The Developmental Pattern of Japanese EFL Student Writers

抄録

The present study examines the relative difficulties that Japanese EFL university students have in producing essays in four different modes - narration, description, exposition, and argumentation - and by doing so, the study attempts to explore the developmental pattern that EFL student writers are expected to undergo. The students' essays in the four modes were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The results of the analysis revealed that narration and description are easier types of writing for Japanese EFL students, whereas argumentation is a mode that is more difficult to achieve. The numeral statistical analysis as well as in-depth sample analysis disclosed that the students seemed to have difficulty making a transition from the "knowledge-telling" model to the "knowledge-transforming" model of writing, proposed by Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987). The students' argumentative essays tended to lack logical consistency, rational reasoning, and an objective point of view. The study argues the importance of encouraging the students to notice several differences between subjective and objective types of writing and of helping the students develop their academic writing skills to produce argumentation of better quality, which is an earmark of successful writing performance expected in a Japanese EFL context.