Proceedings of the 2nd Teaching & Education Conference, Florence

THEIR CHOICE, THEIR VOICE: USING LINGUISTIC SUPPORT TO ENHANCE CHILDREN’S L2 WRITING

JULIANA SHAK

Abstract:

Writing is often regarded as the most difficult language skill to master because of the complex cognitive processes and higher level of productive language control that are involved when one is converting ideas and thoughts into readable text. Learning to write in a second language (L2) becomes even more challenging, given such additional concerns as different writing needs (which tend to be more academically-oriented in the L2), L2 linguistic abilities, language transfer and interlanguage development, motivation, and cultural and educational experiences, that come into play when L2 learners approach the expected literacy skills. There is thus a need to provide adequate support for them when they learn to write in the L2. The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of providing linguistic assistance in narrative writing tasks to enhance children’s L2 written performance. This paper argues that, rather than telling children what to write, it is more beneficial to incorporate the element of choice in the provision of written support, such that children can select and use appropriate words or expressions that they themselves feel are most helpful in helping them find their own voices in their story in the L2. A study involving 131 Year 5 (aged 10) learners was conducted over a period of three months to investigate the instructional potential of incorporating varying degrees of linguistic assistance into narrative writing tasks at the upper primary level. Specifically, the investigation compared the performance of two groups of children: one group received written linguistic assistance at word level, and the other group received written linguistic assistance at text (paragraphs of text) level. A pretest, interim test, immediate posttest and delayed posttest were administered. Partial correlation analyses yielded significant effects for treatment on only certain aspects of writing.

Keywords: linguistic assistance, second language writing, young learners, narrative tasks

DOI: 10.20472/TEC.2015.002.011

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