Abstract
Chapter 5 presents the results of the second research project, which concentrated on investigating the relationship between the beliefs about writing of advanced EFL students who prefer to write in the foreign language and their actual writing practices. The chapter is divided into two parts: the first one reports on individual students’ comments after they wrote the texts in Polish and English, while the second makes an attempt at summarizing and generalizing the comments to a population of advanced EFL writers with a preference to write in English. The issues discussed in this chapter focus on the actual reflection of the students’ beliefs about writing in their texts and are as follows: how the students approach the task, how they receive their texts, what is difficult for them when writing, how and when they use other languages in the process of writing, why it is easier to write in English and why in Polish, and which language is closer to them mentally.
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Notes
- 1.
It should be mentioned that in the context of Poland, state school is not the only (and even main) place where English is taught; it is very popular to attend extra English lessons, which take place in language schools and are extra paid.
- 2.
This way of presenting the results of the mini-questionnaire concerns all the respondents in this section.
- 3.
Miriam confirmed this assumption when reading through this transcript of the interview with her which took place after her examinations—she said that during her exam in English composition, she realized she thought only in English when performing the task; the only switches to Polish were connected with, e.g., checking the time.
- 4.
Miriam is a great fan of crime novels by Joanna Chmielewska, a famous Polish crime novels writer, and because of that she would be more familiar with the expressions used in Polish.
- 5.
Classes in which students learn about the elements of economics and management in everyday life.
- 6.
A formal letter usually written in order to apply for something, e.g., for a job, for issuing a document etc.
- 7.
Kuziak, M. & Rzepczyński, S. (2008). Jak pisać? Bielsko-Biała: Park.
- 8.
In the letter she referred to the post as “a person who will help in organization of International Summer Camp.”
- 9.
It is similar to a work camp programme.
- 10.
This is probably typical of students who are not aware of differences between texts in the two languages.
- 11.
However, it needs to be mentioned that it is not only the higher education that allowed the students to familiarize themselves with the popular genres written in English: both in primary and secondary school students practice writing texts in English, first shorter and then longer.
- 12.
In this case it was the formal letter of application.
- 13.
Such difference in approaching writing instruction in Polish and English is typical of the Polish educational system; however, there might be some variations from this tendency depending on individual teachers and their writing practices.
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Majchrzak, O. (2018). Analysis of Students’ L1 and L2 Writing Processes. In: Learner Identity and Learner Beliefs in EFL Writing. Second Language Learning and Teaching. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69560-0_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69560-0_5
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