Six writers in search of texts: A protocol-based study of L1 and L2 writing

Following the change of focus in much recent writing research from composition to composing, a number of studies have attempted to probe the second-language writing processes of EFUESL students. However, few comparative investigations of writing processes in the first and second languages have been published to date. This article reports one such exploratory study of the composing activities of six Chinese postgraduate EFL students as they produced academic written texts in both their first (Chinese) and foreign (English) languages. Two findings are discussed. First while the composing activities of each individual writer were found to remain consistent across languages, there was considerable variation among the writers in their approach to the task of producing written text. Second, a limited awareness of the nature of the task was a common source of difficulty in both languages: there was neither adequate awareness of the nature of written language and the demands its production makes upon the writer, nor was there sufficient exploitation of the creative nature of the activity of writing itself. Finally, some implications of these findings for the teaching of writing at this level are considered.