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Monica Edwards
ENG 504: Composition Theory
Dr. Ellis
26 September 2011
The Effects of Computer Technology on ESL Composition
Annotated Bibliography
Black, Rebecca W. “Access and Affiliation: The Literacy and Composition Practices of EnglishLanguage Learners in an Online Fanfiction Community.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult
Literacy 49.2 (Oct. 2005): 118-28. JSTOR. Web. 25 Sept 2011.
Black examines how English-language learners (ELLs) interact in online fanfiction
communities and how this improves their ability to compose and interact in English. Fanfiction
sites allow ELLs to explore the English language in an unpressured setting, and the communal
nature allows them to compose comfortably, be peer reviewed, and receive constructive
criticism. This online space appeals to ELLs because they are able to forge connections with
English-speakers and it allows them to communicate in a number of modes of representation.
With the example of Japanese anime fanfiction, a Japanese ELL’s fiction on the site would be
valued for its creativity and accurate portrayal of Japanese life, even if contains grammatical
errors, which gives the ELL confidence in his or her writing. Black finds that most community
comments on an ELL’s writing involve how to communicate meaning more effectively rather
than fixing simple grammar or spelling errors. She believes that an ELL can benefit academically
from participating in online communities and attain what Chun and Plass describe as the ultimate
goal of writing: the ability to successfully express one’s own ideas and to comprehend the
thoughts of others.
This source is valuable because Black presents a unique perspective; she highlights the
need for ELLs to view English as more than just an academic subject. However, her article is, in
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some ways, hard to incorporate because she focuses so much on online interaction outside of the
classroom. Although she discusses how these skills translate to the academic setting, this kind of
creative writing would not appeal to all ELLs. Black’s approach is different from Pennington’s
or Nakamaru’s because she focuses on activities outside of the classroom and how they can
enhance an ELL’s composition. However, her ideas also support Nakamaru’s because she
similarly sees peer review and online community as an important feature that can improve a
student’s confidence and writing. Black’s observations of ELLs online relates to Zamel’s
conclusion that the ultimate goal for ESL students is for them to see English as a language to use.
Black focuses on the dialogical nature of online communities and believes they foster an ELL’s
writing ability. This is similar to Paulo Friere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, in which he
endorses a dialogical approach as imperative to learning.
Freiermuth, Mark R. “Internet Chat: Collaborating and Learning via E-Conversations.” TESOL
Quarterly 11.3 (Autumn 2002): 36-40. Google Scholar. Web. 2 Oct 2011.
Freiermuth addresses the effectiveness of computer-assisted learning, but he also
examines its limitations. He criticizes the computer-based learning promoted by others (such as
Nakamaru, Black, and Sutherland-Smith) because it assumes many things about the ELL that
may not be true (such as the assumption that the students are in tune with one another or that the
students are able to communicate well enough in their second language to resolve problems). He
concludes that the Internet can be a useful tool for forming a collaborative learning environment,
examining language output, and empowering students, but he believes that it absolutely should
not replace in-class collaborative spoken activities in the classroom.
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This article appears in the same issue of TESOL as Sutherland-Smith’s. This issue brings
up many parts of the discussion on technology and ESL. Freiermuth’s discussion is unique
because he addresses the limitations of this technology while the other scholars seem to only
mention advantages.
Li, Jiang and Alister Cumming. “Word Processing and Second Language Writing: A
Longitudinal Case Study.” International Journal of English Studies 1.2 (2000): 127-52.
Google Scholar. Web. 25 Sept 2011.
Li brings together other scholars’ work on word processing and composition and lists
their stances on the advantages and disadvantages of spell checking, formatting, storage, easily
readable screen display and hard copies, and the skills needed for operating a computer. Li
mentions that these scholars conclude that word processing leads to higher levels of revision but
focus on students composing in English as their first language. Teachers need to encourage the
students and provide adequate computer training so students are not affected by anxiety created
by using the computer. Li examines the effect of word processing on revision, thinking process,
and overall quality for a Chinese man writing in English over an extended period of time. Li
concludes that the student attained higher-level revision, demonstrated different thinking
processes in handwriting versus typing, and had higher quality essays from the word processor
over hand-written essays. The student in the study also began to apply concepts he learned from
word processing to his hand-written composition.
Li draws on debates from many scholars who examine the effects of word processing
agrees with Zamel that ESL students have much in common with students who have English as
their first language and can benefit from the same kinds of instruction. This article is similar to
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Pennington’s and draws on some of her concepts, but Li addresses some things that Pennington
does not consider, such as learners who are from a background that use non-Roman alphabets.
Word processing greatly minimizes the technical difficulties of handwriting for these students.
Nakamaru, Sarah. “Making (and Not Making) Connections with Web 2.0 Technology in the ESL
Composition Classroom.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College 38.4 (May 2011):
377-390. ProQuest Legacy. Web. 24 Sept 2011.
Nakamaru is a college level ESL composition teacher who experimented with the uses of
Blackboard and Wiki to help her students develop their writing skills in 2009. She believes that
the Internet is a very useful tool for ESL learners, especially since the Internet shifted from
somewhere just to find information to a place to create and edit information. She had each
student create a Wiki page for the class. On this page they would post their writing assignments,
as well as links to other information (such as vocabulary). She believed that the students’ online
community would allow them to help one another, see each other’s’ writing, edit each other’s
writing, and see outside writing easily. She concludes that students in the twenty-first century
need to have Internet and word processing skills, so ESL composition classes need to use these
tools to help students.
Nakamaru’s article is valuable for its currency; especially when discussing the role of
ever changing technology, it is significant that this article was published this year. Her article
relates to Pennington (and she cites a different article of Pennington’s) because both believe that
computer technology has the potential to be very helpful to ESL students. This concept relates to
Deborah Brandt, who discusses the way that changing times create changes in a person’s literate
identity, which means that today technology such as Blackboard/WebCT/Moodle, Wiki, and
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word processing will contribute to this. It also relates to Friere because instead of “depositing”
information, this teacher used the tool of the Internet to allow students to create, edit, and
manipulate their own writing and each other’s. She had the role of a collaborator and initiator
rather than a depositor.
Oxford, Raquel. “Effects of Technology-Enhanced Language Learning on Second Language
Composition.” Hispania 89.2 (May 2006): 358-61. JSTOR. Web. 25 Sept 2011.
Oxford discusses a study that investigates the effect of computer-based courseware on
students learning to write in a second language. She recognizes that there is an increasing need
for students to be able to write effectively in a second language and defines fluency in writing as
“a flow in the written language as perceived by the reader, made possible by clarity of
expression, the acceptable ordering of ideas, use of vocabulary and syntax appropriate to the
context, with words, phrases, and idiomatic expressions that go together by common lexical
convention” (359). These aspects of language can obviously be very difficult for a student
writing in his or her second language. The study involved students using computer-assisted
grammar drills and concluded that they had a small to moderate positive effect on the quality of a
students writing in a second language.
This study focused on grammar and vocabulary building, which are certainly important,
but Zamel and Silva would agree that these are not the most important things for ESL writers to
learn. Although the article does not state it, the findings of the study also seem to support this
idea because the improvement of the computer-assisted grammar drill group only performed
better in a small to moderate way. Dewey would possibly argue that grammar drills would
potentially be the kind of exercise that would turn students away from writing in the second
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language because they are not engaging and would not foster in the writer the desire to learn or
write more.
Pennington, Martha C. “Exploring the Potential of Word Processing for Non-Native Writers.”
Computers and the Humanities 27.3 (1993): 149-63. JSTOR. Web. 25 Sept 2011.
Pennington investigates the effects of word processing on the writing process, quality and
quantity of writing, planning and prewriting, revising, cognitive processing, and attitudes for
ESL students. She believes that there are many positive potential consequences, including both
increased quantity and quality. Quantity increases because word processing is much more timeeffective than writing by hand, so students can produce more wiring in the same amount of time.
It also increases quality because studies show that students increase paragraph length on a word
processor, and this allows for more details. The fluidity of word processing allows for easier
revision and allows students to manipulate the structure more easily. A computer can also serve
as a source for external memory, which is especially useful to ESL students. One potential
negative consequence of word processing that Pennington recognizes is the potential for
minimized pre-writing processes. She concludes that word processing has the potential to be very
useful for ESL composition students, but the teacher must take students’ individual abilities into
account.
This article relates to the debate between quantity and quality that is addressed by Zamel.
Word processing is a synthesis because it allows for both. It relates to Zamel and Silva because
the fluidity of word processing allows students to more easily work on structure and organization
of ideas. This is important because these scholars recognize these tasks as more important than
grammar skills. Pennington does not address the effects of newer word processing with features
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such as autocorrect. Autocorrect could potentially have a negative effect on ELL’s composition
and I would like to explore that side of word processing.
.
Silva, Tony. "ESL Composition: An Historical Perspective." Paper presented at the Annual
Meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (38th,
Atlanta, GA, March 19-21, 1987). ERIC. Web. 25 Sept 2011.
Silva traces some of the trends in ESL composition since 1945. Originally ESL education
focused on speech and saw writing as a secondary concern. In the early 1960s, some teachers
advocated free composition for ESL students, but this was criticized because many others viewed
formal accuracy as the most important aspect of writing (rather than expression of ideas). In the
mid-60s the approach shifted to Kaplan’s theory of rhetoric, which states that students should
learn patterns at the rhetorical level rather than the syntactical level. The teacher’s role is to help
students develop strategies for getting started and for providing a positive, collaborative
environment in the classroom. Silva criticizes the then current ESL approach for not addressing
individual variations in students
This article addresses and reinforces some of the points originally put forth by Zamel but
goes into much detail. Silva agrees with Zamel that the teacher should not only be active as a
proof reader for students and that it is more important for a student to be able to organize
paragraphs than it is for them to manipulate sentences. Silva also relates to Dewey and
Pennington because he discusses the need to take into account individual students’ variations in
the classroom.
Sutherland-Smith, Wendy. “Integrating Online Discussion in an Australian Intensive English
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Language Course.” TESOL Quarterly 11.3 (Autumn 2002) : 31-5. Google Scholar. Web.
2 Oct 2011.
Sutherland-Smith provides specific information that relates to the article that immediately
precedes hers in the journal, which is an article by Dawn Bikowski and Dawn Kessler that
discusses the general benefits of online discussion boards. She describes how she used the
Internet in an ESL class in an attempt to reach the goals of providing real-life experiences,
allowing students to explore other types of communication, and providing access to new kinds of
literacy. She found that the online discussion allowed for collaborative learning for the students
and students were willing to take risks with stating opinions, etc. in the online discussions that
they did not in the face-to-face classroom discussions. She observed that the students seemed to
work harder to prepare for the online parts of the class than the parts in the classroom and found
that students were more engaged than they were in the traditional classroom.
Sutherland-Smith joins in on a conversation that discusses the benefits of technology in
the classroom in general, but she applies it specifically to ESL. She explains that students were
more engaged, worked harder, and got more enjoyment from the online aspect of the course, but
does not offer speculation as to why that was the case. Her focus on allowing students to explore
“new forms of literacy” relates to Chapter 6 of Brandt. She also sees the formation of an online
as beneficial, which agrees with Black and Nakamaru’s conclusions. I would like to investigate
further why this sense of community is easier for ELLs to realize online rather than in the
classroom.
Zamel, Vivian. “Teaching Composition in the ESL Classroom: What We Can Learn From
Research in the Teaching of English.” TESOL Quarterly 10.1 (Mar 1976): 67-76. JSTOR.
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Web. 20 Sept 2011.
Zamel argues that ESL teachers need to make connections between teaching ESL classes and
regular English classes. ESL students learn from imitation, but they should learn to imitate paragraphs
instead of sentences. The teacher’s role should be to focus on writing rather than error correction because
this will give the teacher an active role in the writing process rather than participating once the writing is
over. She concludes that ESL teaching should not be based just on grammar drills; rather, the focus
should be on expressing ideas. This can come from a mix of using controlled writing (quality) and free
composition (quantity). This will cause ESL students to view English as a language to use rather than just
learn.
This article is a good starting point because it addresses some of the basic issues in ESL
composition. It relates to Dewey’s idea of experiential education because he believes that education needs
to consist of experiences that lead the student to desire more learning experiences. Similarly, Zamel
believes that experiences of composition need to foster a desire for more writing in ESL. Zamel’s
approach is also similar to Dewey’s concept of freedom for students because she believes there needs to
be a synthesis between controlled writing and free writing for ESL students.