Identifying Predictors of Academic Writing in English as a Foreign Language: A Study on Early Adolescents in Korea and China

Abstract

Attaining English proficiency in two East Asian countries, Korea and China, is often described as a “national obsession.” Although adolescent English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners are rapidly increasing in number, academic writing in this population has been minimally explored. Taking an innovative approach, this dissertation described skills in written definitions and persuasive essays, and analyzed academic English proficiency as a predictor of academic writing quality in adolescent EFL learners. A total of 180 EFL middle-school students (80 with Korean as first language, L1, 100 with Mandarin Chinese as L1; 54% female) with similar socio-economic profiles participated in the research. Participants were administered two English language tests: a test of general English proficiency (EF Standard English Test, EFSET) and an academic English proficiency assessment, the Core Academic Language Skills Instrument (CALS-I) designed to measure a set of language skills of high utility for school literacy. Participants also completed two writing tasks: a written definition task and a persuasive essay task. Integrating insights from functional linguistics and socio-cultural theories of writing development, essays were coded for lexical, syntactic and discourse features, and assessed for overall quality. This dissertation is comprised of two research studies and one article that integrates the results of both studies to offer insights to EFL practitioners. Study 1 was driven by the following research goals: 1a) to compare general English proficiency and academic English proficiency as predictors of overall essay quality; and 1b) to examine if predictors of overall essay quality vary by L1. The goal of Study 2 was to examine associations between EFLs’ academic writing skills in written definitions (a minimal writing task) and persuasive essays (an extended writing task). The main lessons from the two studies are then summarized in an article for practitioners that presents EFL teachers’ reflections on the research findings in light of their current pedagogical practices. By identifying a set of predictors of overall essay quality, these findings advance our understanding of adolescent EFLs’ academic writing proficiency, contributing information relevant for providing targeted feedback and instruction on academic writing in EFL classrooms.