The Language Teacher
November 2001
Asian Students' English Writing Experience
Fujioka Mayumi
Hiroshima University, Hiroshima Shudo University, Hiroshima University of Economics
With increasing numbers of Asian students pursuing their academic training in English-speaking countries, there is a need to help them prepare for their overseas studies while they are in their native countries. In U.S. higher education in particular, Leki and Carson (1994) comment that many university courses "evaluate students through some form of written text (e.g., essay exams, short-answer essays, research papers)," and that "(a)bility to write well is necessary both to achieve academic success and to demonstrate that achievement" (p. 83). Considering the great emphasis on writing at U.S. universities, the kind of writing training Asian students receive prior to their U.S. studies and the problems in their English academic writing need to be examined. To investigate these issues could contribute to the improvement of writing instruction for Asian EFL students who plan to study in academic programs in the U.S. and/or in other English-speaking countries.
To date, however, there have not been many studies (e.g., Mohan & Lo, 1985; Liebman, 1992; Leki, 1995; Spack, 1997) which investigated these issues. Thus, this study has dual purposes: (1) to describe English writing training received by Asian students in their home countries, and (2) to identify specific problems they encounter in U.S. academic writing and investigate how they learn to handle their problems. The academic activity targeted for investigation was writing research papers (term papers) for courses, as it is a common requirement in U.S. universities. As a target population, graduate students were selected due to their ability to provide a comprehensive view of their university English writing training background. Moreover, compared to undergraduates, graduate students could be expected to be more attentive and analytical regarding the particular problems dealt with their specific writing problems.
Method
Study design and procedures
The research site was a large U.S. mid-western state university. The study was conducted in two stages, using quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. In the first stage, a questionnaire was used, and in the second stage, follow-up interviews were conducted. The questionnaire consisted of 13 questions of three types: (1) Likert scale questions (e.g., When you were an undergraduate or a graduate student in your home country, how often did you learn to write in English? Circle one: 1. Never 2. Some years 3. Most years 4. Every year), (2) short-answer questions (e.g., What writing courses in English did you take in your home country?), and (3) open-ended questions (e.g., What kind of problems did you have when writing research papers for graduate classes for the first time in the U.S.? How did you overcome those problems?).
Participants
Forty participants responded to the questionnaire in the first stage. They were eight males and 32 females, ranging in age from 22 to 45. Twelve of them were from Taiwan, 11 from Japan, eight from Korea, four from Malaysia, two from the People's Republic of China, two from Thailand, and one from Singapore. Almost all the participants had completed their undergraduate degrees in their home countries and some (eight out of 40) had finished their master's degrees back home. In the U.S., participants were mostly education majors with some majoring in linguistics. In the second stage, six (one male and five females) out of the 40 participants from the first stage were interviewed: three from Japan, two from Taiwan, and one from Korea.
Findings/Discussion
From the synthesis of the questionnaire data and the interview data, the following results were found. First, most participants took English writing courses for general purposes (English composition courses) during their undergraduate years in their home countries. However, their writing activities focused on sentence-level exercises, translation exercises, and short-writing assignments (e.g., personal essays). Instruction mainly emphasized form (e.g., grammar and spelling). Their instructors' instructional styles were teacher-centered (lectures, teacher providing feedback to students' writing) with few student-centered activities such as peer reviews. Participants were generally not taught a process approach to writing nor the idea of considering an audience for their writing. These results generally coincide with the traditional approach to EFL writing in Asia discussed by Shih (1999) (see also the following sources regarding writing instruction, in particular Asian contexts: Mohan & Lo, 1985 for Hong Kong; Liebman, 1992, and Takagi, 2001 for Japan).
Most participants did not learn to do advanced academic writing, such as writing research papers in English; they were also generally not taught such essential reading skills as careful and critical reading of potential information sources. Due to the lack of experience with reading and writing research papers in English in their home contexts, participants encountered problems with a lack of knowledge about the expected organization of research papers and pre-writing skills (e.g., synthesizing information from reading sources) when they first wrote research papers in the U.S. Moreover, grammar and vocabulary were also included among the major problems which participants encountered.
Pre-writing skills and grammar and vocabulary continued to be major problems even as participants gained more experience with writing research papers in the U.S., as was also found by Leki and Carson (1994). Participants' concerns about pre-writing skills seem reasonable since writing a research paper involves reading and synthesizing information from outside sources. Their continuing concerns about grammar and vocabulary, on the other hand, could be interpreted as "an interest in efficiency" for "more speedy processing of language" (Leki & Carson, 1994) or their desire for rhetorical refinement in their writing.
In order to solve their various writing problems, participants developed specific "coping strategies" (Leki, 1995). For example, they looked for models (Leki, 1995); they read manuals about writing a research paper and read research papers (e.g., journal articles) to learn the expected organization. Participants also utilized others' help; they asked tutors or native English-speaking classmates to proofread their papers and asked experienced students or native English-speaking classmates about the organization of a research paper. They also asked instructors, experienced students and friends for advice, for example, on how they could organize information from reading sources effectively.
Conclusion & Implications
This study investigated English writing instruction which Asian graduate students at an American university received in their home countries and how they learned to write research papers in the U.S. The findings show that participants generally received form-centered writing instruction at home. Moreover, due to the lack of training in academic reading and writing skills back home, participants encountered problems with expected organization of research papers and pre-writing skills in their U.S. studies. Moreover, participants continued to feel concerned about grammar and vocabulary in English. The findings also reveal that participants developed specific coping strategies such as looking for models or utilizing others' help.
Based on the findings, the following suggestions are made for writing instruction in Asian contexts. First, students should be more exposed to academic reading and writing (e.g., research papers) in their writing classes so that they can familiarize themselves with the expected organization of particular types of academic texts in English. Second, given the fact that participants in this study utilized others' help as a coping strategy, students in writing classrooms should participate in peer review sessions to utilize mutual feedback and raise their audience awareness. They could also share with the class specific problems they encounter in writing research papers (e.g., incorporating information from readings into their writing) and ask for advice on how to overcome their problems. Third, participants' continuing concerns about grammar and vocabulary indicate that writing classes should incorporate activities to improve students' control of grammar and build on necessary vocabulary through reading and writing academic texts.
This study is a preliminary study and it is not my intention to make strong generalizations about writing instruction for all Asian contexts. Based on this study, however, it is my hope that writing teachers and researchers in Asia will build a network and share information about research and pedagogical issues to improve writing instruction for Asian EFL students who are interested in future overseas studies.
References
Leki, I. (1995). Coping strategies of ESL students in writing tasks across the curriculum. TESOL Quarterly, 29(2), 235-260.
Leki, I. & Carson, J. G. (1994). Students' perceptions of EAP writing instruction and writing needs across the disciplines. TESOL Quarterly, 28(1), 81-101.
Liebman, J. D. (1992). Toward a new contrastive rhetoric: Differences between Arabic and Japanese rhetorical instruction. Journal of Second Language Writing, 1(2), 141-165.
Mohan, B. A. & Lo, W. A. (1985). Academic writing and Chinese students: Transfer and developmental factors. TESOL Quarterly, 19(3), 515-534.
Shih, M. (1999). More than practicing language: Communicative reading and writing for Asian settings. TESOL Journal, 9, 20-25.
Spack, R. (1997). The Acquisition of academic literacy in a second language: A Longitudinal case study. Written Communication, 14 (1), 3-62.
Takagi, A. (2001). The need for change in English writing instruction in Japan. The Language Teacher, 25(7), 5-9.
All materials on this site are copyright © by JALT and their respective authors.
For more information on JALT, visit the JALT National Website