Journal of Second Language Writing最新文献

The impact of AI technologies, particularly ChatGPT, on the ESL/EFL writing classroom is unprecedented. In response to the focus paper by Warschauer and colleagues regarding this issue, this paper shares some insights from the experiences teaching English writing at the post-secondary level in Thailand. Due to the lack of institutional policies on the use of AI technologies, we need to devise our own strategies for our classes. While students are encouraged to use their voices instead of relying on AI, we attempt to adapt our practice by incorporating AI generators in a productive way to help students enhance their potential as L2 writers. However, there has been a debate among writing teachers in our context whether to accept AI tools as a part of teaching and learning.

In response to Warschauer et al.’s paper on the affordances and contradictions of AI-generated text, we as researchers in multimodal literacy focus on discussing the two affordances of multimodal generative AI models for L2 writers, such as (1) exploring and fostering multimodal literacy and (2) developing fine-tuned prompt literacy.

Writing from sources is a fundamental academic skill that poses a challenge for students at all educational levels. However, few studies have investigated source use in the high-school context. The current study examines the source-based writing of 43 adolescent writers in a high-school second-language (L2) classroom. Students were classified into high- (N = 25) and low-proficiency (N = 18) levels based on scores obtained on an integrated writing task. They then completed an additional integrated writing task. Essays were analysed for four variables: amount of source use, accuracy of source ideas, thoroughness of attribution to source authors, and language used to integrate source information. Correlation coefficients suggested a significant relationship between writing scores and certain source-use patterns. Independent samples t-tests revealed significant differences between the two proficiency groups for accuracy of source use, thoroughness of attribution to source authors, verbatim copying with no citation, and indirect source use with implicit citation. The findings suggest that although high-school L2 writers are ready to meet certain demands of source-based writing, they require support in source-use subskills. This has implications for the eventual creation of pedagogical interventions designed to guide novice writers at this educational level through the developmental process of achieving effective source-based writing.

Frequent engagement in English extramural activities (i.e., activities that take place outside the classroom) has been found to have a positive impact on EFL learners’ vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. In the present study, we aim to extend our knowledge of the possible impact of extramural activities into the realm of second-language writing. Specifically, we investigate the relationship among a number of English extramural activities and two aspects of writing development: lexical diversity and noun phrase complexity. The data are drawn from the Swedish Learner English Corpus (SLEC) which includes texts produced by Swedish secondary school students. The corpus also includes information on how many hours per week students (i) engage in conversations in English, (ii) communicate in English while playing computer/video games, (iii) read in English, (iv) spend time on social media with English content, (v) and watch TV shows or movies in English. The results show that reading in English leads to higher frequency of adjectival modification, whereas conversing in English and watching TV programs positively impact lexical diversity. The results of the study have implications for discussions about the role of L2 classroom instruction vis-à-vis learners’ extramural activities.

Previous studies demonstrated that alignment entailed in the continuation task can facilitate language learning (e.g., Wang & Wang, 2015), but the investigation into how to maximize alignment to tap greater learning potential is still in its infancy. The present study extends this line of inquiry by examining whether interaction with multimodal presentations would bring about enhanced alignment effect in the reading-writing continuation task. Participants were three groups of Chinese senior English as a foreign language (EFL) learners who were exposed to each of the three input modalities: text modality, text+picture modality and text+video modality. Results showed that 1) text+video modality brought about stronger alignment at both linguistic and situational levels, more accurate and cohesive writing production; 2) text+picture modality only magnified alignment at situation models; 3) learners varied their perceptions towards the incorporation of pictorial and video input. Pedagogical implications of the study were thereafter discussed.