Complex Dynamic Systems Theory and L2 Writing Development (Language Learning & Language Teaching) 9027205574, 9789027205575

Citation preview

Language Learning & Language Teaching

Complex Dynamic Systems Theory and L2 Writing Development

Edited by Gary G. Fogal Marjolijn H. Verspoor

John Benjamins Publishing Company

54

Complex Dynamic Systems Theory and L2 Writing Development

Language Learning & Language Teaching (LL<) issn 1569-9471 The LL< monograph series publishes monographs, edited volumes and text books on applied and methodological issues in the field of language pedagogy. The focus of the series is on subjects such as classroom discourse and interaction; language diversity in educational settings; bilingual education; language testing and language assessment; teaching methods and teaching performance; learning trajectories in second language acquisition; and written language learning in educational settings. For an overview of all books published in this series, please see benjamins.com/catalog/lllt

Editors Nina Spada

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto

Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl Center for Language Study Yale University

Volume 54 Complex Dynamic Systems Theory and L2 Writing Development Edited by Gary G. Fogal and Marjolijn H. Verspoor

Complex Dynamic Systems Theory and L2 Writing Development Edited by

Gary G. Fogal Sophia University

Marjolijn H. Verspoor University of Groningen & University of Pannonia

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia

8

TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

doi 10.1075/lllt.54 Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from Library of Congress: lccn 2020011993 isbn 978 90 272 0557 5 (Hb) isbn 978 90 272 0558 2 (Pb) isbn 978 90 272 6114 4 (e-book)

© 2020 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Company · https://benjamins.com

Table of contents

Foreword Diane Larsen-Freeman Introduction Gary G. Fogal and Marjolijn H. Verspoor

vii ix

Part I.  CAF perspectives Chapter 1 Exploring dynamic developmental trajectories of writing fluency: Who benefited from the writing task? Kyoko Baba Chapter 2 Coordination of linguistic subsystems as a sign of automatization? Junping Hou, Hanneke Loerts and Marjolijn H. Verspoor Chapter 3 The dynamic co-development of linguistic and discourse-semantic complexity in advanced L2 writing Yu Wang and Shoucun Tao

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49

Part II.  New constructs, approaches, and domains Chapter 4 Adaptive imitation: Formulaicity and the words of others in L2 English academic writing Susy Macqueen and Ute Knoch Chapter 5 Profiling the dynamic changes of syntactic complexity in L2 academic writing: A multilevel synchrony method R. Rosmawati Chapter 6 Biographical retrodiction for investigating the evolution of learner agency and L2 writing development through study abroad experiences Ryo Nitta

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109

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Complex Dynamic Systems Theory and L2 Writing Development

Part III.   Methodological perspectives Chapter 7 The elusive phase shift: Capturing changes in L2 writing development and interaction between the cognitive and social ecosystems Elizabeth Hepford Chapter 8 Investigating complexity in L2 writing with mixed methods approaches Alex Gilmore and Gabriela Adela Gánem-Gutiérrez Chapter 9 A critical appraisal of the CDST approach to investigating linguistic complexity in L2 writing development Bram Bulté and Alex Housen

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Part IV.  Curricular perspectives Chapter 10 Envisioning L2 writing development in CDST under a curricular optic: A proposal Heidi Byrnes Chapter 11 Unpacking ‘simplex systems’: Curricular thinking for L2 writing development Gary G. Fogal

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271

List of contributors

295

Index

299

Foreword Diane Larsen-Freeman University of Michigan

The editors of this volume, Gary Fogal and Marjolijn Verspoor, have compiled eleven impressive chapters, authored by international scholars, pairing Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST) with second language writing development. The application of CDST to investigate the development of writing makes a good deal of sense. With its ecological ontology and its holistic, relational systems orientation, CDST is ideally suited to study the multidimensionality of development or change in context. In addition, CDST’s attention to the agency of the individual, as determined by the individual’s perception of second order affordances, is in keeping with the agentive role of the writer. While other theories and studies have taken on board one or more of these characteristics, it is the distinctive combination of them that is CDST’s profile and strength. Then, too, of all the skills that are instructed, at least at the tertiary level, writing warrants the most attention. There is a good reason for this. It is the one skill that needs to be taught – it is not easily “picked up,” at least at the level of literacy that is societally sanctioned. This is true of L1 language users, too, of course. Writing also entails a process, which again is consistent with the processual nature of complex systems. The study of complex systems typically uses a longitudinal case-based approach to chronicle a process – at one time (such as when moment-by-moment composing is taking place) and over time (such as what develops over the course of an instructional period). Of course, researchers who adopt CDST are not uniquely qualified to study writing; nevertheless, as the chapters in this book make clear, CDST offers a more nuanced, yet deeper, account of writing than some. This book is rich with insights into individual differences, the developmental process, and a broader view of the explanandum than what pioneering studies of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) have embraced to date. It also discusses many of the patterns that are familiar to CDST researchers: nonlinearity in developmental trajectories, both inter-individual and intra-individual variability, intersecting subsystems, adaptive imitation, phase shifts, nested levels of scale, and the unpredictability of the evolving system. In its support for and critique of CDST, it also makes a considerable

viii Diane Larsen-Freeman

contribution to the ontological and epistemology of CDST, the latter through such means as multilevel synchrony, simplex thinking, and system mapping – contributions that are highly desirable at this point in the development of this new theory. The volume is rich enough that readers will find their own points of interest. Indeed, it is not my prerogative as author of the foreword to review each chapter, as much as I would like to do. Instead, simply as an illustration of the richness of this volume, let me offer a few thoughts that have been prompted by my reading. One is that I believe that the research reported on in several chapters endorses, for adult learners, Smith et al.’s (2018) powerful CDST claim that infants create their own curriculum for learning. In addition, several chapters have the potential to improve the teaching of writing, thus exemplifying ethically responsible research. Then, too, I appreciate the call of several authors to expand the investigatory reach of CDST beyond the CAF of linguistic subsystems. Although well-known to CDST researchers, I was also struck by how helpful visual displays of learner performance data are. I have gone on record several times in suggesting that scholarly advances are jointly constructed through engagement with others. This book is a fine example of the value of such engagement as it pertains to the development of second language writing. For this reason, the editors and authors are to be congratulated for their role in contributing to the ongoing conversation and their commitment to CDST.

Reference Smith, L. B., Jayaraman, S., Clerkin, E., & Yu, C. (2018). The developing infant creates a curriculum for statistical learning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22(4), 325–336. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2018.02.004

Introduction Gary G. Fogali and Marjolijn H. Verspoorii,iii

iSophia

University / iiUniversity of Groningen / iiiUniversity of Pannonia

This work is the first edited volume to bring together complex dynamic systems theory (CDST) and L2 writing research. This perspective is achieved through a thematic collection of in-depth studies across a range of writing constructs, learning contexts, and second and foreign languages. This work also expands how L2 writing is investigated and provides an innovative perspective on development for writing scholars to pursue – an avenue that can further shed light on how L2 writers develop while simultaneously maximizing the impact CDST can have on both understanding L2 writing development and aiding learners to progress with their writing. In doing so, this body of work addresses the need for CDST to examine language development and language constructs in detail and beyond expositions on the applicability and utility of the theory itself. Doing so, we believe, will broaden the scope of CDST’s contribution to understanding how individuals develop an additional language, especially in the written mode. In this introduction, we first review the basic tenets of a CDST approach and explain why especially L2 writing lends itself to such close developmental scrutiny. The primary drive of applying CDST to human development is the underlying assumption that there is no prescribed, predetermined path of development; rather, developmental paths emerge through the interaction of many internal (biological, psychological, and genetic) and external (physical and social) sub-systems, and as Thelen and Smith (1994) underscore, development is not as “predictable” as it looks. The grand sweep of development seems neatly rule-driven. In detail, however, development is messy. As we turn up the magnification of our microscope, we see that our visions of linearity, uniformity, inevitable sequencing, and even irreversibility break down. What looks like a cohesive, orchestrated process afar takes on the flavor or a more exploratory, opportunistic, syncretic, and function-driven process in its instantiation. Thelen & Smith, 1994, p. xvi

https://doi.org/10.1075/lllt.54.int © 2020 John Benjamins Publishing Company

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Gary G. Fogal and Marjolijn H. Verspoor

We believe that language is intrinsically a complex dynamic system1 (Ellis & Larsen-Freeman, 2009; Langacker, 2000) consisting of many different subsystems – ranging from phonological to discourse levels of language use – that are interconnected and that affect each other over time. Given this understanding of language and the view that development is a dynamic process, we expect that learners develop through individually owned trajectories and that different subsystems develop at different levels of proficiency. Trying to learn an additional language is a dynamic process in which different (embedded) subsystems are noticed, practiced, and mastered longitudinally. Herein, development – which can be defined as change (progress or regress) over time – depends on the availability of resources (De Bot, Lowie, & Verspoor, 2007). In the context of language learning and use, such resources include external factors such as a learner’s language environment (e.g., instructed or not instructed, amount of exposure, and meaningful use) and internal factors such as aptitude, current level of proficiency, and attentional capacity (De Bot & Larsen-Freeman, 2011). Resources propel development, but they are also limited and may need to be distributed over different competing or complementary subsystems that are themselves growing (van Geert, 2008), thus contributing to the dynamics informing language learning processes. As with many approaches to second language development research, L2 development can be studied in many modes (e.g., oral or written), at unique linguistic levels (e.g., phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, and generic), and with many different variables. From a CDST perspective, such investigations frequently require multiple data points to analyze – preferably in some numerical form – to capture change over time. Within this context, then, it is not surprising that L2 writing has become such a prolific object of study given that large datasets of written samples can be relatively easy to collect and analyze, often with the help of corpus tools. Moreover, L2 writing has been studied from a great number of frameworks with different theoretical and practical perspectives that offer clearly defined countable constructs that lend themselves to be traced over time. In CDST L2 writing research, the natural companion thus far has been the complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) framework, probably because Norris and Ortega (2009) clearly pointed to their interconnection: CAF measures do not remain constant over time and are not collinear. Norris and Ortega claimed that the CAF triad is multivariate and dynamic and is therefore best understood integratively 1. Many terms are used to describe what is basically the same theory, including Complex Adaptive System or Dynamic Systems Theory. At a conference in Nottingham (2014) on the dynamics of motivation, several experts agreed that the term Complex Dynamic System was a meaningful compromise.

Introduction xi

and across a full developmental trajectory. They argued that the variability found in studies on information processing theory (DeKeyser, 2007; Robinson, 2005; Skehan, 2003) was usually attributed to inter-individual differences in learner abilities or task requirements, but within a CDST framework variability within individuals was seen as the motor of development (Larsen-Freeman, 2006; De Bot et al., 2007). Therefore, Norris and Ortega advocated integrating CAF studies with more dynamic descriptions as in Larsen-Freeman (2006) and with more focus on items not usually covered in CAF research such as lexis, formulae, and morphology. Recently, there has also been a strong call to add functional adequacy (Kuiken & Vedder, 2017) or idiomaticity and coherence (Hou, Verspoor, & Loerts, 2016) to the framework, as well as other aspects at the discourse level (see Fogal, 2019, on authorial voice) and the sociolinguistic level (see Nitta & Baba, 2015, regarding learner agency and motivation). Thus far, the combination of CDST, the extended CAF framework, and research on L2 writing development has led to quite a few useful insights – for one, the non-linearity of development and the uniqueness of individual learner trajectories – complementing findings in group studies, but also refuting highly predictable trajectories for any individual. There is no need to review this body of work here, as most studies in the current book discuss relevant findings and add their own, or as in the case of Bulté and Housen (this volume), critically review them. However, as Byrnes (this volume) notes, within this framework attention has been rather limited to the linguistic subsystem, which of course cannot be seen separately from its communicative functions and learning context (as numerous chapters in this volume address explicitly), and we hope her suggestions and those of others in this work will lead to CDST studies also taking into account external resources that inform L2 writing development. Concerning the present volume, the studies published herein have been divided across four themes, presenting readers with a unique and interrelated tour of meaningful issues relevant to L2 writing scholarship as viewed through the lens of CDST. To this end, the first three chapters present CAF perspectives, and address conventional approaches to aspects of the CAF triad that, partly through case studies, shed light on how language systems develop. The second set of chapters expands this viewpoint and explores new constructs, approaches, and domains of related L2-writing scholarship, offering fresh insights into familiar research contexts. Readers are then introduced to methodological issues. Through critique and sample studies, readers are asked to reflect on more precise ways of capturing, analyzing, and presenting data in ways that clearly represent the epistemology of a CDST approach to exploring language change. The final chapters focus on curricular perspectives, advocating that researchers pursue a whole system understanding of L2

xii Gary G. Fogal and Marjolijn H. Verspoor

writing development that moves beyond individual writers and classroom contexts. The chapters informing these thematic divisions are next outlined in some detail. To begin the focus on CAF perspectives, in Chapter 1 Kyoko Baba’s exploratory study examines nearly 3,000 timed narrative writing samples and accompanying reflective comments composed over one academic year by 105 Japanese university students studying English. As an underdeveloped method in the literature to date, the study takes a mixed-methods approach to understanding development and explores the developmental trajectories of learners by employing individual growth curve modeling, and then through case studies of different sets of learners (highand low-growth performers) explores characteristics of each group. Baba’s study pursues a recent line of enquiry (one that Bulté and Housen, this volume, comment on extensively in Chapter 9) on a single component of the CAF framework (namely, fluency) and as only one of few longitudinal studies of L2 development that compares numerous developmental trajectories in a classroom setting, sheds light on how task iteration positions learners to reflect on and take action – what Schön (1987) refers to as reflection in action – to improve their L2 writing. Similar to Baba’s comparison of high- and low-growth learners within the CAF framework, Chapter 2 focuses on comparing learners with distinct learning outcomes: a learner who makes meaningful progress in her L2 writing, and one who does not. In Chapter 2, Junping Hou, Hanneke Loerts, and Marjolijn Verspoor retrodictively explore differences in the writing development of writers who made distinct progress. Using visual graphs (LOESS curves), Monte Carlo analyses, and correlational analyses they demonstrate that the stronger learner showed somewhat synchronous development across a series of linguistic measures related to the CAF triad (also including idiomaticity and coherence) while the same measures in the weaker learner showed competitive development. Their findings contribute insights into how whole language systems (i.e., linguistic systems) develop and are coordinated in different ways at different proficiency levels, hinting at a required degree of automatization with advanced learners. Herein, Chapter 2 provides a path forward for future studies aimed at examining how the linguistic systems of advanced L2 writers develop. The work of Yu Wang and Shoucun Tao in Chapter 3 continues to engage with CAF constructs but pushes the limits of this framework by bringing attention to and calling for a wider exploratory lens that includes, for example, a meaning-making dimension. In their study, this added attention is informed by a focus on discourse semantics, operationalized through the construct of grammatical metaphor. They too, like Hou et al. (Chapter 2) and then Nitta (Chapter 6), explore L2 writing development by examining change through case studies of two focal participants. Through numerous analyses typical of CDST-framed research (e.g., min-max graphs and change-point analyses), Wang and Tao document a series

Introduction xiii

of findings highlighting variability around changes from a dynamic, verb- and clause-dominated style of academic writing to a synoptic, noun-dominated style of expression. Their work contributes insights into how L2 complexity develops in advanced L2 writers in ways that combine complex forms and meaning. In Chapter 4 and reflecting a thematic shift in this section of the volume, Susy Macqueen and Ute Knoch move away from the CAF framework and explore other interests in L2 writing research. Specifically, Macqueen and Knoch present work on adaptive imitation and formulacity across a pair of studies. The first study is a cross-sectional discourse analysis of writing samples from 480 test-takers while the second reports on findings from a longitudinal case study focused on the use of source texts and lexical combinations by one L2 writer. Macqueen and Knoch’s work sheds light on stages of academic writing development across proficiency levels, highlighting patterns of verbatim imitation that are both a developmental phenomenon and that are flexible, yet reliant on patterns of writers from source-based texts. Moreover, the authors suggest that as writers develop they express source material by interweaving words from sources with their own already internalized language chunks in ways that are increasingly representative of disciplinary norms, thus emphasizing a highly agentive process of adaptive imitation that facilitates both content knowledge and writing development, the latter also reflected in a later chapter in this section by Nitta (Chapter 6). In Chapter 5, Rosmawati expands related CAF discussions – from both previous chapters and earlier work in the literature (e.g., Bulté & Housen, 2014, 2018; Yoon, 2017) – through a case study addressing the feature of nestedness in the writing of one advanced learner of English. Specifically, Rosmawati employs a multilevel synchrony method to map subconstructs informing syntactic complexity at phrasal, clausal, and sentential levels and the impact of changes across nested levels, highlighting a new approach to mapping change in learner writing. Her analysis provides descriptions of concurrent variation in multiple subconstructs and displays how a multilevel synchrony method can visually trace the origins of change and in some instances the drivers of development. Using the multilevel synchrony method, Rosmawati’s work demonstrates how subsystems are interrelated, revealing interconnected, nested components of L2 writing development that are consistent with a CDST perspective on language change. In Chapter 6, Ryo Nitta introduces readers for the first time to biographical retrodiction, a style of retrodictive analysis grounded in learner narratives that span long-term language learning experiences – in this case, from learners’ first formal encounters with English as a foreign language in elementary school through to their present university experiences and their forward-thinking future selves. Through case studies of two study abroad students, Nitta’s work documents detailed accounts of critical psychosocial events (i.e., events of deep importance to the storyteller) that

xiv Gary G. Fogal and Marjolijn H. Verspoor

impact L2 learning. In doing so, Chapter 6 addresses how meaningful life events inform agency and how agency itself manifests and guides language learning and, specifically, L2 writing development. Nitta’s work also underscores the benefit of biographical retrodiction as a tool for capturing agency holistically as it applies to understanding changes in L2 writing. With its attention to methods in the form of biographical retrodiction, the theme of the subsequent three chapters begins where Nitta’s Chapter 6 ends: a focus on methodological concerns. In Chapter 7 Elizabeth Hepford addresses phase shifts in detail, a pattern of developmental behaviour that, she argues, remains underexplored in L2 writing research. She emphasizes the utility of phase shift analyses for highlighting moments of meaningful change in L2 writers’ developmental trajectories and outlines their usefulness for revealing control parameters. This chapter also describes difficulties involved in doing phase shift analyses. Hepford focuses her review of recent CDST-inspired scholarship by discussing the few studies that have foregrounded phase shift analysis as well as studies where the inclusion of such analyses may have contributed meaningfully to understanding changes in L2 writing. In doing so, Hepford calls for extended attention to cognitive and social ecosystems informing L2 writing processes and demonstrates how attention to said systems through the lens of phase shifts may aid our understanding of how fluctuation informs changes in writing development. Chapter 8 continues the focus on approaches to researching L2 writing and provides a firsthand account of mixed methods research in the CDST context. Alex Gilmore and Gabriela Adela Gánem-Gutiérrez first consider concerns related to collecting sufficient meaningful data that captures the dynamic interconnectedness of composing processes (i.e., of CDST research that requires attention to multilevel interactions of a wide-ranging collection of variables across cognitive and social ecosystems – something that Hepford too, in Chapter 7, calls attention to) and then positions mixed methods research as well-suited to address these demands. In addition to outlining the benefits of such an approach, Gilmore and Gánem-Gutiérrez detail the difficulties of engaging with mixed methods research – specifically from a CDST perspective – by reviewing and providing a personal account of their own experiences researching and publishing on L2 writing using mixed methods. This chapter sheds light on related concerns and provides meaningful rationale and direction for CDST scholars interested in a mixed method approach to investigating L2 writing development. In Chapter 9, the final chapter dedicated to methodological perspectives, Bram Bulté and Alex Housen provide a critical appraisal of CDST L2 writing scholarship that focuses primarily on the linguistic complexity feature of the CAF framework – an appraisal that readers may see as applicable to other CDST research that explores L2 writing and beyond. In their work, Bulté and Housen first review recent and

Introduction xv

relevant studies and describe concerns as well as solutions to challenges facing researchers in the present context. They then go on to describe a dataset from a conventional and then CDST approach, highlighting how and in what ways CDST can meaningfully contribute to moving L2 writing scholarship forward. Their work underscores concerns that are typical of embracing a new epistemology – and importantly, one that requires new ways of doing – and in this light this chapter offers a welcomed critique of the field. In one final thematic turn, Chapter 10 and Chapter 11 focus primarily on curricular perspectives. In Chapter 10, Heidi Byrnes develops a forward-thinking position that calls for CDST scholarship on L2 writing to broaden how it conceptualizes time and change beyond its recent near exclusive focus on linguistic subsystems. Herein, Byrnes proposes curriculum, a subconstruct of education systems, as a meaningful construct able to capture concerns related to long-term change and how L2 writers develop. Byrnes develops her narrative through a series of six propositions and suggests simplex systems, developed further in Chapter 11, as a useful exploratory tool for capturing the dynamics of curricula aimed at additional language development. Her work provides theoretical, empirical, and pedagogical implications for how research framed by a curricular lens and embedded in a CDST framework can potentially offer great benefit for L2 writers over the long term. In the volume’s last chapter, Gary Fogal takes up Brynes’ call from Chapter 10 and operationalizes simplex systems as part of an exploratory case study investigating L2 writing development in a single curricular framework at a university in Thailand. Chapter 11 demonstrates, through system maps generated from various stakeholders, how different structures and mechanisms in an actuary science program contribute to maintaining and enhancing program-wide variables that support L2 literacy development, with a focus on L2 writing. In tandem with Chapter 10, then, Fogal emphasizes the utility of simplex systems thinking and system mapping as tools for exploring how writing development is envisioned across curricula, and provides direction for future studies interested in examining the teaching and learning of writing and how they can be fostered longitudinally at the curricular level. In summary and beyond its thematic description, particular features of this edited volume also include its attention to (a) research that employs retrodictive models of analysis, an approach not yet developed in L2 writing studies, (b) unique and complementary perspectives on synchronicity and developing writing systems, (c) useful critical critiques of the difficulty researching complex dynamic systems in L2 writing contexts, specifically with attention to research methods, datasets, objects of enquiry, and contributions to enhancing spaces where L2 writing develops, and (d) avenues for addressing some of these concerns and attempts to do so. While the initial chapters of this volume bolster understandings of how CAF constructs

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develop, the collected works also provide a fresh perspective on researching L2 writing and outline new avenues for the application of CDST to L2 writing research. We hope, then, that the chapters and features thus described and detailed in the following pages provide meaningful insights into how L2 writing processes unfold and how they are (and can be) conceptualized and researched.

References Bulté, B., & Housen, A. (2014). Conceptualizing and measuring short-term changes in L2 writing complexity. Journal of Second Language Writing, 26(1), 42–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2014.09.005 Bulté, B., & Housen, A. (2018). Syntactic complexity in L2 writing: Individual pathways and emerging group trends. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 28(1), 147–164. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijal.12196 De Bot, K., & Larsen-Freeman, D. (2011). Researching second language development from a dynamic systems theory perspective. In A dynamic approach to second language development (pp. 5–24). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  https://doi.org/10.1075/lllt.29.01deb De Bot, K., Lowie, W. M., & Verspoor, M. H. (2007). A dynamic systems theory approach to second language acquisition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 10(1), 7–21. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728906002732 DeKeyser, R. (2007). Skill acquisition theory. In B. VanPatten & J. Wiliams (Eds.), Theories in second language acquisition (pp. 97–113). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Ellis, N. C., & Larsen-Freeman, D. (2009). Language as a complex adaptive system. Language Learning, 59(Suppl. 1), 1–26.  https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2009.00533.x Fogal, G. G. (2019). Tracking microgenetic changes in authorial voice development from a complexity theory perspective. Applied Linguistics, 40(3), 432–455. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amx031 Hou, J., Verspoor, M., & Loerts, H. (2016). An exploratory study into the dynamics of Chinese L2 writing development. Dutch Journal of Applied Linguistics, 5(1), 65–96. https://doi.org/10.1075/dujal.5.1.04loe Kuiken, F., & Vedder, I. (2017). Functional adequacy in L2 writing: Towards a new rating scale. Language Testing, 34(3), 321–336.  https://doi.org/10.1177/0265532216663991 Langacker, R. W. (2000). A dynamic usage-based model. In M. Barlow & S. Kemmer (Eds.), Usage-based models of language (pp. 1–63). Stanford, CA: CSLI. Larsen-Freeman, D. (2006). The emergence of complexity, fluency, and accuracy in the oral and written production of five Chinese learners of English. Applied Linguistics, 27, 590–619. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/aml029 Nitta, R., & Baba, K. (2015). Self-regulation in the evolution of the ideal L2 self: A complex dynamic systems approach to the L2 motivational system. In Z. Dörnyei, P. D. MacIntyre, & A. Henry (Eds.), Motivational dynamics in language learning (pp. 164–194). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Norris, J. M., & Ortega, L. (2009). Towards an organic approach to investigating CAF in instructed SLA: The case of complexity. Applied linguistics, 30(4), 555–578. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amp044

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Robinson, P. (2005). Aptitude and second language acquisition. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 25, 46–73.  https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190505000036 Schön, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley. Skehan, P. (2003). Task based instruction. Language Teaching, 36, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1017/S026144480200188X Thelen, E., & Smith, L. B. (1994). A dynamic systems approach to the development of cognition and action. Cambridge, MA: A Bradford Book of The MIT Press. van Geert, P. (2008). The dynamic systems approach in the study of L1 and L2 acquisition: An introduction. Modern Language Journal, 92, 179–199. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2008.00713.x Yoon, H. J. (2017). Linguistic complexity in L2 writing revisited: Issues of topics, proficiency, and construct multidimensionality. System, 66, 130–141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2017.03.007

Part I

CAF perspectives

Chapter 1

Exploring dynamic developmental trajectories of writing fluency Who benefited from the writing task? Kyoko Baba

Kinjo Gakuin University

This study investigates the developmental trajectories of L2 writing fluency in 105 university students when the same task procedure was repeatedly used in a classroom setting throughout an academic year. The students wrote a timed narrative composition in their English L2 along with reflective writing in their L1 Japanese every week. Individual growth curve modeling revealed that their writing fluency increased over a year, but the rate of change varied significantly from person to person. Case analyses of high- and low-growth performers suggested that the former seemed to benefit more from task iteration, and actions that showed reflection in action and a positive attitude toward the task may have contributed to increased growth. Keywords: developmental trajectories, writing fluency, task iteration, individual growth curve modeling, L2 writing

Introduction Are there differences in the developmental patterns of different L2 learners? The answer depends on the perspective and epistemology of the respondent. For example, Chan, Verspoor, and Vahtrick (2015), taking a complex dynamic systems theory (CDST) perspective, showed notable differences in the developmental processes of syntactic complexity in a pair of identical twins’ speaking and writing in an L2. Their results echo those of Larsen-Freeman (2006), who demonstrated that the L2 speaking and writing proficiencies of five immigrant learners in the United States followed different developmental paths. In contrast, Vercellotti (2017), for example, investigated the longitudinal oral language performance of 66 ESL learners from a cognitive perspective. She used hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) and claimed that the learners showed “generally shared paths to development” (p. 104) because https://doi.org/10.1075/lllt.54.01bab © 2020 John Benjamins Publishing Company

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the statistical results did not support separate developmental paths. She does not cite recent CDST studies, including Chan et al. (2015), but criticizes Larsen-Freeman’s (2006) study on the grounds that “no statistical analysis was completed to determine if there was any significant individual CAF development” (p. 105). However, this line of discussion between these two different models of development (dynamic and complex versus linear and reductionist) seems rather fruitless. Both perspectives address what they see as the truth, but the angle or level at which they view the object is simply different. A more meaningful question to ask is not whether there are differences in learners’ developmental trajectories, but whether we should choose to delve into the differences and whether we should regard them as meaningful. Thus, what is considered meaningful varies depending on the researcher’s epistemology. The present study attempts, from a CDST perspective, to understand complex and dynamic individual learner development in a classroom setting. What is meaningful here are research implications that will contribute to understanding varied learning trajectories peculiar to individual students. The study employs a similar statistical method as Vercellotti’s (2017) work, but the purpose and interpretation are different. Vercellotti concluded that L2 learners generally shared a path of development, even though she found significant inter-individual variation, for example, in the rate of change in oral fluency. If we accept her conclusion, the implication may be that L2 proficiency will develop more or less in the same way regardless of differences in various factors like learner and teacher characteristics and learning contexts. If this were the case, instructors could simply teach the best method that should be effective for every student, giving learners a supportive push on a universal developmental path. However, this implication does not pair with the reality of complex classroom contexts, as other researchers discuss (e.g., see Byrnes, this volume, and Fogal, this volume). An example of the complex reality is shown by Nguyen and Larsen-Freeman (2018), who highlight cases that deviate from the pattern that statistical results support. They investigated changes in how 30 ESL graduate students acquired formulaic sequences. The methodology they used was positivistic; that is, they randomly classified the participants into three conditions including treatment and control groups, and they compared their performances with a pre-/post-test design and statistical tests. They found that the treatment improved the learners’ knowledge of formulaic sequences in a statistically significant way. However, they also reported that a few learners in both the treatment and control groups deviated from the other participants in the same group: those in the control group acquired formulaic sequences effectively without any treatment, while those in the treatment group “did not seem to have benefited from instruction” (p. 182). These outliers may be



Chapter 1.  Exploring dynamic developmental trajectories

statistically negligible, but understanding their behavior is crucial for teachers who wonder why some students develop their L2 proficiency to a greater extent than others, while some seem to end in failure despite engaging in the same tasks. Yet, in an instructed context this individual difference in developmental patterns is often neglected in positivistic research. This exploratory study engages the underdeveloped understanding of individual differences in developmental patterns in classroom contexts. It will examine, by means of Individual Growth Curve (IGC) modeling, whether more than 100 learners, engaging in the same task procedure (timed narrative writing and reflective writing) in a university classroom over an academic year, show different degrees of development in writing fluency. This work will then compare high-and low-growth performers regarding whether significant changes occurred in their development, and will describe how the students in the two groups engaged with the task procedure. The study thus adopts a mixed-method approach, quantitatively investigating both the general tendency with statistical analyses and qualitatively analyzing learners’ compositions and reflective comments.

Research on patterns of changes in L2 writing To trace the developmental trajectory of individual learners, longitudinal and multi-wave research is indispensable. Yet, such research is rare in L2 writing, except for some qualitative case studies (e.g., Kobayashi & Rinnert, 2013; McCarthey, Guo, & Cummins, 2005; Weissberg, 1998). Recently, CDST studies have begun to investigate the developmental trajectories of complexity, accuracy, and fluency in writing (e.g., a series of studies conducted by Verspoor and her colleagues, such as Spoelman & Verspoor, 2010 and Verspoor, Lowie, & van Dijk, 2008, as well as Baba & Nitta, 2014), and others have traced different aspects of L2 writing such as formulaic sequences (Verspoor & Smiskova, 2012) and authorial voice (Fogal, 2019a, 2019b). These studies yielded significant findings in L2 writing development pertaining to how individual learners changed their ways of writing. However, most of these CDST studies have focused on small cases, and it is difficult to know whether and how these cases are the same or different from many others. For example, Baba and Nitta (2014) conducted a case study focusing on two students and found that the students had some similarities and differences in the way they developed writing fluency. Both of them experienced at least two-phase shifts in their development, but their timing and magnitude were different (see Hepford, this volume, concerning a detailed account of phase shifts). It was unknown, however, whether such phase shifts are common or uncommon with other students doing the same task procedure.

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In addition, a few other studies analyzed developmental trajectories in L2 writing both at the individual and group levels (Bulté & House, 2017; Nitta & Baba, 2014, 2018; Vyatkina, 2012). For instance, Nitta and Baba (2018) focused on two students and traced their writing development coupled with other variables such as motivation and use of strategies and compared their individual performance with that of the whole class. Yet, a limitation of this analytical method is that, while it can elaborate the trajectories of a few focal learners, information on the other learners is only used as background information or as a target for comparison and is thus treated as one mass. It is unclear, for example, whether some students’ trajectories widely deviate from those of other students. One way to address this concern is to analyze individual learner developmental trajectories using IGC modeling, which is widely used in such fields as child psychiatry and psychology (e.g., Lavelli, & Fogel, 2002; McKean et al., 2015; Morgan, Farkas, & Wu, 2011). As described in the analysis section below, IGC modeling makes it possible to analyze developmental trajectories at both individual and group levels (i.e., how individuals develop as well as how differently some groups of individuals develop). Moreover, it is natural that some learners develop differently from other learners (e.g., to a greater or lesser extent, or in a different form) even though their performance is similar in the beginning, and learners with a peculiar trajectory may share some propensity or characteristic. For example, McKean et al. (2015) found that the linguistic proficiency of ESL children was lower than English-nativespeaking children at the age of four, but they tended to catch up by the time they turned 7 years old. However, it took three to five years for those who had few story books at home to catch up, during which period critical academic skills are usually acquired. That is, the group of children with the attributes of ESL and a scarcity of story books at home showed a different trajectory from other groups. Similar techniques have been utilized to study second language development (Garner & Crossley, 2018; Sasaki, Kozaki, & Ross, 2017). For example, Garner and Crossley (2018) investigated changes in prefabricated multi-word sequences (bigrams and trigrams) that were produced in a conversation between two people. They recorded three to four conversations from each person over four months and modeled the change in the frequency and proportion of prefabricated sequences produced by individual students. In this model, they chose three predictors: L2 participants’ initial proficiency levels, the program of study (whether the participant belonged to a matriculated study-abroad program or an intensive English program), and conversation dyad (whether they conversed with an English-native speaking partner or an L2 speaker). As a result, they found that the less proficient learners developed in terms of the frequency of prefabricated sequences to a greater extent than more proficient learners, and that learners with an L2 conversation partner came to produce more high-frequency sequences over time than those with



Chapter 1.  Exploring dynamic developmental trajectories

an English-native-speaking partner. These findings are convincing, as less proficient learners may have more room to grow and whether a learner speaks with another L2 speaker or a native English speaker may influence how they converse. Yet, these categories are general, and it is unknown if there are more influential factors of development than other uninvestigated ones. The present study, therefore, does not start with a hypothesis (i.e., specific predictors are not preselected), but the behaviors of individuals’ developmental trajectories are first described, and then there is an attempt to identify factors that might have contributed to the difference in the trajectories of students who developed or hardly developed their L2 writing fluency through the repetition of the task procedure. In investigating contributing factors, the study focuses on the actions that individual students took while they wrote compositions and reflective comments on them. Investigating learners’ actions seems reasonable because the learners of the study engaged in the same task procedure repeatedly. Complexity theorists regard this repeated engagement in a task as iteration, which is distinguished from repetition (Larsen-Freeman, 2018): repetition implies that learners repeat the same task in the same way, but iteration suggests that “each time the same task is used, the learners’ experience of it will be different, in part because learners will orient to it differently” (Larsen-Freeman, 2018, p. 317). That is, when a learner engages in the same task multiple times, they will perform it in a different way every time. In addition, even when all students in a class engage in a task, how individual students do so and what they learn by doing so is different. Through this iterated process, learners act as active agents and draw their own unique developmental trajectories. Therefore, how a learner acts on and orients to a task through iteration is a critical element in understanding the trajectory of their development. This view of task iteration is supported by Nitta and Baba’s (2018) case study, in which one learner who showed much engagement in a task procedure and employed elaborate self-regulatory processes developed fluency and complexity in writing to a greater extent than another student who showed less engagement and employed limited self-regulatory processes. To assist with understanding how learners engage and develop their L2 writing, then, the research questions for this study are the following: 1. Do Japanese university students show different degrees of development in English writing fluency when they repeat the same narrative timed-writing procedure every week over one academic year? 2. How are the trajectories of high- and low-growth performers different? 3. What are the differences in the actions taken by the students who do and do not benefit from the timed-writing task while they write compositions and reflective comments?

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Methods Setting The data were collected over a five-year period from five different student cohorts (Classes 1 through 5) studying the same university course that I taught over one academic year (30 weeks in total). As the core features of the course content remained basically the same (e.g., the same syllabus and textbooks, and similar handouts with some modifications in wording were used), the students learned similar content with the same syllabus. The course was one of the mandatory EFL courses for first-year students, and it was the only course that focused on developing academic writing skills. All of the students belonged to the English department of the university and were to major in English literature, culture, or linguistics. The class met once a week for 90 minutes. A class usually involved a timed-writing task, which is a focus in this study, a translation activity from Japanese to English focusing on grammar, and activities for learning academic writing such as paragraphing and logical argumentation. The students were required to write two academic essays per semester, and the focal timed-writing tasks were the only opportunity for them to do narrative-like writing. The participation in the study was voluntary (those who consented to participate signed a consent form), but all of the students engaged in the timed-writing task as part of the course.

Participants The participants of the study were 105 first-year students in the five classes described above. They attended class regularly throughout the academic year, though some of them missed a few classes. The students’ mother tongue was Japanese, and they had received six years of formal English education before entering university. While the students in the five classes belonged to different cohorts, their English proficiency was similar according to the TOEIC test scores that they took in May, at the beginning of the academic year. Table 1 lists the averages and standard deviations of each class’ scores on the noted TOEIC test. Because the purpose of this study is not to examine differences in the five classes, all students are treated as a group in the subsequent analyses. Before starting university, most students had never composed a timed narrative-writing task like the one used in the study, either in English or in Japanese. The typical writing activity in their junior high school and secondary school studies was to translate Japanese sentences into English, so this focal task was the first experience for most of them to write their own ideas and thoughts. The lack of a



Chapter 1.  Exploring dynamic developmental trajectories

Table 1.  Means and standard deviations for five classes on TOEIC test at beginning of academic year Class 1 (n = 23) 2 (n = 22) 3 (n = 21) 4 (n = 18) 5 (n = 20)

M

SD

390.43 373.64 429.29 381.50 392.60

37.93 72.42 64.58 61.05 47.19

similar writing experience was advantageous for the purpose of the study as it enabled me to observe their development in this specific genre from the start. This is particularly important due to the sensitivity to initial conditions assumed by CDST.

Task and procedure Similar to Nitta (this volume), the task used in this study was timed narrative writing, where students wrote a composition on a chosen topic for 10 minutes. Before the first composition, I gave detailed instructions on how to perform the writing task. All five classes received the same instructions: students were told that the main purpose of the task was to improve writing fluency and that they should not pay too much attention to grammatical errors and instead should aim to write as much as possible. Each time, students were given a list with three different topics to choose from. The aim of offering three choices was to compensate for differences in students’ individual experiences and preferences. For example, students could choose from the following: (1) “What characteristics do you regard as important in a person you would choose as a friend?”, (2) “What factors make a job or career satisfying for you?”, and (3) “What was the most important event of your life? Discuss why this event was so important.” Most topics were personal, and no topics required significant background knowledge. Moreover, the topics were written both in Japanese and English, and the same list of three topics was used for two successive weeks. Students were told to write on the same chosen topic twice. Then, another new topic list was handed to them the following week. The same set of topic lists was used in the same order for all five classes, with only a few minor revisions. Immediately after they had written their compositions, the students, except for those in Class 1, documented the number of words they had written on the sheet. They also recorded it on their attendance card so that they could see the changes in their own writing fluency. This counting procedure was introduced for educational purposes in the second year, so the students in Class 1 did not perform this additional task. The students in all classes then evaluated to what extent they felt

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the topic was easy or difficult for them on a five-point Likert scale. Next, they wrote reflective comments on their writing in Japanese (all comments cited in this work are translations by the author). The students in Class 1 wrote brief personal remarks in a small box under their composition (usually a few sentences). The box did not specify what they should write about. However, typical remarks that they wrote about were concerned with their weaknesses (“I couldn’t write much today.” “It was difficult to write in English what I wanted to convey.” “I was not sure of the usage of relative pronouns.”). Hereafter I refer to this type of reflection as “short reflection”. A major revision to the form for the reflective comments was made in the second year and the revised form was used from then on. I refer to this as an “extended reflection.” That is, the students in Classes 2 through 5 wrote longer comments regarding more specific aspects of writing by using the same revised template. The revised form was double-sided (the narrative-writing task was on one side, and the extended reflection was on the other side), providing students with more space to write extensive reflective comments. In addition, the extended reflection side provided six boxes specifying a topic for comments. The first four boxes facilitated reflection on various aspects of the day’s writing: (1) grammar and vocabulary, (2) organization and expression, (3) content (such as episodes and examples), and (4) writing processes and strategies. The next box was a place for comparing the day’s composition with the previous one on the same topic (the previous composition was at hand when they filled out this box, but not during the composition phase). In the last box, they wrote goals for future compositions (e.g., in what way they would like to make progress). The students were told to complete all six boxes. The reflection form usually took about 10 minutes to complete. I wrote a few encouraging comments on every composition and reflection every week and returned them the following week. As the aim of the feedback was to create a sense of audience and to maintain students’ motivation to write every week, I did not correct any errors. I returned my feedback after students had finished writing their compositions, so they did not have access to their previous compositions or my feedback while composing.

Data A total of 2,947 compositions were collected. The narratives were typed out and processed through a software application that provided a word count for each composition. While the students manually counted the number of words in their compositions for educational purposes, they sometimes miscounted, and so it was necessary to double-check. All spelling mistakes in the compositions were corrected manually and with a spell checker.



Chapter 1.  Exploring dynamic developmental trajectories

This study focuses on writing fluency, which is operationalized as the total number of words in a composition written in a specific time limit (10 minutes in this case). It is a simple but robust index for measuring fluency and is a notable characteristic shared by essays that are evaluated highly (Friginal, Li, & Weigle, 2014; Jarvis, Grant, Bikowski, & Ferris, 2003). While there are other measures of written fluency (e.g., Van Waes & Leijten, 2015), it seems appropriate for the present study because Baba and Nitta (2014), using the same narrative writing task, demonstrated that it was sensitive enough to capture changes in basic writers’ development.

Analysis Typical linear statistical methods used in SLA to assess development (such as t testing, ANOVA, and MANOVA) are insufficient for dealing with repetition (i.e., using multiple data from the same participants) because repeated observations are apt to violate the assumption of randomness of observations. In contrast, IGC modeling was developed to explore rates of change, so more observations will result in better models (Singer & Willett, 2003). In addition, IGC modeling is robust against missing data and differences in the number of observations per participant. This modeling technique, also referred to as a “multilevel model for change,” enables researchers to assess variability at both individual and inter-individual levels. That is, observations can be nested within each individual. The individual level is called “Level 1,” while the inter-individual level is called “Level 2.” Level 1 examines how individuals change in terms of a focal variable, and Level 2 assesses whether the change trajectories of individuals vary by individual and what factors have affected the difference among the individual trajectories through the building and comparing of multiple models. When conducting IGC modeling, it is necessary to choose a specific functional form for the Level 1 model (that is, to choose the basic shape of the resulting trajectories). I chose a linear change model because it is the simplest form, making the interpretation of data straightforward (Singer & Willett, 2003). This is not to argue that the students’ trajectories are linear, however. The goal here is to gain an overall and general picture of developmental trajectories. In building models, I used the number of weeks as a time scale. Because using the raw number of a week (e.g., Week 1 = 1) makes interpreting intercepts unnatural (it will suggest the initial writing fluency on Week 0), the number of weeks minus 1 was used instead. All of the statistical tests were conducted with SPSS. To compare the developmental trajectories and actions that were taken by high- and low-growth performers, I labeled students who had a slope one standard-deviation higher than the average (i.e., higher than 0.71) as the high-growth

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group, and those who had a slope one standard-deviation lower than the average (i.e., lower than 0.53) as the low-growth group (for grouping based on slope, see, for example, Murayama, Pekrun, Lichtenfeld, & vom Hofe, 2013). Only the slope was used as the criterion for classification because with whatever writing fluency the students started with, the issue here concerns to what extent individual students improved or did not improve in terms of writing fluency. The high-growth group consisted of 11 students, and the low-growth group consisted of 16 students. The grouping was an expedient procedure for comparing groups that showed a different pattern of development, rather than suggesting that the degree of improvement should be assessed by the slope of the OLS trajectory. It should be noted that the two groups did not differ in their initial TOEIC scores (t(24) = .79, p = n.s.) or in the number of words in the first composition (t(23) = .48, p = n.s.). A change point analysis was conducted on the developmental paths of individual students. The analysis examines whether one or more significant changes (i.e., change points) occurred or not in chronological data by means of bootstrapping analysis (see Baba & Nitta, 2014). It is beyond the scope of this paper to closely analyze phase shifts as Baba and Nitta (2014) did (but see Hepford, this volume); instead, the purpose here was to gain a general idea of how many change points the students in the two groups had over one year. The analysis was conducted using a computer program called Change-Point Analyzer (Taylor, 2000) by setting a 95% confidence interval with 10,000 bootstraps without replacement. To explore differences in the actions taken by the two groups, I repeatedly read through all of the compositions and reflective comments that the students in the two groups wrote and compared them. I then listed actions that looked characteristic of either group (e.g., expressed positive emotions about their writing or succeeded in composing a complete paragraph). As reported in the results section, all of the students in the high-growth group did extended reflective writing, while many of those in the low-growth group wrote a short reflection. To compare students who performed the same task procedure (10 minutes of writing a composition and extended reflective writing afterwards), I excluded 11 out of 16 students in the low-growth group because the 11 students had not engaged in extended reflective writing (i.e., they belonged to Class 1 and thus did not use the revised extended reflection task). In choosing the five high-growth-group students, I ranked the 11 students in this group in descending order of slope and chose the highest five. Then, I reread all of the compositions and reflective comments written by the 10 students (five in each group, labeled as Students A through J) and examined whether each student had taken the listed actions.

Chapter 1.  Exploring dynamic developmental trajectories 13



Results The results are presented in the order of the research questions. Research question 1:  Do Japanese university students show different degrees of development in English writing fluency when they repeat the same narrative timed-writing procedure every week over one academic year? To answer research question 1, the IGC modeling tested whether learners’ fluency changed with iteration and whether the rate of change differed by individual (Singer & Willett, 2003). Two models were fit to the data: (1) the unconditional means model and (2) the unconditional growth model. The unconditional means model specifies that learners’ true individual trajectory is flat (Level 1, i.e., within a person) and that individual variation in each person’s elevation is not significantly different from the grand mean (Level 2, i.e., between persons), which is expressed in the following equation: Yij = π0i + εij π0i = γ00 + ζ0i εij ~ N(0, σ2ε) and ζ0i ~ N(0, σ20)



(Level 1)  

(Level 2)

(unconditional means model)

Subscripts i and j represent individuals and occasions, respectively. At Level 1, writing fluency for student i at time j (Yij) is comprised of a true initial value (π 0i, i.e., intercept) and residual variance (εij). At Level 2, the level-1 intercept (π0i) consists of the population average of individual students’ intercepts (γ00) and measurement error (γ0i). The results of fitting the unconditional means model to the data are presented in the Appendix. Since the associated null hypotheses (the population variance for each parameter is 0) are rejected, the model confirmed that students’ writing fluency varied over time (σ2ε = 404.413, Wald Z = 37.523, p