What happens to ESL students’ writing after three years of study at an English medium university?

Abstract

The number of international students coming to study in Australian universities has increased exponentially in the past decade, mirroring trends in other English speaking countries. For the majority of these students, English is an additional language. The motivation for studying in an English medium university is presumably not only to gain a degree but also to improve English language proficiency. Studying in an English-medium university provides these students with a rich immersion environment. However, research on whether these students' English proficiency does improve has to date been scarce, and has generally examined students' gains after a relatively short duration (e.g., 12 weeks). The current study examined 31 undergraduate students' L2 (ESL) writing proficiency following a three-year degree study in an Australian university. The study used a test-retest design which required participants to write a 30-minute argumentative essay on the same topic at the commencement and at the end of their degree program. A range of measures was used to assess writing, including global and discourse measures. All participants were also interviewed about their writing experiences at the university. The study found that students' writing improved after three years of study but only in terms of fluency; changes in accuracy, grammatical and lexical complexity, as well as global scores of writing fell short of significance. The students reported in the interviews that they were not required to do much writing in their degree studies and when they did, their lecturers almost exclusively commented on the content of their writing. We discuss our findings in relation to the students' L2 proficiency, the nature of the test, and the nature of their immersion experience. #

Lexical Complexity Development from Dynamic Systems Theory Perspective: Lexical Density, Diversity, and Sophistication

“…The present findings are also consistent with those of Linnarud (1986) who noted significant differences in lexical sophistication regarding writings by native English speakers and Swedish learners of English and also Laufer (1994) who found significant differences in lexical sophistication between pre-and postwritings performed by two university classes' students. However, this change is inconsistent with Bulte´and Housen (2014), Knoch et al (2015), and Storch and Tapper (2009). For instance, in Bulte´ and Housen's (2014) study, only one out of the three LC measures, namely lexical sophistication, underwent an increase from Time 1 to Time 3, but that increase was not meaningful, and the scores decreased slightly and nonsignificantly over time with respect to lexical density and lexical richness.…”

A Study on the Effects of Feedback Given to Students by Computer to Increase Their Performance in English Writing

“…The investigations done by Storch [11], Knoch, Rouhshad, & Storch [12], Knoch, Roushad, Oon & Storch [13], on the writing development of some undergraduate ESL students in English-medium University for one semester, over one year and three years periods, each found consistent results: that students only achieved fluency and had no gain in accuracy and complexity. The follow-up qualitative research revealed that feedback hadn't done much to improve writing quality related to their majors, because the feedback they could get was related to content only.…”

Analysis of Accuracy and Grammatical Complexity in the Writing of Upper Intermediate and Advanced Learners of English

“…Some research also reveals improvement in L2 writing over time, although in different ways depending on the students investigated (Godfrey and Treacy, 2014). On the contrary, studies by Knoch et al (2014Knoch et al ( , 2015 found that the participants´ written performance improvement over time was evident only in the holistic rating, and in fluency not finding any significant changes over time in accuracy or complexity. Different results have also been obtained regarding error development: whereas some studies showed a linear error development, and the same distribution among error types (e.g.…”

“…Recent studies use measures of fluency, accuracy, and complexity to compare writing performance under different conditions (Ghavamnia, Tavakoli & Esteki, 2013), to analyse raters' judgments of various rating measures (Kuiken and Ved-der (2014), or to compare writing performance at different instruction periods (Knoch, Rouhshad & Storch, 2014;Knoch, Rouhshad, Oon & Storch, 2015;Godfrey and Treacy, 2014). Ghavamnia et al (2013:34) conducted a study with forty intermediate EFL learners in order to see if any significant difference existed in the writing performance of the participants under two planning conditions, pre-task planning and online planning in relation to complexity, accuracy, and fluency.…”

“…There were no observed gains in accuracy, syntactic and lexical complexity (2014: 8-10). Knoch et al (2015) examined undergraduate students' L2 (ESL) writing proficiency following a three-year degree study in an L2-medium university. A range of measures was used to assess writing, including global and discourse measures (accuracy, fluency, complexity).…”