12. Research Proposal(Work in Progress)

My research will focus around the concept of motivation and SLA through writing. My secondary focus will be on ELLs native language and culture influencing writing and SLA and how that relates to motivation. Since it will be hard to evaluate the ways that L1 and native culture are influencing English writing I may change it to the evolution of the ELLs identity through writing and how that increases motivation in SLA.

1. Does personal narrative pieces or dialogue journals increase motivation of ELLs and create positive attitudes towards SLA?
2. Does the participants L1 and culture influence English writing in an American academic system?

Methods:

I will be using a. student writing samples of dialogue journals, or personal narratives, b. participant interviews, c. teacher interviews, and d. participant questionnaires.

1. Does personal narrative pieces or dialogue journals increase motivation of ELLs and create positive attitudes towards SLA?

Students will be given surveys and interviews assessing current attitudes and beliefs about writing in English as well as perspective of self as writers. Students will also have follow up interviews and questionnaires after journal writing or narrative writing to assess and evaluate changes in attitudes towards writing in English.
Teachers will be interviewed to understand the current teaching practices and pedagogy in the classroom. If dialogue journals are already being used in the classroom, then personal narratives will be used, and if personal narratives are already of use then dialogue journals will be used.

Ideal sample size, n=5. However, this may not be possible and in that case only one dialogue journal or personal narrative journey will be analyzed. Surveys and interviews will be given to the entire class in order to understand personal likes and dislikes of students about SLA.
Questions will include:
What is the difference between writing here in English then in L1 ?What are your experiences with writing in English vs L1?What is the difference in teacher feedback between writing here vs. native language origin?
In the case that participant(s) have trouble thinking of topic choices of interest, prompts will be given that they may choose amongst. For example: Describe a moment that you felt most happy, or describe some of your favorite hobbies.

2. Does the participants L1 and culture influence English writing in an American academic system? 

In order to evaluate if culturally specific features of discourse are found in the narratives, interviews asking participants qualities of native culture and language will be used to analyze the narratives or dialogue journals.

I may change my second research question to focus on the way ESL writers’ identities evolve during the writing process, and how this increases motivation as noted by Li (2007). Read:Blog post Li(2007)

• I think the latter would be a better choice, but am still deciding. Blog post #4 explains my thinking behind this Read: Blog#4