Changes in Revision Behaviours of L2 Writers in an Intensive English for Academic Purposes Program

Revision constitutes an important component of the writing process that integrates text interpretation, reflection, and production. Although previous studies have offered useful insights into the revision behaviour of L2 writers at different levels of proficiency using off-line measures, little is known about the online processes of revision. In this study, I used keystroke logging to investigate longitudinal changes in the revision processes of postgraduate and undergraduate students in the context of an intensive English for Academic Purposes (EAP) program. Twenty-five postgraduate and 14 undergraduate students participated in this study. The keystroke logging program Inputlog was used during two essay writing sessions at the beginning and at the end of the course to observe how the participants revise their essays and to get insights into their on-line writing processes. Keystroke logging data were coded in terms of the orientation and location of revisions. The results revealed that postgraduates produced more content-oriented revisions at the end of the programme than at the beginning. The opposite trend was observed for the undergraduates, who revised their essays significantly less frequently at the end than at the beginning of the EAP program and made more mechanical revisions than postgraduate writers. The findings highlight fundamental differences in the developmental trajectories of revision processes between postgraduate and undergraduate students. These differences caused by previous academic writing experience and language proficiency should be considered in developing materials for EAP programs. In the paper, I also discuss benefits of using keystroke logging to investigate L2 writers’ revision processes

An exploratory analysis of revision behavior development of L2 writers on an intensive English for academic purposes program using Bayesian methods

Revision is a fundamental part of the writing process and is particularly important in the production of high-quality academic writing. This study is an exploratory examination of changes in revision behavior, as measured by keystroke logging software, at the beginning (T1) and end (T2) of a one-month intensive English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course on n = 39 undergraduate and postgraduate students. Bayes Factors (BFs) are utilized as measures of strength of evidence for changes in behavior. In this paper, we examine the application of a Bayesian Hypothesis Testing (BHT) approach and its implications specifically for exploratory studies, i.e., studies with relatively small samples intended to search data for emergent patterns. The results show that, in most cases, we have moderate evidence against any change in behavior over time. Based on this evidence, we conclude that the experimental parameters of further exploratory work into the development of revisions should be modified to maximize the chance of finding patterns in the data from which to generate any confirmatory hypotheses

L2 Learners’ Perceptions of Their Writing Strategies on an Intensive EAP Course

This study examines second language (L2) learners’ perceptions of their writing strategies on an intensive English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programme at a British university. The participants were 14 Chinese pre-undergraduate students who engaged in interviews and completed reflective journal entries. The results of the analyses indicate that after four weeks of studying on the EAP course, students believed that they started to apply a broader range of writing strategies, such as reading extensively, using exemplars of student writing to inform their own assignments, revising in a more focused manner and appreciating tutor feedback on their writing. Thus, the perceived increase in the use of various writing strategies is indicative of the potential effectiveness of a short EAP pre-sessional course

Exploring Classroom Willingness to Communicate: The Role of Motivating Future L2 Selves

This study investigated the link between future L2 selves and Willingness to Communicate (WTC) in the classroom in the UK university context. We applied a mixed methods approach to collect data from 121 Chinese overseas students where a questionnaire was used before semi-structured interviews were conducted with six participants. Two key quantitative findings were: 1) There is a strong positive correlation between ideal L2 self and classroom WTC; 2) A student’s major moderates the relationship between the ought-to L2 self and classroom WTC. Students from non-English-related majors had a greater influence of ought-to L2 self on their WTC in the classroom, while ought-to L2 self does not seem to affect the WTC of English-related majors in the classroom. Follow-up interviews triangulated the quantitative findings with further illustrations in terms of the role of future L2 selves in stimulating WTC in the classroom and the potential differences between students with different academic backgrounds

Rethinking Teaching Listening Skills: A Case Study

This study explores EAP teachers’ views of underlying problems in teaching listening skills and the strategies adopted by them to overcome problems at the tertiary level in EFL contexts. The study is based on the theoretical assumption of listening perception processes and its role in language development as hypothesised by Richards (2008). In this instrumental case study, one EAP teacher was purposively interviewed to identify their understanding of the investigated issue. The generated data were analysed following the basic qualitative analysis method. The findings demonstrate that in teaching listening skills both the top-down and bottom-up approaches should be adopted to integrate process-based listening skills teaching, which promotes target language acquisition in and out of the classroom. The findings may make the EAP practitioners reconsider incorporating the bottom-up approach to improve the existing strategies of teaching listening skills at the tertiary level

Evaluating co-production as a guiding philosophy for EAP teacher training course development

This paper considers the research philosophy of co-production for use in the field of EAP, where it has been little utilised as a guiding principle for research and development projects. The central question to be addressed is the appropriacy of co-production in a specific setting, and the challenges and benefits it brings to the research process. For projects situated in settings that are relatively unfamiliar to professional researchers, co-production provides a promising framework to i) ensure diversity of contextually appropriate perspectives, ii) engender collaboration and egalitarianism, iii) build capacity for action, and iv) engage with and bring together the community to work towards a common goal. We explored the potential of co-production through a project aiming to improve EAP teaching quality in tertiary education in Uzbekistan. The project was designed and implemented by one UK-based and four Uzbekistan-based team members who trained tertiary-level teachers to better instruct EAP, and it successfully reached approximately 300 teaching professionals across Uzbekistan. We detail how co-production brought value to the project but also ways in which it could not be fully implemented. We intend this paper to be an introduction to the application of co-production, through which others in EAP can explore its exciting possibilities