Research Proposal:

Writing Instruction and Standardized Assessment Performance in Korean Foreign

Language High Schools

ETEC 500

Claude DSouza

4167007

Section 64B
Introduction

As an EFL teacher hired to teach writing at an elite Korean high school, I have the

responsibility of instructing around 400 students once a week for 50 minutes. Since I have the

freedom to design my own writing curriculum, I have focused on providing students with skills

that will be useful to them in their senior year of high school and in university. I have used

TOEFL writing activities to help my students improve their academic writing skills, and

hopefully achieve a high score on the written section of a TOEFL test in the future. Based on my

experience with ESL post-secondary students in Vancouver, I noticed that a great deal of

emphasis is placed on successfully writing the TOEFL test in order to enter English programs

offered at top academic institutions overseas. However, as many of my Korean students are

likely planning to continue their education in (South) Korea after high school, and wish to enter

one of the top domestic universities, I find it important to review literature and learn more about

the academic research on EFL writing conducted in the Asia-Pacific region (primarily Japan and

Korea), and how it influences instruction at the high school level.

In Korea, I understand that high school students have enormous pressure to perform well

on a university entrance exam that is written by all high school seniors (and other adults who

wish to try again to enter the top universities) on the same day near the end of the school year.

All members of Korean society recognize the importance of this test for the future of the

students, as reflected by national changes in work start times, transportation schedules, and other

examples of sacrifices made by all Korean citizens to support senior high school students on the

exam day in November. My students are constantly reminded that this one-day exam holds the

key to their future success in this country, as their score determines admission to Koreas top
universities. Therefore, it is important for me to examine the English component of this test, and

determine what approach I should adopt for my writing course in order to help students better

their English ability, especially in regards to the university entrance exam.

Kwon, Yoshida, Watanabe, Negishi, & Nagamura (2004) conducted a large-scale

comparative study of the English proficiency of Grade 10 and 11 high school students in Korea,

China, and Japan. Their findings indicated that although Korean students achieved higher scores

than their Japanese and Chinese counterparts on the reading and listening tests, they performed

significantly lower on the writing assessment. The authors believed that the great emphasis

placed on reading and listening by the Korean university entrance examination system may be a

primary reason for this result.

Statement of the Research Problem

Ahn (1995) believed that writing in EFL classrooms in Korea was neglected due to

Korean EFL teachers high value on grammar and translation, their limited knowledge of EFL

writing instruction, and students lack of motivation toward improving their EFL writing ability.

Although this observation was made several years ago, Yi & Shim (2011) still believe that these

issues still plague Korean EFL writing instruction today. The fact that I was hired to teach

writing at my school may be signaling a shift of responsibility for writing instruction on foreign

native English-speaking teachers.

Therefore, I wish to investigate the system of EFL written instruction in Korean

secondary institutions. The senior year of high school (Grade 12) is devoted to preparation for

the final university entrance exam, but I would like to focus particularly on how EFL writing

courses, or writing activities in General EFL courses, are currently being designed and taught in
students second year of high school (Grades 10-11). As the majority of Korean high school

students want to score highly on their university entrance exam, I would also determine how the

various EFL writing instructional approaches influence student performance on the university

entrance exam during their senior year.

Review of Related Literature

I have enlarged the scope of my literature review to include research from Japan, as it

seems that like their Korean counterparts, students in Japanese high schools usually do not

actually write much in their writing classes, but rather focus on form and literal translation

(Herder & Clements, 2012). According to the authors, this is done in accordance with a

predominant instructional approach in Japan that has been employed for several years, and is

perpetuated by the university education exam system. As this seems to be similar to what I have

observed in Korea, I have included research on EFL instruction in Japanese high schools as well.

The initial hypothesis of this study was that regular fluency practice would lead to (1)

measurable gains in students written fluency, and (2) increased motivation and self-confidence

(Herder & Clements, 2012, p. 239).

The study investigates the success of a two-year writing course that Herder designed for

Grade 11 and 12 high school students in Japan; the Grade 11 students focused on writing

fluency, and Grade 12 students focused on university entrance exam practice. Students wanted

more correction from the teacher, so Herder decided to move about the room during in-class

writing periods and assist students by making them aware of mistakes in their writing. The 45-

minute class routine included ten minutes of free-writing, followed by five minutes of peer-
editing. The final 30 minutes were left for either writing convention, topic discussion and

writing, or collaborative writing.

To assess the effectiveness of his writing program, the researchers collect data from a

survey that Herder gave to two of his Grade 12 classes, and writing samples from his one Grade

11 class. However, no assessment of students level of English proficiency prior to instruction is

included. Measures of fluency for the writing samples include words per minute and sentence

length. Herders results reveal that students overall text length and length of sentences

significantly increased over the course of the school year. The online survey was given to the

Grade 12 students near the end of the school year and consisted of multiple-choice questions,

each with space for students to write additional comments. The most significant finding from the

survey is that a large number of Grade 12 students recognized changes in their writing speed,

attitude, and interest in writing. The researchers conclude that a carefully considered fluency-

first approach is a powerful means of getting beginning writers to put away their concern with

correctness and write longer, more meaningful texts (Herder & Clements, 2012, p. 241). There

is also a noticeable positive change in student motivation, understanding of how to write, and

learning autonomy.

This study highlights the importance of incorporating a balanced teaching approach for

Asian students which emphasizes both fluency and accuracy. However, Herder & Clements

(2012) do address limitations with their study. First, the measure of fluency is simply length-

based without focus on overall meaning or understanding of the writing. Also, the writers do

not identify the behaviours that promote writing fluency. More importantly, the researchers fail

to investigate how the fluency-first approach in Grade 11 influences subsequent writing during

the university entrance exam preparation course in Grade 12.

 In my opinion, there is researcher bias in this study, as Herder designed and implemented

the writing curriculum for the students, and also interpreted the results. This is an action

research project rather than a credible research paper. Furthermore, improvement in writing

fluency might be attributed to other factors, such as the students enrollment in private English

academies. However, the findings here have paved the way for future research in this area.

Although many educators may agree that an emphasis on fluency can help students become

successful writers, it is important to determine whether this approach will actually help the

students achieve a successful score on their university entrance exam compared to an approach

that focuses on improving writing accuracy throughout their high school EFL education.

Yi (2009) interviewed English teachers at the high school level in Korea about

assessment, trying to explore how they define writing ability based on their teaching approach,

and determine if these teachers have created their own definitions of writing ability and provided

examples of what they look like.

The study by Yi (2009) consists of data from 6 respondents; 4 teachers are from general

high schools and 2 are from foreign language high schools. Their work experience ranges from 2

to 34 years. They were recruited via an internet advertisement targeting high school English

teachers in Korea. Results from the interviews indicate that although these teachers regularly

administer writing assessment, they spend little time thinking about the writing ability that they

are focusing on. The teachers feel that they are given little guidance from administration as to

how to define and assess students writing ability, and therefore most of them are unsure about

the validity and reliability of their assessment.

Although these findings are rather revealing, no conclusions can be drawn because of the

rather small sample size used by Yi (2009). Furthermore, the size is even smaller when you
consider the type of school or the level of teacher experience. Finally, as these respondents were

not directly approached by the researcher, but rather responded to an internet advertisement,

there is like some bias based on the fact that these participants volunteered. I believe that my

research could advance the work done by Yi (2009) as I would target a larger sample of teachers

in only foreign language high schools, and I too would interview teachers about their approach to

written instruction, which could be product-based (accuracy), process-based (fluency), or maybe

even the more advanced reader/genre-based. Although the assessment used by the writing

teacher in the 2nd year would not be the primary focus of my research, the results may likely

inform the approach that teachers should consider for writing assessment in Korean high schools.

In terms of English Language Teacher (ELT) education in the Asia-Pacific region, Yi &

Shim (2011) claim that writing is an area that has received less attention. Therefore, they explore

how ELT education programs inform pre-service teachers about writing content and pedagogy.

They also address challenges of EFL writing instruction and make suggestions for how program

instructors can help pre-service teachers become better writing teachers.

The researchers conducted an internet search of 30 ELT programs in Korea to analyze

curriculum, and examined faculty profiles on the program websites. They discovered that most

of the General Writing courses offered engage pre-service teachers with controlled and guided

writing activities that focus on sentence structure or the development of short paragraphs.

Although General Writing or Writing Pedagogy courses are offered in the program, very few

programs actually require students to complete these courses in order to graduate. Yu & Shim

(2011) believe that EFL teacher educators in Korea only emphasize academic purposes of EFL

writing by offering courses for English exam preparation or courses for improving writing
competence. They assert that teacher educators should encourage EFL teachers to become

writers, and record and reflect on their own writing in English. Pre-service teachers should

understand the meaning, value, and purposes of EFL writing before learning about writing

pedagogy in ELT education, according to Yu & Shim (2011).

Since their only content analysis is based on data collected from the internet, rather than

from observations of the classes or interviews with those involved in the programs, Yu & Shims

(2011) findings are greatly limited. By including observations and extensive data collection on

secondary writing instruction in my research, I may be able to achieve clearer results that may

inform the design of curriculum for Korean ELT education programs offered in the future.

Song & Seong (2010) create an experimental study with college level students in Korea,

in order to explore the writing-learning relationship in the college curriculum. Using four

sections of a freshman English reading course, the researchers evaluate how essay writing and

answering comprehension questions promote learning among college students.

For ten weeks, students in the experimental group wrote essays on their assigned reading

chapters, while students in the control group wrote answers to comprehension questions on the

same assigned chapters during the same period. Song & Seong (2010) assessed improvement by

analyzing pre- and posttest data using ANOVA. The analyzed variable in the data was the

change in students reading comprehension, as measured by the comprehension section of a

TOEFL test.

The findings in the study by Song & Seong (2010) indicate that writing essays could

improve students reading comprehension more than answering comprehension questions, thus

supporting the use of essay writing when learning EFL. According to Song & Seong (2010), the
results are limited by the statistic significance of the results; although the reading comprehension

results for the essay writing group are better than the results for the control group, it is not

statistically significant. Furthermore, the impact of writing essays is limited by its context of a

freshmen English reading class in a Korean college. The effectiveness of essay writing needs to

be tested in different types of EFL contexts.

Through my proposed research findings, I hope to address the effectiveness of different

kinds of writing activities on the overall skills required to successfully complete the university

entrance exam.

Statement of the Hypothesis

My hypothesis is that a balanced approach to EFL writing instruction, one that focuses on

both improving both students writing accuracy and fluency, will enable students to improve their

learning in all areas of English, including their performance during their senior year of high

school. I believe that this balanced system of writing instruction will improve student

performance on the university entrance exam.

Methodology

I would plan to conduct my research at several of the prominent private foreign language

high schools in Korea for several reasons. First, the students who attend these schools are

generally more academically-inclined, as acceptance into these elite high schools is reserved for

high achieving students. This would ensure that most of the students in the study have a similar

level of academic ability, although there is still likely to be a variety in terms of English

proficiency. Furthermore, as English is a mandatory subject for all students in a foreign

language high school, there is a high possibility of students having a course that includes either a
writing course on its own, or a course that incorporates writing activities. Finally, the senior year

in these high schools would likely be devoted strictly to preparing for the university entrance

exam, so all the research participants would have a similar EFL experience during their final year

of school.

Initially, I would approach all of the foreign language schools and inform them about my

study, as well as ensure confidentiality in the reporting of the data. Ideally, I would like to have a

majority of schools participate, but I would only select schools where Korean is the primary

language of instruction for subjects such as Math, Social Studies, etc. Furthermore, I would have

to make myself familiar with the curriculum offered in the 2nd and 3rd year at these schools to

fully understand what they offer in terms of written EFL instruction before deciding on which

course and instructor to investigate at each school.

My proposed research would employ a largely quantitative approach, and the study

would be longitudinal as it follows students from the start of their 2nd year in high school till the

end of their senior year. First, the researcher would conduct an interview with the teacher and

discuss what types of writing activities are used in the class, and whether the teacher would

classify them as fluency-based, accuracy-based, or both. Then we would observe EFL teachers

in 2nd year EFL writing classes, describe the types of routine writing activities employed by the

teacher in class and how much time was spent doing each of those activities. Each of the

activities would be coded based on its focus (ie: A accuracy, F fluency, B both). If there is

no Writing class, then the researcher would observe other EFL courses and record the time spent

on writing activities, and the type of writing activity used. The same teacher would be observed

four times over the course of the year to ensure that there is consistency with the routine writing

activities. All students scores on the observed writing course, or specific writing activities, in
their second year would be collected in order to ensure that students successfully acquired the

writing skills. Researchers would then collect their scores on the English component of the

university entrance exam written during their subsequent senior year. A questionnaire would be

given for all students to complete; this would include questions about their enrollment in after-

school programs or time spent learning English abroad. Finally, a profile of the observed EFL

teacher would be completed to include information such as the teachers first language,

experience teaching EFL, qualifications, etc.

Data would be collected and controlled for variables such as first language of the writing

teacher, students enrollment in private English after-school programs, time spent living and

studying English abroad, and the amount of EFL instruction received each week. I would also

ensure that students are receiving similar instruction in their senior EFL class, likely consisting

of completing practice questions for the university entrance exam. By controlling for all of these

influencing variables, I would hope to be able to determine if there is a connection between

students EFL writing experience during their second year of high school and their performance

on the university entrance exam during their senior year.

Significance of the Proposed Research

Even though I do not agree with the importance placed on standardized assessment such

as the university entrance exam, it seems that this method will continue to decide which high

school students are eligible to enter the top universities. Therefore, I believe that it is important

for EFL instructors to determine the influence of different types of writing instruction on

students performance on the university entrance exam. However, it is also important that

teachers not only prepare their students to enter elite universities both in Korea and abroad, but
also prepare them to succeed at the post-secondary level. In my opinion, a healthy balance of

accuracy- and fluency-based writing activities during Korean students second year in high

school will result in not only improvement in their overall writing, but also in other areas of their

EFL learning, which will include their performance on the university entrance exam. Hopefully,

the findings from my proposed research would encourage EFL high school instructors to design

both product- and process-based writing activities in their English curriculum to improve not

only their students writing ability, but also their students performance on the standardized

university entrance exam.

References

Ahn, B. (1995). The teaching of writing in Korea. Journal of Asian Pacific

Communication, 6(1), pp. 67-76

Herder, S. & Clements, P. (2012). Extensive writing: a fluency-first approach to

EFL writing. In T. Muller, S. Herder, J. Adamson, & P.S. Brown (Eds.),
Innovating EFL Teaching in Asia (pp. 232-244). New York, NY: Palgrave
Macmillan.

Kwon, O., Yoshida, K., Watanabe, Y., Negishi, M. & Nagamura, N. (2004). A
comparison of English proficiency of Korean, Japanese, and Chinese high
school students. English Teaching, 59(4), pp. 3-21.

Song, M. & Seong. M (2010). Exploring writing-learning relationship through

Korean EFL college students. Journal of Pan-Pacific Association of
Applied Linguistics, 14(1), pp. 31-43.

Yi, Y. J. (2009). Defining writing ability for classroom writing assessment in high
schools. Journal of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, 13(1),
53-69.

Yi, Y.J. & Shim, E.S. (2011). Trends and challenges for EFL writing teacher
education in Korea: a content analysis. , 29, pp. 51-73.