School of Languages and Linguistics - Theses
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ItemInvestigating writing development among secondary school learners of French( 2009)Writing is a fundamental skill that learners must develop as part of their second language education. The ability to construct coherent and cohesive texts in a written medium is considered essential to a high level of competence in a second language (L2). These skills are particularly important for learners in a classroom setting whose academic success is often reliant on demonstrating written proficiency in schoolwork and examinations. While there is an abundance of research into L2 writing among learners of English, comparatively few studies have investigated the development of writing in French. Moreover, the studies that do exist are based predominantly on samples of university and not secondary school students, leaving teachers and researchers with little insight into the nature of L2 French writing in the intermediate stages of classroom instruction. In order to redress this apparent imbalance, the present study seeks to trace the general development of writing among school-aged learners of French, with particular focus on improvement over time. Data analysis will concentrate not only on structural aspects of written composition including accuracy and complexity, but also on the discursive features of overall quality such as structure and organisation. These features have been shown in previous research to be significant indicators of a student’s level of written communicative competence. A longitudinal analysis of L2 French writing at the secondary-school level would inform teachers on the various ways in which learners’ writing develops and improves over time, thus facilitating classroom instruction. Consequently, the findings of the current study will be of particular interest to researchers and teachers of French, as well as make an important contribution to the field of second language acquisition (SLA) more generally.