Austrian Learner Corpus of Academic Writing
project title:
The Effect of Language in Idea Generation on Academic Texts
This project examines whether the choice of language used for generating ideas (L1 or target language English) has an influence on the quality of academic writing. Writing samples were collected from eight EFL students in Iran based on six writing prompts eliciting texts of approximately 160 words each. In a balanced design, the students produced texts for each of the six prompts either in the L1 (Persian) or the L2 (English) condition. In a first phase the focus is on the incidence of errors. The errors were identified by means of the Scope-Substance Error Taxonomy (Dobric & Sigott, 2014; Sigott, Cesnik & Dobric, 2016). The data were analysed for significant differences in the error incidence between the two language conditions. In a second phase the performances could be submitted to a rating procedure in order to quantify aspects of text which are not captured by the error taxonomy.
keywords : writing research, error taxonomy, process writing, role of language in idea generation
project lead: Günther Sigott, Ursula Doleschal
period: 01.02.2017 – 31.12.2020
project title:
The Effects of Written Feedback Types on Students’ Academic Texts
The aim of this pilot study is to examine how error type and feedback type influence the revision process of undergraduate writers. For the purpose of this study, text feedback was provided for eight essays, which were produced in a writing class for students who study English as a foreign language. Directive and non-directive feedback – differentiated by either providing or not providing students with suggestions for improvement – was distributed to an approximately equal extent. The revised texts were then compared to the draft versions in order to analyse the students’ reactions to the feedback instances. Errors which gave rise to feedback were described in terms of the Scope – Substance taxonomy (Sigott, Cesnik, & Dobrić, 2016). In this study, the focus is on Error Substance, i.e. the units of text that need to be modified, namely, text, paragraph, sentence, or word. The focus is on whether feedback is effective at all, and if so, whether there are differences in the effect of directive vs non-directive feedback, and whether the error type that gives rise to the feedback is related to the effectiveness of the feedback. In addition, reasons for non-responses to feedback are investigated.
keywords: writing research, error analysis, feedback, formative assessment
project lead: Günther Sigott
period: 01.06.2017 – 31.12.2019
project title:
TAW – Teaching Academic Writing
Was sind die Kerncharakteristika akademischen Schreibens im anglophonen Raum? Wie unterscheiden sich diese von Kulturmerkmalen deutschsprachiger Traditionen? Und wie lassen sich Studierende an österreichischen Universitäten an die englischsprachige Zielkultur heranführen? Zur Klärung dieser Fragen und zur folgenden Publikation wissenschaftlicher Abhandlungen und didaktischer Materialien kooperiert das Institut für Amerikanistik und Anglistik mit dem Partnerinstitut an der KFU Graz.
keywords: Schreibdidaktik, Unterrichtsforschung, Fremdsprachenlehre
project lead: Günther Sigott
period: 01.12.2013 – 31.01.2015
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