An Overview of EFL Writing Research in Taiwan

Abstract

自陳玉美教授在一九九八年提供台灣寫作研究之宏觀評論後，至今尚無較近代之評論見諸發表；本文檢閱二零零五年至二零零七年國內寫作教學之文獻，以期提出回顧及前瞻。語料取自四種期刊及三種研討會論文集內發表之全文，先依Hyland (2007)之文本、作者、及過程取向三類區分，再加上「教學」取向共分四類。第二步自議題、受試參與者及研究方法分類；最後，和國外文獻對比果指出寫作教學法及質化研究是為數最多之主題及研究方法；近年來語料文本分析形成論文大宗，位居研究分析方法第二大類；大學生是最常被研究之受試者群。未來可努力方向含增加以讀者為導向之寫作研究及專業英文寫作之探討；並在現有基礎上，深化研究方法、質化資料詮釋，以及論文寫作。

Ever since Chen (陳玉美, 1998) conducted a survey on 14 years of EFL writing research in Taiwan, little retrospection of its development has been systematically conducted in this country. In this paper, the literature of three recent years (2005 to 2007) as published in four local journals and proceedings of three major English teaching conferences was examinedwith the aim to identify the major thrust of the articles, and to point out needed areas for future research. The surveyed studies were classified into four main categories based on their focus: text-oriented, writer-oriented, reader-oriented, and instruction-oriented. They were further classified from the perspectives of problem areas, population examined and research methods used. Last, the results were compared with two surveys conducted in North America. Unlike what Chen (1998) observed, the teaching of writing has become more autonomous, and demonstrates a good array of innovative instructional interventions. Influenced by corpus linguistics and English for specific purposes, an increasing number ofpapers have concentrated on text analyses of reference corpora or comparisons of reference vs. learner corpora. Future directions point to the exploration of reader-oriented research, writing context research such as workplace English, and teacher education. More rigorous research designs and more effectively written data interpretations that are aligned withefforts in the international community are needed.