English Writing Strategies of Korean Students: Exploring Written Texts and Interviews with the Teacher

Abstract

This study aims at investigating Korean EFL students' writing strategies through their rhetorical patterns and meaning-making for a writing task in an English writing classroom at a Korean university. The participants were the students and teacher in the course, and the data comprised nine pieces of students' opinion writing and interviews with the teacher. To analyze the data, a 'Claim-Support' pattern was adopted. The findings show that most students, 89%, demonstrated the same or similar elements in the 'Claim-Support' pattern for their textual structures and many parts of the meaning-making in their writing were originated from the textbook. These findings reflect that the students pursued the strategy of 'accommodation' in order to succeed in their academic writing regardless of the teacher's intention which focused on creativity and imagination in writing. The conclusion suggest that the students tend to establish their own ways of strategy to cope with the recontextualized setting for writing in English.■ keyword :|Writing Strategies|Rhetorical Patterns|Meaning-making|Claim-Support Pattern|Accommodation|

Teaching Practices for English Language: Exploring Students' Perceptions and Peer Feedback about Practicum

“…More than 40% of the students suggested to increase the opportunity of practicum, and this is the evidence to show the students' creativity and positive attitudes toward learning. These findings are significantly different from Lee and Kim (2014) in which students showed passive learning in the Korean context [13].…”