The first study of this thesis demonstrated that the Chinese L2 writers were apparently different from their non-Chinese counterparts given their strategies and perceptions of writing in English. Although possible explanations for the differences between the Chinese and non-Chinese background learners were offered, these needed to be investigated further. It would, therefore, be useful to study the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of different groups of Chinese learners to determine how learners’
backgrounds influence the development of L2 writing in English. China is a large country. It is linguistically and culturally very diverse and varied, as are the Chinese L2 writers. They are susceptible to various linguistic and cultural influences across the country, so students apparently show varying levels of bilingualism in English across the country. Besides, specific academic context may contribute to variations in L2 proficiency among the Chinese learners across the country. Academic differences, therefore, may be studied by contrasting students from mainland China with those brought up, for example, in Hong Kong, where different educational policies have been fostered.
In terms of the models discussed in this chapter, there is also the possibility that the Chinese students in study 1 were impervious to the hypothesized constraint of lexis as discussed in the modified process model above. If this were the case, then their writing is predicted to be slightly better than that produced by their non-Chinese counterparts. In fact, they were marginally better writers than their non-Chinese counterparts. The
relationship between vocabulary and L2 writing for the Chinese learners, then, is arguably insignificant, as the data in study 1 suggested. Therefore, it would be interesting to look for other predictors of skills in L2 writing among these Chinese background writers.
Additional measures on content such as cohesion, organization, and logic would be the useful areas to investigate to discover how these Chinese learners learn to writer in English.
Future work would be usefully focused on investigating exactly how difficulties in grammar and vocabulary constrain L2 writing. For example, what influences do these difficulties have on the organisation and cohesion of L2 texts? Can students be taught to maintain organisation and cohesion despite weak scores in a grammatical judgement task and/or a vocabulary test? Determining whether these are actual constraints to ‘good’ writing or whether they are aspects of the focus of current teaching practices (i.e.,
instructors’ feedback focus on these aspects of writing; therefore, they must be important) would inform current models.
Furthermore, if there are constraints, determining what aspects of writing these writer factors constrain would further inform the current modified process model. For example, it might be that poor grammar constrains organisation, whereas weak vocabulary may constrain cohesion. Similarly, varying the type of an essay such as narrative or academic piece of writing would allow the work to determine if any constraints are specific to genre or general to writing. Measuring each of these factors and looking for relationships between them in a cohort of L2 writers would increase the appreciation of the factors that limit L2 writing and potentially will provide guidelines on how these
limitations can be reduced.
The thesis apparently concludes empirically that there are both similarities and differences when writing in an L1 versus an L2. Further research on these similarities and differences would be useful to inform models of L2 writing more critically and
acquisition that have informed the development of L1 literacy should be highly
informative about the development of L2 writing. In contrast, the more different the two are, the less useful L1 models will prove to be. Current models of L1 language and literacy acquisition have identified person-factors, such as an understanding of syntax and lexical capacity/efficiency, which may equate to size and depth of vocabulary, as areas that may constrain performance in language tasks such as writing. These same L1 models may suggest additional person-factors that constrain written output. Hence, these are further areas of investigation in L2 writing studies. The use of SALT in the current research is an avenue worthy of further consideration. Analyses, such as SALT, were developed from studies of children’s verbal language development and have proved to be useful in identifying common features in the typical development of language. The same analyses should prove useful for studying the development of L2 writing.
It would be informative to determine whether variations in pedagogical approach, perhaps based on differing background training of L2, would influence English L2 writing performance in the EFL context of Bangladesh. The more traditional approach as practiced by current Bangladesh instructors might be contrasted with the modified process approach suggested in this chapter. Groups of students would be trained via the two approaches for a semester, when performance in L2 writing is compared at the start and end of the semester. If the modified approach proves to be superior to the traditional approach, then scores in L2 writing measures would show discernible improvement. To examine it further and to avoid ethical problems, instructors who are teaching with the less effective teaching method will be given the opportunity to teach with more effective method in the following semester. Such a study can inform an authentic model of teaching L2 writing, which in this context appears to be the modified process approach.
The third study of this thesis also indicated that the focus of English studies in the next two decades would most likely shift from literature to language in the EFL context of Bangladesh. Research investigating this shift would be useful in terms of studies of overall educational changes such a shift would effect as well as how it affects the behavior of the instructors who would undergo this shift. If the focus of English studies at all shifts in the decades to come (as predicted in this thesis), further work is warranted in identifying whether or not such a shift benefits the development of English studies in Bangladesh. This work may also be linked to the intervention study between modified process approach
and traditional approach described in the previous paragraph. Further studies should investigate whether targeting background training of L2 writing instructors in the EFL context of Bangladesh is as critical as targeting the outcomes of various pedagogical approaches to teaching L2 writing in Bangladesh. The answer will probably be a mixture of the two, but further research should be undertaken to empirically ascertain this
assumption to facilitate the teaching of L2 writing in the EFL context of Bangladesh.