Chapter Two
Review of the Literature
In this chapter, the definition of written dialogue journals is introduced first, followed by the introduction of different types of dialogue journals, the audiotape journal, the oral dialogue journal, and the cassette notebook. A comparison of written and oral dialogue journals as well as a review of previous research on the use of written and oral dialogue journals are then detailed to justify why the researcher combines the two in the present study. Last, past studies on how teachers provide feedback are described to help understand the types of feedback the researcher used to respond the subjects’ oral dialogue journals. In short, this chapter examines how past studies shed light on the development and the design of the present study, especially in how and whether keeping OWDJs might be a valid method to enhance speaking in English.
2.1 Definition of the Dialogue Journal
Unlike many other research projects, keeping dialogue journals as a classroom activity emerged prior to researchers’ theories and analyses. Although the term
“dialogue journal” was originated in 1979 by educational psychologist Jana Staton and sixth-grade teacher Leslee Reed in Los Angeles to describe the interactive everyday writing practice between Reed and her students, the implementation of dialogue journals has proceeded in Reed’s class for 15 years since mid-1960’s.
Staton (1988a, 1988b) defined the dialogue journal as a dialogue or conversation in writing between two persons, typically a student and the teacher, carried on in a bound composition book on a regular, interactive, and continuous basis for an extended period of time. Free to initiate a conversation on any topic of personal and mutual interest or academic work, each partner has equal and frequent turns and exchanges
their journals daily, weekly or semiweekly. The teacher discusses the topics introduced by the students, introduces topics that he/she finds interesting, talks about his/her concerns and feelings, and asks clarifying questions to elicit more details. As Peyton and Reed (1990) stated, a dialogue journal is a private written conversation between a teacher and an individual student. Students write whatever they choose in the journals, and the teacher accepts what students write and responds as directly and openly as possible, while taking students’ language abilities and interests into consideration.
2.2 Types of Dialogue Journals
In addition to the dialogue journal writing (or simply called dialogue journal) as the original type mentioned above, there are other kinds of dialogue journals, namely, the audiotape journal, the oral dialogue journal and the cassette notebook. They are reviewed respectively to facilitate understanding of what they are, how they are implemented, and what their functions are. Then, a comparison of oral and written dialogue journals is provided to illuminate their nature and purpose.
According to McGrath (1992), the audiotape journal is used when students talk about self-generated or teacher-assigned topics, and the teacher then records his or her comments individually on what the student talks in terms of content, pronunciation and even grammar. The tape is the medium of the interaction and the audiotape journals are usually made once a week, which is more facilitative for the instructor, especially if the class is large. The audiotape journal was proposed to “increase the student’s fluency, to raise her awareness of pronunciation difficulties, to give her a chance to speak with a native English speaker, and to provide for more efficient use of time for the teacher” (p. 34). In another research (Brown, Garver, & Sagers, 1996), while the term, audiotaped dialogue journals, is used, the concept is the same, defined as following the same guidelines as written dialogue journals except they are oral,
with the student and teacher recording on an audiocassette tape and passing between each other, not written on paper. As Egbert (1992) claimed, “It is assumed that teachers and students [using audiotaped dialogue journals] in speaking classes derive language and affective benefits similar to those from written journals” (cited in Brown, Garver, & Sagers, 1996, p. 3). Winter and Conner (1989) further maintained that students can gain appropriate listening and speaking practice, individualized instruction on grammar and pronunciation errors, opportunity to discuss cross-cultural issues, and a record of their progress from audiotaped dialogue journals (cited in Brown et al., 1996). In brief, through keeping audiotape journals, students increase their fluency, raise their awareness of pronunciation problems, grammatical errors, discuss cultural issues, derive affective benefits and gain more appropriate opportunities to practice speaking English.
The oral dialogue journal is another type of dialogue journal. Like the audiotape journal, the oral dialogue journal is verbal. Initially, the teacher offers the first topic and is followed by a group discussion. Each student then talks about this topic on his or her own tape. The teacher keeps records of individual topics from each student’s first oral journal. In response to their taped entries, the teacher chooses an issue in each student’s entry that s/he seems particularly interested and then asks questions about that issue. The cycle continues until the end of a semester.
Throughout the semester, these questions evolved into a final topic for students to deliver a five-minute impromptu speech in the final journal. The oral dialogue journal thus enables students to combine thinking and speaking skills as well as to explore cultures and to receive recognition from their teacher and peers. It is noteworthy that the oral dialogue journal and audiotape journal (or audiotaped dialogue journal) are slightly different in what students talk about and how the teacher responds to the taped entries; however, in some studies, the writers use the term “oral
dialogue journal” (Henry, 1994; MacDonald, 1989) or the term “talking journal”
(Foley, 1993) or “tape journal” (Allan, 1991) to refer to the “audiotape journal”
(McGrath, 1992) or the “audiotaped dialogue journal” (Brown, et al., 1996; Egbert, 1992; Winter & Conner, 1989). Hence, the oral dialogue journals used in this study refer to the audiotape journals, according to the definitions above. That is, students record the oral dialogue journals on audiocassette tapes.
The cassette notebook is another alternative. Similar to the audiotaped dialogue journal, the medium of the interaction between the teacher and the students is the tape, on which students do “structured exercises, opened-ended responses/ reactions to class activities or materials, and grammar-based practice” (Miller, 1990, p.1, cited in McGrath, 1992, p. 36). The cassette notebook can also be used “in preparation for writing or speeches” (p. 1). As with the audiotape journal, the teacher records his or her feedback on the tape including pronunciation and fluency comments, but with more emphasis on grammatical errors (Miller, 1990, described in McGrath, 1992).
Henry (1994) summarized similarities and differences between oral and written dialogue journals with respect to permanence, time, affective factors, and corrections.
In terms of similarities, the oral dialogue journal, like the written dialogue journal, can be preserved for students to rewind and listen to early entries, or the teacher’s verbal responses repeatedly. Not only can the student’s language proficiency be traced but also the ideas can be maintained to serve as a record of progress and growth over time.
Moreover, as it is with the written dialogue journal, the time spent on the oral dialogue journal depends on the number of learners, the length of the entries, the frequency of the exchange, and the procedure the teacher chooses to follow in responding. Concerning the affective factors, “the content and style of both written and oral dialogue journals can be intimate, chatty, or emotional, and express a wide range of sentiments” (Henry, 1994, p. 8). Another similarity concerning error
correction is that explicit error correction can be given in teacher’s response whether in the case of oral dialogue journals or written dialogue journals.
On the other hand, there are many differences between oral and written dialogue journals in terms of medium, emotional expression, skills practiced, correction, accessibility, and spontaneity. The most basic difference is the medium itself: one is audiotape and the other is pencil and paper. Another difference is that in oral dialogue journal, the tone of voice can readily and directly express a speaker’s feelings that may not be explicitly captured in a student’s writing. The skills practiced are also different. Oral journals focus on speaking, listening, and pronunciation, while written journals on writing and reading. Another difference is that while modeling can be made in both oral and written journals, it seems to be more efficient for written journals because modeling can be underlined for emphasis, but when doing oral journals, students have to remember or go back and listen to its previous entries to remind themselves of their errors. Moreover, in terms of accessibility, it is more time-consuming for students to refer to their previous taped entries, while it is easier to refer to previous entries for written journals. Finally, another difference lies in spontaneity: oral dialogue journals require little preparation and can be done at any time, while written dialogue journals may require use of dictionary, and more time spent on organization.
The description of characteristics of different kinds of dialogue journals and the comparison of similarities and differences of oral and written dialogue journals highlight the reasons of combining oral and written dialogue journals in this present study. In synthesizing the advantages of oral and written dialogue journals, it is proposed that the combination of oral and written dialogue journals is more appropriate to improve subjects’ speaking performance. On the one hand, learners keep oral journals, a more direct way than written journals in advancing speaking
English. On the other hand, the researcher keeps written dialogue journals with the students in order to have more time to ponder what feedback to give in response to students’ oral journals. Meanwhile, written responses allow the researcher, as a non-English native speaker, more time to consult the dictionary or check other resources to ensure more accuracy in the feedback.
2.3 Characteristics of the Dialogue Journal
Dialogue journals must have certain characteristics that meet learners’ needs and distinguish it from other types of writing tasks in facilitating language acquisition;
otherwise, they would not have been utilized for the past few decades with different age groups and various populations. This section thus introduces its typical characteristics.
The use of written dialogue journals creates the conditions, which contribute to the development of oral or written language skills (Shuy, 1988, p. 87). The conditions are as follows: (1).“The task must happen in order to be learned.” In order to learn to write or speak, one must be able to do it and do it a lot.
(2).“The tasks must happen meaningfully.” Establishing real-like, natural, appropriate and motivating tasks would facilitate the development of writing or speaking. (3).“The task must happen meaningfully in such a way that it can be monitored by the learner.” Dialogue journals being passed back and forth between two participants provide a cumulative record which can be reviewed by learners repeatedly. (4).“The task must happen meaningfully, be self-motivated and provide comparative/contrastive learning.” As a model and touchstone for learners’
improvement and development either in speaking or writing, the teachers’ journals prompt learners to make comparison and to further stimulate self-correction.
By the same token, several characteristics can differentiate dialogue journals from other kinds of writing (Staton, Shuy, Peyton, & Reed, 1988; Peyton & Staton,
1996; Peyton & Reed, 1990). First, the focus is on real communication. The teacher exchanges ideas and information with students and asks for opinions and clarification to attain authentic and natural communication, rather than simply elicits correct usage of a particular grammatical structure for grammar instruction. Second, absence of corrections and grading as well as privacy of the writing establish a kind of non-threatening atmosphere between the teacher and students. Third, the individualized and largely student-generated characteristic motivates students to initiate the topics they concern or like. Fourth, equal partners in the process may temporarily suspend the traditional hierarchical teacher-student roles in the classroom.
Fifth, students are encouraged to express various language functions, including reporting personal facts, responding to questions, requesting information, giving opinions, etc. Sixth, over time, as the relationship becomes deeper, students are likely to move from simple, impersonal subjects to more complex and personal themes, which contributes to greater intimacy and sharing. Finally, dialogue journal writing is distinct in terms of purpose, topic choice, topic knowledge, genre, length, audience, and audience response (Peyton & Reed, 1990; Peyton, Staton, Richardson, and Wolfram, 1990). The purpose is entirely for communication not for evaluation.
The topic choice is writer-chosen; rather than teacher- or school- assigned. Instead of having limited knowledge of the topic, students have extensive topic knowledge.
Students may “write descriptions, explanation, narratives, complaints, or arguments with supporting details, as the topic and communicative purposes dictate” (Peyton &
Reed, 1990, p. 9). Entries may be as brief as a few sentences, or they may extend for pages. The audience is familiar to the students, and the written message is the real exchange of information and opinions, rather than correction or grading.
2.4 Benefits of the Dialogue Journal
In this section, the benefits that students and teachers can receive from keeping
dialogue journals are detailed to emphasize the importance and effect of the activity.
Dialogue journals help students improve writing in the new language (Baudrand-Aertker, 1992; Casanave, 1994; Chen, 1996; Chow, 2001; Holmes &
Moulton, 1997; Jones, 1996b; Lucas, 1990; Peyton et al., 1990; Song, 1997; Steer, 1988). Over time, students write more, become more fluent, and can focus on a topic and elaborate on it (Staton, et al., 1988). Besides, they engage students in a natural, purposeful communication as a way to express themselves by using various functions of language (Baudrand-Aertker, 1992; Staton, 1988a, 1988b; Staton et al., 1988), not simply limited to conventional school writing. Gaining more opportunities to produce the target language would allow students to “develop more coherent self-expression and a personal ‘voice’” (Staton, 1988a, p. 198). Speaking performance can also be improved with the use of dialogue journals (Allen, 1991;
Baskin, 1994; E1-koumy, 1998; Foley, 1993; Henry, 1994; MacDonald, 1989; Poole, 1991). The acquisition of forms and syntax of the written language may be promoted (Baudrand-Aertker, 1992; Casanave, 1994; Jones, 1996b; Peyton, 1989).
The teacher’s responses are regarded as model for students to absorb subconsciously for language acquisition (Kreeft et al., 1985, described in Staton, 1988a).
Concerning the affect, dialogue journals can motivate low-motivated and least proficient writers to write, change students’ attitudes toward the second language, the school and the self, and increase their confidence, willingness and motivation not only to write, but more generally to study a second language (Baudrand-Aertker, 1992;
Jones, 1996b; Staton, 1988a). They can also provide opportunities for reflection, thinking, and reasoning (Getstein & others, 1983; Holmes & Moulton, 1997; Staton, 1988a). They are also particularly beneficial in early stages of children’s literacy instruction (Bode, 1988; Staton, 1988a). Exchanging information and opinions with the teacher may also help students solve problems both in and out of school (Jones,
1996b). Finally, establishing a close rapport between the student and the instructor is another benefit (Hennings, 1992).
With regard to teachers, they can benefit in numerous ways. Dialogue journals can be a powerful tool for individualized instruction (Jones, 1996b; Staton, 1988a) by providing students with individual attention in a non-threatening way. Due to different individual topics and proficiency levels, teachers tailor their writing to the needs of students. Dialogue journals prompt teachers to be more aware of students as people, to learn about their culture, and to better understand the world and themselves (Jones, 1996b). Bringing the grammatical problems most students have into the classroom for discussion and lesson planning could make teaching more practical and effective (Jones, 1996b; Peyton & Reed, 1990). Last, learning to respond in various ways to different students with distinguished language abilities enables teachers to refine their expressive abilities (Jones, 1996b).
In short, dialogue journals are shown to improve students’ writing and speaking in a new language, encourage students to use various language functions, promote second language acquisition, change their attitudes, increase their confidence, willingness and motivation, help them solve problems both in and out of school, and provide opportunities for reflection, thinking, and reasoning. For the teacher, dialogue journals being a remarkable tool for individualized instruction and lesson planning, they can not only change the teachers’ attitudes toward students, themselves, and the world but also polish their expressive abilities in writing.
2.5 Past Studies on Written Dialogue Journals
During the past few decades, written dialogue journals have been used with different age groups and several populations and for various purposes. The age of learners includes elementary students, high school students, college students, graduate students and even adult learners (Baskin, 1994; Baudrand-Aertker, 1992; Casanave,
1994; Chen, 1996; Chow, 2001; E1-koumy, 1998; Holmes & Moulton, 1997; Peyton, 1989; Peyton & Seyoum 1989; Poole, 1991; Popkin, 1985; Steer, 1988). Written dialogue journals have also been studied with several different populations. They have been used not only with English native speakers (Hennings, 1992; Staton et al., 1988, Wolter, 1986) but also with ESL and EFL learners for many years (Allen, 1991;
Brown et al., 1996; Chen, 1996; Chow, 2001; E1-koumy, 1998; Lucas, 1990;
MacDonald, 1989; Henry, 1994; McGrath, 1992; Peyton, 1989; Reid, 1997; Song, 1997; Steer, 1988). This section thus reviews the literature findings dealing with the use of dialogue journals, classified into three categories: improving writing skills, enhancing reading development, and fostering speaking performance. Although these studies are divided into three categories, they are, in fact, interrelated.
2.5.1 Improving writing skills
As dialogue journals originated in the form of writing, it is undoubted that most literature findings are focused on the effectiveness of WDJs in improving writing.
Peyton, Staton, Richardson, and Wolfram (1990) investigated the influence of written dialogue journals on sixth-grade ESL students’ written production. By comparing different types of writing done by the same students, the findings revealed that written dialogue journals provide more opportunities for learners to practice writing in English than other types of writing tasks. Besides, learners were found to show greater syntactic complexity, use a much greater variety of clause connectors, and express more advanced cohesive relations in their written dialogue journals. In short, written dialogue journals could be helpful in contributing to the writing development.
Another exploratory research (Song, 1997) studied the reading-writing relationship, examining the effect of written dialogue journals about their reading content on writing quality, reading comprehension, and writing apprehension of
Korean EFL college freshman. The results indicated that written dialogue journals improved the students’ overall writing quality in the experimental group more than that in the control group who only answered comprehension questions.
With the analyses of four sources of data including a questionnaire distributed at the beginning of each semester, observation of all class meetings, interviews conducted with teachers and students as well as the journals written by both teachers and students, Lucas (1990) found that the use of written dialogue journals, which provided an opportunity for ESL students lacking practice in writing English, could enhance students’ confidence in writing in English, which in turn stimulates them to take risks and to develop writing abilities in other kinds of writing tasks. It could also engage students in reflective thinking, an important skill that may carry over to other types of writing.
Holmes & Moulton’s (1997) study investigated ESL university students’
perspectives on dialogue journal writing. With the examination of students’ journal entries and interview transcripts, it was found that students recognized that their writing and thinking fluency as well as motivation to write had been enhanced in the process of keeping dialogue journals. The improvements might be attributed to topic choice, spontaneity, and frequency of writing.
Steer (1988) examined the use of written dialogue journal with an ESL class of high-intermediate level pre-university students. They were required to write dialogue journals about their experiences with English writing and their responses to readings and discussion in class. From reviewing the students’ journals and examining the final questionnaire, Steer found that the use of dialogue journal could develop second language acquisition and promote academic writing. The DJ provided the teacher-student interaction, promoted the sense of audience, developed pre-writing strategies, and helped explore ideas. However, there were two things
worthy of attention. First, one-third of students considered the lack of error correction to be the aspect they liked the least. Second, since students were not offered topics or questions, they were at a loss about what to talk about. These two complaints prompted the researcher to give correction and possible topics in the present study.
Baudrand-Aertker (1992) studied the use of written dialogue journal between a teacher and twenty-one students in a high school French III classroom to explore (1) the effect of dialogue journals on writing performance (2) the students’ attitude toward dialogue journals, and (3) the characteristics of good language communicators.
Three measurements including holistic assessment of communicative ability in dialogue journal writing, the analysis of the dialogue journals based on Gutstein’s (1987) model except creativity, and a proficiency writing test were selected to measure communicative competence. The correlations among these three measurements were seen to be indicative of student communicative competence in dialogue journal writing. Findings showed that students’ writing skills were improved because of keeping written dialogue journals. Additionally, they overcame their fear of writing and increased their self-confidence and willingness to write. As for characteristics of good language communicators, it was shown that students who were more communicatively competent wrote more, showed more interactional awareness, had more usage of correct grammar, and used a wider range of language functions and a wider variety of topics. However, the three native speakers in this study did not use the same criteria to do the holistic assessment of communicative ability in dialogue journal writing. That is why in the present study the same criteria will be given to the two raters to evaluate students’ oral journals to ensure consistency and objectivity of the holistic assessment.
In order to examine changes in the dialogue journal writing, Casanave (1994)
conducted a research on a small group of intermediate English students in Japan over three semesters. The majority of analyses consisted of various T-unit (defined as an independent clause and all attached dependent clauses and phrases) counts of length, complexity and grammatical accuracy. Students’ performance improved showing upward movement in two thirds of categories of the 11 kinds of various T-unit counts and most of the progress appeared in the first semester (first-mid). Besides, while most students acknowledged that they came to write more quickly, easily and with greater enjoyment, nearly half of the students in fact did not progress in grammatical accuracy. Although the findings showed that most students’ writing became longer, more complex and more accurate, great individual diversity was still found in the quantitative measures. Four different kinds of patterns were exhibited among these students. The first kind of pattern was that students’ writing became longer, more complex and more accurate from the first to the last journal. The second kind of pattern was that students’ writing was longer, more complex and more accurate in the first period (first-mid) but all of these measures showed large decreases by the end of the third semester. The third type of pattern was that the writing showed steady progress in all areas except accuracy. The fourth type of writing was that except the steady improvement in the percentage of error-free T-units, T-unit counts dipped in nearly all areas by the end of the first semester, and then showed obvious progress in the last journal of the third semester. It was concluded that the written dialogue journal is a valuable tool of encouraging and tracking multiple kinds of language development.
In this study, nearly half of the subjects did not progress in grammatical accuracy.
How students’ fluency can be improved without sacrificing accuracy needs to be investigated further.
Another study (Chen, 1996) explored the results of writing dialogue journal in a
junior high school EFL class including the effect of written dialogue journals for communication in English and the effect of the teacher’s and peers’ responses to students’ writing. By adopting Shuy’s (1988) categorization of language functions with some adjustments, Chen used seven language functions to analyze the participants’ journals. By examining an open-ended questionnaire and the teacher’s reflective journal, the changes of the student and the teacher’s attitudes could also be understood. The findings revealed that the student-centered activity increased opportunities for interaction between students and their teacher as well as their peers.
Peer responses as well as teacher responses played important roles in improving students’ writing skills and encouraged students to share their opinions and feelings.
Through sharing with the teacher and peers, both reading and writing were enhanced.
This interaction enabled students to acquire more meaningful interaction with the texts and then to develop their own individual opinions and insights. Students’
attitudes changed from passive to active in the social interaction with their classmates.
For the benefits of the instructor, dialogue journal writing helped the teacher become a facilitator and co-participant in the dialogue and change his attitudes toward both teaching and learning. Students’ content in journal writing prompted the teacher to search for relevant information and broadened the teacher’s scope of knowledge. At the same time, through reading students’ journal, the teacher understood each student’s strengths and weaknesses, which allowed the teacher to evoke confidence or to address individual needs. However, one important drawback of this study was that too much time elapsed between entries, which tended to make the writing lose its interactive quality. To avoid such a drawback, the present study asked students to keep their oral journals twice a week.
Chow’s (2001) study was aimed at investigating how teachers incorporate journal writing in the course of Guided Writing, how they perceived the
implementation of journal writing as well as how students reacted to the use of dialogue journals. The results indicated that the majority of both teachers and students had positive opinions about journal writing. Students considered teachers’
comments and error corrections helpful in their journal writing, while sometimes they had difficulties in finding topics and ideas to write in their journals. The teachers also emphasized the journal writing’s advantage of providing opportunities for students to express themselves, to enhance their writing fluency, to facilitate risk-taking and to be better understood by their teachers. It was suggested that if students understood more about the nature of journal writing, perhaps they would not expect their journals to be scored and found it difficult to find topics to write.
Teachers would not view reading and correcting students’ journals as a boring and laborious routine if they perceived it as a means of real communication. It was also recommended that brainstorming or giving suggested topics to students could be helpful. Furthermore, while error correction received positive responses from the students, care had to be taken to avoid side effect such as writing apprehension and inhibition of idea development. While teachers’ comments bore numerous merits in students’ journal writing, negative comments also should be given cautiously. Last, helping students revise in content, rather than form, was suggested.
Peyton (1989) investigated the use of grammatical morphology in the dialogue journal writings of sixth-grade students and chose five students for the study. Ten morphemes were examined in the journals. Findings indicated that the students had very little trouble with the use of Be as a copula at the beginning of the year and showed rapid mastery. Most of the students made substantial gains in the use of the progressive auxiliary and –ing and the past tense marking of irregular verbs. As for the past tense marking of regular verbs and the use of plural and third-person singular –s, the students made little or no gains. One student showed considerable
gain in the use of possessive –‘s. Three students showed little improvement in the use of the articles. Thus, while some overall trends could be found among these students, individual variations in their acquisition process were obvious. This study also proved that dialogue journal writing can reflect changes in students’ language proficiency over time.
These studies of the effect of written dialogue journals on writing development found that written dialogue journals allow learners to improve writing and thinking fluency, foster writing quality, develop reflective thinking, enhance grammar accuracy and sentence complexity, elevate confidence, motivation, and positive attitudes toward writing, and promote academic writing. In short, the written dialogue journal lends itself to facilitating writing development. While some studies showed overall trends among learners, individual variations in the writing development were enormous (Casanave, 1994; Peyton, 1989). Besides, whether to give correction and topics to learners has been discussed (Chow, 2001; Steer, 1988).
2.5.2 Enhancing reading development
There are also studies on the use of WDJs to enhance reading development.
Some of them are presented as follows.
Werderich (2002) described the successful use of written dialogue journals as part of a seventh-grade reading curriculum. It was noticed that four categories of teacher responses were used to personalize reading instruction. The teacher appealed to students’ interests, encouraged students to make discoveries about meanings of titles, etc., made sure that each student was challenged, and used teaching strategies to help students develop reading skills.
Another study (Wells, 1992) revealed that the use of written dialogue journals could contribute to eighth-grade students’ reading development. Their journal entries were categorized to include “ongoing business, summaries, metacognitive
responses, connections, and evaluation of text and author” (p. 297), which appeared to enhance the reading development. Teachers’ questions not only prompted students’
own thinking but also served as models for students’ own questioning. The evidence showed how dialogue journals foster reading development.
WDJs can be applied to special students. Walworth’s (1990) research examined the use of content-focused written dialogue journals on deaf college preparatory and freshman-level students. Students’ journals provided teachers with a wealth of information of what they had read, what reading strategies they had used, and how they could be guided to use more effective reading techniques. The teacher’s feedback was tailored to meet each individual’s needs and ability, and the learners discussed the content of texts with their teachers. Thus, the written dialogue journal served as a helpful vehicle for enhancing learners’ reading development.
Wolter (1986) investigated whether middle school students who kept written dialogue journals in reading classes would show a significant increase in reading comprehension as compared with students who did not use dialogue journals in reading classes. The topics of the dialogue journals mainly focused on the reading material that was covered in class. The statistical analysis of this study indicated that the reading classes which incorporated the use of dialogue journals result in significant improvement in students’ reading comprehension.
These studies explained the positive effect of written dialogue journals on reading development. Although reading development fell beyond the present study’s investigation, the findings all pointed out the importance of a teacher’s role in the process of keeping dialogue journals. A teacher’s responses could efficiently facilitate the successful interaction with students, which in turn may foster their language acquisition such as speaking development of EFL learners.
2.5.3 Improving speaking performance
Some researchers found that written dialogue journals could enhance or develop speaking proficiency of a foreign or second language (Baskin, 1994; E1-koumy, 1998;
McGrath, 1992; Poole, 1991). The followings cover the important findings of the effect of the written dialogue journal on speaking and discuss the drawbacks of these studies.
Poole (1991) reported that her colleague and she learned a lot about Chinantec and improved in both speaking and writing by writing dialogue journals with the language associate (LA) whose first language is Chinantec. During face-to-face interaction with the LA, the LA read his own journal first, and then Poole and her colleague commented on the topics or asked questions about the meanings of words, etc, and then they read aloud what they had written. Their LA then asked them questions usually for clarification as well as corrected their writing, reading, or pronunciation.
McGrath’s (1992) study aimed to investigate the attitudes of ESL learners toward the written dialogue journal and the value of this activity for the conversational development. A comparison of the questionnaire answers obtained at the midpoint and the final point of the semester found that the students perceived the dialogue journal as a valuable tool to prepare them to speak. The teacher’s questions and comments within the written dialogue journals were considered helpful to stimulate conversation. They also noticed that the teacher gave more correction by the end of the semester. Finally, their attitudes toward the class became more positive. It was suggested that the areas of trust, motivation and culture be examined more closely in further research on dialogue journals.
Another similar research (Baskin, 1994) examined the thoughts and feelings of ESL high school students on written dialogue journals. The questionnaire results indicated that linguistic and cultural aspects were facilitated through dialogue journals.
The students thought that reading teacher’s responses and creating their own entries had developed their knowledge of grammar. They also learned both new and idiomatic expressions. Simply put, they believed that dialogue journals allowed them to improve spoken English and enhance their self-confidence.
E1-koumy (1998) investigated the effect of dialogue journal writing on the speaking skills of EFL history major students. Participants in the experimental group wrote weekly on any topic, and the teacher wrote back to each student — making comments, offering opinions, requesting and giving clarification, asking and answering questions. The findings revealed that students in the experimental group scored significantly higher on the oral posttest than those in the control group, suggesting that the dialogue journal writing helped improve speaking skills.
Since this study found that students could improve speaking skills through keeping written dialogue journals, it was assumed that speaking could be improved through a more direct way — keeping oral dialogue journals. In addition, while E1-koumy (1998) proposed possible explanations for the beneficial effects of the written dialogue journals, these reasons had not been very comprehensive and convincing because they failed to reflect the participants’ points of view. It is, therefore, suggested that questionnaires or interviews be conducted to explore learners’ thoughts and feelings for in-depth qualitative inquiry in the present study.
These studies show that written dialogue journals can facilitate the speaking development of ESL/ EFL students, which provides some insights for consideration in providing written dialogue journals from the researcher. Besides, except E1-koumy’s (1998) study, the rest are qualitative in nature, only eliciting data from a questionnaire. Even if subjects responded that their speaking had been improved, there was no significant evidence to describe in details which parts in speaking had been improved or to what extent they had progressed. In view of such inadequacies,
the present study will add some quantitative analyses to examine the effect on not only overall speaking proficiency but also fluency, grammatical accuracy and vocabulary in speaking.
2.6 Past Studies on Oral Dialogue Journals
Some studies were focused on the effect of using oral journals. In order to examine the use of oral dialogue journals as an integral part of foreign language instruction, Henry (1994) conducted a research on the teaching of EFL to adult students in Morocco and the teaching of intermediate Spanish at the college level in Vermont. Based on the results of the interview and the questionnaire, oral dialogue journals opened a channel to attain effective communication between the teacher and the students, increased students’ awareness to correct their spoken errors, provided an opportunity for individualized attention and learning, offered a good way for student initiative and creativity, and informed students of a significant improvement in their fluency, grammar, pronunciation and self-confidence.
Allen (1991) investigated tape journals recorded by his class of Japanese university students mostly majored in English education. The questionnaire results showed several benefits of this activity. Firstly, with an opportunity to practice spoken English, most of the students thought they had improved their fluency to some extent. Secondly, most students thought teacher’s feedback had improved their accuracy and many remarked that they had become aware of certain mistakes for the first time such as the pronunciation of certain words or the appropriate use of lexical items. Thirdly, the tapes also opened a channel for students to clarify their knowledge of certain expressions, to expand their vocabulary and to have a chance to use them. Furthermore, the teacher’s comments gave them listening practice.
Listening to their own tapes was also a way to assess their own development over time. From the teacher’s perspective, the tapes provided a much better record of
each student’s performance, from which the teacher learned a great deal about the students, both personally and culturally. However, the disadvantages of using tape journals are (1) they lacked the interaction and spontaneity of a conversation; (2) listening to and commenting on many tapes every week took a lot of time.
Borwn et al. (1996) examined the use of audiotaped dialogue journals produced by EFL Chilean university students. The results revealed that this activity helped enhance participants’ vocabulary acquisition. Accuracy in the use of articles from also increased from the early entries to the late entries. Finally, they also derived positive affect from the taped journals.
Foley (1993) suggested using talking journals with students to develop spoken English. It was proved that students could benefit from this activity. Students could talk about topics in which they were interested and build a personal relationship with the teacher. Listening to their own journals could prompt them to re-evaluate their speaking performance. The fact that the journals were not graded also produced no pressure on students. Apart from students, the teacher also derived many benefits from this activity. It offered the teacher an opportunity to give attention to individual student and to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the students. By listening to the students’ journals, which reflected feedback toward the course, the teacher could do some reflection on and made adjustment to the lessons.
Finally, students’ journals helped build a personal relationship with the teacher to facilitate mutual understanding.
MacDonald ‘s (1989) study discussed the use of oral dialogue journal in a short term, non-intensive English language program for Japanese students visiting the United States. The Japanese students considered the use of oral dialogue journals a valuable communicative experience, both enjoyable and beneficial.
Based on these study findings, the audiotape or oral dialogue journal indeed
contributes to learners’ speaking fluency, vocabulary acquisition, grammatical accuracy, pronunciation, and self-confidence. Besides, through such practice, learners can assess their speaking development by themselves so as to enhance the learner autonomy. The oral dialogue journal can also serve as a useful and effective assessment tool in the language classroom. The discussions prompted the researcher to ask the subjects to use oral dialogue journals. A question is, therefore, posed: is it possible that the oral-written dialogue journal could facilitate speaking development just as oral dialogue journals could enhance speaking? This issue, therefore, needs further investigation.
2.7 Types of Feedback
In order to have a better understanding of how the researcher responded to the subjects’ oral dialogue journals in this study, summaries of related research on types of feedback are described and discussed in this section.
Henry (1994) proposed several guidelines for responding to oral dialogue journals in a quick and efficient way. Taking notes when listening enabled the researcher to respond to the content later. He jotted down words that were difficult to understand due to inaccurate pronunciation or grammar and then modeled correct forms by using them in his answer or by pointing them out overtly. Besides, he asked for clarification to deal with words he could not understand. In case the students could not think of anything to talk about, he proposed a few questions in the feedback. Lastly, he gave responses similar in length and in content to those of the students’ entries, showing that he had understood and related to their messages. In brief, Henry’s (1994) study provided a clear picture of how to give feedback.
The teacher’s feedback to the students’ dialogue journals were classified into four types (McGrath, 1992), namely, suggestions (“Could you give me some examples of what you mean in your last paragraph? I am curious.”), clarifications
(“So it’s true you’d rather practice your English with strangers?”), negotiations of meaning (Although I appreciate your answering my questions, I’m still not quite sure what you mean here.”), and corrections (“Please look over your preposition use.
Don’t forget to check your periods.”) (p. 81).
Another similar study focused on how tutors gave useful feedback on the experienced teachers’ written dialogue journals, but the context was not for language learning, but one for sharing teaching experience (Todd, et al., 2001). It was found that participants preferred comments referring to specific points in their journals, rather than a general comment at the end. Of the nine kinds (supporting, probing, evaluating, understanding, analyzing, suggesting, adding information, agreeing, and thanking) of tutors’ responses, suggesting, adding information, supporting, and evaluating were what the participants thought the most useful. These responses helped participants solve problems, promote trust as well as build relationship between tutors and themselves.
In El-Koumy’s (1998) experimental study, participants in the experimental group wrote weekly on any topic, and the teacher wrote back to each student. The teacher’s feedback included making comments, offering opinions, requesting and giving clarification, and asking and answering questions. The results indicated that the experimental group scored higher than the control group in the speaking post-test.
Peyton (1991) emphasized that despite the fact that students can freely express their opinions in written dialogue journal, they need to pay attention to grammar and syntax. Teachers can correct written forms, without inhibiting the dialogue by modeling correct usage in their responses, bringing problems into the classroom, holding periodic individual conferences with students, or, as Jones (1988, p. 66, cited in Peyton, 1991, p. 14) suggested, adding a “grammatical P.S.” at the end of a student’s entry.
Peyton and Seyoum’s (1989) study examined the interaction strategies of an experienced teacher in improving writing of L2 sixth grade students with limited English proficiency through the written dialogue journal. The teacher offered information and opinions as well as responded to the topics that student wrote and sometimes initiated topics, but never corrected students’ journals. The findings indicated that her strategies did not vary depending on the students’ level of English proficiency. Most students tended to write more when they responded to an entry that contained contributions by the teacher; however, students’ English proficiency and topics were also found to influence the amount of their dialogue journal writing.
In addition, it was also found that written questions either alone or in combination with teacher contributions resulted in student responses more frequently than did teacher contributions with no accompanying questions.
To sum up, teachers always give responses related to the students’ content, ask and answer questions, request and give clarification, suggest, support as well as correct errors in these studies.
2.8 Summary
In this chapter, the meaning of the written dialogue journal was firstly defined, referring to a private written conversation typically between a teacher and a student on a regular, interactive, and continuous basis for an extended period of time. Apart from the written dialogue journal, other types of dialogue journal including the audiotape journal, the oral dialogue journal, and the cassette notebook were introduced to clarify the type of dialogue journal in the present study. The characteristics and benefits of dialogue journals were then addressed to ascertain the value of dialogue journals in facilitating language acquisition. Then, previous studies were shown to improve writing, reading, and speaking. Meanwhile, empirical studies focusing on the effect of oral dialogue journals on speaking were
reviewed. Last, a review of various types of feedback helped understand how the researcher responded to the subjects’ oral dialogue journals.
As the literature review indicates, both written and oral dialogue journals can improve speaking in English; therefore, it is worth a try to combine the two, that is, the teacher keeps the written journals and students record the oral journals. In addition, as can be seen from the review, few studies of oral or audiotaped dialogue journals have been investigated, not to mention the combination of oral and written dialogue journals. Moreover, eliciting learners’ feelings and attitudes from the questionnaire or interview in most studies yields no objective evidence about their improvement in fluency, grammar or vocabulary. In view of such inadequacy, the present study further provides quantitative evidence to ascertain the value of oral-written dialogue journals. These facts clearly suggest the necessity of the present study.
