Introduction

        Language teaching in most Asian countries, "usually employs a traditional product-oriented, examination-centered approach, with a strong emphasis on grammar" (Pennington, Brock, & Yue, pp. 227-228). Kong (1996) explains that Korean college students' perspective on learning in general involves "a considerable amount of careful, painstaking translation of text" along with "a great interest in grammatical analysis [and] a strong desire to be corrected whenever a mistake occur[s]" (pp. 114-115).
        These attitudes have a direct effect on how writing is usually taught in Korean universities. Ahn (1995) notes that writing, in general, is often neglected in teaching English in Korea, so that there is little attention paid to teaching students "to write at a paragraph or discourse level"--again, because grammar and translation are considered "the most important components of language teaching" (p. 73). The traditional focus in teaching English composition in Korean universities, then, has been almost entirely on “grammar rules and the production of grammatically correct sentences," which has resulted in few Korean college graduates who are able to write "a coherent English paragraph, let alone a longer essay, a business letter, or a research paper" and an attitude among Korean students that writing in English is "boring and hopelessly difficult" (Tyson, 1999, p. 1).
 

The Writing Process

        Proett and Gill (1986) suggest that writing is "a complex intellectual-linguistic process involving the recursive application of a wide range of thinking skills and language abilities" (p. 1). If so, obviously, teaching students to write understandable sentences is only one small part of teaching them to write in English. We need to set our goals much higher. One approach to teaching composition that can help us to do that is often referred to as "the process approach" or "process writing." The goal of this type of approach, according to White and Arndt (1991), "is to nurture the 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).
        One study has found that "[ESL] teachers actually have strongly differing ideas as to what process writing is" (Caudery, 1995, p. 1), but Brock (1994) explains that when a process approach is used, "students first explore a topic, write drafts, [and] receive feedback from classmates and the teacher" (p. 52). When a process approach is used, the teacher often evaluates not only the final product, but also considers the work done by the student in the process that created it. White and Arndt (1991, p. 7) further point out that "the writing process is a recursive one, in which the activities...do not occur in any fixed sequence in the act of creating text." Finally, White and Caminero (1995, p. 323) explain the value of focusing on the process of writing for students:
 

Group writing assignments, peer editing, and the multiple revisions allowed in process writing serve to demystify the task of writing in a foreign language. In addition, students are provided with valuable opportunities to learn from each other.

Korean Students' Attitudes

        I have studied the attitudes of Korean university students toward the use of various process-oriented activities and techniques in composition classes for several years. My data gathered from students of various levels of proficiency at two different universities using a variety of mainly qualitative research methods suggest that some of these techniques can be used very effectively in Korean university English composition classes (for details, see Tyson, 1997, 1998a, 1999, 2000). Although students often come into my composition classes expecting feedback mainly on structure, for example, at the end of the course many often report benefiting from both instructor and peer comments on content and organization as well as structure and seem to appreciate the opportunity to learn to correct their own errors.
        Especially, students have reported over and over again that having the chance to develop longer essays through multiple drafts is both useful and motivating. Some typical student comments collected at the end of composition courses in which the process approach was used include the following:

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.

I had taken another course related to English composition when I was a freshman. At that time, in returned papers there were no professor's comments but only grade. I did not read my essays again but I just checked my grade.... But in this time, I could make my works better through professor's comments and my endeavor to improve.

[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.

I realized [having other students read my work] was the best way to know one's faults and mistakes, such as wrong expressions, lacks of conclusions and examples. So, the advices of friends and [my instructor] helped me to modify my essays properly.

The most useful thing in this class was to read other's essays. The weakest points in my writing which I couldn't find when I read my essay were found by reading other's essays.

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.

Not write to make understand yourself, but to make understand others...is something I have learned.... This is the basic, key point in writing."

Writing is hard work! But frankly I waited the day I received my former writing. To find faults in my writing is one of the most interesting things in this class as well as the most useful. I appreciated the opportunity of correcting my errors. Through it I felt my writing improving and gaining better structure and grammar. I learned writing is a course completed through correcting. And in writing again, I could express my opinion more exactly. Even what I thought I knew is actually what I didn't know. In writing, I come to know.

Conclusion

        The emphasis in English composition courses at Korean universities has traditionally been on the correct use of grammar with little regard for other higher-level concerns such as organization, development of ideas, and writing for a specific audience. As a result, students are often not well prepared for the kinds of writing tasks they encounter in the real world. In this paper, it has been suggested that use of "process-oriented" techniques in Korean university composition classes can help students to develop the skills necessary to express themselves effectively in written English, while at the same time increasing their confidence and motivation to write. Following are some practical suggestions for using these techniques based on my experience:

1. If your students are unfamiliar with the concepts behind the process approach, explain the rationale for using them early in the semester using language they can understand. Especially, illustrate the advantages of writing in multiple drafts (see Chenoweth, 1987; Ferris, 1995a; Tyson, 1999).
2. It is not necessary to ask students to write every assignment in multiple drafts, but give them a chance to revise and rewrite at least some of their compositions before they receive a grade. Consider giving fewer, but longer assignments that allow students to develop their ideas more fully than they can in short compositions written in one draft.
3. Give your students as much freedom as possible in choosing actual writing topics (see Hayward, 1990).
4. Encourage your students to experiment with various types of prewriting activities, such as outlining, brainstorming, freewriting, mapping, clustering, etc. (for examples, see Elbow, 1998; Graves, 1994; Lindeman, 1987; Proett & Gill, 1986; Raimes, 1983; Reid, 1993; White & Arndt, 1995). You might ask them to try a different technique with each new assignment.
5. Peer-editing is an activity that can save time for the instructor, allow students to give and receive useful comments and corrections, and help students learn to edit their own work more effectively. It is an activity that needs to be taught, however, by showing students examples of appropriate comments, providing peer-review forms with questions or instructions that guide them through the process, and modeling appropriate feedback in your own comments and corrections on students' early drafts (Tyson, 1998b; also see Amores, 1997; Carson & Nelson, 1996; Ferris, 1995b; Villamil & de Guerrero, 1996; Zhang, 1995 for discussions of peer-editing).
6. In responding to students' compositions, it is useful to think in terms of focusing on different "levels" of development and error correction in successive drafts. Move from a focus on content and organization in the early drafts to grammar and mechanics in the later drafts. At each level, it is also important to remember to give positive as well as negative comments on students' writing; of course, students need to know what they are doing wrong, but it is just as important for them to know what they are doing right (see Leki, 1991; Saito, 1994; Zamel, 1985).
7. You can help students to develop a sense of authentic "audience" by letting them know that their work will be read by many readers besides the instructor (Boese, Byrne, & Silverman, 1997). Ways to "publish" students' work include techniques as simple as giving them frequent opportunities to read other students’ work or read their own work aloud in class, and often using good work by students as examples in class at all stages of the writing process. Students' work can easily be made available to readers outside the classroom by creating a photocopied class collection of essays, publishing their work on Web pages, or simply posting some of their best compositions regularly on a bulletin board in a busy hallway. Students can also be encouraged to submit their compositions to essay contests, newspapers, speech contests, etc. (Tyson, 1997; 1998a)

Note

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

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