2025-10-10
Narrative competence, the ability to construct and comprehend especially fictional narratives, has long represented an advanced ability for language users (Pavlenko, 2006). This study explored whether additional language (AL) writers, who demonstrated narrative competence in English by composing fictional stories about imagined future scenarios, differed in degree of expressed Englishlanguage ownership (Hanauer & Dolan, 2014; Nicholes, 2017b; Olckers, 2013) from AL writers who performed statements about imagined futures. In this study, seventy (N = 70) AL writers were invited to write fictional accounts of their imagined futures and then report their perceived ownership of English. Writers were grouped by those who accomplished stories and those who composed statements imagining their futures. Mann-Whitney U tests of difference indicated that those AL writers who composed stories, with characters, description, setting, or other story elements, reported statistically significantly more ownership of English both pre-intervention (U = 429, p = .028, r = .26) and post-intervention (U = 403, p = .013, r = .30). Meanwhile, the writing experience did not itself relate to significant changes in reported ownership for the group of participants who wrote either stories or statements. This study indicates that narrative performance may predict or otherwise be associated with AL perceived ownership of English as an additional language and concludes with theoretical and pedagogical implications for fiction writing in the AL classroom.
Earlier research I conducted indicated that students lacked confidence in their L2 writing and in their ability to express themselves in their L2. It was hypothesised that creative writing could have an impact on these areas. Over the course of the 2019 academic year, third-year English majors in a Japanese university enrolled in a creative writing program completed a “Language Skills Assessment,” kept a learner diary under freewriting conditions and took part in semi-structured interviews which were conducted at the end of the year. Despite a small sample size, the results were positive. Results from the questionnaires showed an upturn in self-assessment of L2 writing ability. Word count in freewriting activities showed an increase indicating a concurrent increase in writing fluency, an indicator of increased confidence. Responses in learner diaries and in the semi-structured interviews supported these results, and students were clear that creative writing was a significant factor in their increased confidence regarding L2 writing.
This study explored language learning as a transformational event in which success is not measured in terms of cognitive and communicative ability, but rather allows learners to reflect on experiential identity forming moments through writing. The pedagogy attached to the action research portion of this study attempted to access learners’ identity and agency through L2 poetry writing that fostered the ability for an individual to create an authentic authorial voice. The creative writing pedagogy acted as the frame in which a qualitative multiple case study was carried out to examine the effects of authorial voice on learners’ agency. The case study was conducted at a university in Japan with three EFL learners and traces their development as L2 writers and language learners. Results showed that the presence of authorial voice alone did not necessarily increase a learner’s sense of agency; however, if a learner believed they had achieved authorial voice, then an increased level of agentic behaviors was observed. The negative counterpart was also found to be true. Therefore, a relationship of mutual causation was identified between a learner’s agency and the learner’s personal belief in the achievement of authorial voice. In the authorial voice and agency system (AVAS) of mutual causality, the considerations acted interdependently in which change in one effected change in the other, either positively or negatively. Additional factors such as community of practice, discourse community, the teaching of literary devices, and translingual writing strategies were found to effect authorial voice and thus generate changes in learner agency.
This research is concerned with how promoting creative writing amongst Emirati students throughout Higher Education in the United Arab Emirates led to female students’ developing their confidence and independence. Through writing and seeing their work published, students became conscious of the uniqueness of their own contributions and of their own context. In a conservative culture that considers creative writing unbecoming, rather than integral to education and selfdevelopment, an online competition was devised for students to experiment with their own ideas in their everyday lingua franca of English, in the form of a 50-word creative text. The majority of these texts were written by female students, and their writing shows themes of identity, locality, globality and struggle. Observation and discussion with the writers of the texts and their peers reveal how writing and publishing these “identity texts” (Cummins et al., 2015) support students’ engagement with English literacy as well as articulating and validating their written identities through considering interaction with readerships from different cultures.
English learners with disabilities (ELSWD) regularly face challenges with writing, but there is limited research on what approach to writing instruction is effective for these students. This study examines the effect of Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) for writing, an evidence-based practice for students with learning disabilities, on the writing of ELSWD. Teachers in a small elementary school participated in practice-based professional development to learn how to teach writing through SRSD. Then, they implemented SRSD writing instruction to support their learners, particularly English learners (ELs) and ELSWD. Fifteen ELWSD received SRSD writing instruction for a total of a year and a half (six quarters). Pretest and posttest writing was analyzed and showed that the majority of students improved in their ability to plan their writing, creating a graphic organizer and using a genre-specific strategy as a part of their prewriting plans. In addition, the majority of students also improved in the number of genre elements included in their essays and overall writing quality. This paper concludes with recommendations for practitioners and for further research.
Whether the writing ability of one genre can indicate another remains an interesting question for teachers, learners and researchers. However, cross-genre writing performance is still relatively under-researched in English-as-a-foreign language (EFL) learning context. This exploratory study aims to examine the general cross-genre writing ability of EFL college students, by contrasting their narrative and argumentative writing performance and investigating the correlation of them. 96 scored essays (48 narratives, 48 argumentative) were collected from a genre-based writing course. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were adopted to investigate individuals’ cross-genre writing ability. Unlike prior research on EFL cross-genre writing, a significant difference of writing performance was found between two genres, with argumentative outperforming narrative. There also exists a moderate positive correlation between narrative and argumentative writing performance. The in-depth follow-up interviews with six participants of distinct writing proficiency revealed four major factors that may influence cross-genre writing ability, including: overall writing proficiency, mastery of genre-specific features, frequency of genre practice, and the amount of participatory generic input in writing instruction. The findings suggest that cross-genre writing ability varies across individuals and is difficult to acquire with above-mentioned challenges. Pedagogical implications for genre-based writing instruction in EFL classrooms are finally provided.
Although student engagement with feedback has been discussed in second language writing studies, student engagement with teacher and peer feedback through a sequence of tasks (SOT) remains under-explored. The present study adopted mediated learning experience (MLE) theory to operationalize the sequence within the teacher’s intervention and peer collaboration to facilitate Vietnamese secondary students’ engagement. The study explores whether there is student engagement with feedback, whether their engagement satisfies the criteria of MLE, and how it is mediated through the SOT. The analysis of data from audio recordings and correcting texts indicated that there was student engagement with feedback that addressed MLE’s criteria and was mediated by the teacher’s mediational strategies, peer collaboration, first language, and the learning tasks. Although responding to teacher and peer feedback showed an indication of understanding, indirect feedback caused uncertainties in some cases, and responses to the rewriting task were somewhat transcendent. The findings validate a mediated view of language learning from which implications for research and L2 writing are drawn.
In the era of urbanization in China, the massive internal migrant children population has become a significant group in host cities’ education provision. However, due to reasons presented, it cannot be ignored that migrant children’s English competence has lagged behind their city peers. The purpose of this research is to evaluate an intensive English programme called English Camp for internal migrant children in China by using the framework of social cultural theory. By analyzing 31 participants’ personal narrative stories, five focal students’ in-depth interviews, classroom observation, discussion with teaching assistants (TAs) and one founder, migrant children’s identities are explored, as well as their imagined communities and motivation. It was found that their identities were multi-faceted, deeply rooted in the macro context and articulated with the micro level interaction in the end. The results showed the overall positive effect of English Camp. The welcoming and intercultural environment helps migrant children visualize their future more broadly. Some practical implications are also suggested to educators.
Dr. Tarja Nikula is a professor at the Centre for Applied Language Studies at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. She received her PhD degree from this university in 1996. She has published widely in the field of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and has been involved in international research collaborations. She has co-edited the book Language Use and Language Learning in CLIL Classrooms, and recently the book entitled Conceptualising Integration in CLIL and Multilingual Education. Furthermore, she has co-edited a special issue with a focus on CLIL in Language Learning Journal. Her research interests include language learning and use, and disciplinary literacies in classroom practice. During a virtual interview on January 24, 2022, Dr. Huseyin Uysal chatted with her about her scholarship in CLIL. Dr. Nikula explained how she was involved in CLIL, and how it shaped her scholarship. Then, she shared her thoughts on CLIL implementation and on the future directions in CLIL research.
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