So what I have learned from these two articles are the writing strategies and skills L2 writers use in their writing. In Plakans’s article, she mentioned that the more advanced the L2 writers are, the more planning they do beforehand. And for low level of L2 writers, they do more online planning. Also, Plakans pointed out that ESL writers often use rereading, positioning themselves, some use online planning while writing. These are also found in the think-aloud articles. But in that articles, the authors pointed out that few participants did preplanning, given that their beginning level of Spanish. So in my teaching, I will teach students to do planning before they start writing. Also, while they are writing, they can use a lot of strategies, such as rereading, thinking out aloud their thoughts or written pieces. Because when they do these, they can actually pay attention to the forms and avoid grammar mistakes. In my own writing, I will use adopt rereading to check language accuracy. Additionally, I can do online planning as well, although it is more frequently used by low levels of writers. I think online writing has its advantage, because sometimes when we write, we are very into our logical thinking and then forget the big picture. So online planning can help us rebuild the organization. In terms of the use of think-aloud in writing, I don’t think I will use it in my own writing and teaching. In fact, I am very critical about the think-aloud, because I believe it can not reflect what the writers are truly thinking about in their mind. When they are doing think-aloud, they are actually socially constructing their discourse. Also, think-aloud will put a lot of cognitive burden on writers, especially low level of ESL students. So think-aloud will not be appeared in my teaching and writing.
2.
It is very interesting to hear my think-aloud and the loud typing sound. While doing the think-aloud and listen to the recording, I had been questioning myself: which ones goes first, think-aloud or composing? I feel that think-aloud sometimes proceeds before my real thinking occurs. In other words, the border between thinking out aloud and the composing process is very blurred. In fact, my stance toward think-aloud is very critical, because I don’t think it truly reflects the real thinking process in participants’ minds. And it is reactive to cognitive processes. Thus, when research use think-aloud protocol, I am more critical about its findings. When I did think-aloud, I sometimes paused to think about the language. I agree with the authors that think-aloud could increase language proficiency. It is true that we are conscious of the language when we read it loud. However, I don’t know if doing think-aloud could undermine the risk-taking in writing. In my case, sometimes I like to use new words in my writing so that I can challenge my current vocabulary knowledge and become familiar with its usage. But think-aloud does not allow ambiguous language, only if there is no word to be used in that situation. After the think-aloud, I found myself forget some points that I wanted to mention. When composing out aloud, I had to keep going even if I did not have too many thoughts or lost my logic line. In this case, think-aloud hindered my writing, because I had to put my attention on the think-aloud, rather than taking time to carefully retrieve my original points.
The first thing I noticed was that on a global level my writing was relatively linear. I began answering the questions, started writing, and did very little moving around of my sentences or my thoughts. This became clear when listening to my recording in that most of what I said were the words I was putting down on paper and not what I was thinking or necessarily do. For example, I may have reread and evaluated a sentence but I was not really aware why I was rereading or why I did not like it. The vast majority of my changes occurred on the sentential level by deleting or replacing specific words, adding more description to clarify my thoughts, or fixing spelling. I found that I did quite a bit of deleting and rewriting throughout the whole process. While this was mostly lexically focused there were some instances when I deleted full sentences and rewrote the whole sentence. Finally, there was not much pausing or hesitation because I did not have to process what I wanted to say and how in an L2.
When reflecting on my reaction to the process itself, I found that I was more comfortable with the whole process than I expected. This is probably because I have had some previous experiences utilizing thinking aloud for reading and also because I think I may naturally do this when writing. I often talk to myself when I am thinking through a problem or when I am searching for alternative way to state something.
Similar Yanguas and Lado’s (2012) research, verbalization from the think-alouds made me more aware of what I was putting down on paper and the different syntactic structures being used. I did not really find any instances where doing the think-aloud hindered my writing, but I must say that I was hoping that I would discover more about what I was doing and thinking in my writing process. However, this could be due to that fact that I am not really sure what to look for in my speech that would indicate how my thoughts are actually occurring.
Prompt 1: I felt as though much of the information from these articles was information that I either observed in my own classroom or understood on a conceptual level but had not yet read research about. One factor that I had never truly considered was the time differences that were reqired for different writing tasks. In her study, Plakans (2008) found that students who were required to consult a text in their writing assignment required more overall time than those generation their own information. While instinctually this made sense, I may not always provide enough planning time for students when they are doing in-class writing activities, especially when they must refer to specific texts. However, I found that I learned the most from the Yanguas and Lado (2012) article because I have not read much regarding think alouds (TA) and writing. The study found that TA could help Heritage Language (HL) students increase their writing fluency because it utilizes their established speaking fluency. What I found interesting was the relationship between verbalizing their writing and their syntactic awareness that let them hear their mistakes and then make the corrects themselves. While I have not had many HL students before, the information about the relationship between one’s speaking fluency and their writing can somehow inform how I approach teaching writing.
Another thing that I learned that do not directly relate to teaching but might be interesting to research were the evaluative comments made by the participant in Plakans (2008) study. She fund that in the writing only task the participants evaluative comments were all negative while those in the reading-to-write task had a combination of negative and positive comments. I would be curious to learn more on how these comments actually relate to or influence their writing performance.
One of Plakans (2008) most notable findings is that the task a test taker takes part in affects the writing process. Specifically, being able to turn back to a reading affects the way 1) a person plans to write and 2) engages in writing. Writing-only tasks required more planning before write and less planning while writing than reading-to-write tasks, demonstrating that the task impacts the writing. Reading-to-write tasks are more representative of academic writing and participants preferred them to writing-only tasks. Participants who had more experience and interest in writing demonstrated a more interactive writing process. This finding reminds me that learners bring their histories with writing to the table every time they write and that their motivation impacts their performance.
Four years later, Yanguas & Lado (2012) found that think alouds may positively impact the writing process. That is, speaking words aloud seems to improve grammatical accuracy. Also, heritage learners may have unique writing processes in their heritage language. Reading aloud is an important part of my teaching and tutoring. While I often read aloud to people when I am working with them on their writing, I rarely do it myself, even though I know it would positively impact my writing. This might be because I’m a very visual learner.
What I learned about think-alouds: Plakans showed me that think alouds can inform what we know about the way people think while writing. Researchers can use think alouds to capture the mysterious writing process, and training can improve people’s ability to perform think alouds.
Despite conflicting findings about think alouds in the literature, Yanguas & Lado (2012) found that they benefit fluency and accuracy in Heritage Learners. While think alouds are cognitively challenging, they did not impact the number of words (fluency) participants wrote, and, in fact, they led to increased accuracy and task performance. This seems to be because when Heritage Learners verbalized their thoughts, they were able to use their sense of correctiveness (from their ears) to edit what they wrote, which led to increased grammar awareness.
It was really hard for me to keep talking during the think aloud, and I felt like the talking clouded up my brain and prevented me from saying what I wanted to say! At one point during the think aloud, I said, “I’m kind of afraid to look back and really start editing the thoughts I’ve put on the page because I think I’ll pause for longer than 20 seconds.” I wanted to listen to my inner voice, but my outer voice kept drowning it out. After awhile, what came out of my mouth was less mediated and more natural.
I’m glad I had a chance to watch other people think aloud before I engaged in this task. Otherwise, I might have felt sillier than I did. I noticed that I wanted to use a softer voice when I was correcting grammar. In one instance, I turn to a simple sentence (a bullet point), and make it a complex sentence by adding a descriptive clause to the beginning. As I do this, my voice quiets a bit and I repeat myself three times. This voice was familiar to me. I turn this voice on when I want to make sure I’ve gotten a complex sentence right. Each time I say it, the sentence sounds more fluid. So in that regard, findings from Y & L ring true to me in my own process of talking aloud while constructing complex sentence. I turn to my ear as an authority on grammar.
1) What specifically did you learn about writing processes and think-alouds from these two articles that you can apply to your own writing and teaching?
From Plakans:
The task students are given can be detrimental to exam results, can define the outcome of their writing. Students who had the read the to write task somehow could benefit from the reading, because they were able to, not only to extract ideas from the text, but also emulate language structures, the text could serve as a model for syntax. Read-alouds show the differences in planning each writer can demonstrate. Not all writers do the same amount of planning.
The think-alouds were a good way to demonstrate the non-linear nature of writing, and how writers reread and evaluate their writing, as shown in the model on page 117.
This study could show people who are beginning to write in a second or foreign language (or even in their L1), or students who are being taught to write in a second language that writing is not a linear process. Pedagogical implications: make sure students understand the importance of drafts and revision, also rereading and planning, rehearsal and evaluating writing. I would like to connect the results from this study to what I mentioned in one of my first blog posts: Writing under pressure, with a very close deadline could never equal good writing, because all writing “stages” are important for the development of ideas.
From Yanguas and Lado:
I was a little disappointed to discover this was a quantitative study. Yanguas and Lado do not define what they mean by reactivity, and I wish they had, at the beginning of the paper.
One of the biggest takeouts for me was how the verbalization made students more aware of their HL, and helped them recognize correct linguistic forms, and therefore write more accurate T-units, and does not hinder the overall writing process. Verbalizing then, seems to be positive for these learners because it doesn’t affect the number of words they produced, it actually helped them to discover expressions that “sound native like to them” (p.393). In the case of HL learners, this study seems to prove that there are more benefits than downsides. One question I have about this study was, if the HL learners were more aware of their language use, or if they tried harder to compose more accurate Spanish t-units because they knew they were being recorded?
For HL learners, composing-alouds seemed a positive experience, because it was proven that this experience does not affect writing fluency, and it has positive effects on accuracy measures.
I may suggest HL to consider reading their writings aloud as an extra strategy when revising.
2) What patterns or features in your composing process did you notice? How did you feel about the process of composing aloud? In what ways help or hinder your writing?
First, I should say I was very aware of the fact that I was recording myself, and the whole time I had this feeling that I had to rush. I don’t really know why, there was no real reason to do so.
When it comes to patterns, I made sure I read and understood the task, that I had read and understood both articles before I sat down to do the composing aloud, and also that I was open minded. I went back and forth between my ideas and the texts, I tried not to be silent too long, and I tried to even forget I was recording, which I think I did at the end of the task. I noticed that composing aloud slows me down. I think I could have completed the response to both articles much faster if I didn’t have to talk. I feel like I do talk to myself a lot while I write anyway, but in this case I felt pressure because someone else is going to listen to this!
I didn’t stop myself from speaking in my L1 when my brain wouldn’t go to English, which is something that happens often when composing. A certain connector or idea comes in Spanish and I have to write it down in Spanish or translate it in my mind before I can continue writing.
1) In my own definition composing aloud is the act of act of thinking and writing at the same time. In my life time I dint know how important think aloud is, usually I used to think aloud when I was reading my homework and text books and I never knew it was that important during writing. It has been easy to write in L2 since my brain and my hands are working together at the same time. In Yunguas article I have learnt that I have to be very strategic to plan ahead before writing. I will think critically before I put my ideas on the paper. Before I used to write without thinking about my writing twice or thrice. I will be able to search many articles and read a lot about the same topic and then compose through think aloud when writing. I agree with Fang that I can convince my students to think aloud before they write. This will help them be creative in many the exercise I give them in class. As a Second language teacher I have also learnt to be organized. I should have a good flow of ideas like one idea should come first before another idea and also to put the strong ideas first then other ideas can follow. Most of the papers I had written before where not well organized, but I hope I will be writing a better paper from now. I used to think in Swahili and then start translating it into English but when I was composing I had to think in English and write in English at the same time. I think it also helps to save time instead of wring and translating for one hour then it can take about 30min instead. I learnt to focus on my writing. The situation of thinking, speaking and writing at the same time helped me to stay focused on the topic I am writing about. If I think and write I am easily destructed with cell phone, people moving around etc. I think I should be writing most of my papers using this method.
2) Think aloud is not simple but rather independent on a host of variables (Bowles, 2010, p.106). When I was composing my think aloud I had a lot of repletion of the same words. I was trying to disagree with the statement “home environment is more important to a child’s development than the school environment. I think it occurs due to memory decay. I kept repeating the phrase ‘parents do not have the skills that help a child grow compared to teachers. I felt very confident during composing, I felt like I had a good flow of ideas. I tried to listen to the audio many times which made me think that it was very similar to my mom’s and sister’s voice. I told like my voice in audios and videos anyway. I think I have a very bad voice. Last semester I gave my students an assignment to write about a video they had watched before, some students came up with a very good flow of writing and others were still struggling. I think composing aloud would be good to improve their writing. This semester I will teach my students to think aloud hoping they will come up with good ideas. Even though my present students do not have a lot of writing tasks they can learn a few skills that they can apply for their homework and some class work. The proses has helped my writing in many ways that I should first plan the topic I want to write about before writing about it. I hope when I keep practicing think aloud I will become so much better and comfortable. I won’t be stammering frequently as I did this time. I will also be able to write as frequently as possible not by taking a long time to think quietly.
Plakans (2008) focused on how reading-to-writing and writing-only tasks resulted in different strategies for test takers. I learned about the writing process and how it can be applied to reading-to-write test tasks. In terms of positioning, the reading-to-write tasks are more effective than writing-only tasks, and help plan and organize the writing content. Moreover, writers tended to reread their own work more often and be more interactive with reading texts, which helps to make inferences and have a better outcome. However, in the writing-only task, test-takers struggled with initial planning without resources, which can interfere with writing (e.g. a construct-irrelevant source). The finding of the study also related to my own experience in writing papers since reading previous research helps me develop the ideas and support my argument. The result of Plakans’s study also has an important implication in teaching writing or developing writing assessment because the different tasks resulted in different outcomes. I also think students’ reading ability would impact their writing skills depending on how they comprehend the reading texts. For this reason, teachers need to consider the difficulty of the assessment and the familiarity of the content when developing an assessment which is related to the component of validity and reliability of the test. This is especially true for a placement test taken by international students who have different language proficiencies. Teachers need to examine each student’s weaknesses to recognize which components of writing need to be improved. Yanghuas & Lado (2012) found that fluency was not affected by verbalizing writing, but the accuracy was affected by thinking aloud. This study provided positive perspectives of the thinking-aloud method regarding accuracy, as did a previous study (Bowles, 2008), which found reactivity in the metalinguistic group (which uses thinking aloud method), but not in the non-metalinguistic group (without using thinking aloud method). This information can help ESL teachers create additional resources for student writers as well as develop their own lesson plans. Both studies compare two groups with different conditions (control group vs. experimental group) to find out how the thinking-aloud method can be effective. In addition, they both provide various information regarding writing processes when composing two different assessment tasks, as well as discussing the positive influence of the thinking-aloud method and how it should be carefully considered in writing and teaching.
Thinking aloud while writing is not common in Asian culture, so I struggled with following the ideas and writing my thoughts as I said them aloud. I think cultural factors highly influence using this method. Even though I was not used to saying thinking processes aloud, I paused to brainstorm a plan and find a relationship between reading passages before writing anything down. At other times, I would pause my writing to focus on saying my thoughts out loud, which would enable me to focus more on the thinking process and how to organize arguments in my writing. While I often write down my thoughts without giving much consideration to the clarity of the language, speaking aloud helped me make sure that I was expressing my thoughts more clearly. I’ve also noticed that I make fewer grammar mistakes while thinking aloud because I tend to re-read more. However, I struggled with both reading and writing because of the time limit as well as recall capacity since these articles have a similar overarching idea about the thinking-aloud method but their methods and analyses are very different. I felt quite burdened to keep speaking aloud while writing as I reached a conclusion in which I needed to consider both articles’s implications at the same time. I also think a person’s reading style and speaking style influence this procedure regardless of their L1 and L2. If someone is apt to verbal interaction, thinking aloud would be beneficial to their writing. In this sense, the metacognitive process would also require a comprehension period. When the students are not proficient in their speaking and reading skills, thinking aloud makes students feel the burden, disrupts comprehension, and hinders a productive outcome.
Yanguas & Lado (2012) I have learn that Thinking aloud affects performance during a writing task. It occurred when think loud imposes a double burden on me as a participant that affects my ability to process language. I have to organize my ideas before I start the think aloud process and during writing it takes less time to write. As a second language learner I have a unique writing process which might not be very convincing but I try to make it understandable. A person who is learning this process tends to bring a lot of his personal experience in the think aloud process. From Plakans I have learned that the activity that is given to students can determine their results. Students who have done activities that the teacher gives may have positive impacts of better performance compared to students who have not done the activity since they have no idea of how it should be. For example students are capable of learning a grammar activity on their own which can help them get good performance. These articles I learnt to focus on my own writing. The situation of thinking and writing and speaking at the same time helps me to stay focused on the topic I am writing about. When I used to write without speaking it took me a long time to finish my work. But when am thinking and writing I am easily destructed with cell phone, unnecessary moment and loud voices etc. I think I should be writing most of my papers using think aloud method.
ReplyDelete1.
So what I have learned from these two articles are the writing strategies and skills L2 writers use in their writing. In Plakans’s article, she mentioned that the more advanced the L2 writers are, the more planning they do beforehand. And for low level of L2 writers, they do more online planning. Also, Plakans pointed out that ESL writers often use rereading, positioning themselves, some use online planning while writing. These are also found in the think-aloud articles. But in that articles, the authors pointed out that few participants did preplanning, given that their beginning level of Spanish. So in my teaching, I will teach students to do planning before they start writing. Also, while they are writing, they can use a lot of strategies, such as rereading, thinking out aloud their thoughts or written pieces. Because when they do these, they can actually pay attention to the forms and avoid grammar mistakes. In my own writing, I will use adopt rereading to check language accuracy. Additionally, I can do online planning as well, although it is more frequently used by low levels of writers. I think online writing has its advantage, because sometimes when we write, we are very into our logical thinking and then forget the big picture. So online planning can help us rebuild the organization. In terms of the use of think-aloud in writing, I don’t think I will use it in my own writing and teaching. In fact, I am very critical about the think-aloud, because I believe it can not reflect what the writers are truly thinking about in their mind. When they are doing think-aloud, they are actually socially constructing their discourse. Also, think-aloud will put a lot of cognitive burden on writers, especially low level of ESL students. So think-aloud will not be appeared in my teaching and writing.
2.
It is very interesting to hear my think-aloud and the loud typing sound. While doing the think-aloud and listen to the recording, I had been questioning myself: which ones goes first, think-aloud or composing? I feel that think-aloud sometimes proceeds before my real thinking occurs. In other words, the border between thinking out aloud and the composing process is very blurred. In fact, my stance toward think-aloud is very critical, because I don’t think it truly reflects the real thinking process in participants’ minds. And it is reactive to cognitive processes. Thus, when research use think-aloud protocol, I am more critical about its findings.
When I did think-aloud, I sometimes paused to think about the language. I agree with the authors that think-aloud could increase language proficiency. It is true that we are conscious of the language when we read it loud. However, I don’t know if doing think-aloud could undermine the risk-taking in writing. In my case, sometimes I like to use new words in my writing so that I can challenge my current vocabulary knowledge and become familiar with its usage. But think-aloud does not allow ambiguous language, only if there is no word to be used in that situation.
After the think-aloud, I found myself forget some points that I wanted to mention. When composing out aloud, I had to keep going even if I did not have too many thoughts or lost my logic line. In this case, think-aloud hindered my writing, because I had to put my attention on the think-aloud, rather than taking time to carefully retrieve my original points.
The first thing I noticed was that on a global level my writing was relatively linear. I began answering the questions, started writing, and did very little moving around of my sentences or my thoughts. This became clear when listening to my recording in that most of what I said were the words I was putting down on paper and not what I was thinking or necessarily do. For example, I may have reread and evaluated a sentence but I was not really aware why I was rereading or why I did not like it. The vast majority of my changes occurred on the sentential level by deleting or replacing specific words, adding more description to clarify my thoughts, or fixing spelling. I found that I did quite a bit of deleting and rewriting throughout the whole process. While this was mostly lexically focused there were some instances when I deleted full sentences and rewrote the whole sentence. Finally, there was not much pausing or hesitation because I did not have to process what I wanted to say and how in an L2.
ReplyDeleteWhen reflecting on my reaction to the process itself, I found that I was more comfortable with the whole process than I expected. This is probably because I have had some previous experiences utilizing thinking aloud for reading and also because I think I may naturally do this when writing. I often talk to myself when I am thinking through a problem or when I am searching for alternative way to state something.
Similar Yanguas and Lado’s (2012) research, verbalization from the think-alouds made me more aware of what I was putting down on paper and the different syntactic structures being used. I did not really find any instances where doing the think-aloud hindered my writing, but I must say that I was hoping that I would discover more about what I was doing and thinking in my writing process. However, this could be due to that fact that I am not really sure what to look for in my speech that would indicate how my thoughts are actually occurring.
Prompt 1:
DeleteI felt as though much of the information from these articles was information that I either observed in my own classroom or understood on a conceptual level but had not yet read research about. One factor that I had never truly considered was the time differences that were reqired for different writing tasks. In her study, Plakans (2008) found that students who were required to consult a text in their writing assignment required more overall time than those generation their own information. While instinctually this made sense, I may not always provide enough planning time for students when they are doing in-class writing activities, especially when they must refer to specific texts. However, I found that I learned the most from the Yanguas and Lado (2012) article because I have not read much regarding think alouds (TA) and writing. The study found that TA could help Heritage Language (HL) students increase their writing fluency because it utilizes their established speaking fluency. What I found interesting was the relationship between verbalizing their writing and their syntactic awareness that let them hear their mistakes and then make the corrects themselves. While I have not had many HL students before, the information about the relationship between one’s speaking fluency and their writing can somehow inform how I approach teaching writing.
Another thing that I learned that do not directly relate to teaching but might be interesting to research were the evaluative comments made by the participant in Plakans (2008) study. She fund that in the writing only task the participants evaluative comments were all negative while those in the reading-to-write task had a combination of negative and positive comments. I would be curious to learn more on how these comments actually relate to or influence their writing performance.
Oops..I said fluency and meant accuracy.
DeleteWhat I learned about writing processes:
ReplyDeleteOne of Plakans (2008) most notable findings is that the task a test taker takes part in affects the writing process. Specifically, being able to turn back to a reading affects the way 1) a person plans to write and 2) engages in writing. Writing-only tasks required more planning before write and less planning while writing than reading-to-write tasks, demonstrating that the task impacts the writing. Reading-to-write tasks are more representative of academic writing and participants preferred them to writing-only tasks. Participants who had more experience and interest in writing demonstrated a more interactive writing process. This finding reminds me that learners bring their histories with writing to the table every time they write and that their motivation impacts their performance.
Four years later, Yanguas & Lado (2012) found that think alouds may positively impact the writing process. That is, speaking words aloud seems to improve grammatical accuracy. Also, heritage learners may have unique writing processes in their heritage language. Reading aloud is an important part of my teaching and tutoring. While I often read aloud to people when I am working with them on their writing, I rarely do it myself, even though I know it would positively impact my writing. This might be because I’m a very visual learner.
What I learned about think-alouds:
Plakans showed me that think alouds can inform what we know about the way people think while writing. Researchers can use think alouds to capture the mysterious writing process, and training can improve people’s ability to perform think alouds.
Despite conflicting findings about think alouds in the literature, Yanguas & Lado (2012) found that they benefit fluency and accuracy in Heritage Learners. While think alouds are cognitively challenging, they did not impact the number of words (fluency) participants wrote, and, in fact, they led to increased accuracy and task performance. This seems to be because when Heritage Learners verbalized their thoughts, they were able to use their sense of correctiveness (from their ears) to edit what they wrote, which led to increased grammar awareness.
It was really hard for me to keep talking during the think aloud, and I felt like the talking clouded up my brain and prevented me from saying what I wanted to say! At one point during the think aloud, I said, “I’m kind of afraid to look back and really start editing the thoughts I’ve put on the page because I think I’ll pause for longer than 20 seconds.” I wanted to listen to my inner voice, but my outer voice kept drowning it out. After awhile, what came out of my mouth was less mediated and more natural.
DeleteI’m glad I had a chance to watch other people think aloud before I engaged in this task. Otherwise, I might have felt sillier than I did. I noticed that I wanted to use a softer voice when I was correcting grammar. In one instance, I turn to a simple sentence (a bullet point), and make it a complex sentence by adding a descriptive clause to the beginning. As I do this, my voice quiets a bit and I repeat myself three times. This voice was familiar to me. I turn this voice on when I want to make sure I’ve gotten a complex sentence right. Each time I say it, the sentence sounds more fluid. So in that regard, findings from Y & L ring true to me in my own process of talking aloud while constructing complex sentence. I turn to my ear as an authority on grammar.
1) What specifically did you learn about writing processes and think-alouds from these two articles that you can apply to your own writing and teaching?
ReplyDeleteFrom Plakans:
The task students are given can be detrimental to exam results, can define the outcome of their writing. Students who had the read the to write task somehow could benefit from the reading, because they were able to, not only to extract ideas from the text, but also emulate language structures, the text could serve as a model for syntax.
Read-alouds show the differences in planning each writer can demonstrate.
Not all writers do the same amount of planning.
The think-alouds were a good way to demonstrate the non-linear nature of writing, and how writers reread and evaluate their writing, as shown in the model on page 117.
This study could show people who are beginning to write in a second or foreign language (or even in their L1), or students who are being taught to write in a second language that writing is not a linear process.
Pedagogical implications: make sure students understand the importance of drafts and revision, also rereading and planning, rehearsal and evaluating writing.
I would like to connect the results from this study to what I mentioned in one of my first blog posts: Writing under pressure, with a very close deadline could never equal good writing, because all writing “stages” are important for the development of ideas.
From Yanguas and Lado:
I was a little disappointed to discover this was a quantitative study. Yanguas and Lado do not define what they mean by reactivity, and I wish they had, at the beginning of the paper.
One of the biggest takeouts for me was how the verbalization made students more aware of their HL, and helped them recognize correct linguistic forms, and therefore write more accurate T-units, and does not hinder the overall writing process.
Verbalizing then, seems to be positive for these learners because it doesn’t affect the number of words they produced, it actually helped them to discover expressions that “sound native like to them” (p.393).
In the case of HL learners, this study seems to prove that there are more benefits than downsides.
One question I have about this study was, if the HL learners were more aware of their language use, or if they tried harder to compose more accurate Spanish t-units because they knew they were being recorded?
For HL learners, composing-alouds seemed a positive experience, because it was proven that this experience does not affect writing fluency, and it has positive effects on accuracy measures.
I may suggest HL to consider reading their writings aloud as an extra strategy when revising.
2) What patterns or features in your composing process did you notice? How did you feel about the process of composing aloud? In what ways help or hinder your writing?
First, I should say I was very aware of the fact that I was recording myself, and the whole time I had this feeling that I had to rush. I don’t really know why, there was no real reason to do so.
When it comes to patterns, I made sure I read and understood the task, that I had read and understood both articles before I sat down to do the composing aloud, and also that I was open minded. I went back and forth between my ideas and the texts, I tried not to be silent too long, and I tried to even forget I was recording, which I think I did at the end of the task.
I noticed that composing aloud slows me down. I think I could have completed the response to both articles much faster if I didn’t have to talk.
I feel like I do talk to myself a lot while I write anyway, but in this case I felt pressure because someone else is going to listen to this!
I didn’t stop myself from speaking in my L1 when my brain wouldn’t go to English, which is something that happens often when composing. A certain connector or idea comes in Spanish and I have to write it down in Spanish or translate it in my mind before I can continue writing.
1) In my own definition composing aloud is the act of act of thinking and writing at the same time. In my life time I dint know how important think aloud is, usually I used to think aloud when I was reading my homework and text books and I never knew it was that important during writing. It has been easy to write in L2 since my brain and my hands are working together at the same time. In Yunguas article I have learnt that I have to be very strategic to plan ahead before writing. I will think critically before I put my ideas on the paper. Before I used to write without thinking about my writing twice or thrice. I will be able to search many articles and read a lot about the same topic and then compose through think aloud when writing. I agree with Fang that I can convince my students to think aloud before they write. This will help them be creative in many the exercise I give them in class.
ReplyDeleteAs a Second language teacher I have also learnt to be organized. I should have a good flow of ideas like one idea should come first before another idea and also to put the strong ideas first then other ideas can follow. Most of the papers I had written before where not well organized, but I hope I will be writing a better paper from now. I used to think in Swahili and then start translating it into English but when I was composing I had to think in English and write in English at the same time. I think it also helps to save time instead of wring and translating for one hour then it can take about 30min instead.
I learnt to focus on my writing. The situation of thinking, speaking and writing at the same time helped me to stay focused on the topic I am writing about. If I think and write I am easily destructed with cell phone, people moving around etc. I think I should be writing most of my papers using this method.
2) Think aloud is not simple but rather independent on a host of variables (Bowles, 2010, p.106). When I was composing my think aloud I had a lot of repletion of the same words. I was trying to disagree with the statement “home environment is more important to a child’s development than the school environment. I think it occurs due to memory decay. I kept repeating the phrase ‘parents do not have the skills that help a child grow compared to teachers.
I felt very confident during composing, I felt like I had a good flow of ideas. I tried to listen to the audio many times which made me think that it was very similar to my mom’s and sister’s voice. I told like my voice in audios and videos anyway. I think I have a very bad voice. Last semester I gave my students an assignment to write about a video they had watched before, some students came up with a very good flow of writing and others were still struggling. I think composing aloud would be good to improve their writing. This semester I will teach my students to think aloud hoping they will come up with good ideas. Even though my present students do not have a lot of writing tasks they can learn a few skills that they can apply for their homework and some class work.
The proses has helped my writing in many ways that I should first plan the topic I want to write about before writing about it. I hope when I keep practicing think aloud I will become so much better and comfortable. I won’t be stammering frequently as I did this time. I will also be able to write as frequently as possible not by taking a long time to think quietly.
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DeletePlakans (2008) focused on how reading-to-writing and writing-only tasks resulted in different strategies for test takers. I learned about the writing process and how it can be applied to reading-to-write test tasks. In terms of positioning, the reading-to-write tasks are more effective than writing-only tasks, and help plan and organize the writing content. Moreover, writers tended to reread their own work more often and be more interactive with reading texts, which helps to make inferences and have a better outcome. However, in the writing-only task, test-takers struggled with initial planning without resources, which can interfere with writing (e.g. a construct-irrelevant source). The finding of the study also related to my own experience in writing papers since reading previous research helps me develop the ideas and support my argument. The result of Plakans’s study also has an important implication in teaching writing or developing writing assessment because the different tasks resulted in different outcomes. I also think students’ reading ability would impact their writing skills depending on how they comprehend the reading texts.
DeleteFor this reason, teachers need to consider the difficulty of the assessment and the familiarity of the content when developing an assessment which is related to the component of validity and reliability of the test. This is especially true for a placement test taken by international students who have different language proficiencies. Teachers need to examine each student’s weaknesses to recognize which components of writing need to be improved.
Yanghuas & Lado (2012) found that fluency was not affected by verbalizing writing, but the accuracy was affected by thinking aloud. This study provided positive perspectives of the thinking-aloud method regarding accuracy, as did a previous study (Bowles, 2008), which found reactivity in the metalinguistic group (which uses thinking aloud method), but not in the non-metalinguistic group (without using thinking aloud method). This information can help ESL teachers create additional resources for student writers as well as develop their own lesson plans.
Both studies compare two groups with different conditions (control group vs. experimental group) to find out how the thinking-aloud method can be effective. In addition, they both provide various information regarding writing processes when composing two different assessment tasks, as well as discussing the positive influence of the thinking-aloud method and how it should be carefully considered in writing and teaching.
Thinking aloud while writing is not common in Asian culture, so I struggled with following the ideas and writing my thoughts as I said them aloud. I think cultural factors highly influence using this method. Even though I was not used to saying thinking processes aloud, I paused to brainstorm a plan and find a relationship between reading passages before writing anything down. At other times, I would pause my writing to focus on saying my thoughts out loud, which would enable me to focus more on the thinking process and how to organize arguments in my writing. While I often write down my thoughts without giving much consideration to the clarity of the language, speaking aloud helped me make sure that I was expressing my thoughts more clearly. I’ve also noticed that I make fewer grammar mistakes while thinking aloud because I tend to re-read more.
DeleteHowever, I struggled with both reading and writing because of the time limit as well as recall capacity since these articles have a similar overarching idea about the thinking-aloud method but their methods and analyses are very different. I felt quite burdened to keep speaking aloud while writing as I reached a conclusion in which I needed to consider both articles’s implications at the same time. I also think a person’s reading style and speaking style influence this procedure regardless of their L1 and L2. If someone is apt to verbal interaction, thinking aloud would be beneficial to their writing.
In this sense, the metacognitive process would also require a comprehension period. When the students are not proficient in their speaking and reading skills, thinking aloud makes students feel the burden, disrupts comprehension, and hinders a productive outcome.
Yanguas & Lado (2012) I have learn that Thinking aloud affects performance during a writing task. It occurred when think loud imposes a double burden on me as a participant that affects my ability to process language. I have to organize my ideas before I start the think aloud process and during writing it takes less time to write. As a second language learner I have a unique writing process which might not be very convincing but I try to make it understandable. A person who is learning this process tends to bring a lot of his personal experience in the think aloud process.
ReplyDeleteFrom Plakans I have learned that the activity that is given to students can determine their results. Students who have done activities that the teacher gives may have positive impacts of better performance compared to students who have not done the activity since they have no idea of how it should be. For example students are capable of learning a grammar activity on their own which can help them get good performance.
These articles I learnt to focus on my own writing. The situation of thinking and writing and speaking at the same time helps me to stay focused on the topic I am writing about. When I used to write without speaking it took me a long time to finish my work. But when am thinking and writing I am easily destructed with cell phone, unnecessary moment and loud voices etc. I think I should be writing most of my papers using think aloud method.