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SLPC2 Writing Development Initiatif guelph 2013
The Writing Development Initiative (WDI) is an approach developed for advanced French grammar courses that aims to improve students' writing skills through consistent practice and feedback. The WDI was created in response to larger class sizes and varying language abilities in students. It integrates writing exercises and tasks into regular coursework. Students complete drafts, provide peer feedback, and engage in workshops to recognize and correct their own errors. The goal is for students to gain autonomy over French linguistic structures and writing skills through collaborative evaluation and experiential learning. The WDI was implemented in the FRE280Y course, providing structured writing practice and feedback to help students improve.
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SLPC2 Writing Development Initiatif guelph 2013
- 1. A Writing DevelopmentInitiative Adapted to Today’s Classroom Reality Dr. Johanna Danciu & Dr. Rosa Hong Second-Language Pedagogies : New Technologies and Learning Outcomes, University of Guelph, 2013
- 2. The scope O Presentthe Writing Development Initiative (WDI) in French that aims to accommodate : O new course structures (more than 100 students) O heterogeneous language competency levels O higher learning standards set by students and academic institutions
- 3. Key points O Whatis the WDI ? O Why the WDI ? O Goals & aims of the WDI O Innovative aspects O Practical application : the FRE280Y – Advanced Language Practice II (2012-2013) O What to come
- 4. What is theWDI in French ? O Integrates techniques to improve writing skills O In an advanced French language grammar course O Practical applications, despite high course enrollments
- 5. Why the WDI? O Originated due to institutional concerns regarding overall academic skills. O Need for Innovative Strategies to address these concerns. O FRE280Y O LIN204F/205S O Second Language Learners face added difficulties.
- 6. Main goals O Assiststudents in becoming autonomous second language learners O Improve their capacity to apply theoretical concepts to their own linguistic output O grammatical theories O stylistic device choices O Bridge the gap between students’ perception of competence and their actual linguistic ability
- 7. How do weachieve our main goals? O Create opportunities for consistent practice O solidifies French linguistic structures O Provide more frequent individualized and immediate feed-back O enhances self-assessment and self- correction skills O Implement fundamental practical knowledge O discipline specific writing O collaboration skills
- 8. Innovative aspects O WDIis completely integrated into the course structure O Focuses on students’ learning process rather than on the final written product O Relies mainly on task-specific writing exercises O Deploys visualization tools to facilitate individual error pattern recognition & correction O Incorporates experiential learning components through collaborative evaluation process
- 9. Practical Application ofthe WDI in FRE280Y (2012-2013) Monday: LECTURE (12-1) Friday: TUTORIALS (9-11 / 11-1 / 1-3)
- 10. Who are ourstudents? O 121 enrolled students (in Sept. 2012) O Different types of previous experience in French language O French Immersion O Extended French O Core French O Some 1st year students but many have completed at least one university French course O Many are in the UTM Concurrent Teachers Education Program
- 11. How is theWDI integrated in the course? O Marking scheme O 5 Written Assignments (5 best out of 6): 25% O 4 Term Tests: 35% (test1 – 5%, test 2, 3, & 4 – 10%) O Final Exam – cumulative: 30% O Participation & Progress: 10% (based on lecture and tutorial attendance) O Writing assignments coincide with material covered in the course: O informative text O expressive text O narrative text O style elements (connecting words, stylistic devices, etc.)
- 12. Actual structure ofthe WDI WEEK Mon. Tue. Wed. Thu. Fri. Sat. Sun. III LEC: Topics given TUT: -1st draft due -Writing worksho p IV LEC: Final draft due
- 13. The 6 writingworkshops 1 correction of a peer’s text + summary 1 correction of a peer’s text AND correction of the grammatical error table 2 corrections of a peer’s text & plan (syntax & content) 2 corrections of a peer’s text & plan (syntax & content) AND summary 2 corrections of a peer’s text & plan (syntax & content) AND error categorization based on marking scheme 2 corrections of a peer’s text & plan (syntax, content & structure) AND error categorization 1 2 3 4 5 6
- 14. By the lasttask Students will have been provided with enough writing practice in order to: O recognize and correct syntactical errors O identify grammatical category of errors O evaluate stylistic device choices O analyze text structure based on text types O synthetize and summarize O provide critical feedback
- 15. Examples of writing assignments OFOR CUBA!
- 16. Examples of evaluationgrid 3 1 1 2 6 9
- 17.
- 18. Example of theerror categorization grid
- 19. How can correctingmistakes improve their FR O project 2 rewrite + categorization of mistakes + added stylistic elements O aims to start the defossilization process O FOR CUBA !
- 20.
- 21. What to come? OPossible solutions to current issues O Evaluation of the WDI as a whole O pre-test O post test O survey O Future directions O more discipline-specific O lower-level language course
- 22. *Merci de vôtreattention ! Can YOU spot the error? What grammar category is it?
- 23. Selected References O Péry-Woodley,M.-P. (1993). Les écrits dans l’apprentissage, Paris: Hachette. O Nunan, D. (1999). Second Language Teaching & Learning, Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publishers. O Silva,T. and Matsuda, P. K. ed. (2001). On Second Language Writing, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. O Harris, J. (2012). A Teaching Subject: Composition since 1966, Logan: Utah State University Press. O Llach, M. P. L. (2011). Lexical Errors and Accuracy in Foreign Language Writing, Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Editor's Notes
- #3 RH The scope of this presentation is to share a Writing Development Initiative that is the result of a need to accommodate 1) new course structures where even an advanced language course has enrollments beyond 100 students 2) within that learner population, levels of competency vary greatly. 3) as well, higher learning standards set by students and by academic institutions
- #4 RH
- #5 RH Our project integrates writing improvement techniques into an advanced French language grammar course in a practical manner, despite the high course enrollment.
- #6 RH 1. The possibility of our WDI originated when the UTM Dean’s Office launched in 2012a funding opportunity to support and enhance Innovative Strategies aimed at improving students’ overall academic skills (including discipline specific writing skills). This illustrates a current concern amongst universities, namely that there is growing need to address gaps in students’ basic academic skills, especially in the humanities. 2. In fact, our department proposed two separate WD projects, in French and English grammar courses. 3. Our concern was that the current problem concerning basic academic skills is evidently amplified in Second Language courses where students are faced with the added challenge of language mastery.
- #7 RH Final goal : we want students to become autonomous language learners who can independently apply theoretical concepts learned to their own linguistic output (oral & written). These concepts being mainly grammatical theories and stylistic device choices. For that we need to bridge the gap between students’ perception of their own linguistic competence and their actual ability.
- #8 RH [From the WDI proposal (June 2012)] a. [We saw a need to] create more practice opportunities to solidify the knowledge of French language structures and writing skills in selected large classes b. [We also wanted] provide more frequent individualized and immediate feed-back to students to enhance important skills related to academic writing such as self-assessment and self-correction skills c. [We decided to] implement fundamental and practical knowledge into analytical readings, discipline specific writing, and collaboration skills to support more advanced coursework
- #9 RH Some of the innovative aspects are: Making the steps of the writing process part of the final evaluation (alongside tests, in-class participation and the final exam) So for this, all steps for each writing exercise are monitored and are thus given importance (which is not usually the case in traditional language courses) This is because writing tasks with specific goals allow learners to improve a particular skill that they focus on. Thus we do not simply ask them to read more to improve their knowledge of writing styles and techniques nor do we ask them to write more in a free manner to improve their writing. Instead we use task-specific writing projects to improve targeted skills. Also, we use several “Grilles de correction” so that students can see errors grouped by categories (we will show an example later on) As well, we allow students to learn, by doing peer evaluation and having problem specific discussions
- #10 ROSA: Let’s take a look at the practical application of how this WDI is implemented in the current academic year in the course FRE280Y – Advanced Language Practice II. I will let Johanna, who teaches the course speak of the specifics. JOHANNA: Let me start by mentioning that the course is held on 2 days with a one hour lecture for all the students who are then divided into 3 separate tutorial groups on Friday. Here the first hour is given by me and the second by a TA.
- #11 --The FRE280 started with 121 enrolled students (in Sept. 2012) and it currently has 112. -- Amongst these there are : French Immersion Extended French Core French So the course must be adaptable to different types of French language backgrounds. For example, for Fr. Immersion students, who come from a content-based language teaching & learning environment where the accent is put on the message and not on the form of the delivered message, so for these students we had to invert the model and have students perform writing projects where the importance of the content is significantly lessened and the accent in placed on the form. -- Some 1st year students but many have completed at least one university French course … namely the FRE180Y which means that they have already been introduced to basic concepts of academic writing and have been made aware of a need for improving their reading and writing skills though this doesn’t always translate into more attention from them on these specific tasks. In other words, most students, when asked what they want to improve in their French, respond that they need help with writing and grammar but they rarely take the initiative to deal with these issues, mainly because they don’t know how to. -- Many are in the UTM Concurrent Teachers Education Program : For them language acquisition is important but so is understanding HOW to learn and teach a second language. Thus accuracy is as important as fluency! (ART: specify that for most of the FSL series students fluency is the focus however CTEP students need to master accuracy as well and the language system!!!)
- #12 A ¼ of the mark is attributed to the writing assignments. Writing assignments coincide with material covered in the course: in the course of the year we cover various types of text as well as different stylistic devices. The writing assignments are then designed with a specific focus on the application of new concepts. In other words, most of the writing assignment introduce a new level of difficulty in comparison to the last.
- #13 Actual structure: As you saw there are 6 writing projects over the course of 24 weeks (5 of which count for the final mark) The topics and instructions are given on Mon. during the lecture. Usually these are specific writing instructions related to the covered material. The subjects are limited to 2 or 3. Students draft out a plan and work on their chosen topic all week and on Fri for the tutorial they bring in their 1st draft (and I do mention that it is a 1st and NOT a rough draft). Just to remind you, Friday’s course is divided into smaller groups so it facilitates the writing and correcting workshop process. After this, students rework their draft and submit the final version + all corrected drafts on the following MON The idea is that by having students submit all drafts they see that these steps count and are less likely to skip them. This also allows us to better control content and avoid potential plagiarism.
- #14 In pairs, they exchange their drafts and work on and correct each other. So in essence each writing assignment has added difficulties and components and so does each peer evaluation process. ADD TEXT REGARDING EACH STEP!!!!
- #15 By doing these 6 writing assignments with multiple steps, students are given the opportunity to strengthen and deepen their writing and correcting skills.
- #17 “Grille de correction” you have here the grammar part. It is used to correct every writing assignment As you can see, grammar errors are grouped by categories. As a result students can visualize their error patterns and problem areas. This is the process by which we hope to achieve error defossilization in the long term.
- #18 The part of the grid is adapted to projects specifically for the content and style section (depending on the assignment’s target points). For example here, the element we had worked on was connectors (les marqueurs) so it had a mark attributed to it specifically.
- #19 This was ued for the 2nd writing assigngment which was essentially a rewrite of the first witth added elements (namely the use of connectors and stylistic devices).
- #21 Some of the comments made by students about this WDI refer to the fact that : MAKE KEY WORDS POP they are more comfortable with the writing process there is less anxiety related to the writing process they feel more confident about their writing ability and that various concepts clicked and finally made sense Students feed-back indicates that they are appreciative and more confident working on their writing through various steps! FOR CUBA: Include graphs and retitle this slide “Student progress and feedback”
- #22 Mention some current problems with the setup : -no grader so workload for TA is significant (in the future grader and TA need to be different people) -due to time & resource constraints, not every writing assignment has the element of the error categorization (in the future, this needs to be addressed) Evaluation of the WDI as a whole - pretest - post test - Survey As such we’ll have a better idea of students’ actual improvement (through pre/post test) Quantitative & qualitative evaluation to follow FOR CUBA Future directions - Using the project for more discipline-specific writing tasks (literary analysis, business French and academic dissertations) - Using the WDI in lower level language courses as a preventive measure (to avoid error fossilization as much as possible)