A survey of students’ perceptions of how English writing instruction is carried out in Norwegian upper secondary schools

This study investigates how Norwegian upper secondary school students attending General Studies perceive how English writing instruction is carried out, their own writing skills and what assessment strategies are applied from a genre-pedagogical perspective. A questionnaire was distributed to15 randomly selected schools, resulting in 522 students responding. The analysis of the current survey reveals that Norwegian upper secondary school students do not feel confident about their English writing skills, neither when it comes to narrative nor argumentative writing, and they perceive writing instruction and feedback practices differently. If practices vary as much as students report here, this is a serious issue that needs to be addressed both in schools and in teacher training institutions, and this article suggests that applying a genre-pedagogical approach to teaching writing could be one solution to ensure more similar practices in line with official guidelines for the Norwegian educational system

English writing instruction in Norwegian upper secondary schools - a linguistic and genre-pedagogical perspective : Thesis for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor Department of Nordic and Media studies Faculty of Humanities and Education University of Agder and Faculty of English Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań

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Challenges concerning argumentative writing in a second language context

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Feedback practices in English in Norwegian upper secondary schools

The trends that we see both in official guidelines and school practices demonstrate a shift towards formative assessment strategies with an emphasis on feed-forward comments to the students. How this is carried out in schools varies, and the material in this study shows signs of changing evaluation practices in English instruction. One of the changes is an increased tendency to use process-oriented approaches to feedback, in which the students work through a draft several times before handing in a final product. Much of what is commented on in the feedback focuses on how ideas are organised and how the text is structured. Though process writing is a familiar concept from first language writing instruction, the specific focus on genre requirements in the feedback process makes this a somewhat different type of process-writing, similar to what we find in the genre-pedagogy tradition developed in Australia. The English teachers in this study who report working in this way combine process-writing with explicit instruction in genre requirements. This study explores current feedback practices, and illustrates how process-oriented feedback practices may be combined with writing instruction in a genre-pedagogy approach to writing to support students’ writing

Forbedring av skriveferdigheter og økt selvtillit gjennom grammatikkundervisning

Denne artikkelen oppsummerer et forskningsprosjekt på skriveferdigheter gjennomført i videregående skole våren 2010. Hovedmålet med dette forskningsprosjektet var å undersøke om grammatikkundervisning i norsk og engelsk kan forbedre elevers skriveferdigheter, og om dette igjen vil gi elevene økt selvtillit når det gjelder skriving. I forskningsprosjektet ble det brukt to testgrupper og to kontrollgrupper, og testgruppene ble utsatt for et undervisningseksperiment, hvor fokus var på ulike typer sammenbindinger. Resultatene fra prosjektet viser enkelte interessante funn, mellom annet en økt variasjon i forhold til bruk av sammenbindingselementer som uttrykker motsetningsforhold etter endt undervisningseksperiment. Et annet interessant funn var at denne effekten kunne en se både når elevene skrev på norsk, som er deres morsmål, og engelsk. Det er lite dokumentert forskning innen dette feltet i Norge, og erfaringene fra dette forskningsprosjektet vil kunne bidra til refleksjon rundt videre forskning på sammenhenger mellom skriveferdigheter og grammatikkundervisning

Challenges concerning argumentative writing in a second language context

The current study is based on parts of the data collected in a quasi-experiment conducted in four English classes of Norwegian upper secondary school students. The purpose of the quasi-experiment was to explore whether a teaching intervention based on systemic functional linguistics and genre-pedagogy would support students in improving their competence in writing argumentative texts in English. The improvement was measured by comparing evaluations of pre-and post-tests. The current study investigates what seemed to be the main challenges for Norwegian students concerning this type of genre in a second language context based on the pre-tests and the evaluations of the pre-tests. The most challenging aspect seems to be how to write thorough argumentation and discussion and to use sources in an independent and correct manner. Other challenging features seem to be how to structure texts and how to adjust the language to appropriate levels of formality and modality. To meet these challenges, this article advocates introducing genre-pedagogy as a teaching approach in ESL-contexts (English as a second language). This would ensure a focus on how to construct arguments through detailed instruction and to adjust the writing to purpose and situation

English writing instruction in Norwegian upper secondary schools

AbstractThis article presents a study of current English writing instruction practices in a selection of Norwegian upper secondary schools and discusses how this draws upon ideas within genre-pedagogy. The data comprises individual and focus-group interviews, observation reports and some teaching material. The study shows that English teachers focus on teaching genre requirements and adjustment of language to task and context. However, despite agreeing on the importance of teaching how to write specific text-types and to adjust to the situation at hand, there seems to be different opinions about how detailed instruction should be. Some teachers fear that too explicit instruction may hinder creativity, while others emphasise the need to learn how to structure a text, and to open up for creativity within certain writing frames. In spite of the differences, the practices revealed in this study comply quite well with genre-pedagogy. From the findings in this article, it seems like there is a need to develop and make available teaching material in English to be used in writing instruction, and also to improve the English teacher education with regard to the teaching of writing.Keywords: Writing instruction, genre-pedagogy, teaching-learning cycle, con-text and modellingSammendragDenne artikkelen presenterer en studie av engelsk skriveundervisning i et utvalg norske videregående skoler, og diskuterer hvordan disse praksisene samsvarer med sjangerpedagogikk. Innsamlet data består av individuelle og fokusgruppe-intervjuer, observasjonsrapporter og undervisningsmateriale, og studien viser at engelsklærere fokuserer på å undervise sjangerkrav og det å tilpasse språk til oppgave og kontekst. Til tross for at det er enighet om at det er viktig å undervise i spesifikke tekst typer, og det å tilpasse skriving til situasjon, er det ulike meninger om hvor detaljert skriveundervisningen bør være. Noen lærere frykter at for eksplisitt instruksjon kan hindre kreativitet, mens andre understreker behovet for å lære å strukturere tekster i detalj, og åpner opp for kreativitet innen bestemte skriverammer. Til tross for ulikheter, så samsvarer praksisene presentert i denne studien i stor grad med sjangerpedagogikken. Ut fra funnene i denne artikkelen, kan en konkludere at det er et behov for å utvikle og gjøre tilgjengelig undervisningsmateriale for skriveundervisning i engelsk, samt at det er et behov for å forbedre engelsklærerutdanningen når det gjelder opplæring i skriveundervisning.Nøkkelord: Skriveundervisning, sjangerpedagogikk, undervisnings-lærings syklus, kontekst og modellering

English writing instruction in Norwegian upper secondary schools – a linguistic and genre-pedagogical perspective

Wydział Anglistyki UAM / Faculty of Humanities and Education University of Agder, Krisitansand, NorwayThis thesis investigates 1) How is English writing instruction carried out in upper secondary schools in Norway, and 2) What effects does applying systemic functional linguistics through a genre-pedagogy approach to teaching writing have on students’ writing skills? It is an article-based thesis comprising four articles and an extended abstract. The general theoretical framing of this thesis is systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and genre-pedagogy, an approach to teaching writing developed in Australia based on Halliday’s SFL. The first three articles investigate the first research question, how writing instruction is carried out from both a teacher and student perspective. Teachers were interviewed and observed, and students were surveyed. The findings showed that practices vary, but there seems to be an emphasis on teaching how to structure argumentative writing and focusing on adjusting language to context. In addition, some teachers use formative assessment strategies integrated in their writing instruction. These findings reveal a type of practice in line with a genre-pedagogical approach. The fourth article answers the second research question, what effects applying SFL through genre-pedagogy has on students writing skills. A quasi-experiment was carried out, which included a teaching intervention focused on how to write argumentative texts. The main finding was that the students improved significantly from pre to post-test regardless of gender, first language and level

PhD revisited: English writing instruction in Norwegian upper secondary schools. A linguistic and genre-pedagogical perspective

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