Revision Processes in First Language and Foreign Language Writing: Differences and Similarities in the Success of Revision Processes

Writing academic texts in one’s native language (L1) and – even more – in a foreign language (FL) places high cognitive demands on students. In order to cope with these demands, writers should learn to adapt their writing methods flexibly to their tasks, depending on the language and the genre they are writing in. Crucial aspects here are the methods of revising because the need for linguistic revision will be higher in the FL text than in the L1 text; at the same time, it should not be the main or only focus of the revision process. In order to analyse the differences in L1 and FL revision, a study was set up in which ten L1 German students wrote academic essays in German and in English. The production process was protocolled with the help of keylogging, so that the revising processes could be analysed. The results show that the participants revised similarly in both the L1 and the FL. They focussed on the same aspects (content, typing mistakes, and language errors that were not L1 related). At the same time, there are differences in finer grades. These differences in revision do not seem to be a conscious decision, however, but are rather the result of the higher cognitive demands in FL academic writing and the lower degree of language knowledge. Additionally, the analysis of the final FL texts showed that most of the errors that were not corrected were L1 induced. When one looks at the revisions, however, one sees that hardly any revisions were made in these aspects: the L1 influence went more or less unnoticed. For writing pedagogy, this means that one has to put a higher focus on revision strategies during teaching, in order to give students the tools to write successfully in L1 and in FL, and to motivate them in enhancing their papers

Ausführungsprozesse in der Fremdsprache

Bei der Erforschung des fremdsprachlichen Schreibens wurde der reinen Ausführung, also der orthographischen Planung und motorischen Umsetzung, bisher wenig Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt, obwohl dieser Faktor Einfluss auf die Flüssigkeit des Schreibens und damit auf die Qualität des Produkts hat. In diesem Beitrag werden die Ergebnisse einer Studie vorgestellt, bei der Studierende mit Deutsch als Erst-, Zweit- oder Fremdsprache Sätze und Wortgruppen auf Deutsch und Englisch abtippten. Die Prozesse wurden in Keylogging-Protokollen festgehalten und statistisch ausgewertet. Es wird deutlich, dass es Unterschiede in der Ausführung zwischen den Gruppen und zwischen den Sprachen gibt. Dies zeigt, dass in der Fremdsprachenlehre auch die Ausführung gefördert werden sollte, um den Schreibfluss und damit auch Potenziale, wie Verstehen durch das Schreiben, zu fördern

Using Spelling Error Analyses to Examine Individual Differences in German Students From Diverse Linguistic Backgrounds: A Latent Class Approach

The current study examined German spelling errors among students with German as their first (L1) and those with German as their second language (L2) in Grades 3-4 (elementary school students; n = 127) and Grades 5-7 (secondary school students; n = 379). Five hundred and six students participated in the study. We performed two separate latent class analyses on elementary and secondary school students. Results indicate that elementary school students can be categorized as good (Class 1), consonant error dominant (Class 2), or poor spellers (Class 3). However, secondary students can be categorized as addition and sequence error dominant (Class 1), substitution and omission error dominant (Class 2), or poor spellers (Class 3). The three-step multinomial logistic regression analyses suggested that decoding was associated with the highest chances of being poor spellers in both elementary and secondary schools. Speaking German as L1 or L2 was a significant predictor of heterogeneities in secondary but not elementary school students. Polish L1 secondary students had the highest possibility of being poor spellers. The results suggest heterogeneities of student profiles. In addition, special attention should be given to secondary school students with the Polish L1 background in their spelling struggles associated with German orthography