The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher 19:3 (2010), pp.

417-438

Enhancing English composition teachers’

awareness of their students’ writing strategy use
Shih-Chieh Chien
Taipei Medical University, Taiwan ROC
chien.paul@gmail.com

This paper explored how it may be possible to improve higher education English writing teachers’
practice by enhancing their understanding of the strategies used by their students when writing in
English. Thirty six college students registered in English composition courses and their teachers at
a university in northern Taiwan participated in this study. The analysis of student data showed the
complexity of writing strategy use. Students’ higher writing performance seemed to be associated
with their higher awareness of writing skills. When the student data were presented to the teachers,
the teachers noted that they were unaware of their students’ writing strategy use in brainstorming,
free writing and text generating. The interviews indicated that the students’ writing strategy use in
organizing, sentence and word use, and revision converged with the teachers’ thinking. The data
were interpreted as supporting the view that this research could enhance the development of teaching
English writing. Students’ higher writing performance seemed to be associated with their higher
awareness of writing skills. The student data also provided valuable information that enlightened
teachers to think about how to better address the needs of their students and to improve teaching
writing. An important role in educational research was to inform practitioners and support teachers
gain a deeper understanding of their students’ writing strategy use, so that they could begin to adapt
to their students’ needs.

Keywords: English composition, awareness, higher education, writing strategy use

Learning English has become a significant
trend for so many years in Taiwan, and the
importance of it explicitly soared during recent
years. In accordance with the General Guidelines
of Grade 1-9 Curriculum of Elementary and Junior
High School Education, students from grade 3 to 9
needed to spend 20% to 30% of their learning hours
on Language Arts (i.e., Chinese and English). The
learning content (e.g., understanding of social and
culture domains) and the core competencies (e.g.,
basic communication skills) were also highlighted
“in consideration of students’ references, needs
of the communities, and the features of school
development (Taiwan Ministry of Education,
General Guidelines of Grade 1-9 Curriculum of
Elementary and Junior High School Education,
2005, p.6), and which stipulated educational
development and accomplishment in each phase
of learning
However, on the basis of the researcher’s
observation and teaching experiences, many
Taiwanese students who have learned English for
at least 12 years in high and elementary school
might still feel anxious and perform poorly

Copyright © 2010 De La Salle University, Philippines

418 THE ASIA-PACIFIC EDUCATION RESEARCHER
in writing. The situation in higher education
could even become worse. English teaching
was autonomous in each individual university.
Students majoring in electrical engineering at the
National Taiwan University, for example, only
had to take up six credits of English courses to
fulfill the requirements for graduation, out of a
total of 137 credits (National Taiwan University,
Department of Electrical Engineering Course
Guidelines, 2008). This would only mean that
students merely needed to spend less than 5% of
their assigned coursework learning English, so
much less to a large extent less than in senior or
junior high school. With limited English learning
coursework, consequently, the English learning
achievement of college students might not only
regress, but also might become inconsistent,
owing to the diversity of courses offered at
different universities.
Nevertheless, the number of university students
who wanted to use English as a major tool for
“global communication, academic survival, and
professional success” (Jun, 2005, p.91) was still
rapidly increasing in Taiwan because English is
usually regarded as an international language.
As a result, university students who were eager
to improve their English skills would have
difficulties due to inadequate learning experiences
and focus on English in classes. Despite the fact
that there were several aspects in English skills,
writing was recognized as the most important part
to increase the intellectuals’ global visibility. The
reason for such circumstances was best illustrated
by Leki’s (2005) study. The fact that writing
outshined other skills, she indicated, was because
of the dearth of “oral intellectual life beyond these
local discussions” (p.81). Scholars were obliged
to focus on writing, which for many disciplines
required publishing in English (Leki, 2005).
McDonough and Hyland’s (2005) statement on
the present state of English writing emphasized
a potential gap the student writers must deal
with. “We focus on issues like argumentation,
academic persuasion, structuring essays, notions
of audience, identity, things which the students,
whether in the L1 or in the L2, seem to have
VOL. 19 NO. 3
enormous problems with, because they’ve never
encountered this type of writing before. Their
previous experiences don’t prepare them for
it” (p.57). These comments might be closely
relevant to the present situation of English writing
education in Taiwan.
With limited teaching hours at university,
English teachers were likely to have a poor
understanding of their students’ knowledge in
writing. Teaching quality could thus be affected.
In addition, in order to enhance the students’
English ability, recently the government and
teachers in Taiwan advocated a so-called learner-
centered approach to teaching or a learner-centered
pedagogy. This required more pedagogical
discussion taking students into account. Kulinna
and Cothran (2003) stated that without having
adequate experience with the students could be
a major reason why teachers preferred to adopt a
teacher- or content-centered approach rather than
a learner-centered approach. In their study they
found that although teachers believed that the
learner-centered teaching approach was effective,
they did not use it as much as the teacher-centered
or content-centered approach. Acknowledging the
imperative need for developing English writing
skills and learner-centered teaching practices in
Taiwan, it was thus necessary for teachers to better
understand their students, so that they could better
meet their students’ genuine needs in writing. In
order to develop effective teaching of writing
practices and strategies, the need for teachers to
gain an understanding of their students and attend
to their students’ differences becomes paramount.
As Cumming (1989) stated, we must expect and
respond to a large amount of individual difference
and adapt instructions to individual needs.
The purpose of this paper was to examine
students’ English writing strategy use, with
the ultimate aim of exploring how it would be
possible to improve the practice of English writing
teachers in higher education by enhancing their
understanding of the strategies used by their
students. By exploring the characteristics of
students’ writing strategies, the teachers might be
able to better understand their students’ needs and
TEACHER AWARENESS ON STUDENT WRITING
devise better teaching activities to help them. In
order to improve the teachers’ understanding of
their students’ writing strategies, we needed first
to uncover what it was that makes one student an
excellent writer and another a poor one. Once the
teachers were better informed about their students’
writing strategies, they would be more capable in
helping weaker students.
If teachers wanted to be experts in teaching
English, they needed to understand their students,
and know how to deal with them. Implicit in this
conception would be the realization that teachers
should be aware of both where the students
are going and how they should get there. If
the teachers could not recognize and discover
their students’ writing strategies, they might not
know how to teach students to improve their
writing. It was necessary to investigate students’
writing strategies and to inform their teachers
so that they could reflect upon their practice
of teaching writing in relation to the students’
strategies. Writing is an intricate cognitive activity
comprising a number of processes and strategies.
Good writing does not occur by coincidence.
The use of strategies in the writing process was
crucial to successful writing. Successful writers
used mental procedures to control and monitor
the creation of writing. In the early 1980s, Hayes
and Flower outlined a cognitive theory of writing
that formally initiated a model of the writing
process. This model investigated the internal
process of the minds of college level students
in the act of writing. In gathering the mounting
body of research up to that point, they proposed
that writing could be seen, in particular, as a
goal-directed, complex problem-solving process.
As stated by Flower and Hayes (1981), Hayes
(1996), and Hayes and Flower (1980), writers
would cope with numerous cognitive strategies
when they composed: they planned, organized,
generated, evaluated, and revised not only text, but
also goals for their text. Some researchers found
that high achieving/skilled writers were inclined
to carry out more planning and revise more at the
discourse level (Cumming, 1989; Raimes, 1987;
Roca de Larios, Marin, & Murphy, 2001; Roca
CHIEN, S.C. 419
de Larios, Murphy, & Manchon,1999; Zamel,
1983) while low achieving/unskilled writers were
likely to plan less and revise more at the word
and phrase level (Roca de Larios et al., 2001;
Roca de Larios et al., 1999; Zamel, 1983). Expert
writers were devoted more to planning, while
novices tended to construct less global plans.
Low achieving/Unskilled L2 writers (those who
write a language which is their second language
and is not their mother tongue), for example,
showed little planning behavior; they reread
small elements of their written texts both before
and during the drafting of their essays; their first
draft tended to be their final one, and it seemed
they had a very narrow conception of what writing
comprised (Raimes, 1985; Zamel, 1983). In
addition, related to the present study, despite the
fact that in the writing process the writers would
organize during planning, the actual content of
how the writers organized their writing might be
different when they write in different languages.
A very important strategy which had to be pointed
out and documented in the literature was the
organizational strategy (or rhetorical strategy)
during the planning process, as it was particularly
related to specific conventions when the writers
in the L2 wrote. The concept of genre was
described as “abstract, socially recognized ways
of using language” (Hyland, 2003, p. 21) which
were deliberate communicative activities adopted
by people of a specific discourse community
(Swales, 1990). In L2 education, it was generally
recognized that academic writing involved the use
of elements of composition which were distinct
from other forms of writing in English (Connor,
1996; Gutierrez, 1995). When writing did not
exhibit these features, it was negatively regarded
as disorganized and incoherent (Hinds, 1990).
Writers might have little or no awareness about
other genre-specific rules and backgrounds in
which the genres were employed. Writing was
considered a personal as well as a social cultural
communication (Flower, 1994).
The significance of this study was two-fold.
First, the issue of the relationship between
explicitness and development of teaching writing
420 THE ASIA-PACIFIC EDUCATION RESEARCHER
practice was crucial to this study. Central to the
effective practice of teaching writing espoused in
this study was the view that in order to improve
teachers’ understanding of their students, the
characteristics of students’ writing strategy use had
to be taken into account and exploited as fully as
possible, as students’ writing strategy use was one
of the most important elements that determined
the success of learning writing (Purpura, 1998;
Tsai, 2004). All the evidence indicated that there
was a relationship between the implicit knowledge
of teachers and quality of teaching, as revealed by
the kind of comments they made to high and low
achieving students, what students said they have
learnt and whether they made suggestions about
what teachers may change in their teaching. The
value of understanding their students’ writing
strategies could be underestimated. Teachers
had to ensure that they were ready to help their
students with their composition courses. For
example, were teachers sensitive to their students’
writing strategies? Were teachers aware of the
importance of writing strategies used by their
students and the dichotomy between student
and teacher understanding of writing? If the
teachers disregard their student’ needs in writing,
the composition course may be merely another
generic effort with a high risk of failure. Teachers
needed to adapt to their students’ needs as best as
they could. Making their students feel that they
improved in writing was of great importance.
Second, the hallmark of this study was that
teachers ware expected to become more aware of
their students’ current state of understanding and
to start to reflect on their own teaching practice
in tune with their students’ needs. In other words,
taking the evidence from the characteristics of
students’ writing strategies as a starting point,
teachers needed to think about how to re-formulate
their teaching activities in order to support their
students, not only in making sense of the students’
immediate problems, but also in meeting the
teachers’ pedagogical intentions to more closely
address their students’ needs. An important
contribution made in this study was that in order
to link writing research and practice in education,
VOL. 19 NO. 3
an interactive space should be constructed and
mediated between the teachers and researcher
in sharing their students’ writing strategy use
as this was an important step to improve the
chances of success in designing and developing
a course (e.g., Cumming, 1989; Purpura, 1998;
Raimes, 1987; Roca de Larios et al., 1999; Roca
de Larios et al., 2001; Tsai, 2004; Zamel, 1983),
as past writing studies tended to mainly focused
on the side of students’ writing strategy, but the
findings were not relayed to their teachers and
thus a link between writing research and education
was not established. An interactive space through
meaning construction would support, guide, and
raise teachers’ consciousness in achieving fuller
understanding of their students’ writing strategies,
so that they could begin to better adapt to their
students’ needs.
Research questions
1. What are high and low achieving students’
writing strategy use?
2. How do teachers respond to and interpret
the writing strategies used by high and low
achieving students in their composition
classes?
3. How can writing strategy research contribute
to the improvement of English teaching
quality in Taiwan?
Method
Setting and participants
College students enrolled in 9 English
composition classes at a university located in the
northern part of Taiwan participated in this study.
Each class had between 9 and 16 students. In order
to select the high and low achieving students,
average top 2 (For those students who scored
TOEFL TWE: 5.5-6 or IELTS writing section: 7.5-
8.5) and bottom 2 (For those students who scored
TOEFL TWE: 3-4 or IELTS writing section:
TEACHER AWARENESS ON STUDENT WRITING
4.5-5.5) students based on the multiple scores in
English writing graded by their university teachers
who taught in the English composition classes
lasting a whole academic year (i.e. 2 semesters)
were chosen. Their teachers also took part in this
study. They were professor/associate professors
or lecturers, and their past university English
composition teaching years were between 9 and
22 years. The teachers included both native and
non-native speakers of English as this was often
the case in teaching English composition courses
at universities in Taiwan.
Writing strategy training played an important
part of writing instruction in the composition
classes at the university. As the English writing
has been increasingly regarded as an essential skill
in Taiwan, the composition courses focused on
organizing and developing essays with particular
concentration given to logical and proper language
use for argumentative writing, and with English
composition textbooks serving as models of good
writing. The students’ essays were mostly revised
on the basis of teacher feedback. Students would
be motivated to write essays on a range of topics,
and be able to achieve accuracy and clarity in
writing. Before the students entered the university,
they had studied English as a required subject in
the elementary and secondary schools for at least
nine years.
Data collection procedures
The methodology adopted in this research was
a multiple case study. With the consent of each
student, the data sources included the students’
think-aloud writings, pre- and post- writing
student interviews to capture their own narratives
of writing strategies, and the students’ English
written texts. In this way the students’ writing
strategy use was approached from the point of
view of the record of what they were verbalizing
while writing, from the point of view of what they
thought they were doing, and from the evidence
documented in their finished written texts. After
analysis of the student data, interviews were
conducted with the teachers to elicit their thinking
about writing pedagogy and their interpretations
CHIEN, S.C. 421
of their students’ writing strategies. The output
was directed to improve the teachers’ practice of
teaching writing by enhancing their understanding
of their students’ writing strategies. The data
collection stages and details were presented in
Table 1.
Step 1: Think-aloud writing session
The concurrent think-aloud methodology was
derived from cognitive psychology. It was used
to capture as full an account of people’s cognitive
writing processes as possible (e.g., Flower &
Hayes, 1981; Hayes, 1996). Writing involved
cognitive processes that were not explicitly open
to observation and evaluation. As a result, so as
to get the best view possible of what it was that
student writers did as they write, researchers have
been inclined to use think-aloud protocols. The
principal advantage in using the concurrent think-
aloud protocol was that it lessens problems linked
to memory breakdown which may take place
when one waits to collect verbal data at the end
of an activity. Also, due to the fact that the use of
think-aloud data came from having a participant
undergo a real activity, they yielded more reliable
results than if asked to report on hypothetical
circumstances (Ericsson, 1998).
A small room was chosen for the purpose of
comfort and quietness. The researcher was not to
interfere and influence students’ thought processes
in any aspect. The researcher served only as a
neutral prompter (keep talking) who encouraged
the students to say aloud what they thought only
if they were silent (Smagorinsky, 1994). Students
would then be encouraged to verbalize whatever
came into their minds as they wrote, whether the
thought was in English or Chinese. Prior to the
practice session, they were given an introduction
according to the procedure by Roca de Larios, et
al, 2005).
You will have forty minutes to write an
English composition on a given topic on the
computer in the writing session. You should
say aloud everything you think and everything
that occurs in your mind while performing
writing, regardless of what it may be. You can
422 THE ASIA-PACIFIC EDUCATION RESEARCHER VOL. 19 NO. 3

Table 1
Data collection stages and details

Stage 1: Student data collection

Research Aims Research Strategies Instruments/Respondents

To capture the students’ 1. Think-aloud writing 1. Videotaped think-aloud

English writing strategies
experiment protocols: 36 data sets
2.Semi-structured 2. Audiotaped semi-structured
interviews individual interviews with the
3. Analysis of texts students: 72 data sets
3. Resulting texts written by the
students: 36 written texts

Stage 2: Analysis of the student data gathered in the stage 1

Stage 3: Findings from the student data presented to their teachers

Research Aims Research Strategies Instruments/Respondents

To improve English writing Semi-structured interviews Audio-taped semi-structured

teachers’ practice by enhancing individual interviews with the
their understanding of the teachers: 7 data sets
strategies used by their
students when writing English

use whatever language you want: English or
Chinese or a mixture of English and Chinese.
You should not converse with me. If you are
silent, I will remind you to say aloud what
you are thinking. If you find you cannot write
naturally, let me know straight away. If not,
keep writing until I inform you the time to stop.
[originally in Chinese]
In the think-aloud writing session which lasted 40
minutes each, the researcher decided on a common
writing topic for the purpose of comparability
The type of topic was argumentation. This
was deemed most appropriate as the teachers
usually assigned their students to practice
and write argumentative writing topics in
the English composition course for academic
purposes.
The topic chosen was “Do you agree or
disagree with the following statement? It is better
for children to grow up in the countryside than
in a big city. Use specific reasons and details
to support your argument.” As all the students
have had such an experience of living in either
the city or the countryside, or both, a reasonable
level of knowledge of the advantages and
disadvantages on each side could be assumed,
so that participation in the writing task could be
expected. The researcher remained unobtrusive
in the background. Only when the students
forgot and fell silent, they were reminded by the
TEACHER AWARENESS ON STUDENT WRITING
researcher with verbal signals (keep talking) to
prompt them to say aloud their mental processes,
which was one of the standard procedures used in
many think-aloud writing studies. In this study the
video was used. In addition to the audio recording
of voices/sounds, the visual images helped the
researcher track precisely what the students
actually did during writing and where in relation
to what they said (Liu, 1999).
The students composed their writings on the
computer as this was the most common way to
write their own compositions for their English
composition classes. In addition, when they took
international English exams such as TOEFL
or IELTS, writing on the computer was also a
requirement. Thus, the students did this writing
task in a way similar to the one they are used to
for academic writing using a computer throughout
their writing process.
Step 2: Semi-structured individual interviews
with students
After the think-aloud writing session, in
order to capture the students’ awareness of their
writing strategy use reported by themselves, the
interviews were conducted by the researcher. A
semi-structured interview was conceptualized
as a particular type of conversation where the
interview was partly directed by the interviewer’s
intent of covering a specific domain of interest,
while simultaneously the interviewee was
encouraged to talk freely about the topic (Denzin
& Lincoln, 2000).
The researcher did not impose predetermined
answers on the students. Instead the researcher
worked through their knowledge and experiences.
In this way the data could remain more accurate
to the students’ experiences rather than an
imposition of predetermined ideas by me. All the
student interviews were conducted in Chinese
as they would feel more comfortable with it.
Each individual interview with the student lasted
from 45 minutes to 1 hour. The purpose of the
interviews with students were aimed to investigate
the strategy that students thought they would use
during writing.
CHIEN, S.C. 423
Step 3: Semi-structured interviews with
teachers after the analysis of findings from the
students
Lack of understanding of the students could
impede teaching and learning (Darling-Hammond
& Skyes, 2003; Kulinna & Cothran, 2003;
Wenglinsky, 2002). Teachers needed to be
fully aware of their students’ characteristics
in writing strategy use. Such awareness could
help teachers become more conscious of
their students’ needs and in particular acquire
tools to analyze why the low achieving
students had difficulties in writing and kept
producing low-level written products. Tharp
and Gallimore (1988), among many others,
in the socio-cultural tradition, contended that
development of thinking takes place in the
course of inquiry and exchange of ideas, and
mutual understanding occurs in conversation.
In this study, the researcher aimed to create an
interactive space to foster meaning construction
between the teachers and the researcher in
discussing the findings from the student data.
Semi-structured individual interviews with
teachers were conducted to elicit information
about their beliefs about their practice of teaching
writing, and their interpretations and responses
about the writing strategies employed by high
and low achieving students in their composition
classes.
The researcher served as a mediator in the
writing strategy use research between the teachers
and their students. The joint meaning making was
conveyed through language, through conversations
that occurred within the context of meaningful,
purposeful activity. The teachers showed their
high interest in the present study because the
participants were their own students. Each
individual interview with the teacher lasted
from 1.5 to 2 hours. The ultimate goal of this
study was to contribute to the improvement
of the quality of teacher education in Taiwan,
helping teachers become more aware of their
students’ writing strategy use as they developed
abilities in the teaching of writing.
424 THE ASIA-PACIFIC EDUCATION RESEARCHER
Analysis of the student and teacher data
1. Videotaped think-aloud protocols
The 36 think-aloud protocols in students’ writing
sessions were collected and fully transcribed into
Chinese and English, depending on what language
the students used. The purpose of the concurrent
think-aloud protocol was to capture the students’
writing strategy as completely as possible
(Ericsson, 1998). There were 103,776 English
words and Chinese characters in the think-aloud
transcripts.
The transcripts matched with the writers’ think-
aloud protocols recorded on the videotapes were
clustered into segments or units for coding (Green,
1998). The transcribed protocols were segmented
by watching the videos. When the researcher had
watched and re-watched the video tapes, written
narrative notes about them and a log of recorded
contents (which indicated where to find a specific
action), the researcher then had a basic idea of
segments of writing strategies. The segmenting
criterion was based on the identified points in
the videos in which the students moved from one
strategy to another.
Each segmented unit was coded according
to the categories that the researcher discovered
in the present study. The frequency in different
strategies was statistically analyzed by paired
samples t-test, SPSS 17 (SPSS, 2009) between
students with high and low achievement. The
paired samples t-test was considered the suitable
statistical technique for analysis in the present
study as it could be applied in either dependent or
independent samples (O’Mahony, 1986).
A co-rater coding part of the data could
enhance its trustworthiness. Reliability of
the coding of the think-aloud protocols was
ascertained with a second reader, an experienced
English educator. The second reader coded four
complete sets of the think-aloud protocol data.
The inter-rater agreement between the researcher
and the second reader was 96%. The strategies
identified in the think-aloud protocol included (1)
reading the prompt, (2) formulating the position,
(3) interpreting the writing task, (4) goal setting,
VOL. 19 NO. 3
(5) memory search for ideas, (6) memory search
for languages, (7) generating ideas, (8) generating
pre-text, (9) generating text, (10) rereading
sentence parts in the written text, (11) re-reading
sentence(s), (12) evaluating the written text, (13)
revising the written text, (14) editing the written
text, (15) giving general comments, and (16)
contextual influence.
2. Audiotaped student interviews
Concerning the analysis of audiotaped student
interviews, they were fully transcribed word-for-
word into scripts by the researcher, so that the
research question number 1: students’ writing
strategy use could be answered. The qualitative
data were subsequently refined and clarified
through a process of grouping ideas or thoughts
to form clusters of associated categories (Rubin
& Rubin, 1995), representing the common themes
that emerged among the students who shared
a variety of writing and learning experiences.
All the interview data were explored, analyzed
and finally thematically grouped and coded by
the researcher and an experienced Chinese EFL
educator on the basis of the differences and
similarities in writing strategy use between high
and low achievers.
3. Text Analysis
An important aspect when the writers write in
the L2 was the organizational strategy, as it was
language- and culture- specific. In addition to
the information being elicited from the student
interviews, this could also be double-checked
by analyzing their written texts. In order to
examine the students’ English organizational
strategy, the present study applied the types
of analysis originally employed by Kaplan
(1966): the location of a thesis statement. The
thesis statement was a one-sentence synopsis
of the whole essay. In this study, the location of
the thesis statement sentence was categorized
as one of the four: Initial (indicated in the
introduction), Middle (in the body paragraph),
Final (in the conclusion), or Unclear (not
explicitly indicated). In the present study, there
TEACHER AWARENESS ON STUDENT WRITING
were no cases of more than one position taken in
the same text. A writer’s position statement either
for or against the writing topic was regarded as
a thesis statement. The discourse organization of
the location of the position statement sentence
in each written text was distinguished as one of
two: deduction (thesis stated in the introduction:
the writer’s thesis statement was followed by
supporting reasons), or induction (thesis stated
in the middle or final section: supporting reasons
were followed by the writer’s thesis statement).
Lastly, the presence of a restatement in the
conclusion was the other key feature in English
writing and was generally considered as a good
academic style in English (Kaplan, 1966).
Although the contents in the conclusion and the
introduction were parallel, the ways they were
written were different.
In the present study, the coding was done
by the researcher and a Chinese EFL educator.
There was 97% agreement on the location of the
thesis statement sentence, 97% for the macro-
level rhetorical pattern, and 100% agreement
for the existence of the restatement. In the case
of inconsistencies, we reached an agreement on
each of them after discussion. The coding was
also done by the student writers themselves. As
the compositions were written by the students,
it would be a good idea to explore whether
the written texts coded by the researcher and a
Chinese EFL educator were similar to or different
from those coded by the students. Each of the
students was assigned to read the compositions
they had written to analyze them in terms of
the types of analysis explained above. Between
the coders and each participant, there was 97%
agreement for the location of the thesis statement
sentence, 97% for the macro-level rhetorical
pattern, and 100% agreement for the existence
of the restatement.
The other aspects that were investigated in
the written texts were mean essay length, mean
sentence length, and mean word length. The
major reason why these were scrutinized was that
the students consciously reported such writing
strategies when they were interviewed. The
CHIEN, S.C. 425
finished written texts were, thus, used primarily
as a secondary source of information to confirm
and supplement interview data. The examination
of mean essay length, mean sentence length, and
mean word length aimed to check whether what the
students reported in the interviews was consistent
with their written finished texts as calculated by
the Microsoft Word software. For example, both
high and low achievers reported that they tried
to write short sentences as long sentences were
often not easy to read and comprehend. The
question was that what was the actual length in
a short sentence? How many words were in it?
Did both high and low achievers write a similar
mean sentence length that they both thought was
short? These areas were worth exploring. The
mean essay length was measured by the number
of words per essay. The mean sentence length was
measured by the number of words per sentence.
The mean word length was measured by the
number of letters per word.
4. Audiotaped teacher interviews
As noted in the early section on data collection
procedures, after analysis, student data were
presented to their teachers by the researcher
to explore how the teachers responded to the
data and how this output would contribute to
their practice of teaching writing. Similar to
the qualitative analysis method employed in
the student interviews, all the interviews with
teachers were thematically analyzed, grouped
and coded by the researcher and an experienced
Chinese EFL educator, and interpreted these with
the student data as either divergent or convergent.
Divergent meant that the teachers were unaware
of their students’ writing strategy use, while
convergent meant that the teachers were aware of
the writing strategy used. This was very important
in the present study because as stated in the
Introduction, the Taiwan Ministry of Education
recently shifted their educational policy from a
teacher-centered to a learner-centered approach
in teaching and learning. Teachers needed to have
adequate knowledge and understanding of their
students’ characteristics. They needed to make
426 THE ASIA-PACIFIC EDUCATION RESEARCHER
correct instructional decisions to address and
adapt to their students’ needs.
Triangulation was the combination of two
data sources (both students and teachers),
investigators (additional coder to analyze the
data) and three methodological approaches
(think-aloud protocols, interviews, and written
texts). In addition, an essential ethical practice
in this study was the analysis being true
to the data collected, correctly coinciding
with the accounts of the participants. As a
conscientious researcher, I tried to analyze
the data systematically and fairly, taking
into consideration all possible alternative
interpretations. For example, in the think-aloud
quantitative studies, I did not simply pick out
statistics to highlight a specific phenomenon or
decide not to report negative or opposing results.
Similarly, I attempted to prevent the lifting
of ‘juicy quotes’ in qualitative interviews, for
which a researcher may present a single quote
as standing for the entire sample, whereas it was
just the most emotive or controversial. All the
interview questions in the present study were
pilot-tested with 12 students and 3 teachers.
Moreover, as in student interviews and some of
the teacher interviews, the language used was
Chinese. For the translation from Chinese into
English, all the quotes were checked against the
tape by an experienced Chinese EFL educator,
and possible errors were discussed to ensure
that the intended meaning was conveyed in the
translation, and corrected as appropriate.
Findings and discussions
Writing strategy use between high and low
achievers
Students’ writing strategy use in the
concurrent think-aloud protocols.
The think-aloud protocol revealed the strategies
used by the students during writing. The number
of times that the strategies was verbalized by the
students from the time they started to read the
VOL. 19 NO. 3
writing prompt until the time they finished writing
were added up and analyzed.
As Table 2 showed, results revealed that high
and low achievers differed significantly in their
strategies in generating ideas (p<.05), generating
text (p<.05), revising (p<.01), and editing (p<.01).
Paired samples t-test was the null hypothesis that
the means of two regularly distributed populations
were equivalent (O’Mahony, 1986). In two data
sets, t-test could be used to assess whether the
means were different, given that the principal
distributions could be presumed to be normal.
Significance levels revealed how possibly a result
could be attributed to chance.
High achievers focused more on generating
text, revising and editing, while low achievers
focused more on generating ideas. This pattern
showed that high achievers concentrated on
producing more text, making meaning changes,
and fixing grammatical and spelling errors,
while low achievers spent a lot of time and effort
generating ideas which they would not use later
in their text. The findings from paired samples
t-test further indicated that high achievers focused
more on both revising and editing. They not
only centered on mechanics but also perceived
writing as a process to express ideas and make
meaningful changes, a way of thinking and
clarifying meanings for themselves. In addition,
generating text was also quite important. For the
low achievers group, they probably put much time
and effort into retrieving information which would
never be used later. In other words, low achievers
tended to spend too much time thinking, instead
of writing. As every part of writing started with
thinking, thinking time was crucial. However,
prolonged thinking stole time from actual writing.
For these writers, this was likely to result in not
producing enough text on paper to let readers fully
understand their ideas.
Students’ perceptions of their writing
strategy use and text analysis.
Following the thematic and comparative
analysis between high and low achievers in the
interview data complemented by text analysis,
TEACHER AWARENESS ON STUDENT WRITING CHIEN, S.C. 427

Table 2
Paired samples t-test: High (H) and Low (L) Achievers

Strategies Used in the Number: Mean Standard Deviation p-value

Writing Process H/L H L H L (two-tailed)
1. Reading Prompt
Reading the Prompt 18/18 6.11 5.22 1.92 1.57 0.49
2. Planning
Formulating the Position 18/18 2.33 2.33 1.11 0.70 2.30
Interpreting the Writing
18/18 1.22 1 0.97 0.58 0.71
Task
Goal Setting 18/18 22.88 22.33 9.49 10.54 0.90
Memory Search for Ideas 18/18 9.44 10.22 3.02 3.89 0.87
Memory Search for
18/18 4.88 4.55 2.43 1.67 0.89
Languages
Generating Ideas 18/18 25.55 43.55 11.43 18.65 0.03*
3. Composing
Generating Pre-text 18/18 60.77 73.33 45.39 18.81 0.47
Generating Text 18/18 329.22 278.44 32.44 39.51 0.04*
4. Reviewing
Rereading/Repeating
sentence Parts in the 18/18 241.33 250.77 36.54 54.93 0.66
Written Text
Rereading Sentence(s) 18/18 25.77 20.88 10.41 10.06 0.21
Evaluating the Written
18/18 22.66 27 8.47 16.04 0.40
Text
Revising the Written Text
18/18 87 56.33 32.22 18.92 0.00**
(meaning change)
Editing the Written Text
18/18 115.55 67.44 39.78 7.95 0.00**
(linguistic change)
5. Giving General Comments
Giving General Comments 18/18 7.11 17.55 2.31 5.13 0.09
6. Contextual Influence
Contextual Influence 18/18 2.33 4.55 1.5 2.87 0.34
*p<.05; **p<.01

it was possible to characterize the similarities
and differences in writing strategy use between
high and low achievers. They were different in
brainstorming and free writing, and revising.
However, they were similar in organizing,
sentence and word use, and text generating. An
important factor in distinguishing between high
and low achievers’ writing strategy use was
their writing awareness and writing what their
teachers said. Compared with low achievers,
high achievers tended to be more conscious of
advantages in certain writing strategies.
428 THE ASIA-PACIFIC EDUCATION RESEARCHER
Table 3
Differences of writing strategies for high and low achievers
Awareness of the High Achievers
Strategy (n=18)
Brainstorming and Free
18
Writing
Revising 18
1. Brainstorming and free writing
The first difference between high and low
achievers was their awareness of strategy use
in brainstorming and free writing (see Table 3).
Brainstorming was a strategy for searching ideas
that impinged on the free expression of thoughts.
Another way was through free writing. In other
words, writers jotted down things that came to
their mind, including ideas they were not entirely
sure of.
In the present study, all high achievers
consciously reported that brainstorming helped
them activate their own knowledge and ideas
related to the assigned topic through a process of
free association, while there were less than half
low achievers who reported the same kind of
brainstorming and free writing. A representative
example was given by a high achiever, A1, as
follows. She nut-shelled her whole idea, made a
diagram of the major points, and did an outline to
help her see a schematic representation of what
she had. She reported that “I would at first think
what my opinion is. And then I need to clear up
my mind and search for the thoughts. After that,
I arrange the themes accordingly with an outline.
Lastly, I follow the outline to write.” This may
reflect that the student generated her ideas at
first and then did the grouping according to the
theme. When the student was at the stage of
prewriting, she would do free writing and then do
the linking based on the relevancy. This method
was commonly used and reported by other high
achievers. However, when low achievers were
interviewed, only eight out of 18 mentioned such
a planning strategy, in which the number was
VOL. 19 NO. 3
Low Achievers
% of n % of n
(n=18)
100 8 44.4
100 9 50
less than half of the high achievers group. This
pattern might suggest that in comparison with
high achievers, low achievers were less conscious
of the use of this strategy. This may also reflect
that high achievers were more aware of taking
advantage of this strategy. Prewriting techniques
like brainstorming and free writing may further
lend themselves to more orderly planning devices,
such as the diagram or flow chart, or conversion to
a more fully developed plan, such as an outline.
2. Revising
“Writing, like a potter’s clay, only becomes
a thing of usefulness or beauty through repeated
smoothing and shaping” (Walshe, 1981, p.40, as
cited in Natalie, 2003). Although Murray (1982)
argued that writing was rewriting, students seldom
saw revision as a chance to develop and improve
a piece of writing. Revision, however, was the
heart of the writing process—the means by which
ideas emerged and developed, and meanings were
clarified, re-worked and polished.
In the present study, all high achievers
consciously reported that doing revisions was
the key factor to make their writing better, while
only half of the low achievers reported that
this strategy was important (see Table 3). Low
achievers seemed to be less aware of it. However,
independently of whether they were high or low
achievers, once students reported this strategy,
they all mentioned that this was vital to improve
their own writing. For instance, B3 commented
that her essay had to be revised. She would re-
position herself to examine her essay through
the revision.
TEACHER AWARENESS ON STUDENT WRITING
When I finish writing a sentence, I would put
myself as a reader to examine whether the
sentence needs further explanation. Instead of
directly skipping to the next sentence, I would
position myself as a reader to check. Thereupon,
I would go back to read when I finish writing
a part and see whether any revision needs to
be made in order to make the meaning more
clearly. I need to let the readers know what I
intend to express and do not make a mistake.
This is very important.
Based on the purpose of reviewing, the
examples were given as shown in Table 4.
The purpose of making revisions is thus to
clarify the language and meaning, and to re-
organize the writing. It was in this phase that the
writer rethinks what has been written.
Table 4
Purpose of reviewing and examples
Purpose of Reviewing
Preventing something odd or bad
Preventing making mistakes
Preventing repetition
Preventing irrelevancy to the writing topic/
Making the writing coherent
Preventing linguistic errors
Table 5
Similarities of writing strategies between high and low achievers as they reported
Awareness of the High Achievers
Strategy (n=18)
Organizing 18
Sentence and Word Use 18
Text Generating 18
CHIEN, S.C. 429
Despite high and low achievers’ differences
in their awareness in brainstorming, free writing
and revising, they were similar in their reported
strategy use in organizing, sentence and word use,
and text generating (see Table 5).
1. Organizing
In the writing process, particularly in planning,
in her book Problem-Solving Strategies for
Writing, Flower (1998) proposed “nutshelling”:
What was the writing about, in a nutshell, i.e., an
outline? English-speaking readers might expect to
find an effective organization consisting of a direct
and clear thesis statement of the writer’s opinion in
the introduction, with further elaboration provided
through supporting details in the body paragraph.
The closure of the writer’s argument entailed a
Example
A5: I went back to do the revisions if I felt there
was something bad or strange in the essay.
B7: As for reviewing, this aims to check the
mistakes I made.
B5: I would go back to review and check
whether there are some repetitive words and
sentences.
B7: The benefit of it was that I could go back
to check the errors and thus the content that I
wrote would not be so incoherent and irrelevant
to the writing topic.
B1: I go back to read my essay and check my
essay to see whether there was any spelling or
grammatical error.
Low Achievers
% of n % of n
(n=18)
100 18 100
100 15 83.3
100 18 100
430 THE ASIA-PACIFIC EDUCATION RESEARCHER VOL. 19 NO. 3

Table 6
Breakdown of organizational strategy

High Achievers Low Achievers

(Number) (Number)
Location of Thesis
1. Initial (introduction) 16 18
2. Middle (body paragraph) 1 0
3. Final (conclusion) 1 0
Introduction
1. Yes 18 18
2. No 0 0
Macro-Level Patterns
1. Deduction (Explanation) 4 2
2. Deduction (Comparison) 13 16
3. Induction (Explanation) 0 0
4. Induction (Comparison) 1 0
Conclusion/ Summary/Restatement
1. Yes 16 14
2. No 2 4
Note: Macro-Level patterns:
(1) Deduction (Explanation): The writer’s viewpoint on the topic is presented and then supporting details are given.
(2) Deduction (Comparison): The writer’s viewpoint on the topic is presented and then supporting details are presented
by comparing or contrasting two parts.
(3) Induction (Explanation): The thesis statement is placed at the end and preceding arguments comprise supporting
details for it.
(4) Induction (Comparison): The writer’s viewpoint is realised in the final section; the preceding arguments comprise
supporting details which are organised in a manner by comparing or contrasting two parts.

conclusion. Nevertheless, Chinese writers might
approach the topic indirectly--initiating the
writing first as the introduction, moving gradually
to reveal their points and, finally, finishing, but
without the obligation to resolve the argument
to arrive at a clear-cut thesis. As stated by Johns
(1995), writing topics that center on opinions
and argument were possibly somewhat difficult
for Chinese students. In the present study, the
students, however, indicated that presenting ideas
directly might not be much difficult for them.
They were conscious of making the effort to
switch rhetorical patterns when they wrote from
one language to another. In the present study, the
text analysis of location of thesis, introduction,
macro-level patterns, and existence of conclusion
were shown in Table 6.
As reported by all the high and low achievers,
different criteria of discourse organizations in
Chinese and English writing exists, particularly in
the location of thesis statement, were used. Take
B1 student for example. She not only mentioned
the structural differences in the location of thesis
statement in Chinese and English writing, but also
reported the Chinese and English teachers’ writing
expectations and requirements. Her awareness
of employing different organizational patterns
in Chinese and English writing was related to
teaches’ writing instruction.
I usually place my thesis statement in the first
or second sentence in English writing. The
freshman and sophomore English composition
teachers taught us to write in this way. The
TEACHER AWARENESS ON STUDENT WRITING
teachers’ point is that you should be straight
away into presenting information at the very
first start. Possibly many English teachers
in Taiwan also teach in this way because the
Chinese composition is likely to be the mao-ti
method (i.e. thesis placed at the end of an essay).
At the beginning no point is given and irrelevant
things are stated. Then the main theme emerges
at last.
In spite of such a difference in the location
of thesis statement, nevertheless, there were still
some similarities in English and Chinese discourse
organizations, the existence of introduction, body
and conclusion. A representative example can be
found in A4’s explanation. “In general, they are
similar in terms of the existence of introduction,
supporting details and conclusion.”
To conclude, due to the effect of teachers’
writing instruction, it seemed that there was
no major difference in English organizational
strategy reported by both high and low achievers.
Their previous English writing instruction or
experience had an impact on their writing.
2. Sentence and word use
High and low achievers were similar in their
reported strategy in sentence and word use. They
tried to avoid complex, long, and unfamiliar
sentences and words. For instance, A9 reported
the importance of the clarity in meaning and
aimed to make the word and sentence use not
complicated. “The sentences I wrote were usually
shorter and quite simple. I tried to express my
meaning clearly.”
When their written texts were examined, it was
clear that, as reported, high and low achievers
tried to avoid writing long sentences and words.
There was no exact definition of how many words
in a sentence or how many letters in a word were
considered to be “very long”. Nevertheless, the
number of words per sentence for high and low
achievers was similar. In addition, the number of
characters per sentence for high and low achievers
was also similar. When the number of words
per sentence in the written texts was examined,
it was similar for high and low achievers. For
CHIEN, S.C. 431
high achievers, the mean sentence length was
19.34 words, ranging from 12.86 to 30.46 words
(SD = 4.52), while for low achievers, the mean
sentence length was 19.75 words, ranging from
12.17 to 26.93 words (SD = 4.29). This suggested
that there might be no clear relationship between
words per sentence in their essays and students’
writing achievement.
When the number of letters per word was
examined, it was similar for high and low
achievers. For high achievers, the mean word
length was 4.69 letters, ranging from 4.11 to 5.09
letters (SD = 0.24), while for low achievers the
mean word length was 4.78 letters, ranging from
4.51 to 5.48 letters (SD = 0.26). This suggested
that there might be also no clear relationship
between letters per word in their essays and
students’ writing achievement.
In addition to emphasizing the clarity of the
meaning in the written text, the students talked
about strategy of avoiding the word and sentence
they were not so familiar with. Therefore, they
could avoid making mistakes. For example, A8
reported, “I tried not to use the words and sentence
patterns that I was not so sure. That is, I used
the words and sentence patterns I was familiar
with.” Aside from avoiding unfamiliar words
and sentences, the students pointed out avoiding
repetition in sentence patterns and words unless
the sentences and words were closely related to the
writing topic and they had to use them, and would
manage to make the words and sentence patterns
varied. For example, A3 mentioned, “Regarding
sentence use, I tried not to adopt the same pattern
repeatedly. There were some variations in my
sentence and word use. Sometimes I would change
the sentence pattern in order to fit the meaning
better.” Finally, expressing the intended meaning
correctly tended to be the priority of students.
For example, A2 reported, “What I emphasized
more was the flow of smoothness in writing. I
kept reading whether the flow of sentences was
smooth, words were precise, and meanings were
correct.”
However, a few low achievers mentioned that
they had never thought about their sentence and
432 THE ASIA-PACIFIC EDUCATION RESEARCHER
word use. They may repeat the words or sentence
patterns that they wrote. For instance, D2 reported,
“I did not think about the word use. I did not think
of adopting any complex sentence patterns either.
I just wrote what I thought.” By the same token,
D7 made such a comment that she did not take
much account into word and sentence use. “I did
not think of sentence and word use.”
In summary, for sentence use, regardless of
achievement level, the students indicated that
what counted more was that the sentence could
accurately convey the meaning. However, it
should be noted that a few low achievers reported
that they had never thought about their sentence
and word strategy use before. Compared with high
achievers, a few low achievers seemed to be less
capable of noticing the importance of word and
sentence use during writing in order to correctly
express the intended meaning.
3. Text generating
Writers developed the topic during the
composing process. In the present study, all high-
and low- achievers reported that giving sufficient
and specific supporting details was important.
They spelled out the need to write longer text,
give enough details and ensure the completeness
of the essay. For instance, C4 mentioned the
need to give more specific details and examples
to support the argument in order to make the
writing better.
Concerning the strategies that make my writing
better, I could give more examples…The essay
would be better with more examples. I need to
think about the supporting ideas from different
perspectives, not only from one viewpoint. The
writing topic should be discussed fully and
adequately.
Teachers’ interpretations
of the student data
When the student data were presented to the
teachers, some findings were convergent with their
thinking, while the others were divergent from
VOL. 19 NO. 3
their thinking as far as their practice of teaching
writing was concerned. As this study aimed to
enhance the teachers’ awareness of their student’s
writing strategy use, their unawareness (divergent)
was explained in the following section.
Divergent from the teachers’ thinking
1. Brainstorming in planning
Despite the fact that all the teachers showed
their positive attitude toward teaching their
students the planning skill put emphasis on
brainstorming and free writing in their classroom
writing practice, the student interview data
indicated that in comparison with high achievers,
much fewer low achievers were conscious of
importance of such a strategy. Also, as indicated
in the think-aloud protocol, one important area
that the teachers ignored might be that, compared
with high achievers, the ideas generated by low
achievers did not seem to be the ones that they
really wanted. Low achievers wasted lot of time
generating useless ideas which they never wrote
down on paper. They fished for ideas and rambled
on. In contrast, high achievers jotted ideas
down immediately rather than being hesitant
after they generated the ideas. They knew what
they intended to do in accordance with the plan
in their head. Although the teachers’ teaching
practice targeted students in general rather than
specific students, the teachers reported that they
did not notice such different writing behaviors
between high and low achievers and felt amazed,
and wondered why it was so. As reported by
them, brainstorming could be used to generate a
large number of ideas relatively quickly. When
interviewed, however, the results did make sense
to the teachers and raised their awareness of their
practice of teaching writing. They tended to give
their own interpretations and the reasons why
such distinctions took place between high and
low achievers, and their interpretations were very
similar. They gave general briefings and simply
attributed low achievers’ lack of competence to
follow what they wanted to do. For instance,
teacher 3 gave his explanation as follows.
TEACHER AWARENESS ON STUDENT WRITING
It makes sense to me. The stronger writing
students, they have more common sense and
knowledge. So when they have the topic,
internally they can make a position and arrange
an argument outline in their mind. But the
weaker students are kind of fishing for ideas
and don’t really know how to arrange the ideas
and pattern.
Teacher 7 gave a similar illustration. Compared
with high achievers, low achievers were less
aware of the problems as they wrote and tended
to beat about the bush without capturing what
they really wanted. High achievers might have a
clear scheme in their heads. He gave his comment
as follows.
High achievers were quick in planning. They
did not have such a problem and got the
things they wanted at the very first step…Low
achievers did not handle the main points well.
They were unable to capture the gist. This was
a problem.
Another important aspect that caught our
attention was probably Teacher 5’s interpretation
about her low achieving students. She tended to
justify her good teaching writing practice and
emphasized the importance of brainstorming.
However, she did not notice how low achievers
could be different from high achievers. Although
in the interview she said “This might be a problem
of intelligence and was related to their training of
thinking.” Nevertheless, the issue was that they
were her students and were trained by her, and
she has “taught this to them in class and repeated
it many times.” It might be intriguing that low
achievers did not follow their teachers’ writing
instruction as the teacher reported she had done
so in her teaching writing activity. Probably low
achievers were still not clear and did not know
how to do brainstorming.
2. Free writing in planning
In addition to low achievers’ unawareness
of doing brainstorming, the other aspect worth
mentioning was that they were not aware of freely
CHIEN, S.C. 433
writing down the ideas that came into their mind.
Their teachers did not notice such a phenomenon.
One reason why low achievers behaved in this way
might be that they were confused and generated a
number of irrelevant ideas. These kinds of ideas
that low achievers generated might further prevent
them from writing the ideas down. Although the
teachers did not explain the differences in free
writing behavior between high and low achievers,
nevertheless a plausible explanation might be
that they did not discern such a distinction. For
example, this could be supported by a quote
reported by teacher 1. He considered applying the
research results to his classroom writing practice.
That is, it might be possible for him to ask students
to actually write down whatever they think during
brainstorming in the planning process.
I wonder if the implication of this is that we
should we train students or require students
to start writing down their ideas? Let’s say
brainstorming exercises or discussion exercises
and force the students to take notes of their ideas
in order to…maybe get them into the habit of
doing that, and will that have any effect on their
future achievement?
In light of the evidence presented, positive
effects emerged as teachers’ thinking about
prospective teaching goals seemed to change
and the teachers tried to address their students’
needs more closely. The teachers thought of using
the information provided about the students for
reflection and teaching enhancement.
3. Text generating
When the teachers interpreted the student
data in text generating, they mentioned that the
findings in student interviews were inconsistent
with their thinking, but the findings in think-aloud
protocols and texts produced by the students were
consistent with their thinking. Although high and
low achievers stated that they were supposed to
generate more text in writing, the teachers noticed
that compared with high achievers, low achievers
tended to produce shorter text, which may imply
that their essays lacked sufficient supporting
434 THE ASIA-PACIFIC EDUCATION RESEARCHER
details. The teachers indicated that in general
better papers were a little bit longer than poorer
papers and they expected their students to do write
longer. For example, teacher 5 said “I always put
emphasis on giving sufficient and specific details
in text generating.” Teacher 4 gave a more detailed
explanation as follows:
I really emphasize that…In my class, even with
what I’m going over today, which is the same
class but different year. Many of the better
papers are a bit longer than many of the poorer
papers.
In view of the evidence presented, in spite of
the fact the teachers’ teaching writing activities
of stressing the importance of being more
productive and writing longer text, which aimed
to give more specific details, the teachers’ writing
instructions were not so successful. They probably
needed to think about how to really help low
achievers produce more details. The problem
with short essays was that it was more prone to
be undeveloped, and lacking in the specificity
of supporting details that characterized good
writing.
It should also be noted that while there might
be a correlation between writing long and a high
score, the teachers indicated that quantity may
not essentially mean quality. They would also
in some cases reward short essays if they were
really good. In other words, some shorter essays
might still effectively and insightfully develop
a viewpoint on an issue, while some longer
essays might still reveal serious weakness such
as poor organization, redundancy or incorrect
word choice. A representative example is give by
teacher 6 as follows:
Giving sufficient examples was very important.
However, generating longer text was not
necessarily the guarantee of higher scores. As
for the shorter texts equivalent to the lower
grades, it primarily depended on to the degree
how shorter the students wrote.
Teacher 1, however, gave an interesting
explanation to interpret the relationship between
VOL. 19 NO. 3
English and Chinese writing regarding the text
length with particular reference to cultural aspects
based upon his observation when he came to
Taiwan to teach English writing. In his view, the
Chinese tradition of giving various proverbs,
sayings and quotations made him feel verbose,
particularly when the students also do this in their
English writing.
When I first came to Taiwan to teach, my
colleagues told me that in Chinese writing it is
considered admirable to use as many proverbs,
sayings and quotations from famous people
as possible. And this student, her English
writing is not bad. But she was writing in the
Chinese style, where her compositions were
filled with these clichés and quotations. So her
compositions were verbose and long.
When the teacher was further asked about
his view of the essay written by the student, he
regarded it as not so good, particularly in the
situation when the sayings or quotations were
irrelevant to the thesis of the writing topic.
To conclude, the students did not get higher
grades just because the writings were longer. They
needed to develop and express their points of
view in response to the writing prompt and to
use relevant examples, logic, and reasoning to
fully support their arguments in standard written
English. After all, a complete, concise essay was,
more often than not, likely to score higher than an
incoherent, long-winded one.
CONCLUSION
The gap in teachers’ understanding of their
students’ writing strategies
The present study contains the implications
for teaching and learning in English writing
in Taiwan. Since it is generally agreed that
educational reform can only be successful if the
beliefs of the teachers who take part in the reform
are taken into consideration (Clark & Peterson,
1986; Duffee & Aikenhead, 1992; Tobin &
McRobbie, 1996), a better understanding of
TEACHER AWARENESS ON STUDENT WRITING
teachers’ beliefs is expected to contribute
to the success of curriculum and teaching
advancement. The findings from the teacher data
suggest that the teachers did not have sufficient
knowledge necessary to effectively understand
their students. They were apparently unaware of
the differences in their students’ writing strategy
use in brainstorming, free writing, and text
generating. This suggests a need for continued
development of teacher knowledge of their
students.
The findings reveal some interesting data. The
shift of traditional teacher-centered pedagogies to
learner-centered approaches to teaching demand
more of teachers’ knowledge in their students.
As stated at the very beginning in this paper, the
government and teachers in Taiwan claim to use
learner-centered teaching in the classroom, but
there is doubt on how it might be evidenced. Is
the notion of learner-centered approaches often
predetermined? Is there a match between the
teachers’ understanding of their learners related
to their practice of teaching writing and their
learners’ characteristics? There are increasing
pressures on research to provide evidence. The
present study shows there is a gap between the
teachers’ understanding and students’ needs. The
lack of a fit between students’ characteristics and
teacher knowledge about their students show that
the teachers did not have the full understanding
of their students’ writing strategies as the learner-
centered teaching approach might assume. For
example, in the interviews with teachers, they
explain that they did care about their students,
but how much they understood about them
remained a question. Brodie, Lelliot, and
Davis’ findings (2002) indicate that some of
the strategies of learner-centered teaching are
taken up. However, the teachers’ understanding
of their learners is limited. It appears that the
implementation of the strategies without a
genuine understanding of their learners does
not bring about improved quality in teaching
and learning.
CHIEN, S.C. 435
Building an interactive space to awaken teachers’
awareness of their students’ writing strategies
To strengthen the links between research
and practice in English writing and teacher
development in education, and facilitate teachers’
awareness of their students’ writing strategy use,
as a researcher, I created an interactive space
and presented the analysis of the student data
to the teachers to foster their thinking through
meaning construction between the teachers and
the researcher. In the present study, the teachers
are pushed for deeper understanding about their
students’ writing strategies, so that they could
start to think of how to better prepare and design
a writing curriculum adapted for their students.
In order to stimulate teachers to reflect on their
teaching practice to address learners’ needs and
to promote cognitive change, positive effects
emerge as teachers’ thinking about prospective
teaching goals seem to change. They express
interest in using their awareness to transform
teaching situations. For example, as evidenced in
the interviews with the teachers, they give their
explanations:
I was unaware of the differences in my students’
writing strategy use in brainstorming, free
writing and text generating. It would be good if
you can write a strategy book for dealing with
the low achievers. You know, what can low
achievers emulate from the better achievers?
You teach me to think more clearly about my
teaching process.(teacher 3)
I am interested in seeing what the impact of
this would be on recommending any change or
recommending any sort of writing pedagogy
to influence the low achievers. It is what I
mentioned before. If we can get the lower
achievers to do the things that the higher
achievers do, maybe the lower achievers will
become better in writing.
Another testimony said:
Due to this research, I become more aware of
my students’ writing strategy use. I did not know
that low achieving students would not actually
make good use of brainstorming, free writing
436 THE ASIA-PACIFIC EDUCATION RESEARCHER
and text generating. At the moment I think I
need to start to change the way I teach. I really
need to reexamine my own teaching practice
and address more closely to the needs of my
students, particularly low achievers.
The significance of exploring the students’
writing strategies to improve their teachers’
understanding of these is thus to some extent
supported. At least the teachers’ interest indicates
that an avenue for development is open and can be
pursued further. It is proposed that this can also be
achieved by applying learner-centered teaching,
in which the instructional objectives of the class
are linked both to the needs of students and the
role of a teacher in the classroom.
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