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Writing, reformulating, talking, and trying again : a case study of the reformulation strategy in action

Writing, reformulating, talking, and trying again : a case study of the reformulation strategy in action
Writing, reformulating, talking, and trying again : a case study of the reformulation strategy in action

This thesis presents a case study of a small group of advanced learners of English as a Foreign Language being taught academic writing by means of a pedagogical approach known as 'the reformulation strategy'. This involves students all writing a first draft of an essay, one of which is then reformulated; this new version is then compared in class with the original, after which the students revise their first drafts into final form. The research has two purposes. The first is to contribute to the principled development of second language writing instruction by increasing our understanding of this strategy. The second is to contribute to qualitative research on writing classrooms, and to add to theoretical knowledge in the field by exploring the relationship which pedagogical decisions and consequent classroom activities have with desired learning outcomes.

Overall the study demonstrates that the reformulation strategy had a positive effect on these students' understanding of the discourse-level demands of academic writing and on the writing which they produced. Quantitative and qualitative evidence made it possible to trace relationships between the various elements of the strategy, and to identify, both in practice and theory, in what ways these were more or less productive and how far they offered confirmation of other research results in L2 writing. This suggests that the strategy offers design features which can both predict and improve the success of second language writing pedagogy.

University of Southampton
Piper, Alison Jean
Piper, Alison Jean

Piper, Alison Jean (1997) Writing, reformulating, talking, and trying again : a case study of the reformulation strategy in action. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Record type: Thesis (Doctoral)

Abstract

This thesis presents a case study of a small group of advanced learners of English as a Foreign Language being taught academic writing by means of a pedagogical approach known as 'the reformulation strategy'. This involves students all writing a first draft of an essay, one of which is then reformulated; this new version is then compared in class with the original, after which the students revise their first drafts into final form. The research has two purposes. The first is to contribute to the principled development of second language writing instruction by increasing our understanding of this strategy. The second is to contribute to qualitative research on writing classrooms, and to add to theoretical knowledge in the field by exploring the relationship which pedagogical decisions and consequent classroom activities have with desired learning outcomes.

Overall the study demonstrates that the reformulation strategy had a positive effect on these students' understanding of the discourse-level demands of academic writing and on the writing which they produced. Quantitative and qualitative evidence made it possible to trace relationships between the various elements of the strategy, and to identify, both in practice and theory, in what ways these were more or less productive and how far they offered confirmation of other research results in L2 writing. This suggests that the strategy offers design features which can both predict and improve the success of second language writing pedagogy.

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More information

Published date: 1997

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 463197
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/463197
PURE UUID: 3d6befc1-3832-4744-a989-787b13486777

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Date deposited: 04 Jul 2022 20:47
Last modified: 04 Jul 2022 20:47

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Contributors

Author: Alison Jean Piper

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