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WRITING CONFERENCES VIA SYNCHRONOUS COMPUTER-MEDIATED
COMMUNICATION: A CASE STUDY OF AN ESL LEARNER

By

Seung Won Jun

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Linguistics, Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages

2005

ABSTRACT

WRITING CONFERENCES VIA SYNCHRONOUS COMPUTER-MEDIATED
COMMUNICATION: A CASE STUDY OF AN ESL LEARNER

By

Seung Won Jun

This study examined how synchronous computer-mediated communication
(SCMC) affected the development of second language (L2) writing skills. The participant
in this study was given writing prompts chosen from the Test of Written English (TWE),
and was asked to write short essays. He wrote an initial draft and a ﬁnal essay for each
topic, and there was a one-on-one online conference after each draft. The essays were
compared to the chat logs for any changes the participant made. Four native speakers of
English ranked the essays and two of them made detailed comments on them. The
participant was interviewed three times during the observation period of three months.
The ﬁndings of this study show that SCMC has positive effects on the development of
writing skills with respect to short- and possibly long-term revision. The participant made
revisions on most of the places that were brought up in the conferences and made more
changes by himself in the later essays. The comments from the two writing teachers also
show that theses changes helped the essays. In addition, the participant felt more and
more comfortable with writing and the conferences as the study progressed and showed a
positive attitude toward using SCMC as a tool for developing writing skills. Finally, the
ﬁndings suggest that SCMC has both advantages and disadvantages in its application to

writing conferences. Further discussion and the limitations of the study are also presented.

To my wife Mee Ra Ryu, who made everything possible.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the student who participated in the present study and worked
hard for the past few months. Without his participation, I would have lost the precious
opportunity of tapping into his writing process. I would also like to give my appreciation
to my classmate, Robin Roots, for her comments on the essays, and to Professor Debra
Hardison for being on my thesis committee and giving me insightful advice. Her course
on research methodology gave me background knowledge for conducting research and
greatly helped me in designing the present study. Finally, I would especially like to
express my gratitude to Professor Charlene Polio, my advisor, for her invaluable
comments on my draﬁs, for helping me analyze the data, for her full support throughout
the study, and mostly for preparing me and providing me the motivation for conducting

research on L2 writing.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................. viii
LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................. ix
1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................. 1
2. LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................................... 4
2.1 Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) ............................................. 4
2.1.1 The Characteristics of CMC ......................................................... 4

2.1.2 CMC and SLA ........................................................................ 8

2.1.3 CMC and the Development of Writing Skills .................................... 11

2.2 Conferencing ................................................................................. 12
2.3 Purpose of Study ............................................................................. 15
2.4 Research Questions .......................................................................... 16
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ............................................................... 17
3.1 Participant .................................................................................... 17
3.2 Materials .................................................................................................................. 19
3.2.1 MSN Messenger ...................................................................... 19

3.2.2 Writing Topics from the Test of Written English (TWE) ....................... 20

3.3 Procedures .................................................................................... 21
3.3.1 Interviews ............................................................................. 21

3.3.2 Essay Writing ......................................................................... 23

3.3.3 One-on-One Conferencing via SCMC ............................................ 23

3.4 Data Coding .................................................................................. 25
3.4.1 Essays ................................................................................... 26
3.4.1.1 Revision ................................................................... 26

3.4.1.2 Teacher Comments ....................................................... 26

3.4.1.3 Essay Rankings ........................................................... 27

3.4.2 Chat Logs ............................................................................. 27

3.4.3 Interviews ............................................................................. 27

3.4.4 Research Log ........................................................................ 27

4. ANALYSES and RESULTS ..................................................................... 28

4.1. Topicl ......................................................................................... 28
4.1.1 Conference ........................................................................... 31
4.1.2 Revision .............................................................................. 33
4.1.3 Teacher Comments ................................................................... 35

4.2. Topic2 ......................................................................................... 39
4.2.1 Conference ........................................................................... 39
4.2.2 Revision .............................................................................. 41
4.2.3 Teacher Comments ................................................................... 42

4.3. Topic3 ......................................................................................... 43
4.3.1 Conference ........................................................................... 46
4.3.2 Revision .............................................................................. 48
4.3.3 Teacher Comments ................................................................... 49

4.4. Topic4 ......................................................................................... 50
4.4.1 Conference ........................................................................... 53
4.4.2 Revision .............................................................................. 55
4.4.3 Teacher Comments ................................................................... 56

4.5. Topic5 ......................................................................................... 58
4.5.1 Conference ........................................................................... 61
4.5.2 Revision .............................................................................. 62
4.5.3 Teacher Comments ................................................................... 63

4.6. Topic6 ......................................................................................... 65
4.6.1 Conference ........................................................................... 68
4.6.2 Revision .............................................................................. 70
4.6.3 Teacher Comments ................................................................... 71

4.7 Summary of the Essays ..................................................................... 73

4.8 Interviews ..................................................................................... 78
4.8.1 Within-study Interview ............................................................. 78
4.8.2 Post-study Interview ................................................................ 79

5. CONCLUSION ................................................................................... 81

5.1 Revisiting the Research Questions ......................................................... 81

5.2 Discussion .................................................................................... 87

5.3 Limitations of Study and Implications for Further Research ........................... 89

vi

APPENDIX ........................................................................................... 93
Appendix A ....................................................................................... 93

REFERENCES ...................................................................................... 94

vii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Six Topics Chosen from TWE ........................................................... 20
Table 2 Interview Questions ....................................................................... 22
Table 3 Essay Rankings from Four Native Speakers of English .............................. 75

viii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Initial and Final Essays for Topicl ..................................................... 29
Figure 2 Initial and Final Essays for Topic2 ...................................................... 37
Figure 3 Initial and Final Essays for Topic3 ..................................................... 44
Figure 4 Initial and Final Essays for Topic4 ...................................................... 51
Figure 5 Initial and Final Essays for Topic5 ...................................................... 59
Figure 6 Initial and Final Essays for Topic6 ..................................................... 66

ix

1. INTRODUCTION

Technology seems to be inevitably linked to all aspects of human life. Computers,
in particular, have dramatically inﬂuenced the way we live, and as a natural consequence,
have also had an impact on pedagogical applications. Most of the schools and institutions
in which learning takes place now have access to computers and the Internet. Students do
their assignments using a word processor and think of the Internet as a resource for
obtaining information. Teachers also depend on computers when developing materials
and implementing their lessons. Many countries around the world provide distance
learning in which all the instruction is delivered via computers. In fact, computers have
become such a common everyday necessity that it is hard to think of a world today
without computers. Hyland (2003) notes that it is becoming more and more difﬁcult for
teachers to resist the pressure to take up technology and therefore important to have a
critical appreciation of what computers can offer (p.143). Moreover, as communication
technologies are increasingly at the center of the students’ world, teachers should bring
computers into their own pedagogical practice (Pennington, 2003).

A new form of communication, namely computer-mediated communication
(CMC), has emerged together with the development of technology and has become part
of the entire repertoire of language modes available to language learners (Murray, 2000).
CMC can be either synchronous or asynchronous depending on whether the
communication is in real time or not. Online Chatting, MU Ds (multi-user domains), and
MOOs (multi-user domain, object oriented), which are some examples of Synchronous
CMC (SCMC), require the interlocutors to be online simultaneously whereas emails and
web-based bulletin boards, which comprise Asynchronous CMC (ACMC), do not. Many

studies report that CMC has characteristics of both written and oral modalities (e.g., Chun,

1

1994; Murray, 2000; Smith, 2003; Yuan, 2003). Although the written medium is used as a
vehicle for communicating, the use of simpliﬁed registers, optional openings and closings
in discourse, and overlapping turn takings can be found in SCMC (Murray, 2000; Smith,
2003). Communication is in real time and a clear informality is found in CMC (Smith,
2003). Also, much of the prosodic and paralinguistic features missing in CMC are
compensated for by the use of media-speciﬁc conventions, such as the use of facial
expressions and capitalization, underlining, exclamation marks, and other symbols to
represent the tone of voice (Kern, 1995). CMC users employ strategies that reduce the
time required to type messages, such as the use of abbreviations, simpliﬁed syntax, the
acceptance of surface errors, the use of symbols to express emotional meaning, and the
use of formulaic phrases (Murray, 2000). In addition, CMC diﬁ‘ers from oral modality
with respect to immediate audience, medium of interaction, and time (Abrams, 2003).
Warschauer (1997) points out that the dichotomy between speech and writing has, for the
ﬁrst time in history, been overcome with the interactional and reﬂective aspects of
language that CMC provides. These characteristics of CMC illustrate that a second
language (L2) is itself transformed by the introduction of new technologies (Warschauer,
1998), and in the world of information and communications technology (ICT),
synchronous and asynchronous CMC will become critical skills for learners of English
(Warschauer, 2000). As Warschauer (2002) notes, the active mastery of ICT at all levels
of language education, from individual to institutional, is essential for confronting the
demands of the current information society.

Despite the wide inﬂuence of technology on pedagogy and the increasing usage of
CMC as another mode of communication, technology itself has little value with regard to

language learning. On the contrary, the rationale for applying CMC in language learning

2

 

is based on the potential of technology to improve teaching and learning skills (Johnson,
2002). The most important challenge is to identify the pedagogical objectives that
technology-based teaching is intended to fulﬁll (Salaberry, 2000; Salaberry, 2001).
Similarly, Warschauer (2002) emphasized that the computer is just an optional tool to
assist language learning and that technology does not transform what is to be learned
(p.455). Therefore, it is of primary importance to get a clear insight into how CMC can
serve as pedagogical tools for language learning.

This study attempts to gain more in-depth insight into how SCMC can be used
pedagogically to develop L2 writing skills through a case study of an ESL learner. As the
society becomes more sophisticated and the preferences of each individual learner more
diversiﬁed in the ICT world, language teachers should have some insight into computer-
mediated communication to beneﬁt the learners who prefer such a medium for language

learning.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC)l
2.1.1 The Characteristics of CMC

Since the early 19905, researchers have delved into many aspects of CMC to get a
better understanding of the characteristics of CMC and how it may be beneﬁcial to
language learners. The areas of interest that have been studied to the present date run the
whole gamut from Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theory to classroom application.

With respect to SLA theoryz, many studies report that SCMC allows the learners to
interact with one another, notice their errors in their interlanguages, and produce more
language output. Blake (2000) and Smith (2003), for example, examined how negotiation
of meaning takes place in SCMC. Smith claims that negotiation of meaning occurs in
SCMC similar to that found in face-to-face (F2F) communication and that task types may
inﬂuence the amount of negotiation. Abrams (2003) has looked at how language skills
obtained ﬁom either SCMC or ACMC could transfer to oral performance and found that
students in the SCMC group showed an increase in the quantity of language production,
although the quality of language did not improve in both groups.

With respect to classroom application, several studies investigated the use of CMC
for distance learning: Nunan (1999) explored a web-based Master of Science program in
TESOL; Johnson (2002) and Son (2002) examined the use of online discussion in a
distance learning course for language teacher education. Other studies examined how
CMC may be used in writing classrooms: Hertz-Lazarowitz and Bar-Natan (2002)

compared the writing development of Arab and Jewish students in three different learning

 

' Many different terms that could be considered as CMC are used in the literature, such as LAN, CACD,
CALL, etc. I will use the term SCMC, ACMC, or just CMC to refer to both.
2 This will be dealt with in the next section. I have only cited three studies here.

4

environments and found that the students in the combination of cooperative learning and
CMC environment outscored the other groups on all measures; Braine (1997, 2001) and
Sullivan and Pratt (1996) compared the quality of writing in the local area network
(LAN) based and traditional classroom contexts; Honeycutt (2001) compared online peer
response via email and synchronous conferencing; and New (1999) examined the process
of revision in computer-aided foreign language (F L) writing. Still, others report on FL
learning through MOOs (von der Emde, Schneider & Kotter, 2001) and using CMC in an
introductory German literature course (Fraser, 1999).

The preponderance of these and other studies report on the positive beneﬁts of
CMC compared to those of F 2F oral communication. Although CMC and F2F
communication has a lot in common, many other distinct characteristics of CMC can be
found. Most of these characteristics pertain to SCMC, a few overlapping with ACMC.

First, CMC results in more interactive discourse (Braine, 1997; Braine, 2001;
Honeycutt, 2001; Kamhi-Stein, 2000; Nunan, 1999; Warschauer, 1997). In traditional
classrooms, teachers usually dominate most of the talk while learners listen. As a result,
they become passive participants in the learning process. In CMC, however, learners are
active and interact much more with other learners and teachers. In her study of students’
participation in a World Wide Web-based bulletin board discussion, Kamhi-Stein found
that the discussions primarily consisted of student-student interactions that show a high
level of peer support and collaboration. Braine (2001) has also shown the large quantity
of writing and the high degree of interaction as distinguishing features of SCMC in
writing classes.

Second, learners take more ownership of the communication and participate more

in CMC (Braine, 2001; Kelm, 1992; Sullivan & Pratt, 1996; Warschauer, 1996). This is

5

 

another characteristic of CMC that can lead to a more dynamic classroom. Kelm (1992),
one of the earlier studies on CMC, reported that one of the greatest advantages of CMC
from a pedagogical perspective is the increased participation from all members of a class.
Warschauer compared equality of student participation in F2F discussion and SCMC
discussion, and found that the participation of most students increased and that students
used more formal and complex language in SCMC. Sullivan and Pratt also reported that
the teacher’s role was minimized in their study and that all the students were participating
and controlling the discourse of their classroom.

Third, CMC provides more equitable roles among the learners (Beauvois, 1992;
Chun, 1994; Kelm, 1992; Ortega, 1997; Sullivan & Pratt, 1996; Warschauer, 1996;
Warschauer, 1997). Beauvois pointed out that no one person dominates the discussion in
SCMC. Similarly, Kelm mentioned that in SCMC, there is a leveling effect in which the
teacher becomes just like other participants in a discussion. Ortega summarized the effect
of equalizing power in SCMC: the role of the teacher becomes a mere participant; as a
result, the responsibility of the discussion in SCMC is on the students; and all the
students share the ﬂoor more equally. Also, Warschauer (1997) gave three reasons for the
cause of greater equality: CMC reduces social context clues related to race, gender,
handicap, accent and status; reduces nonverbal cues, such as frowning and hesitating,
which can intimidate people; and allows individuals to contribute at their own time and
pace.

Fourth, CMC can be beneﬁcial for learners who are uncomfortable with
expressing their opinions since it takes place in a less stressful and non-threatening
environment (Kelm, 1992; Sullivan & Pratt, 1996; von der Emde, Schneider & Kotter,

2001; Warschauer, 1997). Kelm mentioned that CMC provides a protective barrier that

6

allows the students to express themselves. Von der Emde, Schneider and Kotter pointed
out that the more mediated form of communication that SCMC provides creates a less-
pressured atmosphere by allowing students to consider their messages before pressing the
“enter” key.

Other studies report that the quantity and quality of both teacher and peer
feedback is higher in CMC (Braine, 1997; Kamhi-Stein, 2000) and that learners remain
focused on tasks provided in the CMC context (Sullivan & Pratt, 1996). A more
logistically advantageous aspect of CMC is that it is not bounded by time or space (Bloch,
2002; Suh, 2002; Warschauer, 1997). Warschauer, in particular, has claimed that the time
and place independent nature of CMC can extend learner collaboration in that CMC
allows for more in-depth analysis and critical reﬂection, and that it allows students to
initiate communication with the teacher or other students outside the classroom. This
convenience alone has changed the ways learners interact with other learners and with
teachers. The use of emails, web-based bulletin boards, and online chatting inside and
outside of classrooms are just some examples of the pedagogical applications of CMC.

Along with the advantages of CMC, some negative effects of using CMC have
been reported. There is always a problem of ﬂaming (Kelm, 1992; Warschauer, 1997) and
the overwhelming quantity of writing generated by a CMC discussion results in a
confusing, disjointed discourse (e.g., Braine, 2001; Honeycutt, 2001; Kern, 1995; Nunan,
1999; Warschauer, 1997). Since one’s real identity in a CMC context can be veiled by
different means (e.g., user ID), there is no risk in what one interlocutor says to other
interlocutors. Lam (2000) pointed out that in CMC, an individual may adopt many voices
due to the absence of the physical self, and social norms and categories tend to be
subverted. Also, it is difﬁcult to follow what one is saying when there are many

7

interlocutors involved. Tolmie and Boyle (2000) reported on several factors that
inﬂuence the success of CMC in higher education settings and claimed that small group
size and knowledge of other participants can have a positive inﬂuence on CMC.
Recently, Smith and Gorsuch (2004) raised a more methodologically related issue
that questions the interpretation of chat logs. They argue that chat logs are one-
dimensional and do not allow one to capture the gestures, facial expression, unseen
utterances, etc. that learners produce during SCMC interactions. This information, which
may provide richer insight into learner interaction and how learners use communicative
strategies, is not available from chat logs alone. They propose the use of a usability lab

(UL), which can video and audiotape learners as they interact in the SCMC context.

2.1.2 CMC and SLA

Including some of the characteristics already mentioned above, CMC has beneﬁts
that are well documented in the SLA discipline. CMC allows more time for processing
input and output (Abrams, 2003; Blake & Zyzik, 2003; Kern, 1995; Ortega, 1997; Smith,
2003; Sullivan & Pratt, 1996; Warschauer, 1997; Yuan, 2003). Since the communication
is text-based, the message or dialogue is always available on the screen for the learners to
cope with. Unlike in F2F communication, learners may also make changes to their output
during the production in CMC. Abrams argued that SCMC may assist learners and be
effective as a preliminary step toward F2F communication, owing to the extended
processing time that SCMC allows. Blake and Zyzik also mentioned the extended
processing time as a powerful feature of SCMC, and that the output processing time can
also beneﬁt the learners in that they have an opportunity to pre-plan, perceive visually,

and edit their initial utterances. Kern noted that this feature will lead to greater precision

8

 

and sophistication of expression, and Ortega pointed out that monitoring is possible in
SCMC because the learners are able to revise and edit messages before sending them to
other interlocutors. Furthermore, Sullivan and Pratt reported that the students using
SCMC in their study had time to read and reﬂect before having to respond and that this
“slowing down” of the process seemed to be beneﬁcial for EFL writers (p. 500). Yuan has
also reported that the use of CMC allows learners to engage in self-repair, providing them
a unique opportunity to put their grammatical knowledge to practice.

Another advantage of CMC, which is necessary for SLA, is that it offers learners
more opportunity for pushed output. Swain (1995) argued that pushed output stimulate
learners to move from the semantic, open-ended, non-deterministic, strategic processing
prevalent in comprehension to the complete grammatical processing needed for accurate
production (p.128). Since CMC does not provide learners with other non-linguistic clues
(e.g., gesture, back-channeling, contextual clues, etc.), learners must depend exclusively
on language to convey their meaning to other interlocutors. This forces the learners to
attend to the formal aspects of language more intensively than they would usually do in
F2F communication. Blake (2000) supports this point in claiming that CMC provides
learners with pushed output since they must type out or produce the structures in question.
Also, Ortega (1997) points out that a networked classroom environment can be optimal
for devising CALL activities that promote comprehensible output. Furthermore, many
studies reported that learners produce higher amount of learner output in CMC (Abrams,
2003; Kern, 1995; von der Emde, Schneider & Kotter, 2001; Yuan, 2003). Abrams looked
at the transferability of language skills from SCMC to oral performance and found that
the learners that prepared for F 2F communication with SCMC had a signiﬁcant increase

in the amount of language output during F2F interaction. Kern also mentioned that the

9

 

students in his study produced two to four times more sentences when they used SCMC.
Von der Emde, Schneider and Kotter also pointed out that SCMC can lead learners to
produce more language than is possible in a traditional classroom.

Several studies show that learners use a greater variety of language (Chun, 1994;
Kelm, 1992; Kern, 1995) and more complex language (Ortega, 1997; Warschauer, 1996)
in CMC. Chun argued that SCMC provides learners with the opportunity to acquire and
practice more varied communicative proﬁciency. Kelm noted that since SCMC
emphasizes the sharing of ideas, the learners may attempt to use many language
structures they might otherwise avoid. Also, Kern found in his study that the learners who
used SCMC used a much greater variety of discourse ﬁrnctions. Many studies also report
on the values of synchronous chat logs as a window for investigating interlanguage or for
later learning (Beauvois, 1992; Blake, 2000; Blake & Zyzik, 2003; Kelm, 1992; Nunan,
1999; Smith, 2003; Yuan, 2003). More recently, there have been studies that have further
examined SCMC with an Interactionist perspective (e.g., Blake, 2000; Smith, 2003;
Smith, 2004). It has already been mentioned that the learners are more interaCtive in
SCMC. These studies further emphasize that SCMC promotes interaction when learners
are engaged in negotiating for meaning and therefore will be beneﬁcial for SLA. Smith

(2003) notes:

Indeed, synchronous CMC may provide an ideal medium for students to
beneﬁt from interaction primarily because the written nature of computer-
based discussions allows a greater opportunity to attend to and reﬂect upon
the form and content of the message, while retaining the conversational feel
and ﬂow as well as the interactional nature of verbal discussions ...... From an
interactionist perspective on SLA, this is considered one of the most
beneﬁcial aspects of synchronous CMC (p. 39).

10

 

2.1.3 CMC and the Development of Writing Skills

There are a few studies that look at the development of writing skills in the CMC
context. Ghaleb (1993) is one of the early studies that compared writing in a network-
based and a traditional grammar-based context. She compared the quantity of writing, the
percentage of grammatical errors, and the quality of ESL students’ papers in both settings
and found that the network-based context promoted more quantity of writing and fewer
grammatical errors in the students’ drafts. Although the traditional class showed more
improvement for the quality of writing, Ghaleb attributes this fact to the students’ ﬁrst
draﬁs in the network-based class being closer to their maximal performance.

Sullivan and Pratt (1996) also compared ESL students in two writing
environments: a networked-based and a traditional oral-based classroom. They looked at
the differences in attitudes toward writing with computers, writing apprehension, and
growth in writing in the two environments. Although statistical analyses of these
measurements did not show strong evidence of one environment over the other, writing
quality did improve (signiﬁcant at the 0.08 level) in the network-based classroom. In
addition, they found that the discourse patterns in the network-based classroom showed
more student participation and attention to the task at hand than in the oral classroom.
Sullivan and Pratt argue that the “slowing down” of input and output processing seemed
to be beneﬁcial for ESL student writers and that using the written medium as their vehicle
for discussion increased their writing skills.

Braine (2001) looked at EFL undergraduates writing in LAN-based and in
traditional writing classes and compared the holistic scores of ﬁrst and ﬁnal drafts of
these students. The ﬁrst drafts in LAN classes were qualitatively better than in traditional

classes, but the opposite was true for the ﬁnal versions of the draﬁs. Braine gives the

11

staggering quantity of writing generated by LAN discussion as a reason for the result.
This study included 87 students during a three semester time span, and three to four
students comprised one subconference group. A study with fewer students interacting
with one another might have given different results. Braine claims that LANs are
conducive to writing enhancement in that LAN 3 promote better discussions among the
students and allow them more time to verbalize their thoughts. His earlier study (Braine,
1997) also found networked setting to promote better writing, whereas the traditional
setting led to more improvement in writing. Similar to Ghaleb, Braine concludes that this
is due to the ﬁrst drafts in the networked classes being closer to students’ maximal

performance.

2.2 Conferencing

In a writing conference session, a teacher (or a tutor) and a learner meet to discuss
some problems the learner may have experienced while writing a draft. Although there
are no absolute guidelines or procedures for carrying out a writing conference session, a
typical one involves a highly normative set of discourse transactions where the tutor and
the learner identify a problem and negotiate to arrive at a resolution (Cumming & So,
1996)

Whether or not writing conferences lead to a better and successful revision is
contradictory. Goldstein and Conrad (1990) examined how negotiation of meaning that
arises in writing conferences affects whether and how students make revisions in their
subsequent draﬁs. They had writing conferences with three students from different
cultural backgrounds and found that revision seemed to occur when they had been

negotiated in the conferences. However, they caution that although there is a positive

12

relationship between negotiation and successful revision, conferences do not ensure that
negotiation will take place. They argue that each student brings into a conference a
unique personality that may affect the way that student behaves in the conference and
therefore, claim that conferences may have different effects on how learners interact with
the teacher. Moreover, they point out that when revision does occur after a conference, it
may not always be successful. Williams (2004) also claimed that revision ensuing from
tutoring does not always result in better papers. On the contrary, Haneda (2004) argued
that conferencing can provide learners with intense one-on-one interaction and may be
used as an effective tool for assisting them to write. Cumming and So (1996) also
mentioned that conferencing may embody the most powerful aspects of instruction for
learning complex behaviors like writing.

Patthey-Chavez and Ferris (1997) claimed that one-on-one conferencing may not
have the same effect for strong and weak writers. In their study, the weak writers usually
followed the teacher recommendations very closely, even word for word. This kind of
revision is called “transfer”, in which the teacher tells the students what to do and the
students do it. The stronger writers, on the other hand, applied a revision process called
“transformation”. Although the strong writers also showed teacher inﬂuence to a
considerable degree, they substantially reworked ideas which had come up during the
conference but their materials did not indicate directly back to what the teacher had,
recommended. In addition, the strong writers showed more even distribution of talk with
the teachers and were more assertive in expressing their opinions and eliciting teacher
feedback than the weak writers. Furthermore, teachers were less directive with the strong
writers. Cumming and So (1996) also pointed out that tutors and students primarily focus

on local levels of compositions, and New (1999) found that surface-level changes far

13

outnumbered the changes of content in her study of computer-aided writing in a foreign
language context.

Also, the writing conferences may be quite different for non-native learners as
opposed to those of the native speakers. Decisions are mainly guided and the speech
usually initiated by the tutors (Cumming & So, 1996; Haneda, 2004; Thonus, 2004;
Williams, 2004). Thonus (2004) points out that in writing conferences with non-native
speakers, the tutors take a more communicatively dominant and authoritative role and
show more variable behavior than they usually do in conferences with native speakers.

Despite some controversies related to writing conferences mentioned above, they
do have the potential to provide the learners with interaction they need for SLA and are
widely used in elementary and higher education. Moreover, conferencing via SCMC can
minimize some of the disadvantages nonnative learners face during F2F conferencing. In
a non-threatening environment, nonnative learners can take more authoritative roles and
express their opinions more comfortably. The greater amount of time allowed for
processing input and output will also help learners become more active in the conferences.
Also, active participation by learners, which is an essential step in successful revision
(Williams, 2004), can be enhanced in the SCMC context. Sullivan and Pratt (1996)
argued that CMC can be more beneﬁcial for ESL learners than native speakers since it
can provide the less proﬁcient speakers (writers) with more time for processing output
and therefore reduce anxiety and probability of error. In addition, the nature of SCMC

being text-based will provide learners with more opportunity for pushed output.

14

2.3 Purpose of Study

The studies done in CMC are quantitative and cross-sectional, mostly seeking
pedagogical beneﬁts that can be obtained by using CMC among many students (e.g., in a
network classroom). A few studies that were conducted over a period of a semester or
more do not expose the participants to CMC enough to ﬁrlly account for the proposed
beneﬁts of using CMC. Surprisingly, despite the fact that the written modality is used as a
vehicle for communicating in CMC, only a few studies report on the effect of using CMC
to develop writing skills itself.

Moreover, it is difficult to capture the true nature of CMC with short-term studies.
Interpretive qualitative studies may be a more appropriate means of investigating the
relationship of technology to second language writing (Matsuda, Canagarajah, Harklau,
Hyland & Warschauer, 2003). The present study attempts to ﬁnd how SCMC, via one-on-
one writing conferences, can affect the development of L2 writing skills through a
qualitative case study of an ESL learner. As already mentioned, Ghaleb (1993), Braine
(1997, 2001), and Sullivan and Pratt (1996) have proposed that writing ability can be
enhanced by SCMC, using the written modality as a vehicle for discussion.

The rationale for designing a qualitative study is to observe the real world
learning situations as they occur and try to understand the complex situation as a whole,
which is not possible to do with quantitative studies. Communicating via the use of
computer-mediated language is a very common phenomenon that calls for a closer
examination within the usual setting in which it occurs, without manipulating any
variables whatsoever. This study takes one step further by examining not only SCMC, but
how the application of text-based communication, which SCMC provides, in one-on-one

writing conferencing will affect how an L2 learner writes and how that writing develops

15

over time. This study is more concerned with the process of learning that the participant
goes through rather than the outcome of learning that SCMC can provide. Understanding
the individual participant is crucial in this study and the results will have no meaning

without considering the participant in situ.

2.4 Research Questions

The research questions (RQs) for this study are:

1. How will one-on-one writing conferences using SCMC affect the development of
writing skills in terms of short- and long-term revision?

2. What is the participant’s attitude toward using SCMC as a tool for writing
development?

3. What are some of the observed advantages and disadvantages that can be found

in one-on-one writing conferences using SCMC?

Since this is a qualitative case study, there were no deﬁnite research questions
when the study started. The research questions provided above for this study are the
results of modiﬁcations, deletions, and additions as the study progressed. Close analyses
of the essays and the chat logs with regard to revision, comments from two native speaker
writing teachers, and the rankings of essays by four native speakers provided the answer
to RQl. The research log that I had kept throughout the study was also analyzed to check
for any effect of SCMC on long-terrn revision. RQ2 was answered by conducting three
interviews with the participant. The answer to RQ3 is the synthesis of all the analyses and

the observations made in the study.

16

3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Participant

Kim (Male, 14) is a Korean high school student who had recently moved to the
United States when the present study began. His mother was accepted to study in a
graduate program in the Midwest and as a result, the whole family moved to the US. He
is currently in the ninth grade and attends a US public high school. This is the ﬁrst time
he has ever lived outside of Korea, and he started learning English in the ﬁfth grade at a
public elementary school in Korea according to the national curriculum. He also went to
an English conversation cram school, where native speakers taught English, from ﬁfth to
early eighth grade. Interestingly, his English classes in middle school were quite diﬁ‘erent
from what most Korean students’ classes are like. The teachers used English as the
medium of instruction for these classes. Although the in-service teachers who taught
English in his school were nonnative speakers of English, a native speaker taught the
class once a week to further provide exposure to the target language. Kim’s mother, who
was an English teacher at the same school, had started teaching her classes in English.
Ever since then, the school has been known as the only school in the city to teach English
in the target language.

Kim had four hours of English each week during middle school. The classes
covered the contents of the English texts as required by the national curriculum, but no
intensive grammar teaching was done separately. Also, Kim has never studied English
grammar on his own. This is surprising because both his parents were English teachers in
Korea, his mother serving in middle school and his father in high school. Many teachers
that serve in the secondary schools in Korea prepare students for the college entrance

examination as early as possible. Since this examination mainly focuses on the reading

17

comprehension ability of students, teachers are also likely to focus on the structure of
English in class.

At home, Kim’s parents emphasized the importance of using English
communicatively. Since he could not get language input elsewhere, he would listen to
English tapes as much as possible. The family had even employed what he calls an
“English Only Policy” at home. This was not easy for Kim, but he had more opportunity
to practice using English at home. Kim also says that he was able to access English easier
and learn the language faster owing to his parents. There were many English books in his
house and he would sometimes stop to have a look at them. His parents frequently went
abroad during the summer and winter breaks and told him about American culture. More
importantly, his parents were always there to help him with any trouble he faced while
learning the language. In this sense, learning English may have been a less difﬁcult
experience for Kim than other Korean students. His parents, however, did not teach him
English. They gave him their support; he did the studying.

The exposure to the target language seemed to have beneﬁted him a lot since he
feels conﬁdent about his receptive skills (i.e., listening and reading) in English. On the
contrary, he had never taken any English composition classes in'Korea, so he did not feel
too conﬁdent about writing in English at the beginning of this study. The most difficult
class for him in the US now is English and his classes usually require him to write one or
two short essays each week. These writing assignments have been the most difﬁcult for
him, and he usually has his mother or father look at the essays before he turns them in.
Nevertheless, he is a very motivated student, and his grades indicate that he is doing very
well in all of his classes and has no problem reading the texts or following up with the

assignments.

18

Kim seemed to be a very good candidate for this study. He showed interest in
participating in the study from the beginning. I was also interested in how his writing
would change not only from the conferences, but also from having to communicate
through a written medium. Both his parents gave me their consent for him to participate,
and the study soon began. At the beginning of the study, he did express some concerns
about having to use English in a SCMC context. He had used the computer mostly for
browsing the web, doing homework, and also chatting online with his peers occasionally,
but never in English. Nevertheless, he showed a positive attitude toward conducting the

writing conferences online.

3.2 Materials
3.2.1 MSN Messenger

The MSN Messenger (www.msn.com) was used for this study to carry out the one-
on-one writing conference sessions. There was no particular reason for choosing this
software, besides the fact that it is widely used among many people across the world and
is easily accessible by any language learner; another kind of software could have been
used. The MSN Messenger is similar to any other chat software available. The basic user
interface has two sections in which one part is used to type in messages and the other to
show the dialogue as it takes place in real time. One of the interesting features of this
software is that it indicates that someone is typing a message. The message, however,
does not appear on the screen unless the person presses the “enter” key. There are many
other features this software provides, such as video and voice chatting, sending ﬁles and
mails, just to name a few. Only the basic features of typing and sending messages were

used in this study.

19

3.2.2 Writing Topics from the Test of Written English (TWE)

Six writing prompts were chosen randomly from the pool of writing topics for

TWE. I chose the topics from TWE because this test is designed to assess learners’

academic writing skills, which the participant needed to develop. The six topics are

shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Six Topics Chosen ﬁom TWE

 

Topic 1

Some people believe that the best way of learning about life is by listening
to the advice of family and friends. Other people believe that the best way
of learning about life is through personal experience. Compare the
advantages of these two different ways of learning about life. Which do
you think is preferable? Use speciﬁc examples to support your preference.

 

Topic 2

How do movies or television inﬂuence people's behavior? Use reasons and
speciﬁc examples to support your answer.

 

Topic 3

In general, people are living longer now. Discuss the causes of this
phenomenon. Use speciﬁc reasons and details to develop your essay.

 

Topic 4

If you could study a subject that you have never had the opportunity to
study, what would you choose? Explain your choice, using speciﬁc
reasons and details.

 

Topic 5

People have different ways of escaping the stress and difﬁculties of
modern life. Some read; some exercise; others work in their gardens. What
do you think are the best ways of reducing stress? Use speciﬁc details and
examples in your answer.

 

 

 

Topic 6

 

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? There is nothing
that young people can teach older people. Use speciﬁc reasons and
examples to support your position.

 

20

 

 

3.3 Procedures
3.3.1 Interviews

There were three interviews throughout the study: pre-study, within-study, and
post-study interview. The interviews were planned to get the participant’s background
information and more importantly to understand his perspective on SCMC and writing.
Since the participant feels more comfortable speaking his native language, all the
interviews were done in Korean and were audio-recorded. The questions used in the
interviews were prepared beforehand (See Table 2).

Before the study began, I interviewed the participant to explore his attitude toward
ESL/BF L writing in general, how he felt about having one-on-one writing conferences
using SCMC, what he expected to learn from this study, and to explain the purpose and
the general outline of the study. This interview was conducted to obtain background
information about the participant. Halfway through the study, I had another interview
with the participant to examine any changes he had experienced to that point. Finally, at
the end of the study, I had one more interview with the participant to examine how his
attitudes toward the study and writing had changed, how the study had affected his

development of writing skills, etc. The interview questions are summarized in Table 2.

21

 

Table 2. Interview Questions3

 

Pre-study

interview

QMkri—t

. Where and how long did you study English before arriving in the US?
. What was learning English like for you?

. Have you ever taken any classes related to English writing?

. How often do you write in English?

. What do you think are your strengths and weaknesses in writing?

. How often do you use messenger software or chat with someone

online?

. How do you feel about using messenger software to communicate or

have discussions?

. What would you like to learn from this study?

 

Within-study

interview

.Are you experiencing any problems so far?

. Do you think your writing is getting any better (or worse)?

3. How do you feel about communicating through a text-based

environment?

. How are the conferences affecting your writing?

5. Do you have any suggestions for ways in which I can help you better?

 

 

Post-study

interview

 

. How did you revise your essays?

. How was chatting different from F2F communication?

3. How has communicating through a text-based environment affected

your writing?

. How have the conferences affected your writing?

5. How do you feel about using messenger software to communicate or

\IG

have discussions?
How do you feel about writing in English now?

What have you learned from this study?

 

 

3 These are the general questions I asked and not all of them are verbatim. There were a few other speciﬁc
questions I asked that related to these questions.

22

 

3.3.2 Essay Writing

The participant was asked to write short essays based on the six writing topics
chosen from TWE. He wrote two versions (initial draft and ﬁnal essay) for each topic
using a word processor. I gave each topic to the participant via email and asked him to
write a short essay based on the topic. Although there was no time limit set for writing the
essays, the participant completed writing each essay in two or three days and sent it back

to me via email.

3.3.3 One-on-One Conferencing via SCMC

After the participant ﬁnished writing each essay, we had one-on-one writing
conferences, via MSN Messenger, to discuss problems that he had while writing the
essays and ways to improve them. So, there were two conferences for each of the TWE
topics he wrote on and each conference lasted 45-60 minutes. The procedure for each
topic was identical: the participant wrote a initial draft. After the initial draft, there was a
conference on the same day or a few days later. The participant wrote a ﬁnal essay based
on the previous conference. Finally, there was a second conference about the ﬁnal essay.

I read the essays before each conference and made notes on places that needed
revision. There were no strict guidelines for deciding which aspects of language to focus
on, but I chose words, phrases, and sentences that were unclear in meaning and could
hamper communication. Also, I gave comments on the content and the organization of the
essays. Nunan (1999) notes the time required to type in messages as a constraint of the
CMC medium. Due to the slowness of the interaction in SCMC, compared to that of the
F2F communication, I chose a few places to work on in each conference rather than go

over every grammar error and problematic place.

23

During the conferences, I explained any terminology (e.g., “thesis statement”,
“topic sentence”, etc.) as it came up, and carried out the conferences in a similar manner,
even though they were not strictly structured. Newkirk (1995) has argued that
terminology can play an ambiguous role in the performance of teachers and students.
Furthermore, Goldstein (2004) states that students do not share the philosophies
underlying the way teachers comment with them. Therefore, it was important to
familiarize the participant with the terminology and the conferences.

Each conference was started by asking the participant some general questions (e.g.,
“Did you have any trouble writing the essay for this topic?”) and moved on to more
speciﬁc questions (e.g., “How would you revise this sentence to make the meaning
clearer?”). Both of us also prepared a copy of the essay that was to be talked about in
each conference. Honeycutt (2001) has pointed out that document referencing can be a
great problem in the CMC context since nobody is physically co-present, but only
linguistically so. I asked the participant to number all the lines in his essays to make the
document referencing easier. But after a few conferences, this was not necessary and we
had no problem referring to a speciﬁc place on the essays. I read his essays before each
conference and chose a few places to discuss. During the conferences, I progressed
linearly from the ﬁrst to the last paragraph to minimize any confusion that could occur.

Also, since this study examined the development of L2 writing skills, all the
conferences were done in the L2, which is English. Cumming and So (1996) provides a

strong rationale for conducting writing conferences in the target language:

24

Utilizing the mother tongue appears to offer both tutors and learners a
precise, meaningful way of guiding text revisions that is not available when
tutors do not know learners’ mother tongues. However, tutoring exclusively
in the medium of the mother tongue conversely reduces (or even eliminates)
the potential for learners to negotiate their problem solving through focused
talk in the medium of the second language, which may in itself be a primary
means of learning the second language or literate skill (p.220-221).

Although the participant did express concern about commruricating in English at the
beginning of the study, he had no problem doing so and even took a very active role in
chatting as the study progressed.

The observation period lasted approximately three months (from mid-October of
the year 2004 to early January, 2005) and resulted in a data set of 12 essays, 12 chat logs
of the writing conferences based on the 6 writing topics, and three interviews with the
participant. I also kept a research log and wrote his comments after receiving each draft
and after having each writing conference. After the data collection, I had two native

writing teachers comment on the essays and four native speakers rank the essays.

3.4 Data Coding

The data set for the ﬁnal coding consists of the 12 essays based on the 6 writing
topics from TWE, the chat logs of the 12 one-on-one writing conferences held via MSN
Messenger, comments on the essays from two native writing teachers, essay rankings
from four native speakers (including the two writing teachers), three interviews that were
conducted throughout the study, and the research log. Although it is impossible to pursue
complete objectivity in a qualitative study, the reliability of the study will be sought by

triangulating the data as below.

25

3.4.1 Essays

Polio (2001) reports on many features of L2 writers’ texts that have been examined
by researchers. Of these, the overall quality, accuracy, complexity, and ﬂuency measures
have been the most popular. I did not use any quantitative measures for this study,
however. The information concerning the overall quality of the essays and the accuracy /
complexity of language use in the essays are included in the comments of the two writing

teachers, and therefore are descriptive.

3.4.1.1 Revision
I marked all the changes that were made in the ﬁnal essays. They were compared to
the chat logs to see whether the participant made any revisions on the places that were

discussed in the conferences and whether he made any changes by himself.

3.4.1.2 Teacher Comments

The essays were randomly mixed within each topic and across topics, and were
given to two highly experienced writing teachers who are both native speakers of English.
They were asked to compare the two essays of each topic and make brief comments on
them (e.g., why one essay is better than the other). The comments included remarks on
the overall organization and content of the essays, clarity of meaning, the use of language,
etc (refer to Appendix A for the commenting instructions). These comments were audio-
recorded by themselves and transcribed later by me. The comments were used to better
assess the overall quality of the essays and look at the essays from a native teacher’s

perspective.

26

3.4.1.3 Essay Rankings

Also, four native speakers who have experience teaching writing (including the two
writing teachers above) ranked the essays from the best to the worst written in terms of
overall quality. They ranked the essays within each topic (i.e., the initial drafts and ﬁnal

essays of each topic) and across topics (i.e., the six sets of essays).

3.4.2 Chat logs
I also saved all the chat logs after each conference. The chat logs were used to get
insight into how the participant and I interacted in the SCMC context and also compared

to the actual essays for revision.

3.4.3 Interviews

The three interviews were translated into English and transcribed by me. These
were used to obtain background information about the participant and more importantly
to better understand his changing attitude toward L2 writing, SCMC, and the nature of

having writing conferences via a text-based communication.

3.4.4 Research Log
The research log contained brief comments made by me after I received each essay
from the participant and after having each writing conference. These comments provided

my reﬂection on the essays and the changing attitude of the participant.

27

4. ANALYSES and RESULTS
The three research questions of this study are:
1. How will one-on-one writing conferences using SCMC affect the development of
writing skills in terms of short- and long-term revision?
2. What is the participant’s attitude toward using SCMC as a tool for writing
development?
3. What are some of the observed advantages and disadvantages that can be found

in one-on-one writing conferences using SCMC?

Most sections of this chapter are devoted to answering RQl. The essays, chat logs,
and the teachers’ comments will be analyzed. Also, the results of the essay rankings from
the four native speakers and my reﬂection on the essay drafts will be presented. The
interviews will be analyzed in the following section to answer RQ2. The answer to RQ3
will be presented in the next chapter as a synthesis of the analyses and the observations

that were made throughout the study.

4.1 Topicl

For each topic, I have sequenced the analyses in the following order: Conference,
Revision, and Teacher Comment. I will talk about what happened in each conference,
how the participant made revisions after each conference, and ﬁnally what the teachers

commented on in the initial drafts and ﬁnal essays. Refer to Figure 1 for the initial and

ﬁnal essays of Topicl.

28

Figure 1. Initial and Final Essays for Topicl

 

 

Topicl: Some people believe that the best way of learning about life is by listening to the
advice of family and friends. Other people believe that the best way of learning about life
is through personal experience. Compare the advantages of these two different ways of
learning about life. Which do you think is preferable? Use speciﬁc examples to support

your preference.

Initial Draft:

While people had lived, people say that the best way of learning about life is by listening
to the advice of family and friends. Some people say that the best way of learning about
life is through personal experience. I think that the best way of learning about life is
through personal experience. Because personal experience helps to make our lives more
quantitative and helps to learn more something.

First, personal experience helps to make our lives more quantitative. For an example,
there are two people in the world. One had wide experience such as to travel other
countries, the other had not. When we had lived the former lives better than the latter
because when you travel other countries it makes us to understand other countries
culture. When you come face to face with a problem you may make use of your
experience. So we said, “to see is to believe”

Second, personal experience helps to learn something such as if I were failed in an
examination or whatever important things I would be frustrated. But a great man would
not. On the contrary they will make efforts to get the success because the failure would
be a good experience to them. There is one proverb “failure is but a stepping stone to
success”. It means that you’re development going to improve by experience.

In conclusion, if someone asks me what is the best way of learning about life, I would
answer the best way of learning about life is through personal experience. I am in favor
of the opinion the best way of learning about life is through personal experience. If, while
people gain experience, they can make their lives more quantitative and learn more
something by experience. I’d like to tell you “the older I grow, the more I learn”.

 

29

 

 

 

Final Essay:

People say that the best way of learning about life is by listening to the advice of family
and friends or some people say that the best way of learning about life is through
personal experience. I think that the best way of learning about life is through personal
experience. Because it helps to make our lives more quantitative and helps to learn more
something.

First of all, personal experience helps to make our lives more quantitative. For an
example, there are two people in the world. One had wide experiences such as to travel
other countries, the other did not. When we had lived, the former person lives even better
than the latter person. Because when you travel other countries it makes us to understand
other countries’ culture. When you come face to face with a problem, you may make use
of your experience. So we call this “to see is to believe”.

Secondly, personal experience helps to learn something. I recalled my memory. Two
years ago, I failed in an examination. I was about to be frustrated. But my parents said
that“ a great man would not be frustrated on the contrary, they will make efforts to get
the success”. Because the failure would be a precious experience to them. There is one
proverb “failure is but a stepping stone to success”. It means that your development
going to improve by experience.

In conclusion, if someone asks me what is the best way of learning about life, I will
answer it “the best way of learning about life is through personal experience”. I am in
favor of the opinion. If, while people gain experience, they can make their lives more
quantitative and learn more something by experience. I’d like to tell you “the older I
grow, the more I learn”.

 

3O

 

4.1.1 Conference4

In the conference, the participant and I talked about a few places that had
grammatical errors and wrong word usages, paraphrasing repeated phrases, and the
organization of the essay. In the ﬁrst sentence of the initial draft, I tried to explain that
the dependent clause “While people had lived” was unnecessary and that he could just
start the sentence with “People say”. Kim said that he tried to use the present perfect
tense here, but ended up instead using the past perfect. He seemed to have translated this
clause from his Ll because it would be grammatical to add this kind of phrase in Korean.
He made the same mistake later in the sentence that begins “When we had lived the
former” and in the sentence in the ﬁnal paragraph that begins “If, while people gain

experience”. I addressed this point later in the conference:

R5: Kim, you seem to have some trouble with Time clauses starting with
"when".‘5
R: or "while"

S: Oh! rearlly?

S: Sometimes I have trouble like that...

R: It's not when people have many experience that makes their lives better,
it's the experiences.

S:

R: So it's better to just say "The experiences enables people to live better
lives

R: get the point?"

S: yes you do..

 

4 The conferences mentioned in this section are the ones done after the initial drafts of each topic.

5 “R” is the researcher and “S” is the student.

6 The excerpts provided are the exact copies from the actual chat logs. Everything here is the same as
what appeared in the chat screen.

31

He uses the same phrase “the best way of learning about life is” in the ﬁrst three
sentences. He asked me whether repeating sentences were bad and I told him that he
might want to consider paraphrasing or combining the sentences. He also gave me a
deﬁnition of paraphrasing as “changing another word or sentences”, which shows that he
did know about the term. The ﬁrst two sentences of the writing prompt uses this phrase
and he seemed to have tried to start the essay using the prompt. This seems like a very
common pattern that can be found in many novice writers.

The word “quantitative” is used inappropriately in the sentence “Because personal
experience helps to make our lives more quantitative and helps to learn more something”.
I told him that the meaning of this word is unclear and he actually tried to ﬁx the
problem here. What he is trying to say is clear and he gives “improve” as a substitution,
which is much better. He does not, however, realize that the collocation of “experience”

and “improve our lives” is the problem:

S: How about this?..improve our lives better.

R: Well, does personal experiences improve our lives?

S: ....yes

R: or do they give us a broader perspective of the world?7

R: broader view..

S:

R: You gave an example of travelling to support your claim

S: Let me think...If you and some people lived different way,,,you traveled
many countries, the other does not. do you think their lives is same?

R: Of course their lives will be different. Maybe you can say something
more about how travelling can actually change one's life or how it can
ENRICH one's life?

S: Oh! yes....It can be better than mine..that's good...

 

7 I was trying to make him realize the unclear collocation of the words “experience” and “improve”.

32

This is one of the places in which the participant tries to initiate his correction. Although
he does not use this correction in the revision, many of the corrections that he initiates

are kept in the ﬁnal essays.

The sentence later on that begins “personal experience helps to learn something
such as if I were faild in an examination or whatever important firings I would be
frustrated” is too long and unclear in meaning. He tries to correct this by breaking down

the sentence:

S: how about this?

S: personal experience helps to learn something. For example, as if I were
faild in....

R: that's better...but "something" is too vague

R: unclear in meaning

S: Oh...

S: So..Let me think"

S: personal experience helps to learn our lives,...is it better?8

Finally, I told him that including his own personal experience could strengthen the
essay, and also that he should include a paragraph about learning by listening to the
advice of family and friends and then explain why learning through personal experience

is better.

4.1.2 Revision
Kim revised most places that were brought up in the conference and also revised
some places by himself. He took care of the adverbial time clause in the ﬁrst sentence

and started it with “People”. He did not revise the other two adverbial time clauses,

 

8 The chat logs show only the outcome of the conversation. There was actually a long pause before he
answered.

33

however. He also left the repeating phrase “the best way of learning about life is”
untouched, but instead coordinated the ﬁrst two sentences using “or”. It is surprising that
he did not try to correct the wrong word usage of “quantitative” even though we had
talked about it in the conference. He changed the transition words “First” and “Second”
to “First of all” and “Secondly” and inserted commas in a few places to separate the
dependent clause from the independent clause. He also had minor changes at the word
level (e.g., changing “had” to “did” and “would” to “will”, inserting “even”, etc.)

He also makes a big change by himself in one place that starts with the sentence
“Secondly, personal experience helps to learn something”. In the conference, we only
talked about the original version of this sentence being too long and unclear in meaning.

In the ﬁnal essay, he gives a much clearer example:

Initial draft: Second, personal experience helps to learn something such as if
I were failed in an examination or whatever important things I would be
frustrated. But a great man would not. On the contrary they will make efforts
to get the success because the failure would be a good experience to them.

Final essay: Secondly, personal experience helps to learn something. I
recalled my memory. Two years ago, I failed in an examination. I was about
to be frustrated. But my parents said that “a great man would not be
ﬁ'ustrated on the contrary, they will make efforts to get the success”.
Because the failure would be a precious experience to them.

He also changes the word “good” to “precious”, which is more appropriate. We had
talked about using personal experiences as supporting examples to strengthen the essay
and he seemed to have elaborated on this example. On the contrary, he did not provide an

example of learning by listening to the advice of family and friends.

34

4.1.3 Teacher Comments

Teacherl 9 comments on the revisions the participant made or did not make
according to the conference and the ones he made by himself. She notices that the
participant took care of the adverbial time clause at the beginning of the essay: “The
opening sentence in 1-1 10 ‘While people had lived, people say that the best way of
learning about life’...and that’s...that’s not a good sentence. And I see that’s actually
taken care of in 1-2”. She also points out the two other sentences in which he did not take
care of the adverbial time clauses as being confusing. The word “quantitative”, which
was talked about in the conference but not corrected by the participant, was another
source of trouble: “I was having a problem with the use of the word ‘quantitative’...1’m
not exactly sure what he means by that. . .I don’t think it’s a very good word to use in
either one of those”.

While the revisions that came from the conferencell could have helped the essay,
the ones that came from the participant12 did not necessarily lead to a better version. As
mentioned earlier, the participant coordinated the ﬁrst two sentences with “or” and

changed some of the transition words. These changes seemed unnecessary:

“In 1-2, he’s combined what were two sentences in 1-1, which is not
necessarily...It doesn’t necessarily make it better. It’s kind of a long
sentence and I think it was actually. . .it was actually 0k in 1-1.”

“In fact from 1-2 he’s gone ‘First of all’, ‘Secondly’ and in 1-1 he’s gone
‘First’, ‘Second’. My opinion the ‘First’, ‘Second’ is better...than ‘First of

 

9 Teacherl is a professor in the MA TESOL Program and has also taught ESL writing for many years.

10 The teachers received the copies of the essays that were randomly mixed. I have changed the essay
numbers according to the original topic numbers to help the readers. “1-1” is the initial draft of Topic]
while “1-2” is the ﬁnal essay.

11 These are the word-for-word “transfers” ﬁ'om the conference.

12 These are the revisions that the participant made by himself.

35

all’ and ‘Secondly’... So that’s interesting that he did that. Maybe he thinks
that ‘First of all’ and ‘Secondly’ is somehow more sophisticated, I don’t
know”

On the contrary, the elaborated personal experience that came from the participant

seemed to be very effective:

“In the paragraph beginning ‘Secondly’, he...it’s more effective. He talks
about himself. He says ‘Two years, I failed in an examination. I was about to
be frustrated. My parents said’ and so on. In 1-1, it’s kind of very
hypothetical. . .And so it’s so much more vivid and clear in 1-2.”

Teacher2l3 comments mostly on the overall content and organization of the essay
drafts. The comments are general in nature, but she does mention some of the places that
were revised. She has trouble with the word “quantitative” and talks about the personal

experience that the participant gives:

“1 don’t understand though what the student means when he talks about
‘personal experience helps to make our lives more quantitative’. And I think
because that was a major focus of his essay, it made it hard for me to
understand exactly where he was going with this. I also felt like ‘living
better’, which is...it seems like sort of the...part of the focus of his
essay...it’s different from learning, which is what the question asks. So for
me I wasn’t sure that he addressed the question entirely ------ 14I like his
example of his personal experience and it does have a component of learning
from others. But he doesn’t talk about that. He talks about how it has to do

with living better.”

 

‘3 Teacher2 is a graduate student in the same program and has tutored native speakers at the Writing
Center for a few years.

14 This quotation is used whenever there is an omission between the two sentences that are before and
after this quotation.

36

Figure 2. Initial and Final Essays for Topic2

 

 

To ic2: How do movies or television inﬂuence eo le's behavior? Use reasons and
P P P

speciﬁc examples to support your answer.

Initial Draft:

When people watch TV or movies, it will appear two sides of opinion. One is positive
side and the other is negative side.

While people watching TV or movie, it would make people fun. But I think most of
them would inﬂuence people’s behavior getting worse and worse. So people supposed
that call it “dumb box”. I recalled my memory. When I was seven years old, the action
movie was very popular at that time. People usually tried to imitate the action of the actor
like ﬁghting scene, smoking scene, and drinking scene. Although people know the scenes
are bad, they try to act like that. Because they think that it looks tough and splendid. Thus
now a days, many teenagers’ smoking rates are got increased even elementary school
students did smoke. What awful reality! Think the elementary school students who are so
cute and innocence. Is it make sense to kids are smoking? We have to realize that the TV
or movie will have to renovate to educational for children. I would like to recommend,
when you kids are watching the TV, parents will also watch.

As you see, the TV and movie is not good for you. I’d like to say that TV or movies
would inﬂuence peOple’s behavior getting worse. So you need to control the time to
watch the TV, then it will be better.

 

37

 

 

 

Final Essay:

When people watch TVs or movies, it will bring us two sides of opinion. One is positive
side and the other is negative side.

While people watching TV or movie, such as entertainment program, it would make
people fun. But I think most of them would inﬂuence people by providing them with bad
scenes. So people supposed that call it “dumb box”. I recalled my memory. When I was
seven years old, the action movie was very popular at that time. People usually tried to
imitate the action of the actor like ﬁghting scene, smoking scene, and drinking scene.
Although people know the scenes are bad, they try to act like that. Because they think
that it looks tough and splendid. Smoking rates of teenagers have increased and even
elementary school students are smoking these days. What awful reality! Think the
elementary school students who are so cute and innocence. Is it make sense to kids are
smoking? People need to realize that they need to change the TV programs and the movie
contents to make them educational for children. I would like to recommend, when you
kids are watching the TV, parents will also watch.

As you see, the TV and movie is not good for you. I’d like to say that TVs or movies
would make people behave badly. So you need to control the time to watch TV, then it
will be better.

 

38

 

4.2 Topic2

Figure 2 shows the initial and ﬁnal essays for Topic2.

4.2.1 Conference

The participant and I talked about mostly grammatical errors and wrong word
usages. I also started giving him my corrections in full sentence forms since this would
allow him to notice the gap between his language and my language, and also help him
realize the errors in the sentential and discourse level context. After having ﬁnished
Topicl , I hoped that this would help him correct more of his errors.

In the ﬁrst sentence “it will appear two sides of opinion”, Kim uses the word
“appear” inappropriately. I tried to explain to him that the word “appear” is used when
something comes into existence, and that he cannot use this word with “opinion” because
“opinion” is something that one creates in his or her mind. He ﬁrst changes the sentence
to “it will bring two sides of opinion” and then later to “it will bring to us two sides of
opinion”. Also, the pronoun “it” in these two sentences does not have an antecedent. He
uses “it” to refer back to the adverbial time clause “When people watch TV or movies”. I
explained to him that a pronoun cannot take an adverbial as its antecedent, but needs a
noun phrase.

The verb phrase “inﬂuence people’s behavior getting worse and worse” in the
sentence starting “But I think most of them would inﬂuence” is not grammatical. He uses
the same phrase again later in the sentence “I’d like to say that TV or movies would
inﬂuence people’s behavior getting worse”. He suggests “inﬂuence people’s behavior to

be bad” as a correction, which is also incorrect:

39

R: "inﬂuence people's behavior" is good...but the next part "getting worse
and worse" shouldn't be connected.

S: let me think.

S: how about this one?‘5

S: inﬂuence people's behavior to be bad

R: You could say "inﬂuences people in a way that their behaviors become
worse and worse"

R: or "inﬂuences people by providing them with bad scenes..."

Also, the sentence “Thus now a days, many teenagers’ smoking rates are got increased
even elementary school students did smoke” is ungrammatical. He realizes that the

passive form is wrong and that this sentence is too long:

R: smoking rates "have increased" or "are got increased"?

S: have increased

R: why?

S: Because..i said that TV and Movie make them

R: right...so something just "increases" not "get increased".

S: Right..

R: and since you are describing two events you should separate them with
"and"

S: yeah...

S: my sentences are too long.

Eventually, I gave him the sentence “Smoking rates of teenagers have increased and even

elementary school students are smoking these days” as a correction.

 

15 There was also a pause before this turn.

40

Later on he uses the word “renovate”. He gives a deﬁnition for this word as “to
repair something old to new one”, but does not realize that it is used in the wrong context.
I explained to him that one can renovate a building or a house but not TV programs or

movies and suggested that he use the word “change” instead.

4.2.2 Revision

Most of the revisions were word to word “transfer” from the correction I had given
the participant. He changed the verb phrase “inﬂuence people’s behavior getting worse
and worse” to “inﬂuence people by providing them with bad scenes” and also changed
the same phrase near the end of the essay to “make people behave badly”. Furthermore,
he changed the sentences “Thus now a days, many teenagers’ smoking rates are got
increased even elementary school students did smoke” and “We have to realize that the
TV or movie will have to renovate to educational for children” to “Smoking rates of
teenagers have increased and even elementary school students are smoking these days”
and “People need to realize that they need to change the TV programs and the movie
contents to make them educational for children”, respectively.

He did not, however, use all the corrections I had given him. For example, he used
the word “appear” inappropriately in the ﬁrst sentence. Kim had originally given me “it
will bring two sides of opinion” and “it will bring to us two sides of opinion” as a
correction, but ended up using “it will bring us two sides of opinion”. Since the word
“appear” was causing so much trouble, I had given him a different sentence as a
correction: “While watching TVs and movies would provide entertainment for people, for
the most part, it will have negative inﬂuences on them”. He uses his own correction by
using the right argument structure of the verb “bring”, albeit the phrase following the

41

verb is unclear. Instead, he adds a phrase “such as entertainment program” shortly

afterwards and uses both “TV” and “TVs” inconsistently throughout the essay.

4.2.3 Teacher Comments
Most of Teacherl’s comments on this topic are focused on language use. She

notices the “transfers” that were made throughout the essay:

“In 2-1 he says ‘But I think most of them would inﬂuence people’s behavior
getting worse and worse’, which is a pretty bad sentence. But then if we look
at 2-2, he says ‘I think most of them would inﬂuence people by providing
them with bad scenes’. Still not great, but better I think.”

“He’s also got a really severe grammatical problem in 2-1...‘Many
teenagers’ smoking rates are got increased’. ..whereas in 2-2, he says
‘Smoking rates of teenagers have increased.’ ”

These changes seemed to help the essay while the revisions that came directly from the
participant did not necessarily. She comments on the inconsistent use of ‘TVs’ and ‘TV’:
“And he uses this word ‘TVs’ throughout 2-2 ------ I think he realizes there might be
something wrong with ‘TV’...because...he seems...there seems to be some
inconsistencies here”. Also, she notices that he added a phrase: “He’s kind of added that
thing about ‘entertainment program. But again, it doesn’t necessarily help it.” Beside

these, she does comment on the overall content and organization of the essay:

“In terms of content and organization, neither I think is very good. In fact, he
starts out talking about negative and positive sides, but really then goes on to
focus on the negative...in fact...the only thing he says positively is that it’s
fun ------ Both essays are, I think, a bit superﬁcial and don’t really go into the

42

positive effects of TV ------ I guess he does give some examples that helped
the essay, talking about teenager smoking because they had seen it on TV.
When he does. . .and with kind of a good conclusion that parents need to ﬁnd
out what their children are watching and watch with them.”

Teacher2 does not mention anything about the revisions but talks about organizing
paragraphs according to different ideas and thoughts. She also points out that the

participant did not think well enough in advance before writing the drafts:

“I wanted the student to take some of his reasons and separate them in
different paragraphs. It felt like he had a lot of ideas that were sort of running
together rather than. . .rather than. . .exploring some other reasons that had to
do with these speciﬁc examples ------ It might have helped if he had gone
back and refrarned his ﬁrst paragraph. It seemed like he ﬁgured out what he
wanted to say as he was writing ------ But I think as a...as a US reader, I was
expecting to know from the beginning...what side he was going to take,
whereas here it became more clear for me as the essay went on.”

4.3 TopicB

Figure 3 shows the initial and ﬁnal essays for Topic3.

43

Figure 3. Initial and Final Essays for Topic3

 

 

Topic3: In general, people are living longer now. Discuss the causes of this phenomenon.

Use speciﬁc reasons and details to develop your essay.

Initial Draft:

Recently, people are living longer. This phenomenon occurs by some of reasons. Many
researchers study about that. They said that the most reason is development of modern
medical science. I thought that what else reasons are made that phenomenon.

First of all, the most reason is development of modern medical science. I sympathize it.
I saw that our ancestor was die, because of there were not any hospital at that time. Soto
speak, there were not enough medicines and not enough injectors. But nowadays, many
people can cure disease, even a person get cancer. Secondly, we can forecast weather
using by satellite dish. It means that we can reduce disasters. Such as a ﬂood, a ﬁre, and a
typhoon. Probably over 60 years ago, we could not expect the weather, so people could
not avoid the disaster. They died once time. The Last one is food. It made energy in our
body. It helps us to breathe, move, exercise ...etc.

Sometimes my parents told me about their poor days in childhood. “ When we were
living poor days, we could not eat rice easily, so someone got dystrophy. Finally, they
died”. But today, we ingest good nutrients. We will not die.

As you see, these reasons are make us live longer: the development of modern medical
science, to be able to expect the weather. . .etc. These are made me be surprised. I realized
that our civilization of science goes up high level.

 

44

 

 

 

Final Essay:

Recently, people are living longer. This phenomenon occurs by some of reasons. Many
researchers study about that. They said that the most reason is development of modern
medical science. I thought that what reasons are able to make that phenomenon.

First of all, the most reason is development of modern medical science. I agree with it. I
saw that our ancestor was die, because of there were not any hospital at that time. So to
speak, there were not enough medicines and not enough injectors. But nowadays, many
people can cure disease, even a person get cancer. Secondly, we can forecast weather
using by satellite dish. It means that we can reduce disasters. Such as a ﬂood, a ﬁre, and a
typhoon. Probably over 60 years ago, we could not expect the weather, so people could
not avoid the disaster. They died once time. The Last one is food. It made energy in our
body. It helps us to breathe, move, exercise ...etc.

Sometimes my parents told me about their poor days in childhood. “ When we were
living poor days, we could not eat rice easily, so someone got malnutrition. Finally, they
died”. But today, we ingest good nutrients. We will not die.

To sum it up, these reasons are make us live longer: the development of modern medical
science, to be able to expect the weather, to be able to eat good food. . .etc. I realized that
our civilization of science goes up high level. So those reasons made me be surprised.

 

45

 

4.3.1 Conference

At the beginning of the conference, Kim said that he had trouble writing the
introductory and conclusion paragraphs. Therefore, I used this conference to talk about
what a thesis statement is, what he could have included in the introductory paragraph,
what transition words are, and when they can be used. He did not know what a thesis
statement was so I explained to him that “it is a sentence that shows the whole essay in
one picture”. In the essay, he talked about three reasons that have made people live longer,
but only addresses one of them in the introductory paragraph. I pointed out that he should
mention all three reasons in his thesis statement and gave him the sentence “Among
many other reasons, medical development, technological advances that enabled weather
forecasting, and proper dieting has led people these days to live longer lives” as an
example of one.

Kim starts the conclusion paragraph with “As you see”. I gave him other transition
words that could be used in the conclusion paragraph, such as “In sum”, “In conclusion”,
and “To sum it up”. He replied that “In conclusion” is too common and that he liked “To
sum it up” better. He knew what transitions were and said they were words that “connect
sentences much softly”. I elaborated on his deﬁnition and explained to him that
“transition” means “a change from one state to another” and that he should use transition
words whenever there is a change in thought.

Although this conference did not deal much with correcting problematic places, we
did discuss two wrong word usages and one ungrammatical sentence. He uses the word
“sympathize” in the sentence “I sympathize it”. He tried to use this word to show a

stronger meaning than “agree”, but used it in the wrong context:

46

R: what do you mean by "sympathize"

S: It meas that like "AGREE"?

R: Ok...then use "agree" not "sympathize'
S: But..

S: It's not..

S: It means littlebe differet

R: like?

S: cm

S: to show that you understand and feel

S: HOWEVER agree meansTh have the same opinion

R: I was confused because you don't symphatize a reason.
R: You can feel sympathy for someone not for a reason.
S: yeah..l did not show it

Also, in the next paragraph, he uses the word “dystrophy” in the sentence “When we
were living poor days....so someone got dystrophy”. This word is a fairly sophisticated
word and it does not quite ﬁt in this context. I was surprised that he even knew this word.

I suggested “malnutrition” instead:

R: and what do you mean by "dystrophy"?
S: cm it means that .
S: Kinds of disease which happen when you did not ate food.

R: "..and people were very thin due to the malnutrition"
S: yes.
S: malnutrition that's right

47

Finally, he has the sentence “These are made me be surprised” in the last paragraph.
He gave me “These made me be surprised” as correction, which is still incorrect. I
explained to him that something can make someone “surprised” but not “be surprised”
and suggested that he could combine that sentence with the last sentence “I realized that
our civilization of science goes up high level”. The correction I gave him was “Thinking
of the many reasons that have made people live longer has made me realize the great

progress our civilization has made”.

4.3.2 Revision

There is not much change in the ﬁnal essay. This may be due to the fact that we
only discussed a few errors and talked about how to organize the essay instead. He did
change the wrong word usages. He decided to use “agree with” for “sympathize” and
“malnutrition” for “dystrophy”. Although I had given him a new sentence as an example
for the word “malnutrition”, he just replaced the word and did not change the other part
of the sentence. He also used the transition word “To sum it up” in the conclusion
paragraph, added the phrase “to be able to eat good food” as another reason for people
living longer, and kind of switched the order of the last two sentences around. He did not
make use of the example sentence I had given him for combining the last two sentences.

It is surprising that he rarely made any changes in the introductory paragraph. We
had talked about it for some time in the conference. He did not rewrite his thesis
statement, even though I had explained to him what a thesis statement is and had given
him an example. He also did not state the three reasons for people living longer these
days in the introductory paragraph. The only change he made in this paragraph is that he

deleted the word “else” and changed “made” to “make”.

48

4.3.3 Teacher Comments

Teacherl had a difficult time deciding which essay was the better version for this
topic. She notes that there is not much change between the two essays: “There’s a
virtually no difference in terms of content and organization”. She does see a little

difference in vocabulary and mentions the two changed words:

“Not a huge diﬁerence...it’s really diﬂicult...the biggest difference kind of
seem is vocabulary ------ He says ‘I sympathize it’ in 3-1, which is really a
not. . .appropriate use of the word ‘sympathize’. He says ‘I agree with it’ in 3-
2, which is better ------ then he’s got this word ‘malnutrition’ versus
‘dystrophy’ ------ In 3-2, the word ‘malnutrition’ is better.”

Also, she points out the change in the transition words in the ﬁnal paragraph: “The
transition ‘As you see’ versus ‘To sum it up’ . . . probably. . .yeah they’re both OK. ‘To sum
it up’ is probably better, which is in 3-2”.

The change in vocabulary and transition words seemed to have helped the essay a
little. And if Kim had revised the introductory paragraph, there could also have been a
noticeable change in the organization of the essay. The revision that came from the
participant in the last two sentences of the essay was unnecessary: “He changes the last
two sentences around in the last paragraph ------ Sounds a little bit better in 3-2. To me I
don’t see necessarily that one sentence has to come before the other”.

Teacher2 gives her general thought on the overall quality of the essays: “The
organization here seemed a lot better than in some of his other essays, but the language
seemed worse than some of the others”. She notices the change of vocabulary in the ﬁnal
draft: “I think the language is a little bit more clear here in terms of be replaced some

vocabulary...so he changed “dystrophy” to “malnutrition”, which I think is a good

49

change”. She also liked that Kim added the phrase “to be able to eat good food” in the
conclusion: “I do like that he added the food to the conclusion since he starts out talking
about here these different things that can happen”. Finally, the introductory paragraph

seemed to be unclear to her while the conclusion paragraph was good:

“The introduction was particularly unclear for me. I think partly because it’s
more abstract. But he does go into speciﬁc examples then. The examples are
such that while they’re speciﬁc they’re not detailed ------ I liked that he made
the conclusion ﬁt all the different. . .all the different rationales that he gave. I
still am not sure what he means at the end “so these reasons made me be
surprised”.

4.4 Topic4

Figure 4 shows the initial and ﬁnal essays for Topic4.

50

Figure 4. Initial and Final Essays for Topic4

 

 

Topic4: If you could study a subject that you have never had the opportunity to study,
what would you choose? Explain your choice, using speciﬁc reasons and details.

Initial Draft:

In the future, I’d like to study subjects that I have never had the opportunity to study. I
don’t know what I am going to study subjects. Because there are a great many subjects
that I want to learn. Especially, one of them is business administration and the other is
law.

First of all, business administration is the subject that I want to learn. In another word is
business management. As you see the word of management that means conduct
something or somebody. It is usually use to use at a CEO (chief executive officer). The
CEO is an occupation that I want to be when I grow up. Because I’d like to lead other
people and the company with people. I was impressed with a book about autobiography
of JACK. He is the best businessman ever I seen. And it gives a motive. That’s why I
want to learn business administration.

Secondly, law is also the subject that I want to learn. What is the law? The law is the
measurement of judge. It is importance to our life. Because it will classify someone did
wrong thing or did not. I felt heartily with a book of “To Kill a Mockingbird”.

It described that one lawyer, whose name is Atticus, protect one negro. The negro didn’t
sin. But a judge gives a guilty. Because it strongly occurred racism at that time. It said to
me importance of judge.

I’d like to stand for a weak person and give judgments more accurately. I know that it’s
going to be hard. But you know what? The great power becomes great responsibility. I
always keep in mind that. Thus I want to study law.

To sum it up, I’d like to learn about that. Sometimes one of my friends asked me. “Why
are you studying enthusiastically?” because study gives me please. I always think. When
I am studying, it will bring to me great choices when I choose my job. So that’s why I’d
like to study.

 

51

 

 

 

Final Essay:

In the future, I’d like to study subjects that I have never had the opportunity to study. I
don’t know what I am going to study subjects. Because, there are a great many subjects
that I want to learn. Especially, one of them is business administration and the other is
law.

First of all, business administration, or business management, is the subject I want to
learn. As you see the word of management that means conduct something or lead
somebody. Many people that study business manage look forward to becoming a
CEO(chief executive officer). I want to be a CEO when I grow up. I’d like to lead other
people and the company with people. I was impressed with a book about autobiography
of“ JACK”. He is the best businessman ever I have seen. Because, when the company
had crucial moment, he overcame using his great leadership. This scene gives a motive to
me. That’s why I want to learn business administration.

Secondly, law is also the subject that I want to learn. What is the law? The law is the
measurement of judge. It is importance to our life. Because it will classify someone did
wrong thing or did not. I felt heartily with a book of “To Kill a Mockingbird”.

It described that one lawyer, whose name is Atticus, protect one black, whose name is
Tom Robinson. One black did not do the sin. But a judge gives a guilty. The judge’s
acting was unfair. There was racism, especially in Alabama, at that time. The book made
me realized the importance of being a judge.

I’d like to stand for a weak person and give judgments more accurately. I know that it is
going to be hard. But you know what? “The great power becomes great responsibility”. I
always keep in that my mind. Thus I want to study law.

To sum it up, I’d like to learn about that. Sometimes one of my ﬁiends asked me. “Why
are you studying enthusiastically?” I told them that studying gives me pleasure. I always
think. When I am studying, it will bring to me great choices when I choose my job. So
that’s why I’d like to study.

 

52

 

4.4.1 Conference

In the conference, Kim and I talked about a couple of sentence structures that he
had used incorrectly, a redundant sentence that could be coordinated, and a politically
incorrect word that he had used in his example.

In the second paragraph, he has the sentence “In another word is business
management”. Not only is this sentence ungrammatical, but also redundant and can be
coordinated with the previous sentence using “or”. The correction I gave him was “First
of all, business administration, or business management, is the subject I want to learn”.
Then he has this sentence “It is usually use to use at a CEO”. He gave me “It usually use
to CEO” and “It use to CEO” as a correction, which are still incorrect. I could not quite
understand what he was trying to say here and gave him my interpretation as “Many
people that study business management look forward to becoming a CEO”.

In the next sentence, he says “The CEO is an occupation that I want to be when I
grow up”. He gives me the correct form “I wanna be a CEO” ﬁrst, but then thinks the
relative clause is the problem and gives me an incorrect form. It seems here that Kim did

not realize that he had the correct form the frrst time:

R: Do you "want to be an occupation when you grow up"?

S: kkk'”..no...NOt an occupation..I wanna be a CEOI

R: right.

S: oh..i found it...

R: So...how would you revise the sentence?

S: the relativepronoun is problem

S: The occupation of CEO That i want to be when i grow up..
R: How about just "I would like to be a CEO when I grow up"?
S: yeah..more clear..good..

 

f' . . . . .
1 ’ Thrs rs an onomatopoera for laughing in Korean.

53

At the end of the next paragraph, he has the sentence “Because it strongly occurred
racism at that time”. This clause is ungrammatical and is a sentence fragment. I tried to
explain to him that “There was racism” and that “Racism didn’t occur”. In the following
sentence, he uses the pronoun “it” without a clear antecedent. He said that “it” refers to
the whole previous sentence. He had used the pronoun “it” earlier to refer to an adverbial
time clause starting with “when” and I had explained to him that a pronoun needs a noun
phrase as its antecedent. Here he makes the same mistake. I gave him my correction as
“The book made me realize the importance of being a judge”.

He also uses the politically incorrect word “negro”. He is fully aware of the
improper usage, however. He even questions the use of the more politically correct word

“black”:

R: and...is the black person in the novel referred to as a "negro" in the book?
S: No..His name is "TOM ROBINSON"

R: never use this word....

S: YEAH..I THOGHT THAT WORD GIVES OHER FEELS WORSE! MY
BED! ‘7

R: even if the person is referred to as a "negro" in the book, you should be
very careful using this word. _

R: today, they are called "African Americans"

R: or if they are not Americans, you can just say Blacks.

S: OK..THAT"S I AM WORRIED ABOT IT

S: I Think black is also..not good..just i revised to name

R: Ok...but you should also mention that he is of black orgin..because that's
very important in the book.

 

17' Probably “my ba ” to mean “my mistake”. He used this phrase a couple of times in the conferences.

54

In the ﬁnal paragraph, he has another sentence fragment “because study gives me
please” after the sentence “Why are you studying enthusiastically?”. He notices his
mistake and gives me the form “I answered it~” to start the sentence. The full sentence I

gave him was “I told them that studying gives me pleasure”.

4.4.2 Revision

Again, Kim revised most of the places that were discussed in the conference. There
were some word-for-word “transfers” from the conference and some revisions that came
from the participant. He even changed what was already grammatical.

In the second paragraph, he coordinates the redundant sentence with its preceding
sentence using “or” and writes “First of all, business administration, or business
management, is the subject I want to learn”. This is a direct “transfer” from the
conference. The two sentences shortly after that begin “Many people that study business
manage” and “I want to be a CEO” are also taken verbatim from the sentences I had
given him. Here he uses “manage” instead of “management”. In the next paragraph, he
says “There was racism, especially in Alabama, at that time. The book made me realized
the importance of being a judge”. They are also the sentences that I had given him, except
that he adds the phrase “especially in Alabama” and uses “realized” instead of “realize”.
In the ﬁnal paragraph, the sentence “I told them that studying gives me pleasure” is also a
“transfer” from the conference.

Despite the fact that Kim uses some of the sentences that I had offered, there is a
lot of revision that comes directly from him. For instance, he changes the sentence “He is

the best businessman ever I seen. And it gives a motive” to:

55

He is the best businessman ever I have seen. Because, when the company
had crucial moment, he overcame using his great leadership. This scene
gives a motive to me.

The revised version is much clearer. He tries to use the present perfect “have” and add the
indirect object “to me”, although they are not used grammatically. Also, he changes the
sentences “It described that one lawyer, whose name is Atticus, protect one negro. The

negro didn’t sin. But a judge gives a guilty” to:

It described that one lawyer, whose name is Atticus, protect on black, whose
name is Tom Robinson. One black did not do the sin. But a judge gives a
guilty. The judge’s acting was unfair.

The word “negro” was talked about in the conference and he changes it into a more
politically correct word “black”. But he also changes “didn’t sin” to “did not do the sin”
and changes what is already grammatical, whereas he adds the phrase “whose name is
Tom Robinson” and the sentence “The judge’s acting was unfair.” to give more clarity to

meaning.

4.4.3 Teacher Comments

Teacherl talks mostly about the revisions that came from the conference. She
notices that Kim coordinated the redundant sentence in the second paragraph: “In 4-1, he
says ‘In another word is business management’ whereas in 4-2, he says ‘First of all,
business administration, or business management’. So that actually sounds better”. She

also mentions that he changed “negro” to “black”: “I notice he changes from the word

56

‘negro’ to ‘black’ and ‘black’ is a much more politically correct term than ‘negro’

certainly”. Furthermore, she points out the revision at the end of the third paragraph:

“In 4-1, he says ‘The negro didn’t sin. But a judge give a guilty. Because it
strongly occurred racism at that time.’, whereas if you look at 4-2, he says
‘One black did not do the sin. But a judge gives a guilty’, which is not still
very good. ‘The judge’s acting was unfair. There was racism, especially in
Alabama, at that time.’ So you can see kind of at least that one sentence
improves it”

She does not mention anything about the change he had made to the already grammatical
sentence though. Also, she does not talk about the revision in the three sentences that
begin “Many people that study”, “I want to be a CEO”, and “I told them that studying”.
She mentions one place where the participant made the revision by himself: “He
says. . . ‘And it gives a motive’ in 4-1 and then in 4-2, he says ‘The scene gives a motive to
me’, which is still not very good but I guess it’s an improvement from 4-1”. The revision
that came from the participant here seemed to help the essay a little. She also talks about
the problem in the introductory paragraph of both drafts, which we had not discussed at

all in the conference:

“In both of them he takes a sentence ﬁom the prompt to start the essay in
kind of exactly the same way. So that doesn’t’ seem...it’s not a great way to
start the essay but it’s not terrible either. He also uses the word ‘especially’ at
the beginning of a sentence, which is a fairly common ESL error”.

57

Teacher2 gives comments on the overall content and organization of the essays and
mentions that the essays could have been more coherent if Kim had only focused on the

“law” example:

“I also felt like this business administration and law together ended up being
a little bit awkward. So it might have been more coherent if he would have
actually picked one especially, because it seemed like he had maybe stronger
arguments for the. . .tlre law arguments. So maybe it would have helped if he
had just focused on the one”.

She does mention some of the word changes he made: “The second page...he’s
changed. . .he had the word ‘negro’ here ﬁrst and he changed that to “black” and added

the detail about ‘Tom Robinson’ on the ﬁrst one...‘please’ became ‘pleasure’”.

4.5 Topic5

Figure 5 shows the initial and ﬁnal essays for Topic5.

58

Figure 5. Initial and Final Essays for T0pic5

 

 

Topic5: Pe0ple have different ways of escaping the stress and difﬁculties of modern life.
Some read; some exercise; others work in their gardens. What do you think are the best
ways of reducing stress? Use speciﬁc details and examples in your answer.

Initial Draft:

These days, a great many people have stress, which comes from different causes. Such
as, not enough sleep, assessment, and competition with peer...that was called trigger or
stressor. It may bring us an illness. So most of people want to escape the stress using
different ways. I think that the best ways of reducing stress are exercising, sleeping,
traveling and listing to music.

Since I have been to America, July 26‘", I’ve got stress from school life. The ﬁrst thing
comes ﬁ'om English. Although I want to speak in English, I do not know how to express
my feeling in English. It makes me angry even frustrated. The other things come from
different education system. That is to say, the way of study is different from Korean study
style. At ﬁrst, those things made me grief. I wanted to escape from that. So I usually
listened to the music. The other way is playing basketball. The sport is the best way of
reducing the stress. Because when I played it, I sweated a lot and then took a shower. Do
you know how this feeling is at moment? It is gorgeous. Every stress has gone. As cool
as screaming like “Ah~.”

In a word, exercising is the best way of reducing the stress. Because it brings us two
good things. One is the reducing stress and the other one is making our body healthier.
We called that killing two birds with one stone.

 

59

 

 

 

Final Essay:

These days, everybody has stress due to a lack of sleep, tests, and competitions with
peers, etc. most people have different ways of relieving stress. I think that the best ways
of reducing stress are exercising, sleeping, and listing to music.

Since I have been to America, July 26‘", I’ve got stress from school life. The difficulty
of expressing myself in English has given me a lot of stress. Although I want to speak in
English, I do not know how to express my feeling in English. It makes me angry even
frustrated. Also, the difference in the education systems has given me a lot of stress. At
ﬁrst, those things made me grief. I wanted to escape from that. So I usually listened to
the music. The other way is playing basketball. The sport is the best way of reducing the
stress. Because when I played it, I sweated a lot and then took a shower. Do you know
how this feeling is at moment? It is gorgeous. Every stress has gone. As cool as
screaming like “Ah~.”

Secondly, music made my mind relaxation. I usually listened to classical music, neither
hip-hops nor rock music. When I keep listening the music, it brought me calm.

Lastly, sleep is good for reducing stress. A part of stress comes from lack of sleep. The
sleep is the importance to our life. The sleep made our body earn the source of energy,
which helped to can we live.

In a word, exercising is the best way of reducing the stress. Also, listing to music and
sleeping It brings us two good things. One is the reducing stress and the other one is
making our body healthier. We called that killing two birds with one stone.

 

6O

 

4.5.1 Conference

Right from the beginning of the conference, Kim expressed concerns that he did
not talk about the ways of reducing stress in more detail, although he had wanted to. He
mentioned a few in the ﬁrst paragraph but did not address all of them. I also suggested
that one or two more examples would have been better and he replied that he would
include them when he revised.

In the ﬁrst sentence, he says “a great many people have stress”. The phrase “a great
many people” can be simpliﬁed and he gives “people have stress” as a correction. Also,
the second sentence is a fragment and can be combined with the ﬁrst sentence. I gave him
the sentence “These days, everybody has stress due to a lack of sleep, tests, competing
with peers, etc.” as a correction and told him that he did not need the clause “that was
called trigger or stressor” at the end. “Trigger” is a fairly sophisticated word and I was
not quite sure that he had used it properly.

Then he has the sentence “So most of people want to escape stress using different
ways”. The word “escape” does not seem appropriate in the context and he suggests

“avoid”:

R: there is a better word that you can uses instead of "escape"
S: oh...
S: how about...avoid..from the stress

R: well...it has a close meaning to "reduce'

R: it's a word that is often used with stress

R: "relieve"18

 

18 Again, there is a long pause before I answered “relieve”.

61

I also asked him to revise the sentence and he replied “Most people try to relieve~”,
which is not much different from the original sentence. The correction I gave him was
“Most pe0ple have different ways of relieving stress”.

In the second paragraph, he has the sentences “The ﬁrst thing comes from English”
and “The other things come from different education system”. I tried to explain to him
that “people have stress” or “something gives people stress” and not that “stress comes
from something”. I gave him example sentences using the verb “give”: “The difﬁculty of
expressing myself have given me a lot of stress” and “Also, the difference in the
education systems has given me a lot of stress” for the two sentences, respectively. Also, I

told him that the next sentence starting “That is to say” was redundant.

4.5.2 Revision

The ﬁnal essay shows a lot of word-for-word “transfer” from the conference. At
least, Kim made changes to all the places that we had talked about in the conference. The
ﬁrst two sentences in the ﬁrst paragraph and the two sentences in the second paragraph
that begin “The difficulty of expressing myself” and “Also, the diﬁerence in the
education systems” are the example sentences that I had given him in the conference. It’s
interesting that he used these sentences verbatim without revising any other places.

However, he seems to have used the additional attentional resource to add and
elaborate on other examples of reducing stress. In the conference, he had mentioned that
he did not give as many examples of reducing stress as he had intended to. In the ﬁnal

essay, he adds a whole new paragraph that talks about two other ways of reducing stress:

62

Secondly, music made my mind relaxation. I usually listened to classical
music, neither hip-hops nor rock music. When I keep listening the music, it
brought me calm.

Lastly, sleep is good for reducing stress. A part of stress comes from lack of
sleep. The sleep is the importance to our life. The sleep made our body earn
the source of energy, which helped to can we live.

This is actually the greatest change he makes by himself out of all the essay sets. In the
initial draft, he had given exercising, sleeping, traveling, and listening to music in the
introductory paragraph as examples of reducing stress, but addressed only exercising in
the body paragraph. In the ﬁnal essay, he deletes traveling in the introductory paragraph,
but addresses all the different ways of relieving stress by adding a paragraph that talks
about music and sleeping. This change adds much more coherence to the overall
organization of the essay.

Finally, in the conclusion paragraph, he changes the sentence “Because it brings us
two good things” to “Also, listing to music and sleeping It brings us two good things”.

This change seems unnecessary.

4.5.3 Teacher Comments
Teacherl talks about revisions both from the conference and the participant. With
regard to the revisions from the conference, she talks about most of the word-for-word

“transfers” that were made in the ﬁnal essay. She notices the change in the ﬁrst sentence:

“In 5-1, he says ‘Such as, not enough sleep, assessment, competition with
peer...that was called trigger or stressor’ ------ If we look at 5-2, he says
‘Everybody has stress due to a lack of sleep, tests, and competitions with
peers, etc.’ ------ In 5-1, it wasn’t...it wasn’t a good sentence. It didn’t ﬂow
very well. So maybe he had some sense of that and revised that in 5-2”.

63

She also talks about the words “assessment” and “tests” in this sentence: “In 5-1, he uses
the word ‘assessment’, 5-2 ‘test’. Probably ‘test’ is actually the better word to use”. These
two words were not discussed in the conference. I had changed the word “assessment” to
“test” when I gave Kim the sentence as a correction. Furthermore, she mentions the
change in the sentence in the second paragraph: “He says in 5-2 ‘Also, the difference in
the education systems has given me a lot of stress’. In 5-1, he says ‘That is to say, the
way of study is different from Korean study style’, Slightly better said in 5-2”. These
revisions that came from the conference seemed to have helped the essay.

With respect to the revisions that came directly from the participant, she talks in

length about the paragraph that Kim added:

“This is one where there actually is a difference in terms of organization and
content. And you can see that in 5-2, he’s got this idea down of here’s my
thesis statement or things that I’m going to talk about, ‘the best way of
reducing stress are exercising, sleeping, and listening to music’, and then he
goes on to talk about exercising, playing basketball, and listening to music.
In 5-1, he doesn’t have that organization. It’s very different. He talks
about. . .he says that ‘the best ways of reducing stress are exercising, sleeping,
traveling, and listing to music’ and he never talks about traveling, nor
listening to music in 5-1 ------ I would deﬁnitely say 5-2 is a better essay. It’s
more...follows a clear organization and really talks about three different
ways to reduce stress, kind of very speciﬁcally three different ways to reduce
stress”

This paragraph also seemed to have helped the essay a lot. On the contrary, the change he
made to the last paragraph was not helpﬁrl: “At the end of 5-1, he says ‘Because it bring
us two good things’. In 5-2, he says ‘Also, listening’...well he says ‘listing to music and
sleeping It brings us two good things’. It’s interesting neither one is correct”.

64

Teacher2 does not talk about the speciﬁc revisions Kim made, but gives a general

comment on the overall organization and content of the essays:

“Right away from the intro it’s clear that he’s going to be addressing the
topic and I like that. His organization and having the reasons that he talks
about throughout the essay match what he suggests he’s going talk about in
the intro. He does have the. . .a good speciﬁc method for dealing with it.”.

She also talks about the paragraph that Kim added, but thinks that it was not necessarily

helpful:

“Also the organization was a little bit hard...in that he goes from music to
basketball then back to music and then to stress. And so maybe. . .I think this
is the kind of thing that happens when you’re trying to do something in a
short period of time”.

Along with these comments, she talks about the use of transition words being bothersome

and the essay as following the traditional ﬁve paragraph essay format.

4.6 Topic6

Figure 6 shows the initial and ﬁnal essays for Topic6.

65

Figure 6. Initial and Final Essays for Topic6

 

 

Topic6: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? There is nothing that
young people can teach older people. Use speciﬁc reasons and examples to support your
position.

Initial Draft:

During study time, it is not an important who teaches whom. I agree that young people
can teach older people.

Recently, I could ﬁgure out that what is the importance of study. It might be a teacher,
or be a student. Even if these are the important, there is one thing, which is the most
important thing. That is an effort. I ﬁgured out that between my dad and my sister.

Thought my dad speaks English very well, he got some troubles with pronunciations
when he talks some or says something in English. I think that it is not only my dad’s
trouble...most of international people has same thing like pronunciations between “F”
and “P” or “R” and “L”. He already recognized it. However, it is too hard to correct the
pronunciation It became a part of his habits. So, my sister, at the age of 9 speaks in
English very well, as native speaker. She is so amazing. Everybody was surprised when
she speaks English, even I was. She teaches dad to make his pronunciations for the better.
I mean that she corrects his problem when they are talking each other it is ausom! Then
he realized that what I am going to say still incorrectly. He always thanks her. And his
English is getting better.

As you see, the teaching is not an important with an age. I do not understand that why
some people say, “Young people can not teach older people”. Does it make sense? No..,
thus, I agree that young people can teach older people.

 

66

 

 

 

Final Essay:

Teaching does not always have to be unidirectional, that is, from a teacher to a student
or from an older person to a younger one.

Recently, I could ﬁgure out that what the importance of study is. Studying is both
important to the teachers and students alike. There is one thing, which is the most
important. That is an effort. I ﬁgured it out through my dad and my sister.

My dad speaks English very well but he got some troubles with pronunciations when
he speaks or says something in English. I think that it is not only my dad’s trouble. Most
of Korean people have trouble distinguishing the sounds between “F” and “P” or “R” and
“L”. He already recognized about that. However, it is too difficult to correct the
pronunciation. It became a part of his habits. My sister, at the age of 9, speaks in English
very well, as native speaker. She is so amazing. Everybody is surprised when she speaks
English, even I am. She teaches dad to make his pronunciations for the better. It means
that she corrects his problem directly when they are talking each other. It is so cool, isn’t’
it? When she is teaching him, he can recognize his problem. Then he realized that his
pronunciation is still wrong. He always thanks her. And his English is getting better.

As you see, teaching is not a big deal with an age. I do not understand that why some
people say like, “Young people can merely teach older people”. Does it make sense? No.
Thus, I agree that young people can teach older people.

 

67

 

4.6.1 Conference

Kim and I talked about writing the introductory paragraph again. He wrote a very
short introductory paragraph which consisted of only two sentences and said that he had
had a problem writing it. We had talked about writing an introductory paragraph and a
thesis statement in an earlier conference, and he seemed to have some trouble starting out

the essay. I tried to show him an example of an introductory paragraph of this topic:

Teaching does not always have to be unidirectional, that is, ﬁom a teacher to
a student or from an older person to a younger one. On the other hand, I
believe there are many ways in which young people can teach the older

generation.

I also told him that there are many other ways to start the essay. He wrote a better
conclusion paragraph, so I explained to him that an introductory paragraph can be similar
to a conclusion paragraph in that a conclusion paragraph summarizes what has already
been said and an introductory paragraph introduces what is going to be said in the essay.
In the second paragraph, he has the sentence “It might be a teacher, or be a student”.

I could not understand what he meant by this and asked for his interpretation:

R: What do you mean by "It might be a teacher or be a student?

S: i tried to say....

S: wait...

R: ok

S: the importance of study can be a teacher or a student...19

R: well...

R: studying is both important to the teachers and students alike, but the
importance of study itself can't be a teacher or a student.

 

19 There is a pause before this turn.

68

S: really?
S: i meant the reason for importance of studying will be a teacher...

R: so...does the teachers cause importance in studying?
S: i think so...but the most importance thing is an effort.
R: OK...then you should emphasize "effort"

After a few turns, he gives the meaning of this sentence as “the reason for importance of
studying will be a teacher”. This is much clearer and at the end he emphasizes “effort” as
being the most important factor in learning. He shows this in the next two sentences.

In the next paragraph, he talks about most international students having problem
distinguishing the sounds between “f” and “p” or “1” and “r”. In fact, these are the two
distinctions that Koreans have the most trouble with. Furthermore, he gives an example
of his father and his sister, who are both Koreans. Therefore, I suggested that he be more
speciﬁc and he realizes his mistake: “kkk.yeah....that's my badzo..i have to mention more
detail....like..Korean, Chinesess”. Also, near the end of the same paragraph, he says
“Then he realized that what I am going to say still incorrectly”. I did not understand what
he meant and he immediately clariﬁes it: “when she was teaching him..he can recognize
his problem”.

Finally in the last paragraph, he has the sentence “As you see, the teaching is not an
important with an age”. I explained to him that an adjective like “important” cannot stand
alone with an article but that a noun must follow it. Then he gave me his correction as
“the teaching is not an importance with an age”. He changed the adjective form of

“important” to its noun form “importance”, but this sentence is still incorrect. Later he

 

20 He uses this phrase again to mean “my mistake”. He seems to have picked this up from his friends.

69

gave me another correction as “the teaching is not a big importace with an age”. The

correction I gave him was “Age is not an important factor in teaching”.

4.6.2 Revision

In the ﬁnal essay, he uses some of the sentences that I gave him and also makes
changes by himself. The ﬁrst sentence that begins “Teaching does not always have to be”
is a word-for-word “transfer” from the example I gave him. We had talked about writing
the introductory paragraph for this topic and I had also given him an example.
Interestingly, he only uses the ﬁrst sentence that I gave him and leaves the rest out (“On
the other hand, I believe there are many ways in which young people can teach the older
generation”).

He changes the sentence “It might be a teacher, or be a student” to “Studying is
both important to the teachers and students alike”. Here, he does not use the correction he
gave me (“the reason for importance of studying will be a teacher”) but uses one of the
sentences I had used. Also, he changes the sentence “Even if these are the important,
there is one thing, which is the most important thing” to a shorter sentence “There is one
thing, which is the most important”. In the next sentence, he changes the word “between”
to “through”. These two changes that were made by Kim are much clearer.

In the next paragraph, he changes the ﬁrst sentence “Thought my dad speaks
English very well, he got some troubles with pronunciations when he talks some or says
something in English” to “My dad speaks English very well but he got some troubles
with pronunciations when he speaks or says something in English”. The two sentences
are similar, but the revision seems a little bit better. The sentence that begins “Most of

Korean people have trouble” shortly after is the sentence that I gave him. In the next

70

sentence, he changes “recognized it” to “recognized about that”. A couple of sentences
later, he changes the past tense to the present tense in the sentence that begins
“Everybody is surprised”. The present tense sounds better here since he has been using it

in the previous sentences. He also changes the next few sentences:

Initial draft: I mean that she corrects his problem when they are talking each
other it is ausom! The he realized that what I am going to say still incorrectly.

Final essay: It means that she corrects his problem directly when they are
talking each other. It is so cool, isn’t it? When she is teaching him, he can
recognize his problem. Then he realized that his pronunciation is still wrong.

He breaks down the ﬁrst sentence into two sentences, changes “I” to “It”, inserts
“directly”, and makes “it is ausom” to a tag question “It is so cool, isn’t it?”. The revised
sentence starting “When she is teaching him” is the corrected sentence that he gave me in
the conference. The revisions in this paragraph are mostly made by the participant
himself. There is only one change that is a “transfer” from the conference.

Finally, in the conclusion paragraph, he changes the sentence “the teaching is not
an important with an age” to “teaching is not a big deal with an age”. In the conference,
he gave me “the teaching is not a big importace with an age”. He changed the word
“importace” to “deal” here and did not use the sentence I had given him (“Age is not an

important factor in teaching”).

4.6.3 Teacher Comments
Teacherl talks about most of the changes Kim made. She notices that the ﬁrst

sentence has changed: “In 6-2, he says ‘Teaching does not have to be

71

unidirectional’. . .that’s a pretty sophisticated word and I think it ﬁts here quite well”. She
does not mention the change in the sentence that begins “Studying is both important”, but
points out that it was good to restrict the international students to just Korean students:
“He also talks about international people versus Korean people. And it’s true that in 6-
2. . .Korean people makes more sense because obviously not all international people have
problems with ‘f’ and ‘p”’.

She also talks about the changes Kim made by himself. She notices the change in
the verb tense in the third paragraph: “He’s changed the verb tense ‘Everybody was
surprised when she speaks English’ in 6-1 to ‘Everybody is surprised’. It does make more
sense to use the present tense so that’s improved in 6-2”. Furthermore, she comments on

the changes that were made in the next few sentences:

“In 6-1, he uses the word ‘ausom’, ‘I mean that she corrects his problem
when they are talking each other it is ausom’. I mean ﬁrst of all, this is not a
very good sentence and the word ‘ausom’ is spelled wrong and it’s fairly
inappropriate. In what appears to me as the revised version, he says ‘It means
that she corrects his problem directly when they are talking each other’. So
again, it sounds better in 6-2 even though he is missing the preposition there.
And he says...but then he says ‘It is so cool, isn’t it?’. Well ‘cool’ is not
really a whole lot better than ‘ausom’. They’re very common in colloquial
speech, ‘ausom’ ‘cool’ depending on your age. So...he...for some reason,
even though he realized ‘ausom’ was wrong, he ends up replacing with a
word that has a similar problem”.

Although the change in the words from “ausom” to “cool” was not necessary, both the
changes that came from the conference and from Kim himself seemed to have helped the

essay.

72

Teacher2 also talks about some of the changes Kim made. She mentions the change
in the ﬁrst sentence: “On the second page, the introduction is a lot stronger I felt like,
although it’s still very short”. She also notices the changes ﬁom “ausom” to “cool and
from “important” to “big deal”: “He changed ‘ausom’ to ‘so cool’. He changed
‘irnportant’ to ‘big deal’. And so for that reason I felt like it’s still. ..I mean the language
is still not especially academic”. Teacher2 liked this essay set the best and gives general

comments on the overall organization and content of the drafts:

“I like that he does use speciﬁc examples. I felt like the speciﬁc example he
picked was maybe not what I wanted him to focus on ------ But still he has a
very speciﬁc example and he gives good details to explain how that example
relates to the topic ------ He does vary his sentence structure. I felt like the
organization made sense in terms of there is an introduction there
clear...there is clear support for that. Then there is some sort of conclusion
that makes sense”.

4.7 Summary of the Essays

So far, I have analyzed the conferences, revisions, and the teachers’ comments with
respect to the six given topics. The analyses show that the participant revised most of the
places that were brought up in the conferences, applying word-for-word “transfer” in
some places and using his own correction in others. Some revisions have no direct link to
the conferences but are from the participant himself. There were also places that he did
not revise, even though they had been talked about in the conferences. The teachers
noticed the changes in the participant’s essays and mostly commented on those places.
However, some of their comments, especially Teacher2’s, are on the overall organization

and the content of the essays.

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The participant has a lot of “transfer” in his earlier essays and the changes that
come from him are at the word or phrasal level. Also, the “transfers” seemed to have
helped while the revisions he made by himself did not necessarily. In his later essays, he
still has some word-for-word “transfers” from the conferences. However, more and more
changes come directly from the participant and great changes at the sentential and
discourse level take place. In Topic5, he even adds a whole new paragraph. These
changes, along with the “transfers” seemed to have helped the essays.

F urtherrnore, his ﬁrst three essays and the last three essays are quite different in
terms of the examples he brings in. In the earlier essays, he does not bring in examples
from his own life but talks about how traveling in general can widen one’s view of the
world, the bad inﬂuences that TV can have on teenagers, and some developments in the
modern society that have led people to live longer. He also says in the within-study
interview that be browsed the Internet to come up with some of these ideas when he
could not think of any. His later three essays are different, however, and Kim brings in
speciﬁc examples from his own life. He talks about the speciﬁc books that he had read,
speciﬁc causes of stress for him and what he does to relieve the stress, and his personal
experience from watching his sister and his father talk to each other in English.

Table 3 shows the results of the essay rankings” from four native speakers (NS) of
English. N81 and N82 are Teacherl and Teacher2, respectively. NS3 and NS4 are also
graduate students in the MA TESOL program who have experience in teaching ESL

writing. These rankings were given to the essay sets with respect to overall quality.

 

21 Although there is a holistic scoring guideline for rating TWE essays, I did not have any of the essays
rated for holistic scores. The teachers’ comments provide much more information about the quality of
essays.

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Table 3. Essay Rankings from Four Native Speakers of English

 

Essay Rankings (from the best to worst written)22

 

 

 

 

 

N81 Topic4 — Topicl —— Topic5 — Topic2 - Topic6 - Topic3
N82 Topic6 — Topic3 — Topicl — Topic2 — Topic5 - Topic4
NS3 Topic6 — Topic5 — Topic3 — Topic2 — Topicl — Topic4
NS4 Topicl - Topic4 — Topic6 — Topic3 —- Topic5 — Topic2

 

 

The rankings are quite inconsistent among the four native speakers. According to
the rankings, it is difficult to tell which essay set is better. This may reﬂect the different
perspectives of native speakers with regard to what is good writing. N81 says that she
tried to focus on language when ranking the essays, although she did see changes in
content and organization. N82 and NS4 say that they mostly looked at the overall content
and organization of the essays. NS3 says that she speciﬁcally looked at how the ideas
used in the essays support the main argument. The rankings can therefore change

according to how the raters focus on the different aspects of writing. Furthermore, these

are just rankings and the actual differences in quality may have not been reﬂected.

It is interesting, though, that all four native speakers rated the ﬁnal essays better

than the initial drafts in the six essay sets. One teacher had difficulty in deciding which

 

22 Topicl: the best way of learning about life; Topic2: how movies and television inﬂuence people; Topic3:
why people are living longer; Topic4: subject that you want to study; Topic5: different ways of escaping

stress; Topic6: whether or not young people can teach older people.

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essay was better for Topic3. The conference for this topic was focused on how to
organize essays in general rather than on speciﬁc problematic places that needed
correction. So, there was not much difference in the two essays for this topic besides a
few changes in vocabulary.

Finally, the comments from the research log may provide additional information on
the effect of SCMC on revision. I have extracted only the comments that refer to the

essay drafts. These comments show how the participant made the revisions over time:

11/09/04 (after receiving the ﬁnal essay for Topicl): There is not much
change. The ﬁrst and the last paragraphs are almost the same. He did change
some part of the second paragraph, but the essay seems quite untouched. He
added one of his experiences as an example ------ but I don’t know why he
didn’t revise the unclear sentences in the ﬁrst and the last paragraphs. We
had talked about them for a while in the last conference.

11/18/04 (after receiving the ﬁnal essay for Topic2): He didn’t revise much,
but interestingly revised the places we had discussed in the last conference.
He didn’t do that the last time. But the revisions are the examples I gave him.

11/24/04 (after receiving the initial draft for Topic3): His essay has gotten
much better. There are still some minor grammatical errors, but he is giving
many more convincing examples and the overall organization looks more
stable. He used to give only one or two examples, but this time he gave three.

11/28/04 (after receiving the ﬁnal essay for Topic3): Revised most of the
places that we had talked about in the last conference but did not revise any
other places. There is not much change in the revised essay.

12/04/04 (after receiving the initial draft for Topic4): His essay has really

gotten better. He gave two examples about studying business management
and law. His grammar also seems to have gotten better.

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12/06/04 (after receiving the ﬁnal essay for Topic4): He revised all the places
that we had talked about last time. But interestingly for the ﬁrst time, he
added and revised some places that I didn’t even mention last time. He is
taking a much more active role in his writing process.

12/12/04 (after receiving the initial draft for Topic5): He wrote a good
introduction, which is longer than usual. Mainly focuses on exercising as a
way of reducing stress ------ He said he had trouble writing the body part of

the essay. He didn’t give other examples of relieving stress. He said he would
for the next draft.

12/13/04 (after receiving the ﬁnal essay for Topic5): He revised all the places
that we had talked about last time and also added two more examples of
relieving stress

12/17/04 (after receiving the initial draft for Topic6): The essay is short
compared to the previous ones and he only gives one example. But the
example is very strong. His conclusion seems to have gotten better.

Although these comments are my personal reﬂections on the essays, they show that the
participant made more and more revisions and took a much more active role in his
writing process as the study progressed. He was also becoming more active in the writing
conferences, bringing up the problems he had as he was writing and trying to initiate his
own corrections. Kim tried to improve the content and the organization of his essays by
giving speciﬁc examples from his life, and got better at doing this. Overall, his essays
seemed to have gotten better gradually.

The results reﬂect what Goldstein and Conrad (1990) found in their study. The
areas that were negotiated in the conference mostly ended up as revisions. The
conference did not, however, guarantee revision; Kim did not make revisions to all the

places that were brought up in the conferences and some of the sentence structures might

77

 

have been beyond his interlanguage and therefore caused trouble for him. Also, when
revision occurred after a conference, it was not necessarily successful; some of the
correction he made by himself were still incorrect. Furthermore, there were places in
which the participant used his own correction rather the one I had given him, and they
were the places where he had initiated the correction. Goldstein and Conrad argue that
negotiation of meaning doeshave its role in subsequent revision. Since SCMC provides
an interactive environment for learners in which negotiation of meaning takes place, it

has great potential as a tool for implementing writing conferences.

4.8 Interviews

The three-interviews were invaluable in obtaining background information about
the participant and his changing attitude toward both writing and SCMC. Much of the
information obtained from the pre-study interview is presented under the Participant
section of the Research Methodology chapter. The summary of witlrin- and post-study

interviews is provided below.

4.8.1 Within-study Interview

In the pre-study interview, Kim showed much anxiety about having online
conferences in English because he had never had any English online chatting experiences
before. Although he did have some trouble, he was getting much more comfortable
halfway through the study. To my question that asked whether or not chatting was helping
him at all, he replied “I think the chatting is helping me more”. At ﬁrst, I had worried

that doing the conferences through chatting would be difficult”. He also felt much more

 

23 He means “more than F2F communication”, although he did not have any F2F tutoring experience.

78

 

comfortable about writing: “Writing has become more comfortable because I get to write
more and practice a lot”.

The difﬁculties that he encountered while writing were grammar, choosing
appropriate words, and expressing himself in English. He also faced difficulty during the
conferences when he did not know how to revise the problematic places under discussion.
Having the opportunity to write regularly and discuss how to organize essays (e.g.,
writing an introductory and conclusion paragraph, thesis statement, transition words, etc.)
has helped him mostly. He says, “I was able to think about the topics easily. I didn’t know
how to write an introductory, a body, and a conclusion paragraph, but I think I know
now”. He also replied that chatting was a new experience for him and that it was easier

for him to communicate through chatting.

4.8.2 Post-study Interview

At ﬁrst, Kim did not know about saving the chat logs. He says that he tried to
remember what we discussed in the conferences and also used dictionaries to revise his
essays. Once he knew about it, he saved all the chat logs and used them for revising. He
says that he focused primarily on the chat logs, but also looked for other problematic
places by reading the essays over a few times.

Kim frequently mentions the longer processing time possible in SCMC as being
very beneﬁcial. He says that using SCMC allowed him to think for a longer time than
what would have been possible in F2F communication and that this helped him a lot.
Although relying solely on language without any gesture and other contextual clues gave
him some difficulty, he mentions that the longer processing time allowed him more

comprehensibility in the conversations. The conferences itself were also helpful to him.

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He says that he did not know anything about writing at the beginning of the study, but
learning about organizing essays and revising together through conferences have helped
him greatly with his writing. Furthermore, the chat logs were available for later use and
he actually tried to use some of the sentences in real speech.

Kim strongly asserts that using SCMC instead of F2F communication was the best
choice for improving his writing. Also, he says that the extra processing time helped him
to adapt faster to the conferences and interact more. He also points out that talking F2F in
English would have been uncomfortable and that although using Korean in SCMC would
have lessened the burden of communicating, it would not have brought about much
change in his writing. He now has less anxiety about writing in English and even feels
conﬁdent about the writing assignments given at school. Below are some excerpts of his

responses from the post-study interview:

“When I’m chatting I can think for a longer time. I think this is helping me
because I can think for a second time ------ Talking is easier than chatting-«m
but it’s easier to understand when you’re chatting. I had no problem
understanding you when we were chatting ------ I had a hard time deciding
how to write the essay for the ﬁrst topic, for example, organizing paragraphs.
But I learned as I kept writing and we talked about thesis statements and so
on. We also revised places together ------ It’s good that we did this through
chatting. You can use the sentences again since they can be saved. I try to use
some of the sentences when I talk ------ I think it was the best choice. When
you’re learning English, you have to think right away, but I was able to get
along faster because I could think for a longer time. Also, you only get to say
what you want in emails. But with MSN, you can talk with each other ------ It
would have been easier if we had chatted in Korean, but I don’t think the

change would have been this great”.

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5. CONCLUSION
5.1 Revisiting the Research Questions

The RQs for this study are:

1. How will one-on-one writing conferences using SCMC affect the development of
writing skills in terms of short- and long-term revision?

2. What is the participant’s attitude toward using SCMC as a tool for writing
development?

3. What are some of the observed advantages and disadvantages that can be found

in one-on-one writing conferences using SCMC?

RQI: How will one-on—one writing conferences using SCMC aﬂect the
development of writing skills in terms of short- and long-term revision? This question
was answered by analyzing the conferences, the revisions made in the essays, the two
teachers’ comments, the rankings from the four native speakers, and the research log. The
analyses show that using SCMC in one-on-one writing conferences can have positive
effects on short- and long- term revision. The participant revised most of the places that
were talked about in the conferences and used the chat logs as a primary resource for
revising. Although there were a lot of word-for- word “transfers” in his earlier essays, the
teachers’ comments show that these did help the essays. The revisions that the participant
made by himself in his later essays also helped the essays. Furthermore, all the native
speakers rate the ﬁnal essays as the better version for all six topics. These clearly show
that the conferences had positive effects on short-term revision. The conferences also

seemed to have had positive effects on long-term revision. It is diﬁicult to tell which set

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of essay is better by just looking at the essay rankings from the four native speakers.
However, the participant makes more and more revisions by himself in the later essays,
these revisions starting out as word level changes and ending up as sentential and
discourse level changes. The teachers’ comments show that these later changes also
helped the essays. In addition, the examples used in the later three essays are much better,
and the research log also shows the positive effects of the conferences on long-term
revision.

RQ2: What is the participants attitude toward using SCMC as a tool for writing
development? This question was answered by analyzing the three interviews with the
participant. At the beginning of the study, the participant showed anxiety about having
the conferences using SCMC. Also, he did not know much about organizing essays and
did not feel conﬁdent about writing. Halfway through the study, he felt much more
comfortable with both using SCMC and writing, and also thought that chatting was
actually helping him to write. He also mentioned that it was easier for him to
communicate through chatting and that the conferences helped him to organize his essays.
At the end of the study, the participant strongly stated that using SCMC in the
conferences was the best choice for him. He said that the extended processing time that
SCMC provides allowed him to adapt faster to the conferences, helped him write better,
and facilitated the comprehension of the dialogue exchanges that we had made. He also
mentioned that the discussion about organizing essays in the conferences helped him
greatly. Finally, he now feels conﬁdent about writing and expresses doubt as to whether
having the conferences F2F would have brought about similar changes in his writing. All
of these show the positive attitude of the participant toward using SCMC as a tool for
writing development.

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RQ3: What are some of the observed advantages and disadvantages that can be
found in one-on-one writing conferences using SCMC? The answers to RQ3 are my ﬁnal
evaluation of the present study and may be somewhat subjective. They are based on all
the analyses and observations that were made in the study. Since I have not addressed this
RQ yet, I will use the rest of this section to answer it. The study shows that there are both
advantages and disadvantages in using SCMC in one-on-one writing conferences. One
needs to realize, however, that comparing the advantages and disadvantages of using
SCMC to those of F 2F communication is less important. On the contrary, identifying the
learners’ needs and focusing on the different aspects of SCMC that can produce the
desired outcome is paramount.

The ﬁrst advantage of using SCMC in writing conferences is that SCMC provides
extended input and output processing time that can beneﬁt learners in many ways. The
participant frequently mentioned in the interviews how this beneﬁted him. The normal
turn-taking patterns are not observed in SCMC and there is no pressure on the
interlocutors to reply instantly. Therefore, using SCMC in writing conferences can help
learners better understand the dialogue exchanges and give them time to construct their
utterances before actually replying.

Second, using SCMC in writing conferences can provide learners with the chat
logs, which they can use later for revising. Much of the revision that the participant made
in this study actually had come from the chat logs. Not having to remember all the
discussions that took place in a conference, learners may use the additional attentional
resources to focus more on other broader issues. In his later essays, Kim revised most of
the places according to the chat logs, but also used the additional resource to make

greater changes at the discourse level. Also, learners can look back at the chat logs to

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have a thorough view of how they use their language for communicative purposes, which
may allow them to notice the gap between their interlanguage and the target language.

Third, having writing conferences using SCMC with learners who are less active
can provide them with a comfortable environment that can encourage them to become
active participants in the learning process. During the conferences, both the participant
and I soon became very comfortable with each other. In many cases, he was very active
and immediately corrected the problematic places that we were discussing. He even
initiated some of the negotiations. It seems that the absence of physical appearance in
SCMC allows the interlocutors to save face, and therefore creates a non-threatening
environment. This can solve the uneven authoritative roles given to tutors and tutees in
traditional F2F writing conferences.

Fourth, SCMC can ease the burden for the learners in the writing process. The
beauty of SCMC is that learners actually write (type) down what they are saying. This
has more pedagogical beneﬁts for the learners than may initially be apparent. The
foremost difﬁculty all learners face in writing is that they just cannot write down their
thoughts on paper. Hence, freewriting techniques are used more and more by teachers to
facilitate this process. By using SCMC, learners will have a much easier time writing
their drafts. The participant mentions in one of the interviews that chatting has actually
helped him to write better. Furthermore, there are many places in his ﬁnal essays in
which he uses the corrections that he made in the conferences.

Finally, using SCMC in writing conferences will free learners from the constraint
of time and space. In fact, most of our conferences were done late at night, and the
participant and I actually met F2F only three times during the study to do the three

interviews. Furthermore, SCMC will offer even more beneﬁts for EFL learners who do

84

 

 

not get enough of the interactions they need. Millions of people connect to the Internet
everyday to communicate with other people. The challenge lies in designing a
pedagogically appropriate cyber space in which learners can communicate with one
another freely. This will greatly beneﬁt EFL learners who rely mostly on school work for
exposure to the target language.

Along with the advantages, there are also disadvantages in using SCMC in writing
conferences. First, communication in SCMC seems to slow down due to the time
required to type the messages. For this reason, Beauvois (1992) has described SCMC as
“conversation in slow motion”. Fettered by this nature of SCMC, I was able to choose
only a few elements to discuss in each conference. This led to many unrepaired problems
in the essays. Also, I had planned to allow the participant to become aware of his
problems and ﬁx them, but gave him the correct forms frequently and told him to think
about them later. Due to the slowness of conversation, this was the result of my
attempting to cover as many errors as possible in one conference session. Therefore,
using SCMC in writing conferences to correct every grammatical error may not be
appropriate or feasible. The relative convenience of document referencing and the faster
speed of communication in F2F conferencing will be more helpful for this goal. On the
other hand, using SCMC to focus on the broader sentential and discourse level issues
may be appropriate.

Second, in SCMC, only the full utterances are shown on the screen. The
interlocutors cannot see each other ’3 message until one presses the “enter” key. The MSN
Messenger also follows this mechanism, but indicates who is typing at the moment. In
this study, there were many instances in which the participant was typing his message for

some time, but decided not to press the “enter” key and deleted the whole message.

85

 

Something interesting could have happened during the pause, which possibly could show
insights into how language works for learners. Since the ﬁnal messages are only visible
on the screen, there is no way to ﬁgure out how each interlocutor is interacting with
others. Also, there were times in which Kim had given me a correction or asked me a
question while I was typing out my message. In such cases, I was not able to notice what
he was saying. After receiving my message, he would reply to that message, leading me
not to answer the question he had asked.

Third, learners have only language resources to rely on in SCMC. Other contextual
clues that can help the comprehension of communication are absent in SCMC. Relying
solely on language to communicate can be burdensome to many learners when the focus
of communication is on meaning. In fact, all learners use gestures, facial expressions, and
other nonverbal based communication strategies to help them communicate better, and
this competence is included in the communicative competence that Canale and Swain
(1980) talks about. During the conferences, there were many instances in which there was
confusion due to the lack of these contextual clues. The participant also mentioned that
relying solely on language to communicate was difﬁcult.

Finally, the chat logs themselves have limitations that ensue from the nature of how
communication takes place in a SCMC context. They just show the outcome of the
interaction. They do not show the pauses, the intervals between each turn, overlapping,
etc., which may be crucial for understanding how communication takes place between the
interlocutors. By looking at the chat logs alone, it is difficult to picture how the actual

interaction took place. Using a usability lab with online videos may solve this problem.

86

5.2 Discussion

There are a few things that I would like to bring up here. First of all, a lot of places
that the participant revised were actually word for word from what was negotiated during
the conferences. A few places in the later essays included “transformations”. He
mentioned in the post-study interview that he had relied primarily on the chat logs for
revision. This may be a natural outcome for learners at the beginning or intermediate
level like Kim. The learners have the chat logs at their disposal and will be much likely to
use them to the fullest extent. In some cases, attempting to make other changes that were
not negotiated in the conferences may even lead to additional errors. This was what had
happened in the participant’s earlier drafts. However, the changes he made by himself in
the later essays did improve the essays. Having this in mind, teachers need to make sure
that they do not just give corrections in the conferences, but interact with students enough
and encourage them to make corrections on their own.

Second, the two teachers clearly comment on different aspects of writing. Teacherl
comments on language use as well as the organization and content of the essays. She
points to speciﬁc words, phrases, and sentences in the essays, and much of her comments
include speciﬁc examples of language usage. On the other hand, Teacher2 focuses mostly
on the overall organization and content of the essays, and looks at whether or not the
participant answers the question provided in the writing prompts. When commenting on
the use of language, she gives her general impression of it. After commenting, she gives a

caveat on the way she comments:

“I think because I’ve been teaching primarily native speakers, my focus has
often been on content and organization to the exclusion of language and I’m
realizing that as a teacher of ESL students that’s not appropriate. But I’m

87

 

trying to ﬁgure out where that balance is. And so it might be that my
comments are going to be much more focused on whether the student is
answering the question and the way that I feel like the organization works for
me as opposed to on the speciﬁc language.”

Third, Kim seems to be having constant problems with sentence fragments and the
use of nonreferential pronouns. Many native writers also make mistakes with the use of
nonreferential pronouns, whereas sentence fragments seem to be idiosyncratic in his
writing and typical of normative writers. Not surprisingly, Kim seems to be bringing in a
lot of knowledge from his native language. Korean has a complex case system that allows
ﬂexible word order and even sentence fragments to be grammatical and common. This
could be one of the many causes for his usage of sentence fragments in the essays. But it
is interesting that he is also making native English-like errors. Both teachers point out
that some places are not academically well written. Since Kim is attending an American
public high school now, he may be picking up informal speech from his peers and use
them in his writing.

Finally, it needs to be mentioned that only the ﬁrst conferences on each topic were
analyzed. The second conferences on each topic were used to wrap up the discussion on
each topic and talk about some of the remaining problems in the ﬁnal essays. The
participant did not write another revision essay that followed the second conferences. The
second conferences had no direct connection to the previous ﬁnal essays the participant
had written and therefore, were not analyzed. Originally, I had not planned to analyze the
revisions in the essays, but rather have native speakers of English rate the essays in terms
of overall quality and accuracy. My focus during the conferences was to provide the

participant with as much opportunity as possible to discuss some of the problems that

88

 

 

occurred in the essay via a text-based modality. That is why I had the second conferences
for each topic. Having the participant write another revision essay after the second
conferences and having the second conferences analyzed with regard to these essays
surely would have provided a better insight into how SCMC affected the short- and long-

terrn revision.

5.3 Limitations of Study and Implications for Further Research

There are some limitations of this study that also need to be mentioned. First of all,
although this study opts for a longitudinal qualitative case study design, the observational
period of the participant is too short to draw any conclusions about the eﬁ‘ects of SCMC
on the development of L2 writing skills. This study reports on the results based on the
observational period of three months. These results do not necessarily show the direct
effects of SCMC on writing, but describe the potential of SCMC for learners.
Nevertheless, based on my observation, I strongly believe that the consistent use of
SCMC for a longer period of time will have substantial positive effects on the
development of L2 writing skills.

Second, this study implemented the one-on-one writing conferences via SCMC.
Therefore, it is difﬁcult to say how much of the SCMC and the conferences actually
contributed to the essays. The analyses of the conferences, revisions, and the comments
from the two teachers tell us about how SCMC affects revision and do not necessarily tell
us how SCMC actually affects the development of writing skills. It is certain, though, that
the participant learned a lot about organizing essays through the conferences and revised
most of the places that were brought up in the conferences. He also mentions that doing

the conferences via SCMC was the best choice for him.

89

Third, the way that the conferences were held could have affected the results of the
essays. Although I have studied L2 writing and SCMC, I do not have any experience in
tutoring native or non-native learners to write. There were no set-up procedures for the
conferences, but I tried to carry out the conferences in a similar manner. An experienced
person may have structured the conferences differently and have had different results.
Furthermore, as I am a normative speaker of English myself, the participant did not
always receive the correct forms from me. While I was analyzing the chat logs, I realized
that I made a few grammatical errors in the conferences. Some of these errors, which
would not be salient to the learners in F2F (e.g., subject-verb agreement), might be so in
SCMC since all the utterances are shown on the screen. This rrright also have affected the
results. More studies should be done in the future to provide clear implications for
utilizing SCMC in writing conferences.

Fourth, some of the topics could have been more diﬂicult for the participant than
others. I chose the topics randomly from TWE and did not consider the ordering of them.
Some of the essay sets might not have shown improvement from the previous sets due to
this factor, and this factor could also have been the cause for the inconsistency in the
native speakers’ rankings. He did mention that Topic3 was “academic” and had a difficult
time writing it. He also said that he had difficulty writing the introductory paragraph for
T0pic6. Therefore, the topics may have affected the results

Finally, the limited amount of time that could be spent in each conference restricted
the number of places that could be discussed in the conferences. I did not go over all the
errors in every essay but chose a few places that I thought were relevant for discussion.
The two writing teachers also mentioned that there were many other places in the essays

that needed to be ﬁxed. The focus of this study was more on SCMC than on the writing

90

 

conferences. Therefore, I chose places that I could talk about with the participant and did
not necessarily try to correct all the errors. Although writing conferences can help
learners revise, it is the text-based medium of communication which SCMC provides that
was thought to have positive effects on developing writing skills.

It has been just over a decade that scholars and researchers have started to explore
the characteristics of SCMC and its implication for pedagogy. Much more study needs to
be done in this ﬁeld of inquiry to conﬁrm any advantages/disadvantages of SCMC
already mentioned and to ﬁnd out its ﬁrrther potential. An extension of this study can be
done to further assess how SCMC can foster writing skills and how to better utilize
SCMC in writing conferences. More studies need to be done to further explore how the
extended processing time that SCMC allows can beneﬁt the learners and in which ways
SCMC provides pushed output. Studies on usability labs can give us more insights into
how learners interact via SCMC. Most of all, future studies in SCMC need to identify
speciﬁc ways in which SCMC can fulﬁll the needs of the learners and the pedagogic
objectives that ensue.

One ﬁnal comment: The purpose of designing a qualitative case study was to better
understand what one participant goes through in his writing process. The focus of the
study was the learner, and not the teacher or the technology used to implement the one-
on-one online conferences. Language teachers and researchers should always put the
learners at the center stage when designing lessons or doing research. Whether or not
SCMC provides a better environment than the normal F2F communication is not
important. A signiﬁcant difference at the 0.5 level does not necessary show us that one
method is better than the other for all learners. The difference is statistically signiﬁcant

and we conclude that this difference is due to the treatment, all other things being equal.

91

 

 

But there is one variable that all language teachers and researchers must also consider:
the learner variable. Although a large sample size gives more reliability to the results, an
optimal language teaching and learning environment is better achieved with a lower
teacher-student ratio. Future research must focus on understanding the learners better

than just seeking beneﬁts of diﬂerent kinds of pedagogic methods.

92

APPENDIX

APPENDIX A

Instructions for Commenting

There are 6 sets of essays based on 6 topics chosen from the Test of Written English (TWE). Each
set consists of an initial draft and a ﬁnal essay, which are mixed randomly within each topic. The

order of the topics is also random.

1. Read the essays, topic by topic, and tape-record your comments on them.
You may make comments on the following:
(a) Overall quality (Why is one essay better than the other?)
(b) Overall organization (Is the essay well organized and developed?)
(c) Clarity of meaning (Is the writer clear about his intended meaning?)
((1) Use of detailed examples (Does the writer giver clear examples to support his
ideas?) ’
(e) Use of language (in terms of vocabulary use, sentence variety, and errors the writer
makes)
(f) Any other comments that highlight the writer’s strength and weakness in writing.
2. In doing so, take time to think about the essays ﬁrst (or take notes as you read) and m record
your comments later.

3. Focus on the essays within each topic and compare them.

 

4. After you have ﬁnished recording the comments, give rankings to the 6 sets of topics from
1(best) to 6(worst), according to the overall quality of the essays.

93

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