Languaging in story rewriting tasks by Chinese EFL students

ABSTRACT

The present study examined the effects of languaging by asking four pairs of Chinese university English as a foreign language (EFL) students to rewrite a story from a different perspective through three stages (composing – comparing – revising). Multiple sources of data were collected, including pair discussions, co-constructed writings, individual revised texts, and interviews. Data analysis found that languaging, as an important meditational tool, helped the participants to co-construct meaning and solve problems (e.g. comprehending the original text, structuring their ideas, finding proper expressions) in the process of writing. Languaging was also observed to have immediate, delayed, and ongoing effects on joint writing and individual revision. This study suggests that an opportunity to engage in languaging with the support of source readings and models can facilitate the generation of students’ ideas and expressions necessary for writing and allow them to reflect on their language knowledge in the process of writing and revising, resulting in the improvement of their L2 writing performance.

KEYWORDS:

• Story rewriting task
• EFL learner
• languaging
• models

Aknowledgments

I am grateful to the editors and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the earlier version of the manuscript. My appreciation also goes to Tianzhen Wu for her assistance in data analysis and the participants for their willingness to participate in this study and share their insights. While conducting this study, I was supported by the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-12-0792) sponsored by Ministry of Education of China.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University [grant number NCET-12-0792] sponsored by Ministry of Education of China.

Notes on contributors

Luxin Yang

Luxin Yang is professor of the National Research Center for Foreign Language Education at Beijing Foreign Studies University, China. She holds a PhD in Second Language Education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. Her research interests include foreign language teacher education, second language writing, and academic literacy development.