Faculty Publications and Conference Presentations

Peer feedback has received scholarly attention for decades due to its intricate linkage with several schools of thought, such as Vygotsky's socio-cognitive theory, process writing or social constructionism . Recently, a new mode of feedback computer-mediated peer feedback saw its quick emergence thanks to rapid advancement of technology. Existing studies mainly placed the emphasis in asynchronous contexts such as text-based chatrooms, whether the effectiveness can be extended to synchronous online contexts with video-conferencing technology remains unknown. The influence of cultural factors and individual factors also merit attention. This study attempts to narrow the research gap and explores these issues by studying the real-time video recordings during synchronous online peer feedback sessions of EAP writing courses. We studied the interaction patterns of 20 pairs of undergraduates during unsupervised ZOOM breakout room sessions, and the quality of their final writing products were also examined. The results showed that students were generally willing to provide extended feedback to their peers, and they relied on multi-modal means, such as on-screen annotations to aid their explanations. However, the number of initiative turns and feedback did not appear to relate to the quality of writings. Yet, the ethnicity of the students played a role in mediating this process, as students from Asia were generally more willing to make revisions based on their partner's suggestions. Implications of these findings on EAP writing pedagogy were discussed. 

Short Descriptions

This study explores how peer feedback is manifested in synchronous online settings and its impact on students' final products. The influence of mediating factors such as cultural beliefs would also be taken into consideration. The interaction data from ZOOM's breakout room will be transcribed and analyzed, and correlated with students' writing products.

Short Descriptions

The assumption that most university students are digital natives has prompted more EAP and ESP courses to include computer-mediated collaborative writing (CMCW). Students are often assessed as a group for the quality of the final written product, and this sometimes creates disputes and discontent among students in my teaching context when some members are deemed less contributing than and by others. The growing practice of including self-and-peer-assessments to encourage independent learning and to counteract any irresponsible behaviours has inspired me to study their effects in motivating students in taking a more active role intrinsically and extrinsically, in the collaborative writing tasks. Possible research questions: 1. What interaction strategies do L2 speakers adopt during a computer-mediated collaborative writing task? 2. What are the motivational factors behind L2 speakers’ interaction in and contribution to the collaborative writing task? 3. What are the effects of formative self-assessment and peer-assessment on L2 speakers’ decisions on interacting and contributing to the collaborative writing task?

Short Descriptions

This study aims to examine strategies used by business professionals to engage readers through the use of specific linguistic devices. Hyland's (2001) engagement framework is applied to a corpus of U.S. letters to shareholders. More specifically, the framework explores audience engagement at the micro level of language use through inclusive pronouns, personal asides, appeals to shared knowledge, questions and directives.

Possible Benefits

Business communication guides and textbooks emphasize audience engagement as one of the keys to success of a business text. The study helps us to develop a better understanding of how this is done through specific linguistic devices in authentic business communication. The findings can ultimately help inform our teaching in the area.

Deliverables

The objective is for the study to be written up as a paper to be submitted to a journal.

Connecting with stakeholders to build goodwill with audience-centred messages is a key tenet of business communication.  Popular business communication textbooks offer guidelines such as constructing messages with a "you-attitude" and stressing audience benefits underlined by the acronym "WIIFT", or "What's in it for them".  While this advice is invaluable, nonetheless, they appear to reflect Mautner's (2017:612) observation that business communication beyond linguistic disciplines is often "couched in 'macro' terms, looking at broad themes" and that it is also important to examine such themes in discourse at a "micro" level by exploring specific linguistic devices used in their expression.  In response, this study explores how business professionals use specific linguistic devices to connect with their audience through the engagement framework (Hyland, 2001) which consists of the following:

Reader pronouns are the simplest and most fundamental way the audience is brought into the text and their presence acknowledged and include inclusive pronouns (e.g., we, our), second person pronouns (e.g., you, your) and the generic "one".

Directives instruct readers to perform physical or mental actions and include imperatives, modals of obligation and predicate adjectives expressing the writer's judgement of necessity or importance.

Appeals to shared knowledge prompt readers to recognise a claim as universal or commonly accepted.

Questions invite readers to an area or issue where a response or viewpoint can then be offered by the writer.

Personal asides are possibly the most deliberate and overt expression of engagement.  They denote interruptions into the ongoing discourse for the author to offer a comment that is largely interpersonal in nature.

The analyses reveal that business professionals use most frequently the reader pronouns "you" and "our" to connect with readers.  There is also meaningful use of directives and personal asides, but the use of questions and shared knowledge is minimal.

References

Hyland, K. (2001). Bringing in the Reader: Addressee Features in Academic Articles. Written Communication, 18(4), 549-574.

Mautner, G. (2017). Organizational discourse. In G. Mautner & F. Rainer (Eds.), Handbook of Business Communication: Linguistic Approaches (pp.609-628). De Gruyter Mouton.

Short Descriptions

My final project for the summer is an ethics workshop. I and Eugene Li are working on an "Ethics training in scholarship for CLE". We are planning to present this in our EYE event in August. We aim to particularly demonstrate how to use the new tick@lab website, and how to submit a Human Research Ethics Protocol.

Short Descriptions

To foster an Open Feedback Culture in the CLE, this project will analyse ideas and data received from a survey and workshop collected and run in April 2022. This project team will analyse data and further feedback from the workshop and conduct research into best practices for sharing feedback and creating an open feedback culture within the CLE.

Deliverables

1. Analyse data and feedback collected from Feedback survey and workshop in April 2022. 2. Research best practices or successful strategies to encourage open feedback culture, and share common best practice feedback strategies derived from CLE colleagues and our research.

Short Descriptions

This semester I gave a scholarship talk on the benefits of using film in the classroom which include but are not limited to improving speaking and listening skills, acquiring vocabulary (especially colloquial vocabulary), stimulating thought and discussion on a wide variety of subjects, and promoting awareness of other cultures and people. In that talk I stated that with the ubiquity of the screen, films are easier than ever to watch and to utilise in the classroom. To follow up on my talk, I would like to investigate to what extent film is being used in the CLE and whether our courses could make better use of it to engage our students.

Possible Benefits

To better inform our teaching by investigating how film could be better used to engage with learners and to successfully promote learning outcomes.

Deliverables

A short talk or workshop at the Summer EYE

Short Descriptions

This project aims to share my experience and expertise in English language curriculum design with educational practitioners, in particular, the teachers at CLE, who are engaged in ELT materials writing, course design and review, and curriculum development and evaluation.

Possible Benefits

The project benefits not only CLE teachers and their counterparts who are engaged in course and/or curriculum design, but also educational practitioners who are involved in daily teaching by providing them with a comprehensive overview of all the corresponding theories, approaches, methodology and common practice, and insights which generate new ideas.

Deliverables

The tentative planning is that the book comprises 7 to 8 chapters. It is expected to compile the draft of two chapters each year.

Here is a link to my paper: 

Incorporating competencies into LANG 4031.docx  

Sarah Carmichael