters-3 sixth-grade ish. She found thatthe qualityof the email messages that studentswrotedid not correlatewith theirlevel of computeruse or withthe different but rather ways studentsused the technology, with theirwriting behaviorsand linguisticskill. Examinationof students'textsas well as writing processes indicated that "studentsexperiment withlinguistic formsand integrate old and new information sources in order to communicate, but they do not always succeed" (p. 464). Trenchs argued thatin computeruse in theFL classroom, a balance is needed betweeninitialteacherguidofguidelinesfor ance, includingthepresentation and subsequentstudentfreepeer collaboration, dom. Trenchs's research not only serves as an indicator of the potentialvalue of email, espeofencouragingstudent ciallyin terms risk-taking, but also provideswarningsabout its limitations and offers advice concerningprecautionsteachers mighttake,giventhose limitations. the efNirenberg's (1989) studyinvestigated fectsof word processingon fluencyin student In thisstudy, 57 Spanish studentsin bewriting. classes ginning and advanced university-level wererandomly word assignedto an experimental processing group or to a controlgroupthatwrote
583 in both groups were in longhand. Participants a total of four Studentsin the essays. assigned and thirdesgroup wrotethe first experimental says using word processing and the other two in the controlgroup essaysin longhand;students wroteall four assigned essaysin longhand. The from bothgroupswerecomfirst and third essays and thirdessays, beginning pared. (For the first studentsin both the groupswroteon the topics while and "MyPersonalDescription" "MyFamily" the advanced students wrote about "My First Date" and "What Is Necessaryfor One To Be of these Successful.")Comparisonof the fluency texts(based on wordcount) indicatedthatprior experiencewithword processingdid not have a students increased significant impacton whether when usingwordprocessing.In adtheirfluency dition,althoughthewordprocessing group overthe longhand group on all did not outperform the advanced group that used gains in fluency, the longhand word processingdid outperform group on gains in fluency. Nirenberg's(1989) researchindicatesthatfor some students, word processingmay help them in writing in a FL. However, increasetheir fluency in interpreting Nirenberg'sresults,it must be noted thatbecause the four tasksassignedwere from one another,and because very different some studentswere asked to writeabout topics to keep private, attributtheymayhave preferred ing the resultsto the use of the word processor may be an error;it is possible that some of the in fluency differences were related not to an interaction betweenstudentleveland wordprocessor use, but to studentleveland taskprompt.For had not example,itis possiblethatsome students date or, if theyhad, yet experienced theirfirst were reluctant to divulge much information about it. Furthermore, because no overallrating of the qualityof the essayswas undertaken,the does not provideanyinformation about the study effects of word processingon the qualityof student writing. TASK TYPE: TEXT COMPARISONS Martinez-Lage(1992), Koda (1993), Paulson (1993), McKee (1980), Chavez (1996), and Chasthe textsproduced by tain (1990) investigated studentswho were assigned writing tasksother than those involving computer use. These authors compared the writing of one or more groups of studentson more than one task type and found differences in performancedepending on the typeof taskassigned. of 23 (1992) studiedthewriting Martinez-Lage
584 and comuniversity second-year Spanish students of two of pared samples types writing-traditional and dialoguejourteacher-assigned compositions nals freefromconcern withform-taken at the beginning, middle, and end of the semester. indicatedthatthe diaComparisonof thewriting was as complex loguejournal writing syntactically as the teacher-assigned compositions (except that the T-unitsin the teacher-assigned were writing significantly longer) and thatitwasgrammatically more accurate than the teacher-assigned compositions. A longitudinal of the dialoguejourstudy nal writing indicated that the lengthof the dialoguejournal entriesincreasedoverthecourseof the semester, as did the syntactic The complexity. overallqualityof the essayswas not measured. In separate studies,two authors,Koda (1993) and Paulson (1993), compared the writing produced when studentswere assigned task types drawn fromtraditionalmodes of writing. Koda examined the writing of 25 firstand second-year college studentsofJapanese who completed deand narrative tasks.The results scriptive writing indicated no significant difference between the two text typesin termsof text length,sentence and subordinateclause use. length,vocabulary, Topical structural analysisof the textsindicated that sequential topical progression was more common in the narrative than in the descriptive which contained more parallel progreswriting, sion than the narrative of writing. Qualityratings the narrativewritingcorrelated positively with the degree of sequential progressionevidentin the text, and qualityratings of descriptive writing correspondedwithtopical depth presentin the text. in the descriptive task, Additionally, diversity of vocabularywas most highlycorrelated with overall quality, whereas in the narrative writing, the numberof logographicKanji characters was the factor most highlycorrelated with overall followedby vocabularydiversity. The requality, sultspointed to a strongpositivecorrelationbetweentextlengthand qualityon both tasks.Further resultsindicated thatnarrative writing may demand more difficult linguistic processingthan descriptive writing. In Paulson's (1993) study,which also comdone under different taskconpared the writing 89 ditions, intermediate-level learnersof Spanish each read a passage about the role of Latinos in the 1992 Los Angelesriotsand completeda writfoci.One task ing taskwithone of threedifferent relatedto informing: to focuson askingstudents what they thought other university students mightnot knowabout the subject.Anothertask relatedto explaining:directing students to focus
TheModern 85 (2001) Language Journal on the main problem raised by the passage. Fione taskasked students to focuson writing nally, a "well-organized, well-written attenessay, paying tion to grammar, accents,and spelling" (p. 68). The studentswho completed the explanation task scored significantly higher than the others on holistic ratingsof the writing as well as on individualanalyticmeasuresof information, exand on the sum of planation,and organization, four different analyticmeasures-information, and language. explanation,organization, McKee (1980) compared the writing of 182 second- and third-quarter stuuniversity-level, dents of French across two tasks:Some students tasksin whichtheyhad to recompletedwriting main themselves whenwriting, whileotherscomtaskswhichrequired themto take pleted writing on the role ofanotherperson.Comparisonofthe studenttextsindicatedno significant differences in the amount produced, but writing in which students remained themselveswas syntactically more complex than writingin which students took on another person's role, and for secondin which (but notthird-) quarterstudents, writing studentsremained themselves contained longer sentences.No measurement of theoverallquality of the texts was undertaken. The resultsof the relevantresearch suggest thatdifferent tasktypes are likely to lead students to produce textswith differing characteristics, which maybe an important issue forFL writing instructors and testdesignersto consider.Espeissues for those involvedin deciallyimportant assessment instruments include signingwriting thatwriting that (1992) findings Martinez-Lage's was freefromfocus on formwas syntactically as more accurate than complex and grammatically in whichform wasemphasized,alongwith writing Paulson's (1993) similar thatstudents did finding betteron a writing taskthatemphasizedexplanawell" (or informing). This intion, not "writing formation lead FL specialists to considerdemay in theinstructions creasingtheemphasison form fortests ofFL writing. Koda's (1993) Additionally, findingthatnarrative writing maybe more difficult than descriptive and McKee's (1980) writing that students' finding writingwas syntactically more complex when theyremained themselves ratherthan takingon the role of anotherperson may influencewhat typeof taskstest designers include on the assessmentinstruments theydesign. Two other reportsof researchregardingtask issuesof revision and typeaddress the important differencesbetween writing graded and unthesestudiesexhibit graded work.Unfortunately,
MelindaReichelt research design problems. In Chavez's (1996) of revision, 37 third-semester college learnstudy ers of German each wrotefor10 minuteson two writing("A Typical topics requiringdescriptive and "A TypicalStudentWeekAmericanFamily" were told to revise, end"). On one task,students were told not to. Analysis whileon the other, they of the writingindicated that there were more errors morphologicalerrorsbut fewersyntactic In revisedwriting, in revisedwriting. essayswith word order errors more clauses contained fewer than essaysthatcontainedfewerclauses; in nonrevised writing, morphologicaland overallerrors withmore clauses than in were fewerin writings withfewerclauses. In both revisedand writings unrevisedwriting, errors,especiallymorphological ones, increasedwithan increasein complexity of the writing.One problem with interpreting task these resultsrelates to whetherthe writing thatstudents weregivenparallelsthewriting tasks givenin FL classrooms.In fact,Chavez indicated thatthe reason students were givenonly 10 minutes to writewas because "generous time limits could diminishperformancedifferences among subjects"(p. 169). Thus, it maynot be possibleto and apply themto generalize the above findings in whichstudents situations are givenlongerthan 10 minutesto completea writing task. In another study (Chastain, 1990), the researcherinvestigated the writing of 14 university students in a 300-level Spanish composition course. For a graded paper, studentswrote an argumentativeessay on a topic of their own wrote choosing,and foran ungradedpaper,they a comparison/contrast essayon a topic of their own choosing.Analysis of the student inwriting dicated thatwhen writing for a grade, students wrotelonger essaysthatcontained longer,more complex sentencesthan the sentencesin essays not written fora grade. The researcher found no difference betweenthe taskseitherin significant termsof type and numberoferrors or in terms of the quality of the content/organization of the wrotedifferent essays.The factthatthe students typesof texts,which may have contributedto differences betweenthe writing produced under and makesthe reconditions, graded nongraded sultsof thisstudy difficult to interpret. CLASSROOM READING/WRITING ACTIVITIES Nummikoski (1991), Baudrand-Aertker (1992), Caruso (1994), and Uhlir (1995) examined the relationshipbetween classroomreading or writing tasks,or both, and gains in writingprofi-
585 conducted a studyof ciency.Baudrand-Aertker 21 third-year school French studentswho high wrotein dialoguejournals withtheirteacher.Students were assigned to writeat least twoentries period. The topics for per week over a 9-month the journal entrieswere open-ended, with stuon a wide range of both personal dents writing and nonpersonaltopics.The teacherresponded to student journal entries, attendingto the content of the writing ratherthan to grammatical accuracy.The studentswere assigned no other in French over the course of the school writing At thebeginningand end of theschool year, year. the students responded to fourwriting prompts, The testwas graded fromeasier to more difficult. scored holistically according to the ACTFL writing proficiencyscoring guidelines (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, 1986). A comparisonof the students'beginningand end-of-year scores indicated significant imover the treatment Whereas provement period: the averagescore at the beginningof the school year was within the novice-mid/novice-high range,the averagescore at the end of the school the intermediate-mid/intermediyearwas within ate high range. Althoughthese resultsare very positive,one factorthat must be considered in them is that the studentswroteon interpreting the same topicsforboth the pretest and posttest. Thus, itis possiblethatpartor all of the students' could be accounted forby a pracimprovement tice effect. Uhlir (1995) also investigated the effectsof extensive but this in was writing, study qualitative of nature,exploringthe writing development 6 studentsselected randomly froma group of 23 whoparticipated first-year Spanisheighthgraders in daily expressivewriting. Journals, learning written logs, teacher-student dialogues,quarterly self-evaluations, end-of-year surveyanswers,and written theschool year pen pal letters throughout wereexamined.Results are presentedin theform of six vignettes, each designed to characterize one student's and metacogniaffective, cognitive, tivegrowthin the acquisitionof Spanish, as evidenced byhisor herwritten work.The 6 students increased their fluencylevels and their use of questions.In addition,in a comparisonbetween end-of-year pen pal lettersfromthe expressive done bystudents from writing group and writing a classin whichexpressive was notemphawriting of the expressive sized, thewriting writing group exhibitedmorewords, moresentences, and more of the other group. questions than the writing on exAlthough these resultsreflectpositively of the resultsis pressivewriting, interpretation
586 tests complicated by the fact that no statistical were run to indicatewhether or not the reported and question use or the difincreasesin fluency ferences between the expressivewritinggroup and the other class were significant. Furtherwas givenabout whatkind more,no information of writing, ifany,was done by the nonexpressive writing comparisongroup. Whereas Baudrand-Aertker (1992) and Uhlir the impactof sustainedwrit(1995) investigated ing on students' writing skills, Nummikoski the effects of both reading (1991) investigated and writingon 127 first-year Russian students. The participantswere randomly divided into threegroups:One group participated in interactivewriting withthe teacher, one group did readand one group did writing ing only, only. Analysis of pre- and posttreatment cloze exercises (as a measure of reading) and pre-and posttreatment indicated no statistically free-writing significant for the interactive advantage writing group over the othertwogroupson gainsin reading,writing or writing fluency, quality.When the data were grouped and examinedaccordingto student performanceon pretests, the resultsindicated that who scored well on pretests, the among students students in the interactivewritinggroup increased theirwriting more than the stufluency dents in the reading-only group. One problem withinterpreting theseresults is thatthepre-and posttestwritingsamples designed to measure writingfluency and quality were gathered in rathershortand unequal timeperiods,of 5 and 10 minutes respectively, and the studentswere instructed towrite in completesentencesthatdid not have to be related. Scoring for quality of was based on the sophistication and comwriting plexity of the sentence structure,vocabulary, and originality of exqualityof communication, were allowed to write pression,but the "students unconnected ideas, withoutthe requirementof global coherence" (p. 65). The veryshort time allowed for writing and the lack of coherence required are likelynot typicalof the time FL writers tasksnor of the genres spend on writing assignedin FL classrooms. Caruso's (1994) research focused on the effectsof extensivereading on writing proficiency in a group of 177 university-level Spanish learners. In this9-weekstudy, the experimental group spent the first15 minutesof everyclass session TL material, while the readingand summarizing other group spent the first15 minutesof class practicingspeaking and writing. Analysisof the syntacticcomplexity (as measured by T-unit samlength) of pre- and posttreatment writing
TheModern 85 (2001) LanguageJournal had ples indicatedthatneitherof the treatments a significant In impact on syntactic complexity. thisstudy, no overallmeasureof thequality of the student was undertaken. writing This researchon the impactof readingor writskillssuggests ing, or both, on students'writing thatwriting practice,but not experiencein reading,had a positive impacton at leastsome aspects of the students'writing. If this is true, it challenges the commonlyheld assumptionthatwriters can improve throughengaging in reading. However,as indicated in the discussion of the studies,the researchis in manywayslimitedby problems in design. Thus, further research should investigate theeffects of bothreadingand on students'writing writing proficiency. STRATEGYUSE Aziz (1995) and Klohs (1994) investigated the betweentraining in strategy use and relationship withpromising gains made in writing proficiency, results. In Aziz'sstudy, 72 second-semester universitystudentsof French were divided into two groups,a cognitive strategy training group and a metacognitive/cognitive strategy training group. Both groups were given instruction concerning a recapitulation based on a dictatedpaswriting sage. The cognitive training groupwas trainedin the use of strategies includingnote-taking during reconstruction of the dictatedpassage, dictation, and erroranalysis.The metacognitive/cognitive group was trained in the same cognitivestrateof gies, as well as in the metacognitive strategies and self-evaluating whilewriting. self-monitoring Comparison of the pre- and posttraining essay testsindicated thatthe cognitivetraining group forgrammatical improvedon ratings agreement arti(involving usage of verbs,nouns, adjectives, of overall cles, and pronouns) but not on ratings textstrucwriting (includingsentencestructure, ture and coherence, idiomatic expressions,vocabulary,and mechanics). In contrast,the students in the metacognitive/cognitive group improvedon both grammatical agreementand overall writing,outperformingthe cognitive group on both measures. Klohs (1994) also investigated trainstrategy rather on ing, focusing narrowly improvements in one area-use of past tenseverbs.In her study, 72 highschool students ofFrenchwererandomly assignedto eithera controlor a mnemonicstrategy group. The mnemonic strategy group received trainingin the use of gestural,musical, and acronym-related as aids rhythmic, strategies in recallingpasttenseverbforms. Holisticratings
MelindaReichelt of pre-and posttreatment essaysfocusingon the writers'abilities to differentiate two past tense verbformsindicatedthatboth groups improved in this area, but the improvement of the mnemonicgroupwas significantly greaterthanthatof thecontrolgroup.No rating of theoverallquality of the essays was done. The resultsof the small amount of research are investigating strategy trainingin FL writing further research in this area should promising; considerwhetherthe main goal of strategy trainaccuing is to help students improve grammatical as in Klohs' (1994) study, to include other racy, concerns,as in Aziz's (1995) work,or to include overallcommunicative effectiveness.
587
and reducingthe guage use, syntactic complexity, numberof errors. Kern and Schultz (1992) reported on evaluation of a university-level thirdand fourth-semester French programin which special attention was paid to explicitteachingof writing as a process, targeting especiallythe text-based argumentative essay, which is required in upper-level courses in the program.Four timesthroughout the school year, 73 students wrotea spontaneous, in-classtimedessay(neithertext-based nor arguof the essaysindicated that mentative).Analysis the students made improvements in their writing over the course of the year,withlow-ability studentsappearingto benefit mostfrom instruction that focused on thesis statementdevelopment, PROCESS INSTRUCTION planning,and developmentof paragraphs,and writers frominstruction high-ability benefitting In the English L1 writingliterature, thatfocusedon refining and process interpretive analyses instruction and research on developing a personal voice in expressing approaches to writing have characterized muchof theworkofthe 1980s ideas. Analysis of the syntactic in the complexity students'writing (see, e.g., Cambourne, 1986; Flower & Hayes, indicatedthatthe mean length 1981; and Yoshida, 1983). In addition,ESL writ- of T-units increasedand then decreased over the research and has also focused on course of the school year,perhaps, Kern and ing practice process approaches to writing(see, e.g., Ferris, Schultzspeculated,because students mayacquire 1995; Kelly, 1992; and Reyes, 1991). Recently, coordination first,then subordination,and fiboth pedagogical literature (e.g., Hall, 1993) and nally clause reduction. No control group was researchin FL writing have also focused on proused in thisstudy. cess approaches to writing. Research into the efTwo studies,by Becker (1991) and Martinezfects on FL writers of theprocessapproach or the Gibson (1998), investigated an activprewriting, use of pedagogical practicesconventionally assoityassociated withprocess approaches to teachciated withprocess approaches have pointed to Beckerinvestigated a type ingwriting. clustering, of free-associative generally positiveoutcomes. activity, among 424 adult learnBoth Gallego de Blibeche (1993) and Kernand ers of German at variouslevelsin a BerlitzlanSchultz (1992) investigated the relationshipbewroteone composition guage school.All students tweenexplicitteachingof a processapproach to on a topic that theyselected fromtwo prompt and gains in writing in both choices (leisureactivities or a dream partner in a writing proficiency, cases with promising results. In Gallego de The in students the relationship). experimental Blibeche's studyof 36 elementary-level for5 minutesbeforewritcollege group used clustering studentsof Spanish,over the course of 1 semesing their compositionswhereas studentsin the ter,studentsin an experimental controlgroup did not.Two raters werepresented group engaged in prewriting discussion,freewriting, pair work, with pairs of compositions(one each fromthe of a roughdraft, and peer review forrevi- controland experimental writing groups) and asked to receiveddirect sion,whilecontrolgroup students which of each pair contained more imidentify instruction, ideas. Bothraters grammar identified includingwritten grammar ageryand interesting of theircompositions a higher percentageof experimentalthan conexercises,and wrotedrafts which were marked with a code for grammar trol group compositions.No information was errorsby theirinstructor. The controlgroup stu- givenconcerninghow the essayswere paired for dentswere required to rewrite theseessays, makcomparison,which makes these resultsdifficult corrections indicatedby the ing the grammatical to interpret. In addition,on a measureoffluency, instructor. Analysisof pre- and posttreatment the novice subgroupof the experimental group compositionsof both groups indicated that the itscounterparts in the significantly outperformed experimentalprocess group outperformedthe controlgroup. controlgroup in theirimprovement on composiMartinez-Gibson (1998) also investigated pretion lengthand qualityof organizationbut that activities in FL writing. In a studyof 43 writing the groups made equal gains in content, lanfifth-semester students of Spanish in a university
588 were divided Spanish compositionclass,students into a "culture-discussion" group and a "non-culture discussion"group. Prior to viewinga Spanish-language television commercial for a soft drinkdepictingboth Spanish and U.S. culture, both groups participated in prewriting activities. They read and discusseda chapterin theirtextbook about comparison/contrast writingand then workedin small groups to writeshortcoma large parisonessayson topicssuch as attending versusa smalluniversity. Theywerethentold that theywould be viewinga commercialand would laterbe required to writean essaydiscussing culturaldifferences between the United Statesand the culSpain. Afterreceivingthisinformation, ture discussion group participatedin activities that included brainstorming about theirknowltheseideas, edge of Spanish culture, categorizing discussing stereotypes, and discussing their between Spanish knowledge of the differences and U.S. culture.In contrast, theothergroupwas told to observe and identify words, anygestures, actions,or sceneryin the commercialthatwere familiar or unfamiliar to them.After the viewing commercial,the culture-discussion group generated and categorizeda listof culturaldifferences depicted in the commercial. The two groups completed theiressays;analysisand comparison of the writing indicated that the culture-discussion group outperformedthe other group in termsof recognizingthe culturaldifferences illustratedin the advertisement, taskcompletion, and cohesiveness ofwriting (definedas including a thesisstatement, a bodythatsupports the thesis connectionsbetweenparagraphs,orstatement, and ganization,and an appropriateintroduction conclusion). A weaknessof thisstudyis thatthe author did not indicatewhethermore than one reader analyzed the writingsamples; furtherwas givenabout how,given more,no information the many components included in the researcher'sdefinition of "cohesiveness," the rater determinedwhetheror not a writing sample was cohesive. Two other studies, by Piasecki (1988) and Hedgcock and Lefkowitz (1992), investigated associpeer feedback,anotheractivity commonly ated withprocess approaches to writing instruction. In Piasecki's studyof 112 third-year high school studentsof Spanish, over an 8-weekpewroteone essayper week based on riod,students picturecues. Studentsin the experimental group in peer editingof each other'swork, participated whichconsistedof correcting each other'sgrammaticalerrors.Studentsin the controlgroup received errorcorrectionfromtheirteacher.Two
TheModern 85 (2001) Language Journal 10-sentence one written as a pretreatment essays, test and one as a posttreatment test,were rated on a scale of 0 to 10; each sentence receivedup to one fullpoint,one-half point forcomprehenand one-halfpoint for sibility/appropriateness, form. Results indicated that both groups imdifferproved but that there was no significant ence betweenthegains of the twogroups.In this as in severalothers,the overallqualityof study, the essays was not measured.As in Nummikoski's coherence ofdiscoursewasnot con(1991) study, sidered. Hedgcock and Lefkowitz(1992) also investiIn theirstudy gated peer feedbackin FL writing. of 30 studentsin accelerated first-year college wrote two essay assignFrench, the participants mentsrequiring threeseparatedrafts. Students in the experimental in peer regroup participated viewin smallgroups,reading theirpapers aloud to each other and receivingoral feedbackfrom their peers. Students in the control group receivedwritten feedbackfromtheirteacher.Comof the finaldrafts of the assignments inparison dicated no significant difference betweenthe two groups in performancein the areas of content, or mechanorganization,vocabulary, grammar, ics. Comparison of each of the two groups' fromthefirst change in performance assignment to the second assignment indicated that the teacher-feedback group improved significantly on grammarbut got significantly worse on conwhereas the tent,organization,and vocabulary, peer-feedback group showed the exact opposite in content,orchange: significant improvement but significant weakganization,and vocabulary, ening in grammar. It is important to note that there are at least twodistinct methodologicalapproaches takenby theauthorsoftheseworks about teachingprocess to FL approaches writing.Some researchers (Becker, 1991; Hedgcock & Lefkowitz,1992; Martinez-Gibson, 1998) examined the writing produced as a resultofa certainpedagogicalprocedure (often, but not always,comparing this to the writing of a nontreatment control writing group). For example, Hedgcock and Lefkowitz compared studentessaysfrom two groups: studentswho receivedfeedbackon theiressaydrafts who received onlyfromthe teacherand students oral feedbackfromeach otherwhen they worked in peer groups. In contrast,other researchers (Gallego de Blibeche, 1993; Kern & Schultz, 1992; Piasecki,1988) applied a treatment to students in an experimentalgroup, oftenbut not a controlgroup,and then comalways providing pared writing samples taken near the beginning
MelindaReichelt and end of the treatment period, looking for of peer change. For example, in Piasecki'sstudy revision, duringthe course of the term,students in the controlgroup receivedfeedbackon their compositionsonly from their teacher,whereas studentsin the experimentalgroup engaged in peer revision,as in Hedgcock and Lefkowitz's study.However,in Piasecki's study,the experimentaland controlgroupsprovidedan unrevised writing sample at the beginningand end of the and thesetwosetsofwriting term, samples,rather than the end productsof the revisionbased on were either peer revisionor teacher-feedback, compared. In some cases, this patternof contrasting rein the search design seems to reflect a difference authors'approaches to researchand in theirphiand writing instruction. For losophies of writing some, the use of pre-and posttreatment writing testsmayindicatea desireforstrict adherence to researchdesign; such an approach experimental is in line with research design in the field of a parentdisciplineof FL. But applied linguistics, the differences in research design also seem to reflectcontrasting beliefsabout writing instruction. Although some authors consider only the when writingstudentsdo withoutintervention authors like measuringwriting ability, Hedgcock and Lefkowitz of the prod(1992) deem analysis uct of writing involving peer or teacherfeedback a valid means of gaugingstudents' writing ability. Their approach seems to reflectattitudesand researchconventions withinthe fieldsof Li Enin which revision glish as well as ESL writing, based on others'inputis considereda legitimate to compose. In contrast, muchof wayforstudents the research on FL writing process instruction seems to imply a mistrust ofusingpeer or teacher feedbackin writing thatis assessed. (See Heilenman, 1991, for a discussion of barriersto the adoption of the process approach to teaching writingin FL courses.) Research that analyzes that studentshave completed withonly writing out peer or teacher feedback seems to reveal a view of writingas a private,individual activity ratherthan as a sociallysituatedenterprise(see, in the 1992). Perhapstheresearchers e.g., Porter, field need to examine their assumptionsabout and even theirconceptionof writing proficiency itself. (See Lee, 1994,and Reichelt,1999, writing formore on thissubject.) An alternative viewof the situation is thatin thefieldofFL, manyof the researchers do not viewwriting in a FL as an end in itself, but rather as a means of overallL2 acquisitionor as a supportskillforotherFL skills, such as oral production.
589 The researchon the effects of explicitinstruction in the writing process indicates that such instruction has positiveeffects on at least some written and that performance aspectsofstudents' feedback on be at least as effecmay peer writing tive as teacher feedback. However,more highqualityresearch needs to be conducted in this area. TEACHER FEEDBACK In additionto studiesthatreporton peer feedback in FL writing, otherresearch, includingthat Semke (1982, 1984), Kepner (1991), and by Lalande (1982), focuseson teacher/expert feedback. Resultspoint to the effectiveness of commentson the contentof studentwriting but not on itslinguistic Semke the accuracy. investigated effects of various typesof feedbackon students' In her studyof 141 thirdweeklyfree writing. studentsof German, the parquarter university were dividedintofourdifferent ticipants groups: one receivedcomments about the content Group of their but no feedbackon errors; writing group two receivederrorcorrectiononly;group three receivedcomments on contentalong withcorrection of their errors;and group four had their errors marked with a code and were asked to make corrections.Analysisof studentpre- and posttreatment writing samples indicated no significant difference of among the groupsin terms increase in accuracy; however,group one, the group thatreceivedcommentson contentonly, wrote significantly longer essaysthan the other groups, and group four,the group that had its errors markedwitha code and was asked to make scored the lowestof all groups on corrections, thissame measure of fluency. No ratingsof the overallqualityof the essayswerereported. Like Semke, Kepner (1991) investigated the of different kinds of feedback on student impact In thisstudy of 60 intermediate-level colwriting. lege learners of Spanish, studentswrote eight guided journal entries over the course of the term,receivingeither error correctionwithexcommentswritten planation or message-related in Spanish. The sixth was analyzed journal entry for the numberof higher-level propositions(including analysis, comparison/contrast,inferand evaluation) as well as ence/interpretation, for the number of surface-level errorsin gramand syntax. The group receiving mar,vocabulary, message-relatedcomments produced a significantlygreater number of higher-level propositions than the error-correction group, and the twogroupsdid not varyin the numberof errors
590 produced. The resultsof thisresearchare somewhatdifficult to interpret, giventhe factthatthe studydid not include a sample of pretreatment writing. Lalande (1982) also investigated the effects of various typesof feedbackon studentwriting. In his study, the participants, 60 intermediate-level of German,attendedsectionsof college students a course thatfocused on reviewing grammarinand short stories in German. tensively reading Over the course of three essays,studentsin the controlgroup had all theirgrammatical and orthe exthographicerrorscorrected;in contrast, errors were marked with a perimentalgroup's code indicating errortype, and the students were the code, correcttheirerrequired to interpret rors, and rewritethe essays.The experimental also monitored thefrequency and group students recurrenceof theirerrorswithan error awareness sheet. Pre- and posttreatment samwriting ples were analyzed; as in Semke's (1982, 1984) no ratingof the qualityof the essays'constudy, tent was reported. Error analysisof the essays indicated that the number of errorsin the controlgroup's writing increasedwhile the number of errors for the experimental error-codremainedsteady, ing/monitoring group'swriting errors. except fora decrease in orthographic Lalande (1982) suggestedthatthe experimental treatment seems to have had a steadying effect on the incidence of errorsas students attempted more difficult structures as theirinincreasingly terlanguage developed. Although this explanation is plausible, no analysisof changes in the was undercomplexityof the students'writing taken to provide evidence for such a claim. Indeed, in light of the fact that the studentsin Semke's (1982, 1984) researchwho receivedno commentson theirerrorsmade linguistic progress in theirwriting (in fact,more progressthan any of the other groups), an equally plausible claimpresents itself. As Truscott(1996) arguedin thisstudy, the errorcorrection critiquing givento both groups in Lalande's studymay have had a harmful effect on thestudents' linguistic progress in writing. in the experiPerhapsforthe students mentalgroup,theprocessofworking with directly their own errors,revisingand correctingtheir coded errorsor using the errorawarenesssheet, or both, served as partialcompensationfor any detrimental effects of errorcorrection. UnfortuLalande's did not include a control nately, study group thatreceivedno feedbackat all on grammar errors.Comparisonof the writing of such a of theothertwotreatment groupwiththewriting groups in this studywould have provided more
TheModern 85 (2001) Language Journal information about therelative and disadvantages ofvarioustypes ofattention to linguisadvantages ticform. The results of thishandfulofstudiesregarding teacherfeedbacksuggest thatstudents maybenefitfromreceivingcommentsregardingthe content of their essays.The research also suggests thatmarking oferrors effect mayhave no positive on students'writing.(For further discussionof error correction,see Truscott, 1996, who reviewedthe literature on FL and ESL writing error correction and arguedforabandonmentoferror correctionin L2 writing; see also Ferris,1999, who responded to Truscott's proposal, and Truscott's1999 counterresponse.) DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION At thispoint,researchers interested in FL writand begun to investigate the ing have identified issuesofinterest, whichdeservefurther following attention. 1. The effects ofvarioustypes ofgrammar treatmentson FL writing, includingexplicitgrammar correctionof errors,indication of instruction, errorlocation,and sentencecombiningactivities 2. The effects ofvarioustypes of computeruse, includinggrammardrill,e-mailand otherinteractivewriting, and wordprocessing 3. The influenceof tasktypes, includingcomputer-mediated writing, interactive writing, and writing in various teacher-assigned writing, modes such as description, narration, argument, and comparison/contrast 4. The effects of extensive or reading,writing, both 5. The effects of strategy training, including and metacognitive cognitive strategy training 6. The influence ofprocessinstruction, includof multiing elementssuch as planning,writing ple drafts, peer feedback,and revision 7. The impact of various typesof feedback, errorfeedcomments, includingcontent-focused back, and peer feedback Because much of the alreadycompletedwork in the field exhibitsserious design flaws, future FL writing investigators researchingthese areas should learn fromits shortcomings, workingtoward research that is conducted according to sound principlesof design.They should keep in mind the following principlesin theirundertakings. First,it is crucial that all FL writingresearchersfamiliarize themselves withthe bodyof so thata conpublished researchon FL writing versation can developregarding issuesofconcern
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in the field.Often,researchers appear to be unaware of previouslypublished work. Authors should contextualizetheirown workwithinthe body of work alreadypublished and should describehow theresearchquestionsthey investigate are relatedto it. Second, researchers should proof theirresearchprovide adequate descriptions cedures in order to open theirmethodsnot only to evaluation and critique but to replication. should avoid the designprobThird,researchers lems common to much of the existing research, includingthe lack of a controlgroup,the lack of needed testsof statistical the lack of significance, reliable measurement and the presprocedures, ence of too manyvariables.Finally, researchers should exercise caution in interpreting theirresults and avoid offeringexplanations of their thatare not in line withtheirdata. findings It is also important forresearchers to consider some broaderquestions,ones raised throughout this reviewof work on FL writing. As indicated within earlier,the issue of the purpose ofwriting the FL curriculumneeds to be explored. Such explorationwould be usefulnot onlyforFL writwho mustmake decisions about ing researchers how to assessstudent in theirstudies,but writing also for FL writingclassroom instructors. One part of this exploration could include a needs in a FL. For example, if the analysisforwriting further purposesincludeproviding experiencein in the TL for some writing appropriate particular audience and purpose,thenmore thanmeasures of grammatical comaccuracy, fluency, syntactic and vocabulary use should be considered plexity, in classroominstruction and in assessment of student writing.Additionally, if using writingto learn about the literature or cultureof the TL is a purposeforwriting, thentheaccuracyand level of analysisof content should be considered in classroominstruction and in researchers' analysis of studentwriting samples. (For a discussionof the notion of "writing to learn," see McLeod, of what 1992, and Zinsser,1988.) Investigation roleswriting in of other TL might play acquisition skillsis another issue thatmightbe included in discussionof the purpose of FL writing. The growing numberof researchers interested in FL writing indicatesthatthe area has the potential to develop into a cohesive field with a more clearly focused body of research and a enthusiastic If researchers. group of industrious, the area of FL writing is to develop beyond its current itis crucialthatmorewellstate, however, designed researchbe undertakenon the effects of grammar treatments, computeruse, tasktypes, extensivereading and writing, strategy training,
and feedback.Additionally, process instruction, critical reflection mustgo on concerningthepurpose(s) of FL writing.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author wouldliketo thank theanonymous reviewers ofthis article for their andvery insightful helpfulcomments on various drafts ofthis manuscript.
NOTES 1The sourcesreported on here werefoundin a search oftheModern Association (MLA)bibLanguage theLinguistics and Language Behavior Abliography,
stracts Dissertation (LLBA), the ERIC index,Worldcat, Abstracts International of (DAI), and thebibliographies thatappear in scholarshipin second language writing each issue of theJournal as ofSecond LanguageWriting, wellas in otherbibliographies eithersepaencountered, rately (Homstad & Thorson, 1994; Polio, Mosele, these worksand theirfindings, in the order in which theyare presentedin thisarticle.Because mostof the workson FL writing have appeared withinthe last 3 decades, theseare the sourcesreportedon here. Every effort was made to include all works about FL writing in the United Statespublishedwithin thistimeframe;any omissionsare regretted and maybe due to the factthat a givenworkwas not indexed at the timethisresearch
works Danek,& Ording, n.d.) or at theend of other aboutFL writing. TheAppendix a summary of presents
workson FL writing thatinvolvecollectionof quantitativeor qualitative data,or both,and thatfocusexplicitly on compositionin a FL. Worksthatdeal only tangenwithcompositionor thatfocuson onlythe word, tially phrase,or sentencelevelhavebeen excluded.Additionthe reports of results focuson theeffects of a given ally, or tasktypeon students'texts, pedagogical treatment even thoughsome studiesalso investigate otherareas, such as studentattitudestowards various pedagogical procedures.Because theamountofresearchin thearea fromthisreview based on quality; it is hoped thateven flawedresearchcan point to important issuesforinvesresearchand that tigationand can help shape further the flawsthemselves can be noted and avoided in the future.
wasundertaken. Theworks for chosen discussion areall
ofFL writing isrelatively no studies were excluded small,
REFERENCES American on theTeaching Council ofForeign Languages pro(1986). Hastings-on-the-Hudson, ficiency guidelines. and metacogniAziz, L. (1995). A model ofpairedcognitive tivestrategies: Its effect on second language grammar
NY:ACTFLMaterial Center.
592
The Modern Language Journal 85 (2001)
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594
APPENDIX Foreign Language WritingStudies Author/Year FL Focus Frantzen, 1995 Spanish daily grammar review,correction of composition errors Manley & Calk, 1997 French error-targeted grammar instruction Cooper & Morain, 1980 French sentence-combining Cooper, 1981 French, German, Spanish sentence combining Herrmann, 1990 French use of computer for drillworkvs. collaborative writing Leh, 1997 Spanish 35 students 5th-semester university 24 students 1st-year university two-groupcomparison 325 students 3rd-quarter university two-groupcomparison 120 students 3rd-quarter university 14 students advanced level university
TheModern 85 (2001) Language Journal
Participants 44 students 5th-semester university
Research Design Comments two-groupcomparison no real control group; same topic used forpreand posttreatment writing samples; overall qualityof not measured writing one group, pretest/posttest problems withratertraining and reliability; no control group
Claims both groups improved on several grammarareas; no significant overall advantage foreither group
improvementon targeted grammar areas; no increase on holisticscores of quality
two-group comparison overall qualityof writing not measured
increased syntactic complexity
increased syntactic complexity
overall qualityof writing not measured
same topics used forpre- and posttreatment writingsamples; writing samples gathered under noncontrolled conditions
no significant gains or losses in either group's writing proficiency
two-groupcomparison treatment not uniform among experimental group members two-groupcomparison treatment not uniform among experimentalgroup members; no real control group
no significant differencein improvementin either group's essay scores
email vs. non-email use McGuire, 1997 Spanish use of MundoHispano vs. supplementary activities writing 27 students 4th-semester university
no significant gains or losses in either group's writing proficiency
MelindaReichelt
Author/Year FL Focus Ittzes,1997 German computer conference writing vs. traditional journaling Florez-Estrada,1995 Spanish email writing vs. traditional journaling Trenchs, 1996 Spanish use of email Nirenberg, 1989 Spanish word processing vs. longhand Martinez-Lage 1992 Spanish traditionalteacherassigned journals vs. 57 students two-groupcomparison problematic essay prompts; overall qualityof writing not measured 3 students 6th-grade 28 students3rdyear university textanalysis/comparison Research Design Comments text analysis/comparison strongresearch design
595
Participants 40 students intermediate level university
Claims computer conference writing received higher ratingsin several areas
studentsin computer group than spent more time writing studentsin traditional journaling control group qualitative nonexperimental study
email group spent more time and outperformedother writing group on several measures
writing qualitycorrelated with behaviors and linguistic writing skill
beginning & advanced university
among advanced students,word processing studentsincreased fluencymore than other group
23 students 2nd-year university
textanalysis/comparison overall qualityof writing not measured
was gendialogue journal writing erallymore syntactically complex and grammatically accurate than teacher-assignedcompositions
dialogue journals Koda, 1993 Japanese descriptivevs. narrativetasks Paulson, 1993 Spanish
25 students 1stand 2nd-year university
textanalysis/comparison strongresearch design
no significant linguisticdifferences between texttypes;rhetorical differences found
89 learners inter- textanalysis/comparison mediate level university strongresearch design
various task types
studentswho completed task focusingon explaining outperformed studentswho completed other task types
596
Author/Year FL Focus McKee, 1980 French remaining selfvs. takingon another's role in writing Chavez, 1996 German revisedvs. nonrevisedwriting tasks Chastain, 1990 Spanish graded vs. ungraded writing Baudrand-Aertker, 1992 French dialogue journals Uhlir, 1995 Spanish daily expressive writing Nummikoski,1991 Russian reading onlyvs. writing only vs. interactive writing 127 students 1st-year university 6 students 1styear 8th-grade 21 students 3rd-year high school 14 students 300-level university Research Design Comments
TheModern 85 (2001) Language Journal
Participants
Claims no significant differencein fluency;when studentswroteas was syntactically themselves, writing more complex
182 students2nd- textanalysis/comparison and 3rd-quarter not overall qualityof writing university measured
37 students 3rd-semester university
textanalysis/comparison tasksused were not writing typicalof classroom writing tasks;overall qualityof writing not measured textanalysiscomparison different writing task-types used for pre- and posttreatmentsamples
revisedwriting contained more morphological but fewer errors syntactic
for a grade were essayswritten and contained longer longer, more complex sentences
one group, pretestposttest same topic used forpre- and posttreatment writingsamples
writers'increased scores of holisticwriting proficiency
one group, pretest,posttest, and two-group comparison comparison group inadequately described; no testsof statistical significance three-groupcomparison pre- and posttreatment samples gathered in 5- and 10-minutesessions, respectively; samples not required to exhibitglobal coherence two-groupcomparison no real control group; overall qualityof writing not measured
question use
studentsincreased fluencyand
no overall significant difference among groups; among high achievers,interactive writing group outperformedreading group on fluencyincrease
Caruso, 1994 Spanish effectof reading vs. speaking and writing
177 students 4th-semester university
neither treatment had an effect on syntactic complexityof students' writing
MelindaReichelt
Author/Year FL Focus Aziz, 1995 French cognitivevs. cognitive/metacognitive strategy training Klohs, 1994 French mnemonic strategy training 72 students 2nd-yearhigh school two-groupcomparison overall qualityof not measured writing Research Design Comments two-groupcomparison strongresearch design
597
Participants 72 students 2nd-semester university
Claims cognitive/metacognitive group outperformedcognitivegroup on improvementin grammaticalagreement and overall writing proficiency
mnemonic group improved more than significantly control group on ability to differentiate two past-tense verb formsin theirwriting
Gallego de Blibeche, 36 students 1993 elementary school Spanish explicit instructionin composition process Kern & Schultz, 1992 French explicit instructionin composition process Becker, 1991 German prewriting 424 adult learners various levels Berlitz language school 43 students 5th-semester university 73 students 3rd and 4thyear university
two-groupcomparison strongresearch design
explicit instruction group outperformedcontrol group on length and organization
one group, pretest-posttest no control group
studentsmade improvementover the year
two-group comparison incomplete information concerning essay rating
prewriting group outperformed control group on amount of imageryand interesting ideas
Martinez-Gibson, 1998 Spanish prewriting (cultural discussion)
two-groupcomparison no information concerning number of essay ratersor interrater reliability
prewriting group outperformed control group in recognizing cultural differences and in cohesiveness
598
Author/Year FL Focus Piasecki, 1988 Research Design Comments two-groupcomparison
TheModern 85 (2001) Journal Language
Participants 112 students 3rd-year high school
Claims no significant differencesin of peer vs. teacher writing feedback groups
Spanish peer vs. teacher feedback Hedgcock & Lefkowitz, 1992 French peer vs. teacher feedback Semke, 1982, 1984 German various types of teacher feedback Kepner, 1991 Spanish teacher feedback: error correction vs. messagerelated feedback Lalande, 1982 German teacher feedback: error correction vs. coding of errors 60 students intermediate level university 60 students intermediate level university 141 students 3rd-quarter university 30 students accelerated 1st-year university
not overall qualityof writing measured
two-groupcomparison strongresearch design
teacher feedback group improved on grammarbut worsened on content,organization,& vocabulary; peer feedback group showed exact opposite change
two-group comparison not overall qualityof writing measured
no significant difference among groups' grammatical feedback accuracy; content-only group improved fluencymost, while group asked to correct own errorsdecreased most in fluency
two-groupcomparison no pretreatment writing sample taken
group receivingmessage-related comments produced more higherlevel propositions; no betweenin amount group differences of errors
two-groupcomparison overall qualityof writing not measured; no real control group
error correction group's errors increased; error coding group's number of errors remained steady

A Critical Review of Writing in A FL and Pedagogy Approaches

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A Critical Review of Foreign Language Writing Research on Pedagogical Approaches Author(s): Melinda Reichelt Source: The Modern Language

A CriticalReviewof Foreign Research on Language Writing Pedagogical Approaches

and feedback.Additionally, process instruction, critical reflection mustgo on concerningthepurpose(s) of FL writing.

wasundertaken. Theworks for chosen discussion areall

ofFL writing isrelatively no studies were excluded small,

The Modern Language Journal 85 (2001)

TheModern 85 (2001) Language Journal

Participants 44 students 5th-semester university

improvementon targeted grammar areas; no increase on holisticscores of quality

two-group comparison overall qualityof writing not measured

increased syntactic complexity

increased syntactic complexity

overall qualityof writing not measured

no significant gains or losses in either group's writing proficiency

no significant differencein improvementin either group's essay scores

no significant gains or losses in either group's writing proficiency

Participants 40 students intermediate level university

Claims computer conference writing received higher ratingsin several areas

writing qualitycorrelated with behaviors and linguistic writing skill

beginning & advanced university

among advanced students,word processing studentsincreased fluencymore than other group

23 students 2nd-year university

textanalysis/comparison overall qualityof writing not measured

25 students 1stand 2nd-year university

textanalysis/comparison strongresearch design

no significant linguisticdifferences between texttypes;rhetorical differences found

89 learners inter- textanalysis/comparison mediate level university strongresearch design

various task types

TheModern 85 (2001) Language Journal

37 students 3rd-semester university

revisedwriting contained more morphological but fewer errors syntactic

writers'increased scores of holisticwriting proficiency

Caruso, 1994 Spanish effectof reading vs. speaking and writing

177 students 4th-semester university

neither treatment had an effect on syntactic complexityof students' writing

Participants 72 students 2nd-semester university

two-groupcomparison strongresearch design

explicit instruction group outperformedcontrol group on length and organization

one group, pretest-posttest no control group

studentsmade improvementover the year

two-group comparison incomplete information concerning essay rating

prewriting group outperformed control group on amount of imageryand interesting ideas

Martinez-Gibson, 1998 Spanish prewriting (cultural discussion)

two-groupcomparison no information concerning number of essay ratersor interrater reliability

TheModern 85 (2001) Journal Language

Participants 112 students 3rd-year high school

Claims no significant differencesin of peer vs. teacher writing feedback groups

not overall qualityof writing measured

two-groupcomparison strongresearch design

two-group comparison not overall qualityof writing measured

two-groupcomparison no pretreatment writing sample taken

two-groupcomparison overall qualityof writing not measured; no real control group

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