Using Process Writing Effectively in Korean University EFL Classes

Using Process Writing Effectively
in Korean University EFL Classes

Rodney E. Tyson

Proceedings of the 12th World Congress of Applied Linguistics.
Tokyo: Waseda University. 1999.

It has often been pointed out that language teaching in many Asian countries usually "employs a traditional product-oriented, examination-centered approach, with a strong emphasis on grammar" (Pennington, Brock, & Yue, 1996, pp. 227-228). Kong (1996, pp. 114-115) suggests that a typical Korean student's perspective of language learning in general involves "a considerable amount of careful, painstaking translation of text" as well as "a great deal of interest in grammatical analysis [and] a strong desire to be corrected" when mistakes are made. These attitudes, of course, have a direct effect on how English composition is usually taught in Korean classrooms:

Writing has long been neglected in English language teaching in Korea.... Little attention is paid in the classroom to developing students' ability to write at a paragraph or discourse level.... [M]any English teachers still consider grammar and translation to be the two most important components of language teaching. (Ahn, 1995, p. 73)

The results of this type of teaching, Tyson (1999, p. 1) has argued, is that few Korean college graduates, even those who spend four years majoring in English, are able to write "a coherent English paragraph, let alone a longer essay, a business letter, or a research paper," and has fostered an attitude among many Korean students that writing in English is "boring and hopelessly difficult."
One approach that is often suggested as a desirable alternative to this traditional product-oriented method of teaching composition is most often referred to as the "process approach" or "process writing," which sees writing as a "complex intellectual-linguistic process involving the recursive application of a wide range of thinking skills and language ability" (Proett & Gill, 1986, p. 1). Although Caudery (1995) has found that teachers of English as a foreign or second language "actually have strongly differing ideas as to what process writing is" (p. 1), Brock (1994, p. 52) provides a concise description of the main elements of the approach:

[In the process approach] students first explore a topic, write drafts, receive feedback from classmates and the teacher works throughout to make their meaning clearer. When marking, the teacher might evaluate more than the final product, considering as well the process that led up to it.

White and Arndt (1991) explain that the goal of a process-focused approach is "to nurture skills with which writers work out their own solutions to the problems they set themselves, with which they shape their raw material into a coherent message, and with which they work towards an acceptable and appropriate form for expressing it" (p. 5). White and Caminero (1995) suggest that process writing, which allows for such things as group writing assignments, peer editing, and multiple drafts, can help to "demystify the task of writing in a foreign language" as well as provide students with "valuable opportunities to learn from each other" (p. 323).
This paper describes the results of a study of students' attitudes toward the use of a number of "process-oriented" techniques and activities in two advanced composition courses at two different universities in Korea with the following questions in mind: (1) Given the typical attitudes and expectations of Korean students, can the process approach be used successfully in Korean university writing classes?; (2) Which specific "process-oriented" techniques and activities do students find most helpful?

Research Subjects and Methods

Data were collected in two one-semester (16-week) English composition courses taught by the author. The first was a class of twenty-four junior (third-year) students (all female) majoring in English Language and Literature at a large women’s university in Seoul in the spring semester of 1996. The class met once a week for two hours. The second was a class of fourteen junior students (6 female, 8 male) also majoring in English Language and Literature at a small rural university near Seoul in the fall semester of 1998. This class met twice a week for a total of three hours a week. Although all of the students enrolled in both classes had taken other composition courses taught by Korean instructors using more typical, grammar-oriented approaches and conversation courses taught by native English-speaking instructors, this was the first time for any of them to take a composition course that was taught by a native speaker of English using a "process" approach.
The actual content of the two courses was very similar. Students were required to complete a number of short writing assignments, both in and out of class, in addition to two (in the first class) or three (in the second class) longer essays of 2-3 pages in length written in multiple drafts. Specific techniques used in both classes included the following:

Use of multiple drafts (usually three), with prewriting, revising, editing, rewriting, and proofreading presented as separate but often recursive steps in the writing process
Individualized feedback (mostly written comments, but some teacher-student conferences)
Comments on early drafts that focused more on content and organization than on the mechanical aspects of writing
Use of peer- and self-editing techniques
Emphasis on the "publication" of students' work

Course objectives were as follows:

To make students understand that writing involves more than being able to write grammatically correct sentences
To help students realize that writing is a recursive process that involves revision and rewriting
To give students the opportunity to work through the writing process by developing two or three essays in multiple drafts
To increase students' confidence by showing them that they were able to produce interesting, well-organized, well-developed essays for a specific audience
To help each student to produce at least one essay that he/she would feel comfortable "publishing" in a printed class collection of essays
(In the 1998 class) To help each student develop an English Internet home page to "publish" his/her writing

The data reported in this paper were mainly collected from "reflective essays" written by all of the students near the end of each course which will be described and analyzed in the following section. Other data considered were collected using a variety of largely qualitative methods including anonymous questionnaires, informal interviews with students, e-mail exchanged with students, participant-observation during classroom activities, and collection of actual student work. All of these data were viewed within the context of the author's ten years of experience teaching composition at three different Korean universities.

Analysis of the Data

        As a final course assignment in both classes, students were asked to write a one-draft essay in response to the following prompt: "Reflect on the work you have done for this class this semester and write a short essay (no more than 1-2 pages typewritten) about what you have learned this semester about writing and, especially, how you write." Initially, the essays were analyzed by simply counting the number of students who mentioned a specific activity or technique at least once that is usually associated with the process approach as "helpful" or "useful."
        In the 1996 class, students mentioned the following activities in their reflective essays: writing multiple drafts (71%); reading the professor's comments (54%); reading other students' essays (38%); reading other students' comments, or peer-editing (21%); class/group discussion of a topic before writing (13%); preparing for the class collection of essays (13%); self-editing exercises (8%); and prewriting exercises (4%).
        In the 1998 class, students mentioned the following activities: writing multiple drafts (71%); reading the professor's comments (50%); reading other students' comments, or peer-editing (36%); class/group discussion of a topic before writing (29%); prewriting exercises (29%); reading other students' essays (21%); and preparing for the class essay collection (14%).
        A look at some quotes from the reflective essays provides further insight into students' attitudes. First, it is interesting to note that exactly the same very high percentage of students in each class (71%) mentioned "writing multiple drafts" as useful in their reflective essays, and this was the mostly commonly mentioned useful activity in both classes. Over and over, students said that the extended time they had to develop their essays, as well as the feedback they received on their preliminary drafts from both the instructor and other students was useful in helping them to write better, longer, and more interesting essays. For example, one student in the 1998 class put it like this:

Revising my homework several times was very useful for me. Because I could have time to look for materials concerned my essay in internet or magazines, and I could think about my topic deeply. As a result, I could strength my essays with other people's suggestions and materials I found. (Student #2-7)

Students in both classes also often mentioned that they enjoyed and benefited from interacting with their classmates in discussions before writing and having their work "published" in one way or another, including in the class collection of essays and on the Internet (in the 1998 class), as well as simply having a chance to read other students' essays in class. Below are some typical student comments that suggest the value of these activities:

[I]t was useful to read others' work. In fact, it wasn't pleasant to see other students read my essay, but through these opportunities, I could compare my essay with others. (Student #1-8)
I got confidence about writing in English from having my work published on the Internet and the collection of essays. I thought the essays was important more than simple assignments for grades.... (Student #2-13)

Finally, many students made comments in their reflective essays which adds support to the claim that use of a process approach can help to motivate students to take more interest in their compositions and build confidence in their ability to write in English, as in the following statement:

[W]hen the teacher said we would write three essays during the semester...I said to myself, 'I can't'...[but] when I think about my two essays I've already written, I am proud of myself.... [N]ow English writing is not longer fearful to me, but I am ready to try to write an essay in English with pleasure. (Student #1-13)

Conclusions

The introduction of several process-oriented activities and techniques seemed to be successful in these two Korean university writing classes. Evidence from the students' reflective essays and other ethnographically-oriented data suggests that use of these techniques helped to increase students' confidence and motivation, as well as helping them to develop essays that they felt comfortable "publishing" for both their classmates and readers outside the class. Although students came into the class expecting feedback mainly on structure, they reported benefiting from both instructor and peer comments on content and organization as well as structure and seemed to appreciate the opportunity to learn to correct their own errors. In particular, they reported that writing in multiple drafts, with time to write fewer but longer and better-developed essays, was useful and motivating.
There was also some evidence that students found peer-editing and self-editing activities useful, although they still expressed a strong desire for feedback from the instructor. In addition, they seemed to appreciate the opportunity provided by the process-oriented approach to read other students' essays and share ideas with classmates both before writing and during the writing process. Finally, students in both classes reported that they liked having their work published and seemed to gain confidence and motivation from it. Knowing that their work would be made available to readers outside the class perhaps encouraged more revision and more careful self-editing.

Note

This work was supported by the Daejin University Research Grants in 1999.

References

Ahn, B. (1995). The teaching of writing in Korea. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 6(1), 67-76.

Brock, M. (1994). Reflections on change: Implementing the process approach in Hong Kong. RELC Journal, 25(2), 51-70.

Caudery, T. (1995). What the “process approach” means to practising teachers of second language writing skills. TESL-EJ. 1(4), 1-16. Retrieved May 30, 1999 from the World Wide Web: http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/TESL-EJ/ejo4/a3.html

Kong, N.-H. (1996). The communicative approach to Korean college English. English Teaching, 51(1), 97-118.

Pennington, M. C., Brock, M. N., & Yue, F. (1996). Explaining Hong Kong students’ response to process writing: An exploration of causes and outcomes. Journal of Second Language Writing, 5(3), 227-252.

Proett, J., & Gill, K. (1986). The writing process in action: A handbook for teachers. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Tyson, R. E. (1999). The power of multiple drafts in writing classes. The English Connection, 3(4), 1,6.

White, A. S., & Caminero, R. (1995). Using process writing as a learning tool in the foreign language class. The Canadian Modern Language Review, 51(2), 323-329).

White, R., & Arndt, V. (1991). Process writing. London and New York: Longman.

Rodney E. Tyson
Daejin University, English Department
Pocheon, Kyeonggi, 487-711, South Korea
rtyson@road.daejin.ac.kr
http://english.daejin.ac.kr/~rtyson/

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