4. Results
4.6 Research Question Six…
4.6.1 The Comparison of Usefulness among Peer Editing Sheets,
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In short, these four participants all had positive attitude changes in the four categories, though sometimes their answers to the questionnaire didn’t always reflect their real attitude. Other than providing four categories, the questionnaire seemed a little redundant in data collection. The direct interviews proved to gather more
authentic and real responses from these participants. One thing worthy of note was the slight positive attitude change in the category of usefulness. This result was
predictable based on the fact that these four participants chose to be enrolled in this writing class. They must have believed that English writing could be useful; otherwise, they would have chosen another elective course instead.
4.6 Research Question 6: What other findings can be derived from this blog-mediated process writing class in term of the context of the classroom?
The context of blog-mediated process writing class also offered some interesting findings. Through the teacher’s logs and data gathered from the interviews, the researcher discussed the findings in terms of these six aspects: 1) the comparison of usefulness among peer editing sheets, checklists and journals, 2) the commenting function of the blog, 3) attitude toward errors, 4) the nature of blog-mediated writing class – workshop format, 5) the learner type, and 6) the writing process – re-reading and “thinking in English.”
4.6.1 The Comparison of Usefulness among Peer Editing Sheets, Checklists and Journals
To facilitate the process of making revisions, peer editing sheets, checklists and journals were provided. In R1, students needed to finish peer editing sheets, which helped them to revise the draft with the peer, and write a journal, in which they reflect on their writing process. To keep participants on the right track, checklists specifically
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designed to focus on content and organization were offered in R2 to help them find out what is missing in R1.
When asked about the importance and necessities of these three in this class, these participants’ opinions varied. Connie preferred journal over editing sheet, and the checklist couldn’t help her identify her content or organization problems. Tina agreed with Connie. Ice voted for checklist, which helped to spot content and organization problems, and journal, in which he documented his writing process.
Sherry seconded the value of checklist but disapproved the significance of journal.
When asked to choose the most indispensable, they chose journals without objection.
For Connie and Tina, a list of content and organization checkers on the checklist didn’t help them identify content and organization problems in their essays. For Ice and Sherry, the peer editing sheet was not functional because most of the time peers only helped them with surface changes, which they could easily fix without outside help.
All of them agreed that writing English journals helped them develop their writing ability. By answering these questions listed in the guideline to the journal, they reviewed their writing process again and hence making revisions became less difficult. All in all, they thought writing journals could be kept while the other two abolished. It seems that more explanation and training sessions are required if the peer review and checklist are to be incorporated into the writing class.
4.6. 2 The Commenting Function of the Blog
Chatting became the main function of commenting. The researcher informed these four participants to make revision-related comments on the blog, nevertheless, the commenting still went toward another direction: chatting. At first, some of them did offer revision-related suggestions. Before long, their comments were more like
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chatting, even though these comments did reveal the fact that they had read the essays.
Tina’s explanation might speak out what was on their mind. She thought it was not her position or found it inappropriate to pick out errors lest she should hurt her friends’ feelings. Her explanation just echoed the findings in a study conducted by Carson & Nelson (1994), which indicated that Chinese students were reluctant to criticize peers because of the specific culture.
When asked if they also made comments for someone from other classes, they said they did not do so because it was odd to talk to a stranger on the blog. Besides, the commenting gradually became one of their ways to talk to friends outside the class.
Sherry reported how she felt about commenting:
I find it fun to make comments. Their comments were made according to the content of our essays. So it’s not only casual chatting. It becomes a way of communication to help us express our opinions on others’ essays.
(From 2nd paired interview with Ice and Sherry, May 5, 2010)
Other than chatting, these comments still offered them some ideas of how to revise the content of essays. For example, one of his classmates asked Ice how he got his nickname in the comment. So, Ice decided to add a paragraph on his nickname in the essay of “What’s in my name.” Since blog could be accessible to everyone in the class, Sherry added a paragraph on her nickname as well. In short, it appears that commenting serves not only as a communication forum but also a source to get more ideas, which might be used in revisions.
4.6.3 Attitude toward Errors
Since L2 and EFL learners write for different purposes, their attitudes toward errors varied as well. Based on Barnett’s concept (1989) that too much red-pen correction might interrupt students’ flow of thought, process writing has deliberately
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overlooked errors to fit the spirit of stress on content over form (Badger & White, 2000). However, these four EFL learners believed that form should be as important as meaning. They argued that even though the content and organization were fine, people might still have problems understanding their essays if there were too many grammar and vocabulary errors. Writing in the L1 or L2 context may be seen as “a process of discovering meaning” while that in the EFL context is more academically oriented.
Tina’s narration depicted their attitude toward errors:
I count on the teacher to pick out errors for me, though I myself can also do that once in a while. At least the teacher should circle these errors. I guess I can fix them by myself. To me, it’s very important to correct these errors. I don’t mind if my drafts are full of red-penned marks. These marks don’t bother me at all. It’s an inevitable process. I won’t feel that my flow of thought is interrupted at all or I may lose my confidence in writing. These errors marked with UCI correction symbols are indispensable in correcting grammar and vocabulary mistakes. We want all of these four categories covered. Otherwise, people won’t be able to understand what I want to express in my writing.”
(From the 2nd paired interview with Connie and Tina, May 11th, 2010)
However, when asked what suggestions they would like the teacher to offer on their essays, they all responded that it had better be related to the content and organization. A possible explanation is that they need more guidance on content and organization than on grammar and vocabulary, both of which they can easily acquire in a regular writing class. Apparently, these students who used to focus on form were starting to shift their focus on meaning instead. This focus shift to meaning was another significant finding to these EFL learners, who have received English education emphasizing form over the meaning.
4.6.4 The Nature of Blog-mediated Writing Class - Workshop Format
Given that many variables interacted with each other in this class, the differences
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between a regular writing class and this blog-mediated process writing class were also enquired in the interviews to clarify the nature of blog-mediated writing class. They all agreed that there were many striking differences between these two. For the convenience of comparison, these differences are listed in Table 4.10.
Table 4.10 Regular Class vs. blog-mediated Process Writing Class
Regular Writing class Blog-mediated Process Writing Class Time limit 20-30 minutes one hour
Activity individual collaborative or individual
Resources none many
Revision none or one many
Error corrected marked
Form paper paper or online
Comments few many
Audience the teacher the whole class
Designed in the workshop format, the blog-mediated process writing class presented many advantages. At the beginning of the class, the teacher offered a topic or instruction on the content and organization. For the rest of time, students chose to work individually or interactively. Most important of all, students became active learners while fixing errors or doing class activities.
Once the essays were posted online, the audience was expanded from the teacher to the whole class and thus the opportunity of interaction increased and more
comments poured in. The following excerpts of the interviews with these four participants gave many concrete differences between these two kinds of classes.
In a regular class, we just write according to picture prompts or guidance lines, but in this class, we have more resources. I can also discuss with classmates more often and the time for writing is longer. And we need to do several revisions in this class.
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(Interview with Connie on May 4th, 2010)
We have more resources in this class because we have this class in the computer lab. We have easy access to online resources and we also have time discussing with classmates and reading more essays.
(Interview with Tina on May 4th, 2010)
In a regular class, I write one draft with one revision and then get my grade. After that, I just leave it behind. But in process writing, I have to do multiple revisions which make me think of more ideas to perfect my revisions.
(Interview with Sherry on April 27th May 5, 2010)
In a regular class, I only copy down the teacher’s corrections. I won’t read it over and over again. The process writing makes me think more.
(Interview with Ice on April 27th May 5, 2010)
When asked if the process writing eventually helped them in the regular writing class, they all offered an affirmative answer. Three of them, except for Sherry, applied the ideas they had come up with in the process writing class to the regular English class even though the topics were different. They believed that their essays became more organized because they gradually developed the habit of doing brainstorming before writing. If time permitted, they might as well write one topic sentence for each paragraph. And their responses once again confirmed the finding on the first research question in which students writing ability improved in content the most.
4.6.5 The Learner Types
Gender differences and personality traits may also determine what type of learners these four participants were. It seems that the females preferred collaboration while the males only favored the solitary study. When asked if they discussed with
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peers in the peer review, three female participants said they often did so, but Ice, the only male student, provided a negative answer because he preferred to solve problems by himself. He also believed that the checklist was more useful than peer editing sheet concerning the content and organization problems. On the contrary, these female students were more likely to solve problems by collaborating or interacting with peers.
It appears that the gender difference determines what strategies they would take when they encountered problems. Gender difference also decided what features these participants’ essays had. Although Ice was the only students who didn’t go to cram school, his essays were best of all because of his strong ability in organization. The reason why he had a stronger organization skill deserved a further study, but it is generally believed that men were more inclined to be logical and organized.
Different personality trait also decided what measure they took if they were facing problems beyond their capacity. When asked if they would turn to the teacher for help, they said they could if they had to. In Taiwan, the teacher is still regarded as the sole authority in the classroom, and it is more and more common that students behave well but seldom ask the teacher any questions in class. Nevertheless, Tina presented a different perspective on this matter. She admitted that, instead of asking for the teacher for answers, she preferred to solve problems by herself or through discussion with others. Tina believed the way of searching for possible solutions without the teacher’s help was another form of learning. Here is the excerpt from the interview:
I prefer finding possible solutions by myself. If I come up with the answer, I will remember it longer. The answer I have sought for will be more likely to become part of my knowledge. If the teacher just tells me the answer, I will forget it very soon. Even though sometimes I don’t come across the right answer, it’s fine with me. Finding solutions is another form of training. I still benefit a lot from the process. Asking for the teacher’s help is a way to learn, but finding a solution by myself is still another way. There is no right or wrong here.
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(From the 1st paired interview with Connie & Tina, May 4th, 2010)
Clearly, Tina and Ice were more independent learners, who preferred to take things into their own hands, while the other two were more like cooperative learners, who liked to get outside help. Their personality trait determined how they developed their individual writing process in this writing class.
From the researcher’s observation, these four participants also had some other features that made them different from each other. Connie was the hardworking type because she always spent long hour working on revision. Tina seemed absent-minded, but she had her own perspective on learning. Sherry saw writing as a fun thing
because she never got tired of making revisions. Contrary to these girl students, Ice didn’t’ have such enthusiasm for English. He took this course out of pragmatic purpose. Unlike these three girls, who also took English classes or write English essays in cram school, Ice only received English education at school. Besides, Ice was not so willing to spend more time studying English as these three girls, so he never wrote outside the school. Ironically, his essays were often the best of all because he was so good at content and organization that his essays were very logical. It appears that enthusiasm doesn’t guarantee the success in this writing class. Some were born writers, while others might only make limited progress.
4.6.6 The Writing Process
Concerning the thinking progress, two matters will be covered: whether participants re-read what they had written while drafting and the new “thinking in English.”
Raimes (1985) found that writers often re-read their drafts to try out possible ideas. Re-reading what they had written was seen as a way of “paying attention to
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what is still vague and unclear (Perl, 1984). In this study, whether these four
participants would re-read what they had written was investigated. When asked if they often re-read their draft while writing, all of them gave a positive answer except Sherry. When asked why, Ice and the other two girls said that they re-read in order to make sure the next sentence was closely connected with the previous one. Instead, Sherry seldom re-read what she had written. Different from others, she read old essays on the blog for inspiration if she had problems thinking up the next sentence.
The habit of re-reading explained why Ice’s essays were well-organized while Sherry’s were rich in content but loose in structure.
One last thing worthy of note is the new emergence of “thinking in English.”
Leki (1990) summarized that “the shifting to L1 can be a very useful strategy for generating ideas and stimulating more complex thinking in L2.” When asked if they translated ideas from L1 to L2, they admitted that they did think up the content in Chinese first and translated their thoughts into English later. However, in the middle of the semester, the percentage of translation decreased but thinking in English increased. The percentages of “thinking in English” in these participants were said to range from 30-50% respectively. It is suggested that the new “thinking in English”
results from the constant writing practice and large exposure to English content. With a large amount of vocabulary input through extensive readings in regular English classes and the constant writing practice in this class, it seems that the second language acquisition was starting to be internalized and integrated in their mind.
However, a further study is still needed to verify which acting factor brings “thinking in English” into play.
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CHAPTER FIVE DISCUSSION
This study discovered a series of findings by answering the six research questions. Basically structured on the major findings in Chapter Four, the chapter is divided into four sections. First, the findings are summarized and discussed, and then the pedagogical implications are provided. Later, the limitations of this study and recommendations for further studies are also discussed.
5. 1 Summary of the Findings and Discussion
The blog-mediated process writing class was mainly instructed through the process writing model (pre-writing, drafting, revising/editing and publishing), coupled with process writing related activities or tools (brainstorming, self-reflection journal, peer review and portfolio) in the mediation of blog. Based on the abundance of data gathered from the blog-mediated process writing class, this case study investigated the following: 1) types of changes these students made in the multiple revisions in the blog-mediated process writing class, 2) how these four EFL 12th graders developed their writing ability in a semester-long blog-mediated process writing class, 3) how the blog helped them in each step of process writing model, 4) what the challenges they faced and what teacher support they would need, 5) their attitude toward writing, and 6) other findings derived from the blog-mediated process writing class in term of the context.
5.1.1 Research Question One
From the revision analysis, this researcher came up with the two following
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findings: the tendency to decrease and the revision preference. First, the tendency to decrease showed which revision was the center of attention. For example, a sharp drop in the tendency to decrease between two revisions showed that the writer’s attention decreased as the number of revision increased. To be more specifically, these four participants made the most changes in R1, less changes in R2 and the least changes in R3. Moreover, the tendency to decrease in the multiple revisions also implied how many revisions were tolerable to these EFL writers. Second, the revision preference divided them into two types of writers: bold writers and conservative writers. Bold writers preferred making changes in the four categories while conservative writers favored making surface or stylistic changes.
The finding concerning the tendency to decrease in the multiple revisions seemed to be quite contrary to Yagelski’s finding that his L1 writers made more changes in R2 than in R1. However, the difference between the two studies required a closer examination. In Yagelski’s study, R1 was made according to the peers’
feedback while R2 was made based on the teacher’s feedback. Since students tended
feedback while R2 was made based on the teacher’s feedback. Since students tended