We conducted four large-scale questionnaire surveys to clarify the

Stage 2 We conducted four large-scale questionnaire surveys to clarify the

nature of Japanese students’ L1 writing experience and instruction in our own research interest, these studies responded to social needs for

investigating students’ previous educational training in two academic contexts, Japan and North America. In Japan, many educators have been concerned with how to articulate high school education to the university level in order to deal with the recent problem of declining academic ability among university students (Arai, 2000). Similarly, those in North America have become increasingly concerned with obtaining informa- tion about the L1 educational background of their non-native students to assist them with academic difficulties they are likely to face at the university level (e.g. Leki & Carson, 1994).

These questionnaire studies were theoretically grounded in the view of writing as a situated act, which emphasizes the actual performance of writing in a particular context, focusing attention on ‘the experiences of writers and . . . their understandings of the local features of context they deal with as they write’ (Hyland, 2002: 30). Through the use of a variety of data sources such as questionnaires, observation and in-depth inter- views, this approach allows researchers to attain a detailed description of the context that characterizes local writing.

Method Two of the four surveys (4 and 5 in Table 1.1) elicited Japanese

reading and writing instruction in high school, while the other two (6

1 The sample sizes for the four questionnaire studies were large enough for statistical

analyses; however, the method of sampling had a limitation: although

Situated Writing Practices in Foreign Language Settings 29 the survey for high school teachers employed stratified random sampling

to obtain responses nationwide, the other three used convenience sampling, in which questionnaires were distributed through personal contacts around the country, and hence may be less representative. Along with the questionnaire surveys, in-depth interviews were also conducted with university students to take a close look at their writing instruction/ experience in high school and university.

Findings The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the high school responses

indicated parallels between the students’ and teachers’ perceptions, particularly that the most important goal of kokugo (Japanese) instruction is to develop an ability to read and understand ‘bunshou’ (texts), and much more time is spent on reading than writing instruction. The overwhelming emphasis on reading over writing appears to be related in part to educational policies stressing historical and cultural heritage through reading classics and modern prose, and also to many teachers’ belief that reading trains the basic human abilities to think and judge. However, the findings also revealed that many high schools (85% of the

79 schools that responded) provide special writing training, often as individual tutoring outside regular kokugo classes, to help students prepare to write short essays for university entrance exams. According to

and the common task was to write opinion-stating essays in which they were instructed to take a clear position, for example, for or against the author’s assertion or on a social issue presented in a text, and to provide support from such sources as personal experience, observation or factual knowledge. In short, the present L1 literacy instruction in high school offers two kinds of writing training, one for all the students in regular kokugo classes and another for a selected group of students.

These findings were significant regarding the following points: (1) against the commonly held view that Japanese students do not learn to write in high school (Liebman, 1992; Mok, 1993), it appears that increasing numbers of students experience intensive L1 writing outside their formal classes, and (2) L1 specialized writing training emphasizes a type of text in which a particular position with supporting evidence is provided. Although essay-writing for college entrance exams may be one specific ‘genre’ in which students are expected to write to convince particular readers (i.e. professors judging their qualifications for

30 Part 1: Looking Back. Research Insights admission), the findings suggest that the kind of writing that students are

trained to produce in such special training sessions attaches importance to logical argumentation, which seems to echo the typical characteristics of English academic writing (e.g. Langan, 2000; Reid, 1988), as well as the emphasis on opinion writing in recent writing textbooks in Japan (Kubota & Shi, 2005).

Like the high school surveys, the university questionnaire responses showed that students and teachers shared similar perceptions of L1 academic writing. One of the most significant findings was that both groups perceived a strong need for more instruction in appropriate citation conventions (Rinnert & Kobayashi, 2005). Japanese students were found to have little knowledge of citation of sources and also to perceive the borrowing of words or ideas without citing the source to be not entirely negative. Another related finding was that academic discipline was a more influential factor than academic level (under- graduate versus graduate) in affecting student knowledge and attitudes toward the borrowing, with more concern shown in humanities/social sciences than in physical/information sciences.

While the evaluation studies in Stage 1 suggested that L2 writing instruction/experience and exposure to English rhetorical features contributed to Japanese EFL readers’ changing perceptions of culturally influenced patterns in English writing, the high school questionnaires and interviews showed that L1 writing instruction promotes rhetorical conventions similar to those of English opinion-writing. These rhetorical similarities may reflect common characteristics of opinion-writing across languages or changes occurring in Japanese L1 writing instruction to help students express ideas clearly and logically in order to cope with the rapidly changing world. Whatever the source, rhetorical perceptions continue to evolve in a dynamic way, being influenced by social and educational changes. However, it is not certain whether changes in L1 writing instruction affects actual writing in both L1 and L2, as claimed in the interviews by some of the students. This became a new inquiry for our research at the next stage.