Fostering Learner Autonomy Through Empowering Students in EFL Writing

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Fostering Learner Autonomy Through

Empowering Students in EFL Writing

Karen Chung-chien Chang

National Taipei University [email protected]

Abstract

In most EFL countries, teaching composition has remained a challenging area for teachers due to the heavy workload associated with grading students’ work, and students’ lack of interest and readiness in developing their writing skills. This paper reports on a study that investigated how some new components of a writing course could foster a higher level of learner autonomy among the participating students. The research design focused on giving the locus of control to students so that they could choose topics of their own interest for their essays throughout the two semesters of the writing course. In addition, a process-oriented approach (involving three drafts) was adopted to help students learn how to improve their writing. For each assignment, comprehensive electronic feedback was provided to guide students in revising their essays. The students would turn in the first two drafts for comments and the last draft for a grade. All three aspects (freedom in making writing choices, electronic feedback and the multi-drafting process) were designed to determine if students could learn to take more responsibility in becoming better writers. The data in this study included the drafts of each assignment, a survey on learning attitudes and outcomes, and interviews. Results showed that students took more responsibility for their own learning, invested more time and effort in information collection and revision on the topics of their own choice, and improved their writing performance in terms of both longer word counts and richer content. It is concluded that to foster autonomy in EFL students, both student empowerment and teacher feedback are essential components in the writing course design. Key Words: learner autonomy, process-oriented approach, electronic

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INTRODUCTION

The study of learner autonomy originated in the West with explicitly political goals to “insist on the need to develop the individual’s freedom by developing those abilities which will enable him to act more responsibly in running the affairs of the society in which he lives” (Holec, 1981, p. 1). Over the past three decades, the concept has been further researched by scholars in different countries and learning systems. One line of argument has focused on whether such a concept is unique to westerners only. More specifically, many researchers have focused on whether learner autonomy can be promoted in Asia where most cultures are of a collectivist nature (Chan, 2001; Jin & Cortazzi, 1993). For example, Pierson (1996) described students in Hong Kong as dependent, reticent and passive, and Biggs (1991) found that students in Hong Kong favored rote learning over creating learning, were highly dependent on the syllabus, and lacked intellectual initiative. Although quite a few studies have explored the development of learner autonomy in Taiwan, the focus has not been placed on how this factor manifests itself in EFL writing. Therefore, this current project aimed to build a writing course with a strong emphasis on student empowerment and involvement and examines how having some locus of control could assist students in taking a more active role and becoming more autonomous in the EFL writing context.

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LITERATURE REVIEW

This literature review first distinguishes learner autonomy and self-directed learning and narrows its focus on the development of learner autonomy in the Taiwanese context. Although both terms put an emphasis on learners, they each have specific features and scopes. To explain the concept of learner autonomy, Holec (1981, p. 3) provided the classic definition of this term and described autonomy as “the ability to take charge of one’s own learning.” One central idea in this definition is the concept of knowing how to learn. Pemberton, Li, Or, and Pierson (1996, p. 3) also highlighted that Holec viewed autonomy “as an ability or capacity that needs to be acquired” and “as separate from the learning that may take place when autonomy is being or has been acquired” (this learning is labeled by Holec as

self-directed learning). Self-self-directed learning is defined as both the

process of and the techniques used in directing one’s learning and the change of consciousness resulting from such learning (Brookfield, 1985). What can be synthesized from the features of these two concepts is that autonomy is a capacity and self-directed learning is an approach in which learning is carried out.

What needs to be examined further is how the concept of autonomy manifests itself in real practice. When considering the level or degree of autonomy in real practice, Little (1991, p. 5) emphasized that “the freedoms conferred by autonomy are never absolute, always conditional and constrained” because all humans share the essential need to interact with others. Benson and Voller (1997) suggested that autonomy in EFL learning entails the concepts of rights, skills, exercise, and situations. Learners have the right to determine the 41

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direction of their learning; they should learn and apply certain skills in self-directed learning, exercise their sense of responsibility for their learning, and be supplied with situations in which they study completely on their own.

However, realizing that Asian teachers and students seem unfamiliar with the notion of autonomous learning, Littlewood (1999) proposed two levels of learner autonomy: proactive and reactive. In proactive autonomy, learners are able to take charge of their own learning, determine their own goals, select their own methods, and evaluate their learning results. Then in reactive autonomy, learners do not create their own directions, but once a direction has been identified, learners organize their own resources autonomously in order to reach their goals. Since autonomy, whether proactive or reactive, is not something that teachers can simply hand over to students, this concept needs to be developed within students by themselves.

This study was grounded in reactive autonomy and aimed at investigating how students in a writing course exercised their freedom of choice, determined the level of investment, and changed their learning habits. To help students cultivate reactive autonomy, they need to know the details of course direction and expectations. For this study, although the students in this study did not choose the direction of their learning, they needed to understand why they were asked to complete certain learning tasks. Sinclair advised that, for a learner-training task to be successfully implemented, the learners should know “it is a learner-training task” and understand “its general significance in the scheme of the course” (Sinclair, 1996, p. 153). The rationale was that if learners did not know in advance which aspect of 42

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a course to focus on, they may “regard the time spent on such activities as time wasted” (Sinclair, 1996, p. 153). Moreover, Reeve indicated when teachers provided students who encountered an uninteresting lesson with a convincing and satisfying rationale (from the students’ view), students would understand why they were asked to “invest their attention and effort” (Reeve, 2006, p. 230) in the requested activity. Clearly, when a writing course requires students to invest time in revision, quite a time-consuming task, they should be informed of the aims of such an activity. The instructor should also explain the importance of the multi-drafting process. When the students become receptive to the idea of multiple revisions, how they manage and arrange their resources to meet this requirement may shed light on their development of reactive autonomy.

Past Studies of Learner Autonomy in Taiwan

Although Taiwanese scholars have shown interest in exploring and developing learner autonomy, most effort has been invested in self-directed learning, revealing the scarcity of evidence for cultivating learner autonomy in writing. Among the studies, many have applied Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) to promote learner autonomy. The model proposed by Y. N. Yu (2003) involved a task-based learning syllabus, strategy-based instruction and computer-mediated communication. Additionally, in C. F. Yu’s (2005) experiment, she established a multimedia website as a self-directed learning resource. However, that study did not generate positive outcomes as most of the students only used the website to complete the course-required activities. Therefore, C. F. Yu (2005) suggested that more online activities be incorporated into the course 43

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design and students’ preferences about on-line learning resources be taken into consideration to pave the way for autonomous learning. Besides, Wang’s (2006) study conducted in a CALL center indicated students’ self-reported improvement in listening, vocabulary, speaking, and reading. H. Y. Lo (2007) examined how students became self-directed learners through undertaking the assignments of collecting information online and found more than 50% of the students demonstrated an increase in vocabulary. With a teacher-driven agenda and a set of mandated course activities, Cheng’s (2007) study showed that the required outside-class learning activities were helpful in strengthening EFL university students’ learning motivation and fostering autonomy. In Chang’s (2007) study, the researcher had two groups of students: one learning in a semi-autonomous learning approach and the other in the traditional structural teaching approach. The results indicated that the experimental group made more progress in areas such as listening, reading and vocabulary. Chen, Chen, and Lee (2008) attempted to cultivate autonomy in young EFL learners through Internet-assisted language teaching (InALT) and found that the students displayed a significant gain in vocabulary and perceived the InALT instructional approach as helpful and interesting. Most recently, Chu (2011) investigated university students’ use of an online English program, and the results indicated that 40% of the students developed a higher degree of autonomy. They seemed to demonstrate the following characteristics: stronger motivation in English learning, greater awareness of the need to form a habit of actively practicing English online, more willingness to practice the materials of other levels, and more frequent use of online English programs in their free time.

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In Taiwan, only a few studies carried out in the field of learner autonomy are related to writing. Y. Yu’s (2000) review of conventional practices of a writing class highlighted the barriers to the development of learner autonomy in the traditional writing curriculum. According to Yu, in a writing class, a teacher is responsible for assigning grades and correcting students’ writing. With this traditional role, teachers are in total control of all the decisions, and students are left with little freedom to make choices, let alone to take charge of their own learning. Trying to change this traditional mode, several researchers have incorporated different strategies and components into their writing courses with the aim of encouraging students to be more autonomous. For example, C. F. Yu (2003) looked at students’ writing of emails and short summaries of their learning experience. Her results showed that students felt positive about expressing themselves in these two formats, and their level of motivation was positively correlated with the amount of class interaction. In addition, Lan and Wang (2007) examined the effects of an English writing portfolio project on the attitudes and achievements of writing among junior college students. Their findings showed that writing portfolios had positive effects on motivating students to write and enhancing their writing achievement. Also, S. C. Lo (2007) investigated how high school students were encouraged by the use of writing portfolios to become more active in their learning. The results revealed that portfolio assessment enabled the students (1) to become confident in shouldering the responsibility for their own learning, (2) to assess their writing, (3) to feel empowered in making choices, and (4) to think critically and independently. This research also highlighted the importance of a sound relationship between the

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teacher and the students, for example, through mini teacher-student conferences during which teachers enhanced their understanding of the needs of the students.

What can be concluded is that the previous studies have focused on either using email writing to encourage students’ engagement or adopting portfolio assessment for facilitating student empowerment and self-assessment. However, no studies have been conducted regarding how injecting new elements into a traditional writing course can help the development of learner autonomy. The present study set out to bridge this gap and discover whether new course components, namely the empowerment of students in choosing topics, the use of comprehensive electronic feedback, and multiple drafting, can help students to become autonomous learners in their writing class.

THE STUDY

Background of the Study and Research Question

This study was designed to discover how a writing course with three features (freedom in choosing their own writing topics, electronic feedback provision, and a multi-drafting process) could help foster student autonomy in writing. This section will introduce the old course design first, followed by the revised course design and the research question.

The course, Advanced Grammar and Guided Writing, is offered to all freshmen for two semesters at the foreign language department where this study was carried out. Typically, this course is offered two hours a week and the instructors need to cover both grammar and 46

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writing in the instructional hours. Even though the course instructors (usually four of them) are well aware of the difficulty in covering the syllabus in two hours, the curriculum has been in place for more than 10 years. The institutional expectations state that students are to produce four to six pieces of writing per semester (eight to 12 pieces in one academic year), and each composition should at least be 300 words in length. However, no specific approach to feedback provision or the number of drafts is mandated by the department. The instructors are, to some extent, allowed some flexibility in how much they want to accomplish in two semesters. In an 18-week semester, the biggest challenge for teachers is how to motivate their students to shoulder more responsibility and play a more active role in their learning so that the institutional requirement can be met.

This researcher, also one of the course instructors, was keenly aware of the insufficient time for course instruction and the difficulty in covering all the grammar and writing objectives in a two-hour class. In modifying the writing course, the instructor followed the institutional requirement of having students produce four to six assignments per semester. The new course design incorporated three major features. First, students were allowed to choose their own writing topics. This element aimed at both encouraging a higher level of student involvement and empowering them to gain more control in their learning. Moreover, it was hoped that, in the process of selecting topics, students would learn to examine the suitability of their topics to the genres they would be studying, and when the topics were chosen with a higher level of personal interest, the students might demonstrate a higher level of engagement in learning how to write.

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The second part of this modified course design was the provision of electronic feedback. The instructor made use of Comments, a Microsoft Word application, to highlight the weaknesses and problematic areas in the students’ essays. Electronic feedback was provided for two reasons. First, the students in this study were expected to revise their essays. To fulfill this expectation, the students must be supplied with sufficient suggestions and feedback to guide them in the revision process. Second, the choice of using electronic feedback for comments was to offer students better readability for comprehension as well as more detailed explanation. In the department where this study was carried out, most writing instructors still provided students with handwritten comments or simple underlines. Although handwritten comments were helpful, some students expressed difficulty in understanding their instructors’ handwriting. In addition, many of the students whose drafts were marked with underlines didn’t know what was wrong with the underlined text.1 To address these two concerns, this researcher chose to use electronic feedback to draw students’ attention to the weak areas in their writing. Electronic feedback, covering issues such as grammar, mechanics, essay structure and organization, was consistently provided to pave the way for the responsibility for learning to be gradually transferred to the students.

Third, a process-oriented approach was incorporated in the modified course design. The adoption of a multi-drafting process aimed at training students to become better writers through a process

1_{Although these issues were not specifically investigated in this study, these two}

difficulties were shared by students in their regular meetings with their mentor teachers.

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of continuously improving the quality of their writing. For each writing assignment, the students would turn in three drafts. In the first draft, the students received feedback primarily on essay structure and organization to ensure their understanding of the learned genres. Also, at this stage, the instructor provided the students with suggestions to enrich their essay content. For example, a student might have been advised to provide an example to illustrate his/her point. Next, the focus of feedback on the second draft was shifted to grammar and mechanics as the content of the second draft was expected to be more solid.

Based on the aforementioned modifications to the original course design, this study attempted to answer the research question: How do the main features of the new course design (allowing the students to choose their own writing topics, providing the students with specific electronic feedback, and a multiple-drafting process) affect students’ writing performance and involvement (in terms of autonomy) in the writing course? Writing performance in this study was measured in terms of both word count and improvements in the content. The former focused on students’ ability in developing their ideas further based on the feedback and comments received whereas the latter examined both essay content and structure/organization. For essay content and structure/organization, the students were expected to demonstrate their knowledge about the learned genres as well as rhetorical strategies. Moreover, in examining the level of student involvement, this study explored the records of assignment submission, the students’ strategies for time management in completing drafts, and their handling of feedback for revision.

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Participants

The participants were 14 freshmen students at a public university in northern Taiwan. Among these students, three were male and 11 were female. The students were English majors, indicating they might have stronger motivation in improving their overall English proficiency. Before this group of 14 students entered university, some of them had taken the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT) at different levels or the Test of English as a Foreign Language Internet-based test (TOEFL iBT). The GEPT is a test established in July 2002 in Taiwan. Appendix A offers the alignment references between the GEPT and other tests (Wu & Wu, 2010).

To better understand the proficiency levels of the 14 students in this study, all their previous test scores were interpreted in terms of the TOEFL iBT equivalent scores. These can be found in Table 1.

Table 1

Students’ English Proficiency Levels

Participating

students Three males and 11 females GEPT

intermediate intermediate GEPT high- advancedGEPT No record

Number of students 7 1 1 5

Equivalent TOEFL

iBT score 79 92 100

Among these 14 students, the one with the highest test record spent her elementary and junior high years in the U.S., demonstrating a much higher level of English fluency compared to her peers. Another seven students pointed out that they had taken the GEPT-50

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Intermediate test at least one and a half years before they entered university; two had even passed the test three to four years before entering university.

Data Collection and Analysis

The data collection of this study consisted of three parts: students’ writing samples (word counts of their first and final drafts, reduction in the totals of feedback received on the two drafts, and grades), a learning survey, and interviews. For the writing samples, both the length and the quality of the revised drafts were examined. First, the word counts of the 12 assignments for each student were tallied and plotted into line graphs to show their improvement. The word count for each ungraded draft was calculated by the built-in Word Count function of Microsoft Word. Second, to make sure the students did not just write more words but also composed quality content, the first and final drafts of Assignment 2 and Assignment 11 were selected to illustrate students’ improvement in essay quality. Between the first and final drafts of these two assignments, the students showed a great reduction in the amount of feedback/commentary received. Third, the first and final drafts of all assignments were read by two instructors (the researcher and a writing instructor2 at another institute) to verify the quality of the content. The evaluation of the drafts was based on a pre-designed rubric that emphasized structure, content, and grammatical accuracy. The component of “structure” evaluated students’ grasp of the

2_{This instructor has earned a master’s degree in TESOL and has been teaching for}

at least four years. She teaches writing regularly and her students are freshmen in a foreign language department.

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structure of the target genres; “content” reflected the improvement and richness of essay details; “grammatical accuracy” was evaluated based on what the students had learned in the grammar portion of the course. The percentages for these three aspects were 30%, 40%, and 30% respectively.

The second data collection tool was a learning survey. The survey included 16 questions that asked the students to mark their responses on a 5-point Likert Scale, with 1 as Strongly Disagree and 5 as Strongly Agree. These 16 questions covered two major components of this course design (freedom in choosing writing topics and feedback for revision) and the issue of teacher dependence (see Appendix B). In the first question, the students were asked to evaluate their experience in this EFL writing class. The following three questions (Questions two to four) explored how students responded to the choice of selecting their own topics and whether this freedom affected their likelihood in allotting more time for conducting research as well as collecting information. Then the students were asked if they regularly set aside time for the weekly revision of their essays. The purpose of this question was to find out if students allotted time to improve their writing. The second category of questions focused on the specificity of feedback and comments provided by the instructor. The students were asked to evaluate if the feedback was specific and whether the comments/feedback helped them understand the weaknesses in their essays. The underlying rationale was that the more specific the feedback and comments were, the better the students would know how to revise their essays. Consequently, when the students knew the necessary changes they needed to make to improve their writing, they displayed less 52

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dependence on the teacher thereby fostering learner autonomy. Finally, the last category of questions attempted to find out how students viewed themselves in terms of taking the initiative as well as the responsibility in their learning. The responses to these questions would aid the researcher’s understanding of the development of autonomy among these students.

The Pearson correlation test was chosen to identify if significance could be established between factors such as the freedom in topic choice and the investment of time and effort in collecting information and revising essays or the understanding of instructor’s feedback and the effort made in the revision process. Moreover, to understand if specific feedback would encourage students to work on their own (a feature of an autonomous learner), open-ended questions were asked as well. To determine if students knew how to manage their time for revision purposes, a question was also asked regarding how students managed their time to meet deadlines.

Lastly, individual interviews were conducted to gain a better insight into what these students gained in this year-long grammar and writing course. Interviews were conducted by the researcher and focused on five questions (two major ones and three follow-up ones, see Appendix C) to explore how students viewed the instructor’s feedback, in particular, its impact on their revision effort and quality, and how students managed their time for assignment submission. Five students volunteered to participate in the interviews, and they were asked to describe in detail how they allotted time for assignment completion and how teacher feedback affected their revision. The answers were presented to shed light on the students’ development of autonomy.

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RESEARCH FINDINGS

Insights from Changes in Essay Length

The students in this course were informed that their writing assignments should meet a minimum of 300 words in length. However, no maximum word count was imposed, for the purpose was to encourage students to fully express their ideas. One initial observation indicated that all students in this study surpassed the requirement set by the department. Moreover, throughout the two semesters of this research project, the students showed a capability to incorporate the instructor’s feedback into their drafts, leading to improvements in their writing. The word counts of drafts were tallied and learning graphs were plotted to see how students’ learning had developed. The students were coded into students one to 14 and their assignments were coded into assignments one to 12. An overall trend that could be concluded from students’ year-long learning was that all students demonstrated the ability to compose longer essays. The analysis focused on two aspects: the improvement between the first and the final draft of each assignment and the improvement throughout the 12 assignments in the two semesters. First, all 14 students were able to revise their essays to a greater length. In a total of 168 revisions submitted (12 assignments for 14 students), only 17 revised works (10%) showed a slight decrease in the word count. In other words, 90% of the revised essays were longer, indicating that the students were able to make use of the revision process to increase the length of their essays. Second, over the course of the two semesters, the students gradually learned to write longer essays. Take the first drafts of the 12 assignments for example. Ten out of fourteen 54

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(10/14) students showed an increase in essay length by 250 words or more.3 A similar trend was also found in the final drafts. Twelve out of fourteen students were able to increase their essay length by 250 words or more.4 The line graphs plotted in Appendix D clearly indicate the students’ improvement in these aspects over the two semesters.

Naturally, word counts could not be directly interpreted as a sign for improved writing ability among students. Therefore, the entire set of first drafts and final drafts (a total of 336 essays) was evaluated by the two instructors. The purpose was to verify if the content, structure and accuracy of the essays met the rubric criteria to earn the assigned grades. With the aid of the rubric, the two evaluators were able to reach 90.3% of inter-rater reliability in determining the progress of these students.

Insights from the Writing Samples

Although word counts could not exactly represent students’ improvement in their writing ability, this tool did show that the students were willing to challenge themselves by putting in more time and effort to elaborate on the content of their compositions.5 Content analysis by both evaluators showed improvement in the solidness and soundness of the essay content, demonstrated by the coherence between ideas and supporting details. More specifically, the

3_{Four of these 10 students even demonstrated a significant increase of more than}

350 words.

4_{Six of these 12 students showed a significant increase of more than 350 words.} 5_{These students were aware that the institutional requirement was 300 words per}

assignment and most classmates in other classes were doing paragraph writing instead of essay writing in the two semesters.

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improvement in content and essay length between the first and final drafts suggested that a process-oriented approach with an emphasis on feedback might have encouraged the learners to revise their writing. In particular, the learning graphs of Students one, three, five, six, nine and 14 (see Appendix D) demonstrated a more distinguishing increase in word counts in the final drafts submitted in the second semester (see the graphs of Essays seven to 12). For other students, the increased lengths could also serve as an indicator of students’ effort in revision.

In this multi-drafting process, the students earned grades only on their third and final drafts but received feedback/comments on all three drafts. Consequently, a comparison between the problematic areas pointed out in these two drafts could serve as an indicator of how students improved as a result of feedback from the instructor. Table 2 compares Assignment 2 (in the first semester) and Assignment 116 (in the second semester) of these 14 students to show the amount of reduction in feedback received between the two drafts. The results revealed that the students made great efforts to address the feedback received in their first drafts. Their success could be concluded from the greatly reduced amount of feedback received in their final drafts. Such improvement also illustrated student engagement in revision, an autonomous decision of learners.

6_{The reason for not choosing Assignment 1 was that most students experienced}

unfamiliarity with feedback and revision in their first assignment. Moreover, Assignment 12 was not selected because its first draft was administered as the final exam of that semester.

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Table 2

Feedback/Comment Reduction in the First and Final Drafts of Assignment 2 and Assignment 11

Amount of feedback/

comments received S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8 S9 S10 S11 S12 S13 S14

Feedback Totals in the Drafts of Assignment 2

First draft 44 33 29 26 38 40 45 41 28 37 37 21 22 27

Final draft 18 6 17 6 21 19 11 18 23 16 14 4 11 13

Reduction in amount 26 27 12 20 17 21 34 23 5 21 23 17 11 14

Feedback Totals in the Drafts of Assignment 11

First draft 47 56 119 37 79 73 109 74 30 86 61 45 48 57

Final draft 19 8 31 2 33 17 22 15 15 13 23 9 4 19

Reduction in amount 28 48 88 35 46 56 87 59 15 73 38 36 44 38

Findings from Survey Questions

The first positive outcome from this survey indicated that 86% of the students (twelve out of fourteen) enjoyed this EFL writing class (see Figure 1), a result not often found in Taiwanese college settings. Dibello (2003) pointed out that the fear of writing in English was widespread in Taiwan. For many writing instructors, one common difficulty is how to encourage their students to take an interest in writing.

Though the learning survey contained 16 questions, the results obtained from SPSS showed more significant correlations among the following 10 questions. Therefore, to focus on the explanation of the significant correlations, the following questions were selected.

1. I enjoyed English composition in my first year of college (VAR01).

2. I liked choosing my own topics for different writing projects (VAR02).

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Figure 1

Students’ Perceptions of the EFL Writing Class

3. I felt a stronger sense of freedom when I could choose my own topics (VAR03).

4. I am more likely to invest more time on researching a topic of my own choice (VAR04).

5. I set aside the time for essay revision each week (VAR08). 6. The comments are specific for me to revise my essays

(VAR10).

7. Looking back to my first year of English composition, I feel that I took the initiative in making my writing better (VAR13).

8. I believe it is my responsibility to invest time and effort to improve my own writing (VAR14).

9. Through the feedback and comments from my instructor, I understand my weaknesses in composing an essay (VAR15). 10. I believe it is necessary to spend time working on revisions

in order to improve my writing ability (VAR16). 58

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As shown in Table 3, the most significant correlations occurred between three sets of variables. The first significant correlation existed between VAR02 and VAR04 at .785*. This result indicated a strong correlation between students’ sense of freedom and their likelihood of time invested in revising the essay. The second significant correlation occurred between VAR08 and VAR14 at .689*, indicating that for the students who regularly set aside time for revision, they tended to see improving their writing as their own responsibility. This result also indicated that students would take more responsibility once they developed the habit of regularly revising their work. The third significant correlation was found between VAR10 and VAR15 at .673*, showing that specific feedback helped students know their weaknesses in composition.

In addition to these three correlations at the 0.01 level (two-tailed), other findings were quite helpful for the instructor in understanding the students’ development in this course. First, the correlation of .539 between VAR01 and VAR08 revealed that students who enjoyed this writing class were also those who set aside regular time for revision. Moreover, when the students enjoyed a course, they were more likely to take the initiative to meet the course requirements and to improve their writing as shown in the correlation of .548 between VAR 01 and VAR13. Second, one feature in this course was students’ choice in selecting their own topics. The correlation of .640 between VAR02 and VAR03 showed that the students felt more freedom when they could choose their own topics. In addition, one interesting correlation of .602 was found between VAR13 and VAR15, signaling that when students had a better understanding of their weaknesses, they took a more active role in

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improving their performance. Moreover, the correlation of .609 between VAR16 and VAR08 informed the researcher that when students viewed learning as their responsibility, they would be more likely to invest time in revising. Finally, the correlation of .645 between VAR14 and VAR16 indicated that those who held the view that improving one’s writing required time were also the ones who were willing to invest more time and effort.

Table 3

Correlations between Learning Attitude, Feedback Clarity, and Autonomy

VAR03 VAR04 VAR08 VAR10 VAR13 VAR14 Pearson Correlation -.047 .040 .539* .495 .548* .032 Sig. (2-tailed) .874 .892 .047 .072 .043 .913 VAR01 N 14 14 14 14 14 14 Pearson Correlation .640* .785** .139 -.283 .108 -.038 Sig. (2-tailed) .014 .001 .635 .327 .712 .896 VAR02 N 14 14 14 14 14 14 Pearson Correlation .073 -.062 .689** .028 .141 1 Sig. (2-tailed) .805 .833 .006 .923 .630 VAR14 N 14 14 14 14 14 14 Pearson Correlation .027 -.184 .349 .673** .602* .111 Sig. (2-tailed) .927 .530 .221 .008 .023 .706 VAR15 N 14 14 14 14 14 14 Pearson Correlation .047 -.040 .609* .147 .411 .645* Sig. (2-tailed) .874 .892 .021 .617 .145 .013 VAR16 N 14 14 14 14 14 14

*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed); **Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

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Insights from Assignment Submission

Students’ reactions and levels of commitment in this project could be interpreted as very positive. This observation was concluded from the students’ performance. This entire project lasted one academic year in which the participating students submitted one draft each week, totaling 18 drafts per semester. In the two semesters, the students completed a total of 12 projects (coded Project 1 to Project 12 in Appendix D). In the fall of 2010, when the students first started this course, they demonstrated some initial unfamiliarity with the on-line assignment submission system. Such unfamiliarity was observed in their missing of the deadlines for the first few drafts (in Project 1 and Project 2). Nevertheless, this situation quickly improved when students became more settled into the semester. Moreover, in the spring of 2011, at least two-thirds of the students started demonstrating a higher level of self-discipline and time management, for those students were often observed to have submitted their drafts two or three days before the assigned deadlines. Take the submissions of two assignments in both semesters for a comparison. The selected assignments were Project 4, Project 5, Project 10, and Project 11 respectively. The submission records of these four projects were retrieved from the Digital Learning Center (DLC) at the university. The reason for not choosing the submission records of the first two assignments (Project 1 and Project 2) was that the students initially experienced some difficulty in using the DLC for homework submission in the fall of 2010. Projects 3, 6, 9, and 12 in the two semesters were excluded because they were administered as midterm and final exams separately. As the students manually completed their midterms and finals, the electronic submissions were completed later 61

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just for record-keeping. Table 4 shows students in the second semester turned in their drafts earlier. The numbers for the assignments turned in five hours before the deadlines and for the late submissions fell in the second semester, a potential indicator for students’ being more conscientious about their time management.7

Table 4

Submission Records for Projects 4, 5, 10, and 11

Assignment number Two or more days early One to two days early On time (5 hours prior to the

deadline) Late submission Project 4 1 9 3 1 Project 5 0 6 4 4 Project 10 4 6 2 2 Project 11 4 10 0 0

Findings from Individual Interviews

The following selected responses shed light on the students’ viewpoints. Overall, the interviewed students perceived the feedback provided by the instructor as clear and helpful for revision.8 One student, Charlotte, stated that when she received feedback from the instructor, she would first read all the comments and started the revision on the second day. When asked why she would start the revision so soon, Charlotte said,

I don’t like to see so many comment boxes on my paper. I am not saying I don’t like the feedback from my teacher. What I am saying is that the

7_{Later, in the interviews, the students’ answers confirmed this view.} 8_{The students were given pseudonyms.}

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existence of the comment boxes makes me want to start revision as soon as possible. Once I have addressed the issues pointed out by my teacher, I can delete the comment boxes; then I gain a sense of achievement.

Another student, Janice, expressed how she felt about the feedback from the instructor. Janice said,

Personally, I felt the comments were clear to me most of the time, especially those related to grammar. If there was something that I did not understand, I would schedule an appointment with my teacher. Before I went to see her, I would go over my questions so I would know what to ask.

One shared response from all five interviewed students was the clarity of the feedback and comments. Two students (Vanessa and Stephanie) expressed that they preferred revising the essays on their own based on what they had received from the instructor. When asked if they preferred face-to-face discussions with their teacher for essay revision, all five of them indicated that they rarely needed to have formal talks with their instructor.9

When asked about their time management in writing or revising a draft, these students shared the following answers.

I usually started revising my essays on the second day after I got the feedback. As to new tasks, I usually start choosing my topics the very next

9_{Among these five students, only Bill and Janice would make appointments to}

discuss the questions in their essays. Bill usually used a combination of email and face-to-face talks to clarify his questions, while Janice would first try to work on her own and came to talk to the teacher when the problems required more explanation or guidance.

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day (Wednesday) and collecting information on Thursday and Friday. I prefer finishing my assignments on Saturday or even a bit before the deadline. [by Charlotte]

Looking at the feedback provided by my teacher, I would first estimate the time I needed for revision. For example, I might need two days to work on the problematic areas in my papers. Then I would set aside one extra day to review the final work to ensure everything is okay. On average, I usually turned in my assignments on Friday night so I could have my weekend off. [by Bill]

I usually begin revising my essays three days before the deadline. I don’t like to revise my essays the last minute because some unexpected incidents may happen and keep me from completing what I need to do. Besides, I like to start revision early because I can save more time for refining my work. [by Vanessa]

Usually, I would revise some trivial problems like grammar mistakes on Thursday or Friday. Then I would have an overall look at the original writing and begin to consider how I could improve my writing. I would start to revise the rest of my essay including the structure of the paper or message clarity on Friday night or Saturday. If I am not occupied by other school-related events such as tests or projects, usually I have sufficient time for revision. [by Stephanie]

I always worked on my essay as soon as possible. Since I didn’t have classes on Wednesday afternoons in the first year, it was the time that I usually devoted myself to writing. However, if feedback came back late, I would do 64

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revision on either Thursday evenings or Saturday afternoons. I think time to finish revisions was quite adequate. [by Janice]

These responses proved that the students worked on their revisions at their own pace. Echoing the idea of reactive autonomy, once the direction was set, revising their essays in this case, the students learned to manage their time and develop the most suitable timetables for themselves. Moreover, the students learned when to work on their own and when to seek help from their instructor, an indicator that they had become autonomous learners and writers.

Another interesting observation concluded from the assignment submission records was the early submission of revisions from nearly half the class (about eight to 10 students). In the first semester, the students abided by the deadlines and did not seem to make extra effort to turn in their work early. However, in the second semester, when the teacher announced that she would read the essays and provide feedback according to the submitted sequence, nearly half of the students started to demonstrate a tendency of early submission. To understand why such a phenomenon occurred, Question 5 was included in the interviews. When asked about early submissions of assignments, all five interviewees expressed they usually turned in the assignments one to two days earlier (sometimes even three, as shown in the DLC). When asked about their rationale of early homework submissions, the students expressed that they would like to receive feedback sooner for revision purposes. Again, the knowledge of their own working paces had helped the students to shape their learning habits.

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From the students’ responses to the close-ended, open-ended, and interview questions, it was evident that the students had learned to work on their own in revision without much assistance from the instructor, for they perceived the feedback received from the instructor as clear and specific. Furthermore, when the students had the locus of control to choose their topics, they felt a stronger sense of freedom and became more likely to invest time and effort in information collection. Most importantly, the students had learned to use their resources (including time, information, and feedback) for the betterment of their writing quality, a strong indicator of the development of reactive autonomy, which focuses on how learners organize their own resources autonomously in order to reach their goals.

CONCLUSIONS

This study has generated encouraging results. Although the size of this class is small and the results may not be applicable to all students learning composition, the results still offer several directions for writing instructors. First, students are capable of taking more responsibility in their own learning when they are guided and assisted. When the students in this study were encouraged to compose essays rather than just paragraphs, they exhibited the readiness to take on bigger challenges. Second, when provided with detailed and specific feedback and comments, students can engage in revisions without much assistance from the instructor. The students in this study verified that they did not need to arrange individual conferences with their instructor because the feedback was perceived clear and specific. 66

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This result is especially important because when the class size in Taiwan remains large, writing instructors can definitely benefit from more independent learners. Third, writing teachers should sometimes try to allow their students to choose the topics of their own interest. Fourth, the process-oriented approach of incorporating multiple drafts allows students to see their own improvement. For the students in this study, they highly agreed that a revision process helped them improve the quality of their work.

This study revealed that autonomy can be fostered in a writing course when the design heavily involves the learners and allows them the freedom to make decisions. When allowed to choose the topics of their interest, students are more likely to invest time and effort in collecting information as well as revising essays. When students become more active in taking responsibility for their learning, writing instructors may find a class of 25 to 35 students more manageable. Moreover, electronic feedback allows instructors to give clearer and more detailed explanations to attract their students’ attention. This type of feedback may “physically” challenge students to address the problems in their own writing because they have to respond to the comments in the comment boxes inserted in students’ essays. In addition, a multi-drafting process allows students to have many opportunities to improve their writing and to understand that it takes time to produce good work. It is hoped that the findings in this study would encourage more teachers to provide students with choices, deliver electronic feedback, and adopt a multi-drafting process to help their students become more autonomous writers and learners.

Despite the encouraging results from this study, a few limitations of the study have to be noted. First, this group of target

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students was small, with only 14 students. To enhance the applicability of the findings, a study on a larger scale (preferably more than 30) may be desirable. However, realistically, this recommendation may present some challenges to teachers. Even with Ferris’ (1999, p. 4) suggestion of providing students with “selective, prioritized, and clear” error correction, the task of providing feedback to a class of 35 or more students is still daunting, let alone the idea of combining feedback provision with a multi-drafting process. Second, as learner autonomy is described as a fluid concept, to assess whether students have indeed become autonomous writers, a longitudinal study for an additional two to three semesters in other subjects or disciplines may be helpful in gaining better insights into the topic of learner autonomy. Third, past research has indicated that the closeness between a teacher and a student may greatly influence the level of trust that the student has for the teacher. In this study, the target group of students had a very close relationship with their writing instructor. Though no specific questions were asked regarding how this level of trust affected students’ learning outcomes, such a feature should be taken into consideration for other teachers who might plan to adopt a similar course design. Different findings might have been generated had this instructor demonstrated a more distant relationship with her students.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The author would like to thank the reviewers and editors for their helpful comments and suggestions.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Karen Chung-chien Chang is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and Foreign Languages at National Taipei University. Her current research interests include second language writing, learner autonomy, rhetoric, and translation/interpretation studies.

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Appendix A

LTTC GEPT-CEFR Alignment Reference

GEPT CEFR IELTS TOEFL iBT

Second stage 7.5 110 Advanced First stage C1 7.0 100 Second stage 6.5 92 High-Intermediate First stage B2 6.0 79

Intermediate Second stage B1 5.5 Below 79

Note. This reference is also available on http://www.lttc.ntu.edu.tw/E_LTTC/E_

GEPT/alignment.htm

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Appendix B

Learning Survey for Advanced Grammar and Guided Writing

Please reflect on your learning experience in this course and mark the answers that best reflect your opinions.

Questions Strongly

agree Agree Fair Disagree Strongly disagree 1. I enjoyed English

composition in my first year of college.

2. I liked choosing my own topics for different writing projects.

3. I felt a stronger sense of freedom when I could choose my own topics for writing.

4. I am likely to invest more time on researching a topic of my own choice.

5. If a topic is assigned by my teacher, I will try equally hard to complete the research and the writing. 6. I like receiving feedback

related to my essays. 7. The feedback and comments

are clear for me to revise my essays.

8. I set aside the time for essay revision every week. 9. I prefer discussing the

comments for revision with my teacher to spending time on revision first.

10. The comments are specific enough for me to revise my essays.

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11. I regularly visited my teacher during her office hours for essay revision. 12. I prefer sending my

questions related to essay revision via email to my instructor.

13. Looking back at my first year of English

composition, I feel that I took the initiative in making my writing better. 14. I believe it is my

responsibility to invest time and effort in my own writing.

15. Through the feedback and comments from my instructor, I understand my weaknesses in composing an essay.

16. I believe it is necessary to spend time working on revisions in order to improve my writing ability.

Please answer the following questions as best as you can. 1. What are your strategies in responding to the feedback from

your instructor? You may describe how you use it to revise your essay or comment on the usefulness of the feedback. 2. Do you think the feedback and comments provided by your

instructor are enough for you to work on essay revisions? Why or why not?

3. For a deadline to turn in a revision on Sunday, for example, when did you usually start revising your essays? Did that

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give you enough time to finish the revision? You may share how you manage your time for revision.

4. Did you visit your instructor often to discuss your essays face-to-face? If yes, why did you prefer doing that? If no, how did you go about essay revision?

5. What more could the instructor have done more in helping you improve your writing? Are you satisfied with your progress in the first year? Please explain.

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Appendix C

Interview questions (two major questions, Question 1 and Question 4, and three follow-up questions, Question 2, Question 3 and Question 5):

1. How did the teacher feedback affect your revision effort? 2. Did you understand the corrections and suggestions and

were you able to revise the essays on your own?

3. Did you visit your instructor often for essay revision? Why or why not?

4. For a task deadline set at late Saturday night (early Sunday morning), what was your strategy in terms of time management for a writing assignment?

5. Did you submit your revisions earlier than the deadlines? Please explain.

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