L2 writing | Yu Tamura

Recent studies have shown that languaging contributes to second language skill development. Feedback is often used in combination with languaging as a prompt of verbalization during writing revision, and this combination has shown the effect of increasing the quality of writing. The present study tested whether and how indirect feedback helps learners engage in languaging, and whether the effects continued with the second new writing on the same topic. Forty participants engaged in a three-stage writing task: writing a first draft, revision with languaging with/without feedback on specific grammatical or lexical errors, and writing the second draft. Writing was multidimensionally assessed in terms of syntactic complexity, grammatical accuracy, and fluency. The results showed that the participants focused more on grammar when they were given feedback and succeeded in more error correction than when they did not receive feedback. Learners improved in fluency and slightly in accuracy, but not in complexity, regardless of the existence of indirect feedback. Importantly, written languaging with feedback did not show superiority to written languaging without feedback in skill development. The findings suggest that even metalinguistic correction induced by feedback is not always necessarily effective, but languaging may have a positive effect on overall writing quality.

Fukuta, J., Tamura, Y., & Kawaguchi, Y. (2019) Written languaging with indirect feedback in writing revision: is feedback always effective?, Language Awareness, 28, 1–14. DOI: 10.1080/09658416.2019.1567742

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Syntactic complexity has traditionally been measured by “macro-perspective measures,” which provide a paucity of angles from which to examine how learners actually elaborate a sentence. Mixing up a large variety of clauses with only “the number of clauses” or “subordination ratios” could lead to overlooking desired relationships between complexity and proficiency or task manipulation and linguistic performance. The current study attempted to capture the features of writing syntactically complex sentences through “micro-perspective measures,” such as clause types (main clauses, coordinate clauses, adverbial clauses, relative clauses, complement clauses, and non-finite clauses), and differences in learner proficiency levels. Participants were 28 Japanese EFL learners. Proficiency was operationalized via argumentative essay scores. To elicit syntactic knowledge, we offered the participants a specialized task that restricted the number of sentences in describing a plot consisting of six related illustrations. The results revealed that coordinate clauses, relative clauses, and non-finite clauses are more frequently produced in elaborating syntactic structures, irrespective of the writer’s proficiency level. Our findings also indicated that non-finite clauses are a more practical expedient for proficient learners than less proficient ones. Some pedagogical implications are also discussed.