Writing is recognized as one of the most challenging tasks for students since it demands a highly complex process involving a number of cognitive and linguistic skills (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1986). The pre-writing stage of the composing process is e...
Writing is recognized as one of the most challenging tasks for students since it demands a highly complex process involving a number of cognitive and linguistic skills (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1986). The pre-writing stage of the composing process is especially a difficult stage in that writers must search memories, form concepts, organize ideas, while they juggle all the aspects of task purpose, audience and language itself (Flower & Hayes, 1980). The process is all the more challenging for EFL students, who are still struggling to gain control over a new language. Yet the pre-writing stage is very important because as the first step in the writing process it affects the whole writing process and often determines the success or failure of the students’compositions. Therefore, a strategy is needed to successfully undergo the prewriting process in order to produce a successful L2 final product. Using one’s mother tongue in prewriting process can be an effective strategy for EFL students so that they can reduce the burden of dealing with a number of cognitively demanding processes and get help from L1 knowledge. The study is, therefore, to compare the effects of native language use and target language use during prewriting activity on Korean middle school students’quality of L2 compositions and affective attitudes in order to determine which language (L1 or L2) is preferable for prewriting activities.
The participants of the study were 47 Korean middle school students divided into Korean and English prewriting groups, and a pretest and a writing test were conducted under the same condition for the both groups. Graphic organizers were chosen for a prewriting activity and the students were instructed to complete the prewriting activity using L1 or L2 for their groups before composing in the L2. After composing, a survey was carried out to investigate students’attitudes on the effects of the languages they used.
The findings of the study are as follows: Firstly, in the result of comparing the mean scores of pretest and posttest within a group and the scores of posttests between the groups, the Korean prewriting group showed a statistically significant improvement in organization of the posttest, and revealed near-statistically higher scores in content compared to the English prewriting group. Lacking in statistical significance, however, the Korean prewriting group’s writing scores not only had improved more than the English prewriting group but also exceeded the English prewriting group in the all evaluation areas of overall impression, content, organization, language use, and fluency.
Secondly, when comparing the scores’of the two experimental groups according to students’high and low L2 proficiencies, statistically significant differences were found within the organization scores of the low proficiency Korean prewriting group and within the content scores of the low proficiency English prewriting group, but there were no between-group differences statistically on the scores of both high proficiency groups and low proficiency groups. Leaving the statistical meanings aside, the scores of the Korean prewriting group turned out higher consistently than those of the English prewriting group in the all areas of evaluation, regardless of the students’proficiency. Besides, the gap between the scores of the two groups were especially higher in content both for high proficiency groups and low proficiency groups. Moreover, in the result of qualitative analysis of both groups’written products, the Korean prewriting group used to add more information based on their L1 plans and use multiple vocabularies as well as complex sentences. On the other hand, the English prewriting group tended to copy and combine the exact English sentences they made for their English planning, which resulted in rather poor content and organization with short and simple sentences.
Lastly, in the results of the responses from the questionnaire, the Korean prewriting group answered that using Korean during prewriting activity was helpful in terms of content with statistical significance. In addition, they responded more positively than the English prewriting group about helpfulness of L1 prewriting in organization and language use as well as about satisfaction, confidence, and necessity of the L1 use in prewriting activity regardless of L2 proficiency.
The results of the study suggests the positive effects of native language use during prewriting activities both on Korean middle school students’written products and affective domains. As an important cognitive resource, L1 can help particularly inexperienced L2 writers to generate ideas more fluently and concretely, and give them extra cognitive capacity to be used for the overall features of the text including content and organization not just for linguistic considerations. Therefore, it is highly recommended for teachers to acknowledge the instrumentality of L1 on L2 writing process and allow students to employ L1 strategically for the challenging task of L2 writing.
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