Should We Use Characteristics of Conversation to Measure Grammatical Complexity in L2 Writing Development? *

2021 ◽  
pp. 291-312
Author(s):  
Douglas Biber ◽  
Bethany Gray ◽  
Kornwipa Poonpon
Author(s):  
Kyoko Baba ◽  
Ryo Nitta

The longitudinal effects of repeating a timed writing activity on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students’ second language (L2) writing development were investigated. Data for 46 students in two university classes (23 in each class), each with a different course objective, were collected 30 times in the same way over one year. The students’ compositions were analyzed for fluency, grammatical complexity, and lexical complexity. Text analysis using Coh-Metrix showed that task repetition had an overall effect on L2 writing development. The text analysis was supplemented with a visual analysis using moving min-max graphs. Grammatical complexity developed more prominently than the other aspects of writing in both classes. This counter-predictive result points to the significance of the writers’ reflective consciousness towards their own writing. This study also emphasizes that it is important to study the dynamics in L2 writing development with multi-wave data.


2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 242-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon Hall-Mills ◽  
Kenn Apel

Purpose As children develop skills in writing across academic contexts, clinicians and educators need to have a fundamental understanding of typical writing development as well as valid and reliable assessment methods. The purpose of this study was to examine the progression of linguistic elements in school-age children's narrative and expository writing development. Method Narrative and expository writing samples produced by 89 children in Grades 2 through 4 were analyzed at the microstructure and macrostructure levels. Measures of receptive vocabulary, word-level reading, and reading comprehension were obtained. Results Exploratory factor analyses revealed 4 microstructure factors (e.g., productivity, grammatical complexity, grammatical accuracy, and lexical density) and 1 macrostructure factor (e.g., a combination of organization, text structure, and cohesion). Multivariate analyses of covariance with reading comprehension as a covariate showed that productivity and macrostructure were sensitive to grade-level and genre differences and that expository grammatical complexity was sensitive to grade-level differences. Conclusions Findings are discussed in light of grade-level standards for narrative and expository writing and current practices in writing assessment. Multiple suggestions are offered for clinical and educational implications, and specific directions are provided for future research.


2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoyan Zhang

The study examines whether there is any difference between the effects of a reading–writing integrated task and comprehensive corrective feedback (CF) on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ writing development, and whether the input language in the integrated task makes a difference in L2 writing development over time and the language accuracy of the writing resulting from the integrated task. It also explores the possible relationships among language, content alignment and language accuracy and the relationship between language alignment and content alignment. To this end, a quasi-experimental study was conducted to assess participants’ L2 writing development based on a pretest–posttest–delayed-posttest design implemented in four intact EFL freshman classes. Four groups were created: an English-reading–English-writing (EE) group, a Chinese-reading–English-writing (CE) group, a comprehensive CF group, and a control group, which engaged solely in writing practice. The results demonstrated that (1) the EE and CF groups outperformed the control and CE groups on the posttest and outscored the control group on the delayed posttest with respect to language, although there were no significant differences among the three experimental groups in overall, content, and organization scores; (2) the input language of the integrated reading–writing task had a significant effect on language accuracy in the resulting essays; and (3) there was no significant correlation between content alignment and language accuracy for the CE group, whereas for the EE group, a significant positive correlation was observed not only between content and language alignment, on the one hand, and language accuracy, on the other hand, but also between content alignment and language alignment.


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