Genre instruction, textual borrowing, and foreign language writing: Graduate teaching assistant perspectives and practices

Heather Willis Allen, Kate Paesani

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

Although writing plays a significant role in communication, 21st century literacies and academic foreign language learning, little research has investigated approaches to and instructional practices of writing in foreign language (FL) contexts. To address this gap, the current study explores how postsecondary FL teachers conceptualize writing instruction and apply their conceptual knowledge in the classroom. Using a sociocultural theory perspective, this qualitative study focuses on genre-based writing instruction and the teaching of textual borrowing among three graduate teaching assistants in a lower-level French as a FL course. Findings, based on analysis of classroom observations, teaching materials, and interviews, demonstrate that participants’ conceptualizations and implementation of textual borrowing were emergent, variable, and influenced by their everyday understandings and experiences of writing. These findings suggest several implications for FL writing instruction and teacher professional development and lay the groundwork for future investigations into how writing pedagogy is implemented in postsecondary FL programs.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)755-776
Number of pages22
JournalLanguage Teaching Research
Volume26
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Funding for this study was provided by the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities’ Interdisciplinary Studies of Writing Grant Program and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Fall Research Competition and Second Language Acquisition Doctoral Program.

Funding Information:
We wish to thank Mandy Menke for her helpful feedback during the process of drafting this article. We are also grateful to Lauren Goodspeed and Kate Trexel for their assistance with data preparation. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Funding for this study was provided by the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities’ Interdisciplinary Studies of Writing Grant Program and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Fall Research Competition and Second Language Acquisition Doctoral Program.

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2020.

Keywords

  • foreign language
  • genre instruction
  • postsecondary
  • teacher development
  • textual borrowing
  • writing

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