This paper explores the ways in which the transfer of assumptions from L1 writing can sometimes help the process of writing in L2. In learning a second language writing skill,learners have two primary sources to construct a second language system: knowledge and skills from the first language and input from the second language. The present study was conducted to investigate the relative impact of first language literacy skills on second language writing ability. To carry out the research, sixty EFL students from Tabriz Islamic Azad University were chosen and divided into two groups. After being sure about the groups’ homogeneity, they were given two topics to write about: the first group wrote in English about the topics, the second group was asked to write in Persian about the same topics and then translate their writing into English. The data were analyzed by using a t-test and other subsequent analysis. The results may help the teachers to reevaluate their views about the role of first language in second language teaching and they must consider both inter-lingual transfer and intra-lingual input in their analysis of second language literacy development

Ahangari, Saeideh

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 1The Relationship between First and Second Language Composition WritingDr. Saeideh AhangariIslamic Azad University of TabrizNo. 18, Oranus Alley, Nezami StreetValiasr, TabrizIRAN post code 5157613613Tel: 0098 411 3316127Fax: 0098 21 22055998s_ahangari@yahoo.com  2THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FIRST AND SECOND LANGUAGECOMPOSITION WRITINGABSTRACT This paper explores the ways in which the transfer of assumptions from L1 writing cansometimes help the process of writing in L2. In learning a second language writing skill,learners have two primary sources to construct a second language system: knowledge andskills from the first language and input from the second language. The present study wasconducted to investigate the relative impact of first language literacy skills on secondlanguage  writing  ability.  To  carry  out  the  research,  sixty  EFL  students  from  TabrizIslamic Azad University were chosen and divided into two groups. After being sure aboutthe groups’ homogeneity, they were given two topics to write about: the first group wrotein English about the topics, the second group was asked to write in Persian about thesame topics and then translate their writing into English. The data were analyzed by usinga t-test and other subsequent analysis. The results may help the teachers to reevaluatetheir views about the role of first language in second language teaching and they mustconsider both inter-lingual transfer and intra-lingual input in their analysis of secondlanguage literacy development.INTRODUCTION The field of ESL writing and composition have drifted apart in recent years. Disjunctionshave arisen about the roles and types of research and theory, about the uses of textualanalysis, about the role of first language on second language writing, and about criticalpedagogy, ………………Writing is concerned as an instrument through which people communicate with oneanother in time and space, transmitting their accumulated culture from one generation toanother. When we review writing in this broad perspective we can see how vitally relatedour written language is not only to the life of the individuals but to the total life of thecommunity. Writing is an important experience through which we are able to share ideas, arousefeelings, persuade and convince other people (White & Arndt, 1991). It is important toview writing not solely as the product of an individual, but as a cognitive, social andcultural act. Arapoff (1965) defines writing as:Writing is much more than an orthographic symbolization of speech. It is mostimportantly, purposeful selection and organization of experience. By experience I  3mean all thoughts, facts, opinions or ideas- whether acquired first hand ( throughdirect perception and/or actions) or second hand (through reading or hearing).Halliday (1975) refers to writing as learning how to mean. Candlin (1987) remarks thatwriting is a negotiative and explanatory act requiring great judgment. Writing is an actthat takes  place within  a context, that accomplishes a particular purpose  and that isappropriately shaped for its intended audience (Hamplyons & Kroll, 1997).Relationship between L1 and L2 writingOne of the on-going debates among language teachers is that of whether or not to use thestudents’  first  language  (L1)  in  foreign  language  (L2)  classrooms  or  learningenvironments. Generally, few instructors feel that the primary language of instructionshould be the L1. However, there seems to be a wide range of opinions on the degree ofL1 use. One end of this spectrum favors banning the L1 from the classroom totally; theremainder (a fairly large number) proposes various types of L1 use or limitation. Factorswhich affect these decisions include such things as social and cultural norms, studentmotivation and goals, whether English  is a primary means of communication in theenvironment external to the classroom (ESL) or not (EFL), age and proficiency of thestudents, and the linguistic make up of the class (monolingual or multilingual as relates toL1), among others. One interesting point is that the same factors may lead to differentconclusions and methodologies for different teachers, and even when different policiesand practices are implemented in the classroom, all of them may well lead to successfulresults. Adult language learners have two primary sources from which to construct a secondlanguage system; knowledge of their first language and input from the second language.Those adults who are already literate in their first language have these same sourcesavailable to them as they develop literacy skills in their second language. They can drawon their literacy skills and  knowledge of  literacy practices  from their first language(interlingual transfer), and can also utilize the input from literacy activities- reading andwriting (intralingua input) – in their developing second language.There is evidence that second language learners utilize both of these sources in acquiringsecond language literacy skills. Cummins (1981) makes the strongest case for interlingualtransfer of literacy skills.  Some empirical studies have supported Cummins’ claims.Mace-Matluk, Domingues, Holtzman, and Hoover (1983) studied English literacy amongstudents of Cantonese language background and found a significant correlation betweenliteracy acquired in English and the literacy level achieved in Cantonese prior to Englishinstruction. Most  ESL  literacy  teachers  would  agree  that  learners  who  are  literate  in  their  firstlanguage generally make better progress than those without native language literacy.However, few teachers are confident that they understand exactly why or in which waysL1 literacy helps the development of L2 literacy. The great majority of literate learnersdeveloped their L1 literacy in formal educational settings, so it is possible that their  4relatively  rapid  progress  in  ESL  classes  reflects,  at  least  in  par,  their  comfort  andfamiliarity with classroom routines and ways of learning (Scribner & Cole, 1981) ratherthan a direct transference of their literacy skills.Drawing  on  first  language  studies  in  the  area,  research  on  second  language  essayprocesses has identified similarities in the behaviors and strategies of L1 and L2 writers.In particular, within-subject comparison of writers composing in their first and secondlanguage have revealed the positive transfer (rather than interference) of knowledge fromfirst language writing (Edelsky, 1982).In another study, it showed the positive transfer of planning skills (Jones & Tetroe,1987), that is, those who planned little in L1 writing, planned little in L2 writing as well.In fact, the quality of planning skill in L1 writing transfers to l2 writing, and interestinglyenough, language proficiency merely affects the quantity, not the quality, of planning.Moreover transfer of thinking and revising strategies into second language writing hasbeen studied (Cumming, 1989, & Hall, 1990).In contrast to the substantial body of research on the relationship between reading andwriting abilities in a first language, little has been done to explore this connection forsecond language learners. Krashen’s (1984) claim that second language learner’s writingcompetence derives from large amounts of self-motivated reading for interest and/orpleasure, remains largely untested and unsubstantiated. Still it is difficult to imagine thatsecond language input would not play a significant role in developing literacy skills inL2. One must take into account not only the learner’s l2 language proficiency, but alsothe possibility of interaction of first language literacy skills with second language input.An  analysis  of  second  language  literacy  development,  then,  must  consider  bothinterlingual transfer and intralingual input; it must describe what learners utilize fromtheir first language and what they utilize from second language input as they develop L2literacy skills, like writing. Examination of L2 development must also include analysis ofthe relationship between literacy skills across languages.THE STUDY Research on L1 writing processes conducted through the past dozen years has graduallyinfluenced L2 research, leading to new insights into the nature of language learner’sneeds, difficulties and development in written language production.This study was designed to investigate the role of the first language on second languagewriting and writing abilities through the use of translation from first language as a device.As a teacher of EFL writing classes I have observed that majority of Iranian languagelearners are poor writers in English and most of the EFL teachers in general give lessattention to how the students approach the act of writing in both L1 and L2 respectively.Their attention is directed more toward surface aspects of writing, such as grammaticalstructures,  spelling  and  word  choice.  The  researcher  believes  that  this  common  5phenomenon can be attributed to the way Iranian EFL students are taught to write in bothL1 and L2. We are interested, then, in the following basic research questions: 1. Does first language writing affect second language writing? 2. Are  different  aspects  of  a  piece  of  writing  (content,  organization,vocabulary, language use and mechanics) affected equally by the use of firstlanguage?METHOD Subjects The subjects involved in this study were from Tabriz Islamic Azad University, majoringin English language. Subjects were predominantly last term students, male and female, intheir late twenty four up to twenty nine. The subjects were assumed to be able to writeessays because of having passed the course of paragraph writing and essays writing.Before the research began, at first 150 students were chosen and a TOEFL proficiencywas administrated to them. Among students taken TOEFL test, 60 students who hadobtained 65 or more out of 100 were selected for the study. they were divided into twogroups each consisting of 30 members: experimental group and controlled group. In orderto investigate whether there were significant differences in English proficiency amongthe two groups. A t-test was computed between these two groups and the results did notindicate a significant difference between the TOEFL test score means: Mean of firstgroup= 80.66, and the mean of second group= 81.40.Sig= .750 which is more than 0.05indicates the homogeneity of the groups. There is not a significant difference between thegroups. The complete results are in the following tables.T-Test Group statistics GROUP N Mean Std. Deviation Std. ErrorMean TOEFL 1.00 30 80.6667 7.8798 1.4387 2.00 30 81.4000 9.7754 1.7847   6Independent Sample test Learner’s Test forEqualityofvariances t-testforequalityofmeans F Sig t df Sig.(2-tailed Meandifference Std.errordifference95%confidenceinterval ofthedifference Lower Upper Equal variances assumed 3.219 078 -.320 58 .750 -.7333 2.2924 -5.3220 3.8554 Equal variances notassumed -.320 55.499 .750 -.7333 2.2924 -5.3264 3.8598 Materials For  pretest  material  consisted  of  a  TOEFL  test  administered  to  investigate  thehomogeneity of the groups. This test was taken from Nelson’s TOEFL test included 100items in vocabulary and reading comprehension, structure and written expression. Thestudents’ scores were out 100. Those who were chosen for the study, had obtained morethan 65 in this test. Writing Tasks In this research the two following topics were assigned for the students to write about:(Teachers should make learning enjoyable and fun for their students: Do you agree ordisagree? Use special reasons to support your opinion.)(Some businessmen now say that no one can smoke cigarettes in any of their offices.Some governments have banned smoking in all public places. This is a good idea but italso takes away some of our freedom. Do you agree or disagree? Give reasons for youranswer.) The researcher chose these topics because they were familiar topics for the students andthey didn’t need any background knowledge for writing about these topics. Controlled group wrote about the topics in English, but experimental group were asked towrite about the mentioned topics in Farsi and then translate their writings into English.Subjects were normally given 50 minutes to complete their writing in each topic. Theydid their writing in normal class conditions.  7Procedures The data were collected in April 2004, during academic term. Subjects were given 50minutes for writing about each topic. No dictionaries were allowed, and subjects weregiven some instructions before writing about the task.ScoringBoth of writings, i.e, composition writing in English and Translation from first language,were evaluated by two raters (the English teachers in Tabriz Islamic Azad Universitywho have been teaching writing for many years in this university. The score for eachessay was the average of two raters.The essays were scored using the analytic scoring, in which scripts are rated on severalaspects of writing or criteria rather than given a single score. For this purpose Jacobs etal. ’s (1981) scoring profile quoted in Weigle (2002) was chosen. Following this scalefive aspects were differentially weighted to emphasize first content (30 points) and nextlanguage use (25 points), with organization and vocabulary weighted equally (20 points)and mechanics receiving very little emphasis (5 points). (for a complete rating scale seeAppendix A) DATA ANALYSIS In this study, first of all as two independent raters were used to rate each writing sample,the inter-rater reliability of the essay scores was computed through “a coefficient alpha”.The inter-rater reliability for the English and translation essay scores in both topics wereacceptably high as follows: The English essay: First topic:     ALPHA = 95.82Second topic: ALPHA = 94.49 The translations: First topic:     ALPHA = 95.32Second topic: ALPHA = 95.12 The data obtained through the procedure described above were analyzed by using thestatistical package for social sciences (SPSS, 11.5) to answer the research question. Theanalysis conducted in this respect are as follows:Analysis #1: A t-test was carried out using the total score of the students of two groups tofind out the positive or negative relationship between L1 essay writing and L2 essaywriting.   8Analysis  #2: As the results of the t-test indicated that there is a significant differencebetween two types of writing, a one way ANOVA was computed to show that in whichcomponents of the writings. The results of these analyses are reported in the next part.RESULTS Analysis#1 To determine whether there is a significant difference between first language writing andsecond language writing, a t-test was conducted. The results of the t-test is shown intables below. The t-test results (test of significance of difference between two means)show that (sig. two-tailed) is less than 0.05 indicating that the difference between themean score of the two group in meaningful. The group 1 who had written in Persian andthen translated it into English with a mean of 80.63 outperformed group 2 who hadwritten in English with a mean score of 75.36.t-test group statistics Group N Mean Std.deviation Std. ErrorMean Total 1 30 80.6333 3.2772 .5983 2 30 75.3667 4.1563 .7588 Independent sample test Learner’stest  forequalityofvariancest-testforequalityofmeans F Sig. t df Sig.(2-tailed)MeanDifferencesStd.errorDifference95%confidenceLower Upper Total Equal variancesassumed1.344 .251 5.450 58 .000 5.2667 .9663 3.3323 7.2010 Equal variancesnotassumed5.450 55.007 .000 5.2667 .9663 3.3301 7.2033 For answering the second question about finding out which components of writing differsignificantly by the use of first language an ANOVA was computed to show that wheremost of the difference exist. As shown in the following Tables only between the contentand vocabulary components the difference is meaningful: sig. is less than 0.05, in the  9case of other component i.e, organization, language use and mechanics there is not asignificant difference between the two groups: Sig, is more than 0.05.We conclude that the use of first language in second language writing mostly affects thecontent and vocabulary parts of the writing than the other parts.Oneway-ANOVA Sum ofsquaresdf MeansquareF Sig. Content Betweengroups Within groups total 290.400434.933725.33315859290.4007.49938.726 .000 Organization Betweengroups withingroups total 2.40092.53394.933158592.4001.5951.504 .225 Vocabulary Betweengroups withingroups total 45.06785.333130.4001585945.0671.47130.631 .000 Language Use Betweengroups withingroups total 8.067132.667140.733158598.0672.2873.527 .065 Mechanics Betweengroups withingroups total .81739.33340.15015859.817.6781.204 .277   10To have a complete view of the comparison of two groups’ performance regarding thecomponents considered in writing the following graph is represented. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 1 2 contentorganizationvocabularylg usemechanicsDISCUSSION The most important research question motivating this study was whether the use of firstlanguage  helps  second  language  writing  or  not.  The  results  of  the  t-test  proceduressuggest that, in general adult L1 writing has an impact on L2 writing; students who hadused first language in their writing outperformed those who had written directly in secondlanguage. So during the L2 writing, we can benefit from L1 knowledge of writing. To answer the second question, a one way ANOVA was computed to show the relativeimportance of different components. According to the results of this study, not all of thecomponents of writing are affected equally through the use of first language. The moststrongly affected component is content, the second  one is vocabulary. It shows thatstudents elaborating the topic in their native language provide better content in theirwriting. Following from the content development, the vocabulary use of the experimental groupalso was richer than the controlled group.CONCLUSION AND PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONSThis  study  has  presented  some  support  for  the  assumption  that  the  use  of  L1  mayfacilitate  L2  writing.  The  findings  of  this  study  can  be  useful  for  foreign  languageteachers. They may need to reevaluate their previous assumptions that the transfer ofsome knowledge from L1 may hinder second language learning.The  aforementioned  findings  in  the  present  study  can  give  curriculum  and  syllabusdesigners as well as language teachers the orientation that for EFL program of paragraphand essay writing courses, the first language related skills, particularly L1 essay writingprocesses  can  be  considered  a  significant  facilitator.  Indeed,  students’  capability  inlearning essay writing can be predicted from their capability in first language essaywriting.   11REFERENCES Arapoff, N. ( 1965) writing: A thinking process. TESOL Quqrterly, 1Candlin, C.N., & Saedi, K.L. (1983) Process of discourse. Journal ofApplied Language Study, 1.Chastain, K. ( 1988) Developing second language skills. Theory andpractice. New York: Harcourt brace Jovanovich, publishers.Cumming, A. ( 1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency.Language Learning, 39. Cummins, J. ( 1981) Bilingualism and minority language children. Toronto: OISE press.Edelsky, C. ( 1982) Writing in a bilingual program: the relationship of L1 &L2 texts. TESOL Quarterly, 16.Hall, C. ( 1990) Managing the complexity of revising across languages.TESOL Quarterly, 24. Halliday, M. (1975) Learning how to mean. London: Edward Arnold.Hamp-Lyons, L. & Kroll, B. (1997) TOEFL 2000.Writing composition, community and assessments.Jones, S. & Tetroe ( 1987) composing in a second language. In A.Matsubashi ( ed). Writing in real time: modeling productionprocesses.New York: Longman.Krashen, S. ( 1984) writing; R hope

The relationship between first and second language composition writing

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