fostering learner autonomy through empowering students

英語教學 English Teaching & Learning 36. 3 (2012 Special Issue): 39-85 DOI: 10.6330/ETL.2012.36.3.02

Fostering Learner Autonomy Through Empowering Students in EFL Writing

Karen Chung-chien Chang

National Taipei University

[email protected]

Abstract In most EFL countries, teaching composition has remained a challenging area for teachers due to the heavy workload associated with grading students’ work, and students’ lack of interest and readiness in developing their writing skills. This paper reports on a study that investigated how some new components of a writing course could foster a higher level of learner autonomy among the participating students. The research design focused on giving the locus of control to students so that they could choose topics of their own interest for their essays throughout the two semesters of the writing course. In addition, a process-oriented approach (involving three drafts) was adopted to help students learn how to improve their writing. For each assignment, comprehensive electronic feedback was provided to guide students in revising their essays. The students would turn in the first two drafts for comments and the last draft for a grade. All three aspects (freedom in making writing choices, electronic feedback and the multi-drafting process) were designed to determine if students could learn to take more responsibility in becoming better writers. The data in this study included the drafts of each assignment, a survey on learning attitudes and outcomes, and interviews. Results showed that students took more responsibility for their own learning, invested more time and effort in information collection and revision on the topics of their own choice, and improved their writing performance in terms of both longer word counts and richer content. It is concluded that to foster autonomy in EFL students, both student empowerment and teacher feedback are essential components in the writing course design. Key Words: learner autonomy, process-oriented approach, electronic

feedback

英語教學 English Teaching & Learning 36. 3 (2012 Special Issue)

INTRODUCTION

The study of learner autonomy originated in the West with

explicitly political goals to “insist on the need to develop the

individual’s freedom by developing those abilities which will enable

him to act more responsibly in running the affairs of the society in

which he lives” (Holec, 1981, p. 1). Over the past three decades, the

concept has been further researched by scholars in different countries

and learning systems. One line of argument has focused on whether

such a concept is unique to westerners only. More specifically, many

researchers have focused on whether learner autonomy can be

promoted in Asia where most cultures are of a collectivist nature

(Chan, 2001; Jin & Cortazzi, 1993). For example, Pierson (1996)

described students in Hong Kong as dependent, reticent and passive,

and Biggs (1991) found that students in Hong Kong favored rote

learning over creating learning, were highly dependent on the syllabus,

and lacked intellectual initiative. Although quite a few studies have

explored the development of learner autonomy in Taiwan, the focus

has not been placed on how this factor manifests itself in EFL writing.

Therefore, this current project aimed to build a writing course with a

strong emphasis on student empowerment and involvement and

examines how having some locus of control could assist students in

taking a more active role and becoming more autonomous in the EFL

writing context.

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英語教學 English Teaching & Learning Chang: Fostering Learner Autonomy through Empowering Students

LITERATURE REVIEW

This literature review first distinguishes learner autonomy and

self-directed learning and narrows its focus on the development of

learner autonomy in the Taiwanese context. Although both terms put

an emphasis on learners, they each have specific features and scopes.

To explain the concept of learner autonomy, Holec (1981, p. 3)

provided the classic definition of this term and described autonomy as

“the ability to take charge of one’s own learning.” One central idea in

this definition is the concept of knowing how to learn. Pemberton, Li,

Or, and Pierson (1996, p. 3) also highlighted that Holec viewed

autonomy “as an ability or capacity that needs to be acquired” and “as

separate from the learning that may take place when autonomy is

being or has been acquired” (this learning is labeled by Holec as self-

directed learning). Self-directed learning is defined as both the

process of and the techniques used in directing one’s learning and the

change of consciousness resulting from such learning (Brookfield,

1985). What can be synthesized from the features of these two

concepts is that autonomy is a capacity and self-directed learning is

an approach in which learning is carried out.

What needs to be examined further is how the concept of

autonomy manifests itself in real practice. When considering the level

or degree of autonomy in real practice, Little (1991, p. 5) emphasized

that “the freedoms conferred by autonomy are never absolute, always

conditional and constrained” because all humans share the essential

need to interact with others. Benson and Voller (1997) suggested that

autonomy in EFL learning entails the concepts of rights, skills,

exercise, and situations. Learners have the right to determine the

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direction of their learning; they should learn and apply certain skills in

self-directed learning, exercise their sense of responsibility for their

learning, and be supplied with situations in which they study

completely on their own.

However, realizing that Asian teachers and students seem

unfamiliar with the notion of autonomous learning, Littlewood (1999)

proposed two levels of learner autonomy: proactive and reactive. In

proactive autonomy, learners are able to take charge of their own

learning, determine their own goals, select their own methods, and

evaluate their learning results. Then in reactive autonomy, learners do

not create their own directions, but once a direction has been

identified, learners organize their own resources autonomously in

order to reach their goals. Since autonomy, whether proactive or

reactive, is not something that teachers can simply hand over to

students, this concept needs to be developed within students by

themselves.

This study was grounded in reactive autonomy and aimed at

investigating how students in a writing course exercised their freedom

of choice, determined the level of investment, and changed their

learning habits. To help students cultivate reactive autonomy, they

need to know the details of course direction and expectations. For this

study, although the students in this study did not choose the direction

of their learning, they needed to understand why they were asked to

complete certain learning tasks. Sinclair advised that, for a learner-

training task to be successfully implemented, the learners should

know “it is a learner-training task” and understand “its general

significance in the scheme of the course” (Sinclair, 1996, p. 153). The

rationale was that if learners did not know in advance which aspect of

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a course to focus on, they may “regard the time spent on such

activities as time wasted” (Sinclair, 1996, p. 153). Moreover, Reeve

indicated when teachers provided students who encountered an

uninteresting lesson with a convincing and satisfying rationale (from

the students’ view), students would understand why they were asked

to “invest their attention and effort” (Reeve, 2006, p. 230) in the

requested activity. Clearly, when a writing course requires students to

invest time in revision, quite a time-consuming task, they should be

informed of the aims of such an activity. The instructor should also

explain the importance of the multi-drafting process. When the

students become receptive to the idea of multiple revisions, how they

manage and arrange their resources to meet this requirement may

shed light on their development of reactive autonomy.

Past Studies of Learner Autonomy in Taiwan

Although Taiwanese scholars have shown interest in exploring

and developing learner autonomy, most effort has been invested in

self-directed learning, revealing the scarcity of evidence for

cultivating learner autonomy in writing. Among the studies, many

have applied Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) to

promote learner autonomy. The model proposed by Y. N. Yu (2003)

involved a task-based learning syllabus, strategy-based instruction

and computer-mediated communication. Additionally, in C. F. Yu’s

(2005) experiment, she established a multimedia website as a self-

directed learning resource. However, that study did not generate

positive outcomes as most of the students only used the website to

complete the course-required activities. Therefore, C. F. Yu (2005)

suggested that more online activities be incorporated into the course

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design and students’ preferences about on-line learning resources be

taken into consideration to pave the way for autonomous learning.

Besides, Wang’s (2006) study conducted in a CALL center indicated

students’ self-reported improvement in listening, vocabulary,

speaking, and reading. H. Y. Lo (2007) examined how students

became self-directed learners through undertaking the assignments of

collecting information online and found more than 50% of the

students demonstrated an increase in vocabulary. With a teacher-

driven agenda and a set of mandated course activities, Cheng’s (2007)

study showed that the required outside-class learning activities were

helpful in strengthening EFL university students’ learning motivation

and fostering autonomy. In Chang’s (2007) study, the researcher had

two groups of students: one learning in a semi-autonomous learning

approach and the other in the traditional structural teaching approach.

The results indicated that the experimental group made more progress

in areas such as listening, reading and vocabulary. Chen, Chen, and

Lee (2008) attempted to cultivate autonomy in young EFL learners

through Internet-assisted language teaching (InALT) and found that

the students displayed a significant gain in vocabulary and perceived

the InALT instructional approach as helpful and interesting. Most

recently, Chu (2011) investigated university students’ use of an online

English program, and the results indicated that 40% of the students

developed a higher degree of autonomy. They seemed to demonstrate

the following characteristics: stronger motivation in English learning,

greater awareness of the need to form a habit of actively practicing

English online, more willingness to practice the materials of other

levels, and more frequent use of online English programs in their free

time.

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In Taiwan, only a few studies carried out in the field of learner

autonomy are related to writing. Y. Yu’s (2000) review of

conventional practices of a writing class highlighted the barriers to the

development of learner autonomy in the traditional writing curriculum.

According to Yu, in a writing class, a teacher is responsible for

assigning grades and correcting students’ writing. With this

traditional role, teachers are in total control of all the decisions, and

students are left with little freedom to make choices, let alone to take

charge of their own learning. Trying to change this traditional mode,

several researchers have incorporated different strategies and

components into their writing courses with the aim of encouraging

students to be more autonomous. For example, C. F. Yu (2003)

looked at students’ writing of emails and short summaries of their

learning experience. Her results showed that students felt positive

about expressing themselves in these two formats, and their level of

motivation was positively correlated with the amount of class

interaction. In addition, Lan and Wang (2007) examined the effects of

an English writing portfolio project on the attitudes and achievements

of writing among junior college students. Their findings showed that

writing portfolios had positive effects on motivating students to write

and enhancing their writing achievement. Also, S. C. Lo (2007)

investigated how high school students were encouraged by the use of

writing portfolios to become more active in their learning. The results

revealed that portfolio assessment enabled the students (1) to become

confident in shouldering the responsibility for their own learning, (2)

to assess their writing, (3) to feel empowered in making choices, and

(4) to think critically and independently. This research also

highlighted the importance of a sound relationship between the

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teacher and the students, for example, through mini teacher-student

conferences during which teachers enhanced their understanding of

the needs of the students.

What can be concluded is that the previous studies have

focused on either using email writing to encourage students’

engagement or adopting portfolio assessment for facilitating student

empowerment and self-assessment. However, no studies have been

conducted regarding how injecting new elements into a traditional

writing course can help the development of learner autonomy. The

present study set out to bridge this gap and discover whether new

course components, namely the empowerment of students in choosing

topics, the use of comprehensive electronic feedback, and multiple

drafting, can help students to become autonomous learners in their

writing class.

THE STUDY

Background of the Study and Research Question

This study was designed to discover how a writing course with

three features (freedom in choosing their own writing topics,

electronic feedback provision, and a multi-drafting process) could

help foster student autonomy in writing. This section will introduce

the old course design first, followed by the revised course design and

the research question.

The course, Advanced Grammar and Guided Writing, is offered

to all freshmen for two semesters at the foreign language department

where this study was carried out. Typically, this course is offered two

hours a week and the instructors need to cover both grammar and

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writing in the instructional hours. Even though the course instructors

(usually four of them) are well aware of the difficulty in covering the

syllabus in two hours, the curriculum has been in place for more than

10 years. The institutional expectations state that students are to

produce four to six pieces of writing per semester (eight to 12 pieces

in one academic year), and each composition should at least be 300

words in length. However, no specific approach to feedback provision

or the number of drafts is mandated by the department. The

instructors are, to some extent, allowed some flexibility in how much

they want to accomplish in two semesters. In an 18-week semester,

the biggest challenge for teachers is how to motivate their students to

shoulder more responsibility and play a more active role in their

learning so that the institutional requirement can be met.

This researcher, also one of the course instructors, was keenly

aware of the insufficient time for course instruction and the difficulty

in covering all the grammar and writing objectives in a two-hour class.

In modifying the writing course, the instructor followed the

institutional requirement of having students produce four to six

assignments per semester. The new course design incorporated three

major features. First, students were allowed to choose their own

writing topics. This element aimed at both encouraging a higher level

of student involvement and empowering them to gain more control in

their learning. Moreover, it was hoped that, in the process of selecting

topics, students would learn to examine the suitability of their topics

to the genres they would be studying, and when the topics were

chosen with a higher level of personal interest, the students might

demonstrate a higher level of engagement in learning how to write.

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The second part of this modified course design was the

provision of electronic feedback. The instructor made use of

Comments, a Microsoft Word application, to highlight the

weaknesses and problematic areas in the students’ essays. Electronic

feedback was provided for two reasons. First, the students in this

study were expected to revise their essays. To fulfill this expectation,

the students must be supplied with sufficient suggestions and

feedback to guide them in the revision process. Second, the choice of

using electronic feedback for comments was to offer students better

readability for comprehension as well as more detailed explanation. In

the department where this study was carried out, most writing

instructors still provided students with handwritten comments or

simple underlines. Although handwritten comments were helpful,

some students expressed difficulty in understanding their instructors’

handwriting. In addition, many of the students whose drafts were

marked with underlines didn’t know what was wrong with the

underlined text.1 To address these two concerns, this researcher chose

to use electronic feedback to draw students’ attention to the weak

areas in their writing. Electronic feedback, covering issues such as

grammar, mechanics, essay structure and organization, was

consistently provided to pave the way for the responsibility for

learning to be gradually transferred to the students.

Third, a process-oriented approach was incorporated in the

modified course design. The adoption of a multi-drafting process

aimed at training students to become better writers through a process

1 Although these issues were not specifically investigated in this study, these two difficulties were shared by students in their regular meetings with their mentor teachers.

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of continuously improving the quality of their writing. For each

writing assignment, the students would turn in three drafts. In the first

draft, the students received feedback primarily on essay structure and

organization to ensure their understanding of the learned genres. Also,

at this stage, the instructor provided the students with suggestions to

enrich their essay content. For example, a student might have been

advised to provide an example to illustrate his/her point. Next, the

focus of feedback on the second draft was shifted to grammar and

mechanics as the content of the second draft was expected to be more

solid.

Based on the aforementioned modifications to the original

course design, this study attempted to answer the research question:

How do the main features of the new course design (allowing the

students to choose their own writing topics, providing the students

with specific electronic feedback, and a multiple-drafting process)

affect students’ writing performance and involvement (in terms of

autonomy) in the writing course? Writing performance in this study

was measured in terms of both word count and improvements in the

content. The former focused on students’ ability in developing their

ideas further based on the feedback and comments received whereas

the latter examined both essay content and structure/organization. For

essay content and structure/organization, the students were expected

to demonstrate their knowledge about the learned genres as well as

rhetorical strategies. Moreover, in examining the level of student

involvement, this study explored the records of assignment

submission, the students’ strategies for time management in

completing drafts, and their handling of feedback for revision.

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Participants

The participants were 14 freshmen students at a public

university in northern Taiwan. Among these students, three were male

and 11 were female. The students were English majors, indicating

they might have stronger motivation in improving their overall

English proficiency. Before this group of 14 students entered

university, some of them had taken the General English Proficiency

Test (GEPT) at different levels or the Test of English as a Foreign

Language Internet-based test (TOEFL iBT). The GEPT is a test

established in July 2002 in Taiwan. Appendix A offers the alignment

references between the GEPT and other tests (Wu & Wu, 2010).

To better understand the proficiency levels of the 14 students in

this study, all their previous test scores were interpreted in terms of

the TOEFL iBT equivalent scores. These can be found in Table 1.

Table 1

Students’ English Proficiency Levels

Participating

students Three males and 11 females

GEPT intermediate

GEPT high-intermediate

GEPT advanced

No record

Number of students 7 1 1 5 Equivalent TOEFL

iBT score 79 92 100

Among these 14 students, the one with the highest test record

spent her elementary and junior high years in the U.S., demonstrating

a much higher level of English fluency compared to her peers.

Another seven students pointed out that they had taken the GEPT-

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Intermediate test at least one and a half years before they entered

university; two had even passed the test three to four years before

entering university.

Data Collection and Analysis

The data collection of this study consisted of three parts:

students’ writing samples (word counts of their first and final drafts,

reduction in the totals of feedback received on the two drafts, and

grades), a learning survey, and interviews. For the writing samples,

both the length and the quality of the revised drafts were examined.

First, the word counts of the 12 assignments for each student were

tallied and plotted into line graphs to show their improvement. The

word count for each ungraded draft was calculated by the built-in

Word Count function of Microsoft Word. Second, to make sure the

students did not just write more words but also composed quality

content, the first and final drafts of Assignment 2 and Assignment 11

were selected to illustrate students’ improvement in essay quality.

Between the first and final drafts of these two assignments, the

students showed a great reduction in the amount of

feedback/commentary received. Third, the first and final drafts of all

assignments were read by two instructors (the researcher and a

writing instructor2 at another institute) to verify the quality of the

content. The evaluation of the drafts was based on a pre-designed

rubric that emphasized structure, content, and grammatical accuracy.

The component of “structure” evaluated students’ grasp of the

2 This instructor has earned a master’s degree in TESOL and has been teaching for at least four years. She teaches writing regularly and her students are freshmen in a foreign language department.

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structure of the target genres; “content” reflected the improvement

and richness of essay details; “grammatical accuracy” was evaluated

based on what the students had learned in the grammar portion of the

course. The percentages for these three aspects were 30%, 40%, and

30% respectively.

The second data collection tool was a learning survey. The

survey included 16 questions that asked the students to mark their

responses on a 5-point Likert Scale, with 1 as Strongly Disagree and 5

as Strongly Agree. These 16 questions covered two major

components of this course design (freedom in choosing writing topics

and feedback for revision) and the issue of teacher dependence (see

Appendix B). In the first question, the students were asked to evaluate

their experience in this EFL writing class. The following three

questions (Questions two to four) explored how students responded to

the choice of selecting their own topics and whether this freedom

affected their likelihood in allotting more time for conducting

research as well as collecting information. Then the students were

asked if they regularly set aside time for the weekly revision of their

essays. The purpose of this question was to find out if students

allotted time to improve their writing. The second category of

questions focused on the specificity of feedback and comments

provided by the instructor. The students were asked to evaluate if the

feedback was specific and whether the comments/feedback helped

them understand the weaknesses in their essays. The underlying

rationale was that the more specific the feedback and comments were,

the better the students would know how to revise their essays.

Consequently, when the students knew the necessary changes they

needed to make to improve their writing, they displayed less

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dependence on the teacher thereby fostering learner autonomy.

Finally, the last category of questions attempted to find out how

students viewed themselves in terms of taking the initiative as well as

the responsibility in their learning. The responses to these questions

would aid the researcher’s understanding of the development of

autonomy among these students.

The Pearson correlation test was chosen to identify if

significance could be established between factors such as the freedom

in topic choice and the investment of time and effort in collecting

information and revising essays or the understanding of instructor’s

feedback and the effort made in the revision process. Moreover, to

understand if specific feedback would encourage students to work on

their own (a feature of an autonomous learner), open-ended questions

were asked as well. To determine if students knew how to manage

their time for revision purposes, a question was also asked regarding

how students managed their time to meet deadlines.

Lastly, individual interviews were conducted to gain a better

insight into what these students gained in this year-long grammar and

writing course. Interviews were conducted by the researcher and

focused on five questions (two major ones and three follow-up ones,

see Appendix C) to explore how students viewed the instructor’s

feedback, in particular, its impact on their revision effort and quality,

and how students managed their time for assignment submission. Five

students volunteered to participate in the interviews, and they were

asked to describe in detail how they allotted time for assignment

completion and how teacher feedback affected their revision. The

answers were presented to shed light on the students’ development of

autonomy.

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RESEARCH FINDINGS

Insights from Changes in Essay Length

The students in this course were informed that their writing

assignments should meet a minimum of 300 words in length.

However, no maximum word count was imposed, for the purpose was

to encourage students to fully express their ideas. One initial

observation indicated that all students in this study surpassed the

requirement set by the department. Moreover, throughout the two

semesters of this research project, the students showed a capability to

incorporate the instructor’s feedback into their drafts, leading to

improvements in their writing. The word counts of drafts were tallied

and learning graphs were plotted to see how students’ learning had

developed. The students were coded into students one to 14 and their

assignments were coded into assignments one to 12. An overall trend

that could be concluded from students’ year-long learning was that all

students demonstrated the ability to compose longer essays. The

analysis focused on two aspects: the improvement between the first

and the final draft of each assignment and the improvement

throughout the 12 assignments in the two semesters. First, all 14

students were able to revise their essays to a greater length. In a total

of 168 revisions submitted (12 assignments for 14 students), only 17

revised works (10%) showed a slight decrease in the word count. In

other words, 90% of the revised essays were longer, indicating that

the students were able to make use of the revision process to increase

the length of their essays. Second, over the course of the two

semesters, the students gradually learned to write longer essays. Take

the first drafts of the 12 assignments for example. Ten out of fourteen

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(10/14) students showed an increase in essay length by 250 words or

more.3 A similar trend was also found in the final drafts. Twelve out

of fourteen students were able to increase their essay length by 250

words or more. 4 The line graphs plotted in Appendix D clearly

indicate the students’ improvement in these aspects over the two

semesters.

Naturally, word counts could not be directly interpreted as a

sign for improved writing ability among students. Therefore, the

entire set of first drafts and final drafts (a total of 336 essays) was

evaluated by the two instructors. The purpose was to verify if the

content, structure and accuracy of the essays met the rubric criteria to

earn the assigned grades. With the aid of the rubric, the two

evaluators were able to reach 90.3% of inter-rater reliability in

determining the progress of these students.

Insights from the Writing Samples

Although word counts could not exactly represent students’

improvement in their writing ability, this tool did show that the

students were willing to challenge themselves by putting in more time

and effort to elaborate on the content of their compositions.5 Content

analysis by both evaluators showed improvement in the solidness and

soundness of the essay content, demonstrated by the coherence

between ideas and supporting details. More specifically, the

3 Four of these 10 students even demonstrated a significant increase of more than 350 words. 4 Six of these 12 students showed a significant increase of more than 350 words. 5 These students were aware that the institutional requirement was 300 words per assignment and most classmates in other classes were doing paragraph writing instead of essay writing in the two semesters.

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improvement in content and essay length between the first and final

drafts suggested that a process-oriented approach with an emphasis on

feedback might have encouraged the learners to revise their writing.

In particular, the learning graphs of Students one, three, five, six, nine

and 14 (see Appendix D) demonstrated a more distinguishing increase

in word counts in the final drafts submitted in the second semester

(see the graphs of Essays seven to 12). For other students, the

increased lengths could also serve as an indicator of students’ effort in

revision.

In this multi-drafting process, the students earned grades only

on their third and final drafts but received feedback/comments on all

three drafts. Consequently, a comparison between the problematic

areas pointed out in these two drafts could serve as an indicator of

how students improved as a result of feedback from the instructor.

Table 2 compares Assignment 2 (in the first semester) and

Assignment 116 (in the second semester) of these 14 students to show

the amount of reduction in feedback received between the two drafts.

The results revealed that the students made great efforts to address the

feedback received in their first drafts. Their success could be

concluded from the greatly reduced amount of feedback received in

their final drafts. Such improvement also illustrated student

engagement in revision, an autonomous decision of learners.

6 The reason for not choosing Assignment 1 was that most students experienced unfamiliarity with feedback and revision in their first assignment. Moreover, Assignment 12 was not selected because its first draft was administered as the final exam of that semester.

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Table 2

Feedback/Comment Reduction in the First and Final Drafts

of Assignment 2 and Assignment 11

Amount of feedback/ comments received

S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8 S9 S10 S11 S12 S13 S14

Feedback Totals in the Drafts of Assignment 2 First draft 44 33 29 26 38 40 45 41 28 37 37 21 22 27 Final draft 18 6 17 6 21 19 11 18 23 16 14 4 11 13 Reduction in amount 26 27 12 20 17 21 34 23 5 21 23 17 11 14 Feedback Totals in the Drafts of Assignment 11 First draft 47 56 119 37 79 73 109 74 30 86 61 45 48 57 Final draft 19 8 31 2 33 17 22 15 15 13 23 9 4 19 Reduction in amount 28 48 88 35 46 56 87 59 15 73 38 36 44 38

Findings from Survey Questions

The first positive outcome from this survey indicated that 86%

of the students (twelve out of fourteen) enjoyed this EFL writing class

(see Figure 1), a result not often found in Taiwanese college settings.

Dibello (2003) pointed out that the fear of writing in English was

widespread in Taiwan. For many writing instructors, one common

difficulty is how to encourage their students to take an interest in

writing.

Though the learning survey contained 16 questions, the results

obtained from SPSS showed more significant correlations among the

following 10 questions. Therefore, to focus on the explanation of the

significant correlations, the following questions were selected.

1. I enjoyed English composition in my first year of college

(VAR01).

2. I liked choosing my own topics for different writing

projects (VAR02).

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Figure 1 Students’ Perceptions of the EFL Writing Class

3. I felt a stronger sense of freedom when I could choose my

own topics (VAR03).

4. I am more likely to invest more time on researching a topic

of my own choice (VAR04).

5. I set aside the time for essay revision each week (VAR08).

6. The comments are specific for me to revise my essays

(VAR10).

7. Looking back to my first year of English composition, I feel

that I took the initiative in making my writing better

(VAR13).

8. I believe it is my responsibility to invest time and effort to

improve my own writing (VAR14).

9. Through the feedback and comments from my instructor, I

understand my weaknesses in composing an essay (VAR15).

10. I believe it is necessary to spend time working on revisions

in order to improve my writing ability (VAR16).

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As shown in Table 3, the most significant correlations occurred

between three sets of variables. The first significant correlation

existed between VAR02 and VAR04 at .785*. This result indicated a

strong correlation between students’ sense of freedom and their

likelihood of time invested in revising the essay. The second

significant correlation occurred between VAR08 and VAR14 at .689*,

indicating that for the students who regularly set aside time for

revision, they tended to see improving their writing as their own

responsibility. This result also indicated that students would take

more responsibility once they developed the habit of regularly

revising their work. The third significant correlation was found

between VAR10 and VAR15 at .673*, showing that specific feedback

helped students know their weaknesses in composition.

In addition to these three correlations at the 0.01 level (two-

tailed), other findings were quite helpful for the instructor in

understanding the students’ development in this course. First, the

correlation of .539 between VAR01 and VAR08 revealed that

students who enjoyed this writing class were also those who set aside

regular time for revision. Moreover, when the students enjoyed a

course, they were more likely to take the initiative to meet the course

requirements and to improve their writing as shown in the correlation

of .548 between VAR 01 and VAR13. Second, one feature in this

course was students’ choice in selecting their own topics. The

correlation of .640 between VAR02 and VAR03 showed that the

students felt more freedom when they could choose their own topics.

In addition, one interesting correlation of .602 was found between

VAR13 and VAR15, signaling that when students had a better

understanding of their weaknesses, they took a more active role in

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improving their performance. Moreover, the correlation of .609

between VAR16 and VAR08 informed the researcher that when

students viewed learning as their responsibility, they would be more

likely to invest time in revising. Finally, the correlation of .645

between VAR14 and VAR16 indicated that those who held the view

that improving one’s writing required time were also the ones who

were willing to invest more time and effort.

Table 3

Correlations between Learning Attitude, Feedback Clarity, and

Autonomy

VAR03 VAR04 VAR08 VAR10 VAR13 VAR14

Pearson Correlation

-.047 .040 .539* .495 .548* .032

Sig. (2-tailed) .874 .892 .047 .072 .043 .913

VAR01

N 14 14 14 14 14 14 Pearson Correlation

.640* .785** .139 -.283 .108 -.038

Sig. (2-tailed) .014 .001 .635 .327 .712 .896

VAR02


.073 -.062 .689** .028 .141 1

Sig. (2-tailed) .805 .833 .006 .923 .630

VAR14


.027 -.184 .349 .673** .602* .111

Sig. (2-tailed) .927 .530 .221 .008 .023 .706

VAR15


.047 -.040 .609* .147 .411 .645*

Sig. (2-tailed) .874 .892 .021 .617 .145 .013

VAR16

N 14 14 14 14 14 14

*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed); **Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

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Insights from Assignment Submission

Students’ reactions and levels of commitment in this project

could be interpreted as very positive. This observation was concluded

from the students’ performance. This entire project lasted one

academic year in which the participating students submitted one draft

each week, totaling 18 drafts per semester. In the two semesters, the

students completed a total of 12 projects (coded Project 1 to Project

12 in Appendix D). In the fall of 2010, when the students first started

this course, they demonstrated some initial unfamiliarity with the on-

line assignment submission system. Such unfamiliarity was observed

in their missing of the deadlines for the first few drafts (in Project 1

and Project 2). Nevertheless, this situation quickly improved when

students became more settled into the semester. Moreover, in the

spring of 2011, at least two-thirds of the students started

demonstrating a higher level of self-discipline and time management,

for those students were often observed to have submitted their drafts

two or three days before the assigned deadlines. Take the submissions

of two assignments in both semesters for a comparison. The selected

assignments were Project 4, Project 5, Project 10, and Project 11

respectively. The submission records of these four projects were

retrieved from the Digital Learning Center (DLC) at the university.

The reason for not choosing the submission records of the first two

assignments (Project 1 and Project 2) was that the students initially

experienced some difficulty in using the DLC for homework

submission in the fall of 2010. Projects 3, 6, 9, and 12 in the two

semesters were excluded because they were administered as midterm

and final exams separately. As the students manually completed their

midterms and finals, the electronic submissions were completed later

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just for record-keeping. Table 4 shows students in the second

semester turned in their drafts earlier. The numbers for the

assignments turned in five hours before the deadlines and for the late

submissions fell in the second semester, a potential indicator for

students’ being more conscientious about their time management.7

Table 4

Submission Records for Projects 4, 5, 10, and 11

Assignment number

Two or more days early

One to two days early

On time (5 hours prior to the

deadline)

Late submission

Project 4 1 9 3 1 Project 5 0 6 4 4 Project 10 4 6 2 2 Project 11 4 10 0 0

Findings from Individual Interviews

The following selected responses shed light on the students’

viewpoints. Overall, the interviewed students perceived the feedback

provided by the instructor as clear and helpful for revision.8 One

student, Charlotte, stated that when she received feedback from the

instructor, she would first read all the comments and started the

revision on the second day. When asked why she would start the

revision so soon, Charlotte said,

I don’t like to see so many comment boxes on my paper. I am not saying I

don’t like the feedback from my teacher. What I am saying is that the

7Later, in the interviews, the students’ answers confirmed this view. 8The students were given pseudonyms.

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existence of the comment boxes makes me want to start revision as soon as

possible. Once I have addressed the issues pointed out by my teacher, I can

delete the comment boxes; then I gain a sense of achievement.

Another student, Janice, expressed how she felt about the feedback

from the instructor. Janice said,

Personally, I felt the comments were clear to me most of the time, especially

those related to grammar. If there was something that I did not understand, I

would schedule an appointment with my teacher. Before I went to see her, I

would go over my questions so I would know what to ask.

One shared response from all five interviewed students was the clarity

of the feedback and comments. Two students (Vanessa and Stephanie)

expressed that they preferred revising the essays on their own based

on what they had received from the instructor. When asked if they

preferred face-to-face discussions with their teacher for essay revision,

all five of them indicated that they rarely needed to have formal talks

with their instructor.9

When asked about their time management in writing or revising

a draft, these students shared the following answers.

I usually started revising my essays on the second day after I got the

feedback. As to new tasks, I usually start choosing my topics the very next

9 Among these five students, only Bill and Janice would make appointments to discuss the questions in their essays. Bill usually used a combination of email and face-to-face talks to clarify his questions, while Janice would first try to work on her own and came to talk to the teacher when the problems required more explanation or guidance.

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day (Wednesday) and collecting information on Thursday and Friday. I

prefer finishing my assignments on Saturday or even a bit before the

deadline. [by Charlotte]

Looking at the feedback provided by my teacher, I would first estimate the

time I needed for revision. For example, I might need two days to work on

the problematic areas in my papers. Then I would set aside one extra day to

review the final work to ensure everything is okay. On average, I usually

turned in my assignments on Friday night so I could have my weekend off.

[by Bill]

I usually begin revising my essays three days before the deadline. I don’t

like to revise my essays the last minute because some unexpected incidents

may happen and keep me from completing what I need to do. Besides, I like

to start revision early because I can save more time for refining my work.

[by Vanessa]

Usually, I would revise some trivial problems like grammar mistakes on

Thursday or Friday. Then I would have an overall look at the original

writing and begin to consider how I could improve my writing. I would start

to revise the rest of my essay including the structure of the paper or message

clarity on Friday night or Saturday. If I am not occupied by other school-

related events such as tests or projects, usually I have sufficient time for

revision. [by Stephanie]

I always worked on my essay as soon as possible. Since I didn’t have classes

on Wednesday afternoons in the first year, it was the time that I usually

devoted myself to writing. However, if feedback came back late, I would do

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revision on either Thursday evenings or Saturday afternoons. I think time to

finish revisions was quite adequate. [by Janice]

These responses proved that the students worked on their revisions at

their own pace. Echoing the idea of reactive autonomy, once the

direction was set, revising their essays in this case, the students

learned to manage their time and develop the most suitable timetables

for themselves. Moreover, the students learned when to work on their

own and when to seek help from their instructor, an indicator that

they had become autonomous learners and writers.

Another interesting observation concluded from the assignment

submission records was the early submission of revisions from nearly

half the class (about eight to 10 students). In the first semester, the

students abided by the deadlines and did not seem to make extra effort

to turn in their work early. However, in the second semester, when the

teacher announced that she would read the essays and provide

feedback according to the submitted sequence, nearly half of the

students started to demonstrate a tendency of early submission. To

understand why such a phenomenon occurred, Question 5 was

included in the interviews. When asked about early submissions of

assignments, all five interviewees expressed they usually turned in the

assignments one to two days earlier (sometimes even three, as shown

in the DLC). When asked about their rationale of early homework

submissions, the students expressed that they would like to receive

feedback sooner for revision purposes. Again, the knowledge of their

own working paces had helped the students to shape their learning

habits.

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From the students’ responses to the close-ended, open-ended,

and interview questions, it was evident that the students had learned

to work on their own in revision without much assistance from the

instructor, for they perceived the feedback received from the

instructor as clear and specific. Furthermore, when the students had

the locus of control to choose their topics, they felt a stronger sense of

freedom and became more likely to invest time and effort in

information collection. Most importantly, the students had learned to

use their resources (including time, information, and feedback) for the

betterment of their writing quality, a strong indicator of the

development of reactive autonomy, which focuses on how learners

organize their own resources autonomously in order to reach their

goals.

CONCLUSIONS

This study has generated encouraging results. Although the size

of this class is small and the results may not be applicable to all

students learning composition, the results still offer several directions

for writing instructors. First, students are capable of taking more

responsibility in their own learning when they are guided and assisted.

When the students in this study were encouraged to compose essays

rather than just paragraphs, they exhibited the readiness to take on

bigger challenges. Second, when provided with detailed and specific

feedback and comments, students can engage in revisions without

much assistance from the instructor. The students in this study

verified that they did not need to arrange individual conferences with

their instructor because the feedback was perceived clear and specific.

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This result is especially important because when the class size in

Taiwan remains large, writing instructors can definitely benefit from

more independent learners. Third, writing teachers should sometimes

try to allow their students to choose the topics of their own interest.

Fourth, the process-oriented approach of incorporating multiple drafts

allows students to see their own improvement. For the students in this

study, they highly agreed that a revision process helped them improve

the quality of their work.

This study revealed that autonomy can be fostered in a writing

course when the design heavily involves the learners and allows them

the freedom to make decisions. When allowed to choose the topics of

their interest, students are more likely to invest time and effort in

collecting information as well as revising essays. When students

become more active in taking responsibility for their learning, writing

instructors may find a class of 25 to 35 students more manageable.

Moreover, electronic feedback allows instructors to give clearer and

more detailed explanations to attract their students’ attention. This

type of feedback may “physically” challenge students to address the

problems in their own writing because they have to respond to the

comments in the comment boxes inserted in students’ essays. In

addition, a multi-drafting process allows students to have many

opportunities to improve their writing and to understand that it takes

time to produce good work. It is hoped that the findings in this study

would encourage more teachers to provide students with choices,

deliver electronic feedback, and adopt a multi-drafting process to help

their students become more autonomous writers and learners.

Despite the encouraging results from this study, a few

limitations of the study have to be noted. First, this group of target

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students was small, with only 14 students. To enhance the

applicability of the findings, a study on a larger scale (preferably

more than 30) may be desirable. However, realistically, this

recommendation may present some challenges to teachers. Even with

Ferris’ (1999, p. 4) suggestion of providing students with “selective,

prioritized, and clear” error correction, the task of providing feedback

to a class of 35 or more students is still daunting, let alone the idea of

combining feedback provision with a multi-drafting process. Second,

as learner autonomy is described as a fluid concept, to assess whether

students have indeed become autonomous writers, a longitudinal

study for an additional two to three semesters in other subjects or

disciplines may be helpful in gaining better insights into the topic of

learner autonomy. Third, past research has indicated that the

closeness between a teacher and a student may greatly influence the

level of trust that the student has for the teacher. In this study, the

target group of students had a very close relationship with their

writing instructor. Though no specific questions were asked regarding

how this level of trust affected students’ learning outcomes, such a

feature should be taken into consideration for other teachers who

might plan to adopt a similar course design. Different findings might

have been generated had this instructor demonstrated a more distant

relationship with her students.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The author would like to thank the reviewers and editors for

their helpful comments and suggestions.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Karen Chung-chien Chang is an assistant professor in the

Department of Applied Linguistics and Foreign Languages at

National Taipei University. Her current research interests include

second language writing, learner autonomy, rhetoric, and

translation/interpretation studies.

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Appendix A

LTTC GEPT-CEFR Alignment Reference

GEPT CEFR IELTS TOEFL iBT

Second stage 7.5 110 Advanced

First stage C1

7.0 100 Second stage 6.5 92

High-Intermediate First stage

B2 6.0 79

Intermediate Second stage B1 5.5 Below 79 Note. This reference is also available on http://www.lttc.ntu.edu.tw/E_LTTC/E_

GEPT/alignment.htm

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Appendix B

Learning Survey for Advanced Grammar and Guided Writing

Please reflect on your learning experience in this course and mark the answers that

best reflect your opinions.

Questions Strongly agree

Agree Fair Disagree Strongly disagree

1. I enjoyed English composition in my first year of college.

2. I liked choosing my own topics for different writing projects.

3. I felt a stronger sense of freedom when I could choose my own topics for writing.

4. I am likely to invest more time on researching a topic of my own choice.

5. If a topic is assigned by my teacher, I will try equally hard to complete the research and the writing.

6. I like receiving feedback related to my essays.

7. The feedback and comments are clear for me to revise my essays.

8. I set aside the time for essay revision every week.

9. I prefer discussing the comments for revision with my teacher to spending time on revision first.

10. The comments are specific enough for me to revise my essays.

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11. I regularly visited my

teacher during her office hours for essay revision.

12. I prefer sending my questions related to essay revision via email to my instructor.

13. Looking back at my first year of English composition, I feel that I took the initiative in making my writing better.

14. I believe it is my responsibility to invest time and effort in my own writing.

15. Through the feedback and comments from my instructor, I understand my weaknesses in composing an essay.

16. I believe it is necessary to spend time working on revisions in order to improve my writing ability.

Please answer the following questions as best as you can.

1. What are your strategies in responding to the feedback from

your instructor? You may describe how you use it to revise

your essay or comment on the usefulness of the feedback.

2. Do you think the feedback and comments provided by your

instructor are enough for you to work on essay revisions?

Why or why not?

3. For a deadline to turn in a revision on Sunday, for example,

when did you usually start revising your essays? Did that

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give you enough time to finish the revision? You may share

how you manage your time for revision.

4. Did you visit your instructor often to discuss your essays

face-to-face? If yes, why did you prefer doing that? If no,

how did you go about essay revision?

5. What more could the instructor have done more in helping

you improve your writing? Are you satisfied with your

progress in the first year? Please explain.

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Appendix C

Interview questions (two major questions, Question 1 and

Question 4, and three follow-up questions, Question 2, Question 3

and Question 5):

1. How did the teacher feedback affect your revision effort?

2. Did you understand the corrections and suggestions and

were you able to revise the essays on your own?

3. Did you visit your instructor often for essay revision? Why

or why not?

4. For a task deadline set at late Saturday night (early Sunday

morning), what was your strategy in terms of time

management for a writing assignment?

5. Did you submit your revisions earlier than the deadlines?

Please explain.

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Appendix D

Word Counts of Student Essays and Learning Graphs

Student 1 Projects and Word Counts (First Draft and Final Draft)

Draft 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 First 212 235 235 224 237 253 407 675 694 499 531 516 Final 257 268 233 278 453 307 596 770 826 533 647 604



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大一英作課程設計：

培養學生學習自主之行動研究

摘要

本文著重於大一英文的寫作課程設計，透過不同的

課程重點，旨在探討此類設計是否可培養學生學習

自主的態度，鼓勵學生對其學習過程及結果，扮演

更主動的角色。此課程設計共有三大特色，第一，

學生在學習指定文體後，可自由選擇寫作題目，此

乃為提升學生寫作的興趣及投入度。第二，透過老

師的批改、回饋及評語，幫助學生達到自我檢討、

訂正之目標。第三，此課程強調多稿修改過程，每

個文體要求三稿，讓學生透過此機制，學習如何利

用老師評語、課外資源，來精進自身的寫作能力。

本研究對象為某國立大學應用外語系的大一學生，

共 14 人。資料蒐集包含一整學年的 12 個寫作計畫

(涵蓋教師回饋評語與學生學習歷程檔案)、學習問

卷調查及訪談。研究結果顯示學生透過教師回饋評

語、多稿修改機制，大幅提升作文寫作能力，相較

於一稿，三稿在架構及內容上更為精進，寫作長度

也大幅提升。學生更在此學習過程中，透過選擇自

身感興趣的寫作主題、收集資料，培養出高度學習

自主，知道如何掌控自己的學習時間、利用教師評

語回饋，每週修改文稿、提升自身的寫作能力，並

培養強烈的學習責任感，主導自身的學習歷程。論

文最後也提出建議及未來的研究方向。

關鍵詞：學生自主寫作課程設計線上寫作回饋

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fostering learner autonomy through empowering students

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