| While continuation writing enjoys solid theoretical and empirical support,it faces a general problem,that is,to ensure the strong alignment and thus high efficiency in promoting L2 learning.The present study attempts to apply languaging to continuation writing to address this problem.The preset study investigated the effect of languaging(Swain 2006)on Chinese EFL learners’ alignment in performing the iterative continuation writing task(Wang2018).It specifically took oral languaging as the treatment to investigate what kinds of alignment learners would report in their languaging and whether oral languaging could improve learners’ alignment in iterative continuation writing.Three research questions were addressed:(1)What types of alignment do languaging students report in their oral languaging about iterative continuation writing?(2)Do languaging students perform differently from non-languaging students on alignment in iterative continuation writing? If yes,how?(3)How do languaging students’ alignment develop differently from that of non-languaging students over time in iterative continuation writing?To answer the three research questions,the researcher invited 4 Chinese EFL learners in senior high school to participate in the study.The 4 students were equally divided into languaging participants and non-languaging participants.All 4participants were required to perform iterative continuation writing over 15 days.The languaging participants orally language the alignment in their continuation writing each day,with their languaging being recorded,whereas the non-languaging participants briefly compared their continuation writing with the input text on completion of the writing task each day.The languaging participants’ languaging data were analyzed in terms of focus while all four participants’ written continuations were analyzed in terms of linguistic alignment and error frequency in response to the research questions.Based on data analysis,three major findings were achieved:(1)The two languaging participants mainly focused on content,style,and language in their oral languaging about alignment.For content,they languaged more about plots than characters.Regarding style,they languaged almost equally about descriptions and dialogues.In terms of language,they reported more alignment on phrases and clauses,than lexis and grammar.(2)The languaging participants manifested superior alignment effect at the linguistic level but not in terms of error frequency as they produced significantly more linguistic alignments(especially linguistic alignment at the phrasal level)but not significantly fewer errors than the non-languaging participants did.(3)When examining the alignment during three time periods,both languaging participants and non-languaging participants experienced a decline in linguistic alignment from Period 1 to Period 2,but the languaging participants exhibits an increase from Period 2 to Period 3,whereas the non-languaging participants remained relatively unchanged from Period 2 to Period 3.Regarding error frequency,the languaging participants had a significant decline on error frequency from P1 to P2,and from P1 to P3 as well,whereas the non-languaging participants had a slight decrease and no significant differences were found over the three time periods.The study can provide at least two implications for Chinese EFL teaching and learning.First,languaging could be used to enhance the alignment in continuation writing.Second,continuation writing accompanied by languaging may be a favourable approach to promoting learners’ writing accuracy. |
