PASAA Volume 49 January - June 2015 Teaching English Writing for a Global Context: An Examination of NS, ESL and EFL Learning Strategies That Work Rebecca K. Webb Rangsit University Abstract This study, examines two well-known writing pedagogies from the fields of Composition and Rhetoric, and Second Language Acquisition (SLA) for teaching literacy, or reading and writing skills1 in order to identify intersections for the English Language Learner (ELL) in an EFL learning environment. In addition, I present both quantitative and qualitative data in order to identify the learning strategies that are most effective from the Native Speaker (NS), English as a Second Language (ESL), and the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning environments. The data is as follows: 1) a survey of the perceptions of both ELL and NS students to analyze their assessment of current instructional methods and learning strategies; 2) an observation of and interview with an ELL student examining the strategy and process for producing effective writing; and 3) analysis of several writing samples from ELL students in EFL writing courses here in Thailand. The purpose of this 172 | PASAA Vol. 49 (January – June) 2015 examination is to identify where the two pedagogies intersect and identify the best learning strategies for the EFL learning environment in order to improve the acquisition of English writing skills. Keywords: writing, writing strategies, learning strategies, English literacy Background English has become the default language for international commerce and travel this fully globalized world. More students are studying English as a foreign or a second language in both the native and non-native English speaking environments than ever before. This has led to English becoming a Lingua Franca (ELF). One interesting result of this expansion of the English language is the varieties of English that are now known as World Englishes (WE) (Seidholfer, 2009; Bolton, Graddol, & Meierkord, 2011). As excellent as this seems for the monolingual native English speaking tourist or business person, the dominance of English in the world, and the globalized English Language Learner (ELL) presents significant challenges to instructors of English writing courses. Take Indian and British Englishes as an example of the complexity resulting from these global developments. As Richard Xiao explains in his study “Multidimensional Analysis and the Study of World Englishes” (2009), there are significant differences between how Indian and British use English in writing. Indian, he finds, is more “nouny” than British, partly as a result of the native Indian languages and partly as a result of eighteenth century East India Company influences (p. 443). Not only do these differences in the use of the English language present some challenges in how writing teachers teach discrete skills such as writing style and writing modes, it also presents some obstacles for the readers of the text. It is within this global context that we must recognize that for our students to succeed, effective skills in English writing are imperative. PASAA Vol. 49 (January - June 2015) | 173 It is well established that acquiring the necessary speaking and listening skills in English for EFL students are quite difficult. This is primarily because they lack adequate exposure to the target language outside the classroom. This is not so for the ESL student who lives and works in an English speaking environment and can acquire the necessary communication skills quickly and effectively, including native like pronunciation and syntax. The EFL student, on the other hand, often relies on L1 syntax to produce L2 utterances. However, EFL, ESL, and native language learning environments share many of the same struggles when it comes to developing effective writing skills. Therefore, it is helpful to review the English writing pedagogies, learning strategies and student perceptions from both the native and the non- native learner environments. Current trends in the composition classroom have widely accepted that the regular composition classroom dominated by NS students is benefited by the process writing approach. With its emphasis on drafting and revising, peer group work on reading and writing assignments, and contextualized grammar instruction addressed during conferences and tutoring sessions, the process writing approach has been found to be ideally suited to developing and fine tuning writing skills. However, it is understood that these students have been immersed in English both at home and at school for eighteen to nineteen years. As noted already, the ELLs are not so homogenous with their wide range of skill levels and experience with their L2. Even still, the process writing method has been used successfully in ESL classrooms as well, but with slightly more emphasis on discrete skills in syntax and lexicon. It also has been used successfully in the EFL classroom, but with some further modifications to the process; such as much more time spent on proofreading, error correction, and grammar instruction, than on content and development. In addition, there are many more questions and doubts about the helpfulness of group work which some studies have shown may result in better content for the EFL student, but not in better fluency or a lower rate of error (Bria & Jafari, 2013). This generates some pressing 174 | PASAA Vol. 49 (January – June) 2015 questions for the EFL writing classroom: 1) How effective is the process writing pedagogy in the EFL environment? 2) How can grammar effectively be addressed in a classroom where the needs are high and very diverse? and 3) how can peer-to-peer group work be used effectively to address both content and error correction? Process Writing in Composition and Rhetoric The process writing shift in Composition and Rhetoric began in the 1970’s in the U.S. The shift away from teaching modes of writing, literary analysis, and the classic five paragraph essay was started by two very powerful forces. The first was the new influx of GI Bill students (former soldiers receiving subsidized education from the U.S. military) and political refugees from war torn countries such as Vietnam, Korea, and South America. The second was the political and ideological shift over access to higher education best illustrated by the City University of New York’s establishment of a new open admissions program that admitted the rich, the poor, the native, the newly immigrated, the literate and the barely literate residents of New York City to its halls of academia. Many heated debates ensued among academicians about the educability of the great bulk of these students as so many underprepared NS students and ELLs were taking their places in the classrooms of the now accessible university system. As teachers began to focus on this problem in the classroom and in their research, three scholars brought to the debate a variety of radically new ideas and solutions to the problems of how to teach writing to these underprepared students. These three scholars I will use here to summarize the main ideas underpinning the process writing approach. For Janet Emig (1971) and Peter Elbow (1973), the idea that writing is a process was obvious. Janet Emig’s well-known study The Composing Processes of Twelfth Graders (1971), provided quantitative and qualitative evidence that the most fruitful and often the best writing was done via a slow process of drafting, reviewing with self and peers, revising and reviewing again and PASAA Vol. 49 (January - June 2015) | 175 again, in a seemingly endless loop. The formal school sponsored writing assignment, as Emig points out in her findings, “truncates the process of composing” that in self-sponsored writing can take up to two years (p. 98). This truncating of what appears to be a natural process also disengages the student from the writing they do for school. In short, the student approaches the school sponsored writing assignments as formal tasks with restrictions, rules, and boundaries of language use that must be met and upheld or failure is imminent. Peter Elbow made a similar discovery about his own writing and then made the radical decision to teach process writing to his own students. The results of his observations from his own writing experiences and those of his students produced another well- known text, Writing Without Teachers (1973). In this text, Elbow presents a well-known analogy describing writing like growing and cooking ideas rather than transferring them. It provides, I think, an adequate description of the theory underlying the pedagogical practice of the process writing approach. With the publication of these and several other radical works throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s, it became clear to many writing teachers that writing was a process that when embraced in the classroom resulted in a much improved written product. Today, the writing classroom includes many process writing activities such as free-writing, clustering, brainstorming, outlining, drafting, revising, etc. Because the process writing approach emphasizes re-visioning and reflecting on the writing process itself, in which students focus on global re-visions to their essays before handing them in to the teacher, a large portion of class time is spent engaging in various levels of drafting from brainstorming, listing, outlining, to developing content and focus, to proofreading. This work is often done in peer groups instead of through lecture, or in isolation because it is believed that such peer-to-peer interaction not only improves both writers’ and reviewers’ reading and composing processes, but it also creates more motivation in the students to write well because the writer has a tangible audience to consider and from whom he or she will receive instant feedback. 176 | PASAA Vol. 49 (January – June) 2015 Of course, this new and radical approach to teaching writing did not come without its problems and criticism. The Grammar and Red Pen Controversy There were some problems with this movement and, over the years, researchers have addressed them. A major drawback to the process writing approach is that it does not allow for the traditional evaluation and assessment practices in which a teacher collects a student’s essay, reads the essay, comments on errors, assigns a grade and returns the essay to the student who will file it away, never to return to it again. If the teacher continues to assess student writing in this format, while teaching process writing, then she is not prioritizing the work the student has been asked to do, which is to write, review, revise and repeat process in order to learn a strategy, or a process for writing from which the student will produce more communicatively effective essays—even if not perfectly accurate. Instead, she is prioritizing the final product, thus reinforcing the same old teaching format that rarely, if ever, coaxed or inspired an Angelou or a Hemmingway. Other criticisms of process writing include how to formally and systematically address severe grammatical problems in student writing when the bulk of the course is taken up with process writing activities. Furthermore, whole class instruction in grammar with its quizzes and exercises is counter-intuitive to a process writing approach where error correction is set aside until the final proofreading and editing stages of the re-visioning process. These last two criticisms are of particular importance for the ELL environment. After several years of debate and much research, teachers and researchers began to formulate approaches to both assessment and grammar instruction that proved effective for both the traditional college writing course with its bulk of NS students as well as the new era course with its mixture of NS and ELLs. Mina P. Shaughnessy’s seminal work Errors & Expectations: A Guide for the Teacher of Basic Writing (1977) provided a qualitative map of student errors in the developmental or remedial college PASAA Vol. 49 (January - June 2015) | 177 writing courses where the most problematic writing examples are usually found. What her research demonstrates is that no grammar instruction is bad writing instruction. Shaughnessy points out that a lack of mastery over English causes a student to view error as “a barrier that keeps him not only from writing something in formal English but from having something to write” (p. 11). Moreover, this lack of mastery of English grammar, and the continued lack of adequate and effective instruction in it is likely to, as Shaughnessy states, pitch a student “against more obstacles than are apparent to those who have already mastered that code” (p. 13). Finally, Shaughnessy’s study demonstrates that the core mission of a writing teacher at all levels of English instruction, whether for NS students or ELLs must be to encourage student mastery of the “dominant code of literacy” (p. 13), which includes basic grammar codes and syntax. Under this new paradigm of process writing instruction, the most productive way to teach grammar, then, is in the context of student writing based on the teacher’s assessment of each student’s individual idiosyncrasies that includes understanding their ability with code switching, their native language background if they are ELLS, and previous reading and writing experiences. Whole class grammar instruction, then, might be taught in the context of essay writing fundamentals. Individual students’ grammar problems would be addressed in the context of the student’s individual essays and would focus on helping students formulate effective communication strategies rather than on the eradication of errors. Although Shaugnessy raised awareness of the pitfalls of whole class grammar instruction vs. no grammar instruction, finding the right fit between grammar instruction and process writing, however, continues to cause vexation especially in the ELL environments in which proofreading and error correction form the bulk of the work. Likewise, the students in an ELL writing environment are often paralyzed by their own fear of grammatical errors and are unable or unwilling to engage in more complex ideas and problems in their writing. 178 | PASAA Vol. 49 (January – June) 2015 After six years of collecting portfolios from all students in the first-year composition sequence at his community college, Mark Blaauw-Hara and his colleagues discovered that the students’ achievement in the outcome of grammar was poor, across the board. Although not surprised by this outcome, in “Why Our Students Need Instruction in Grammar and How We Should Go about it” (2009), Blaauw-Hara sets out to address this problem and provide specific strategies, supported by research to help students achieve the necessary fluency in writing, including their grammar, to succeed in college and in their future professions. Although not an advocate of “whole-class grammar instruction” (p. 166) he points out the importance of including grammar instruction in the composition classroom. Blaauw-Hara describes the “problems with traditional grammar instruction,” and provides “productive ways to conceive of grammar and correctness” (p.166). He outlines several specific teaching and learning strategies for addressing grammar in the composition classroom designed around the process writing approach. These strategies include: 1) teacher responses to papers should focus on revision strategies and should not include a grade; 2) there should be more one-on-one teacher student interaction that focuses on talking and listening; and 3) working on grammar in the student’s own writing by helping him develop critical reading strategies, providing him with models of good writing, proofreading strategies, and assigning agency to the student by not correcting his errors for him. These strategies not only correspond with the theory and praxis of the process writing approach, but also, as I will discuss next, with whole language learning and critical literacy studies developed by SLA and literacy scholars in recent years. Intersections: SLA and the Process Writing Approach In Teaching ESL Composition: Purpose, Process, and Practice (2005), ELL teachers and researchers, Dana Ferris and John Hedgcock set out to provide a comprehensive discussion of, as well as practical classroom strategies for teaching ESL composition that emphasizes the process writing method. PASAA Vol. 49 (January - June 2015) | 179 Drawing on the work of SLA scholar, Barbara Kroll (1993, 1994, 1998, 2001, 2003), with process writing methods for the ELL environment, Ferris and Hedgcock provide in-depth strategies for teaching ESL composition such as syllabus design, lesson planning, text and materials selections, teacher response to student writing, peer review strategies, teaching grammar and error correction, assessment and using technology in the writing classroom. The binding principles underlying their design for a typical ELL course is that the ELL writing class, quoting from Kroll (2001), “is perhaps best seen as a workshop for students to learn to produce academic essays through mastering techniques for getting started and generating ideas” (p. 73). Their methodological approach to a typical ELL course includes process writing activities, as well as SLA methods such as whole language instruction, and critical literacy. Ferris’ and Hedgcock’s approach to process writing and to error correction draw heavily from Elbow’s, Flower’s and Shaugnessy’s theories, and is very similar to Blaauw-Hara’s pedagogy described earlier in that they include numerous process writing activities, peer review sessions, and whole language instruction. In addition, as with Blaauw-Hara, they note that error correction does not significantly improve student’s writing, nor does whole class grammar instruction. However, they also note that ELLs do require instruction in grammar, but the traditional approach is just as ineffective with them as it has been with the NS student population. Therefore, their approach to grammar instruction, like Blaauw-Hara includes teaching students explicit but relevant instruction in grammar rules, focusing on error correction during the final revision stages, teaching editing and proofreading skills, and focusing on patterns of errors that are frequent and stigmatizing rather than on all errors in a student’s paper. This and other recent studies in SLA (Lin, 2013; Pandey, 2012; & Wei et al, 2012) suggest that the process writing approach can be effectively used with ELL students at all skill levels. They also reveal the continued need for formal instruction in grammar 180 | PASAA Vol. 49 (January – June) 2015 for all students, but combining two counter-intuitive practices such as grammar instruction with its discrete skills exercises, drills, and quizzes, with process over product instruction is problematic, as many writing teachers have experienced. What the previous review of research in teaching writing suggests is that both the NS and ELL environments in which process writing, whole language, and critical literacy approaches to teaching are being adopted look more like a whole class writing workshop than a traditional teacher-centered, lecture dominated classroom. Grammar, style, development and critical thinking are addressed in the context of a student’s essay and are, therefore, targeted to the student’s individual needs. This is the point at which the two pedagogies intersect: Whole Language learning with Process Writing. But, exactly what does this look like and how does it work in terms of classroom instruction? What becomes of the teacher’s role? And, can EFL students be trusted with error correction of other EFL student’s writing? Data Survey of Student Perceptions of Classroom Learning Strategies To answer the above questions and get closer to a conclusion about the most effective learning strategies for the ELL writing classroom, I conducted a survey of students enrolled in both the NS and ESL composition and reading courses at a college in the U.S. A survey of a total of 186 students consisting of 50 advanced ESL students enrolled in the ESL equivalent of the required first year composition and reading course, and 136 students (mixed with 28 ESL, 89 NS, and 19 other NNS students) in the regular required first year composition and reading course reveals what many students perceive to be the most helpful learning strategies from lectures, to group work, to one-on-one conferencing with an instructor or tutor (see Figures 1 through 4 below). The students were asked to rate each classroom instruction method on a scale from 1 (least helpful) to 5 (most helpful). The classroom instruction methods included: one-on-one