Developing Self-regulated Learning Skills To Overcome Lexical Problems in Writing: Case Studies of Korean ESL Learners

The study examined how 5 adult Korean learners of English developed self-regulated learning (SRL) skills to overcome lexical problems in their English writing. Empirical studies have consistently shown that many of the greatest problems for ESL learners in writing are lexical in nature. The goal of the present study was to help participants to address these problems, first through tutored assistance and then more independently by controlling their uses of strategies through planning, monitoring, and evaluation processes. The study involved two phases: Phase 1 was exploratory in nature, in which I attempted to identify typical lexical problems Korean learners of English encounter in writing. Phase 2 included an intervention in the form of one-on-one tutoring that followed the cyclic model of SRL proposed by Zimmerman, Bonner, and Kovach (1996). I worked with 5 participants through the SRL cycle individually as they wrote and revised 3 argumentative essays. The intervention lasted for 9 weeks, focusing on developing the participants’ SRL skills in writing through the use of various strategies that were devised in Phase 1 and refined throughout Phase 2. I analyzed the participants’ difficulties and uses of strategies, self-ratings on their essays, and several measures of essay quality to examine changes in their SRL skills, self-efficacy, and writing skills. The participants initially encountered various types of difficulties in their English writing and primarily relied on self-employed strategies to cope with their difficulties. Over the course of the intervention, the participants’ attention to their difficulties and uses of various linguistic resources became progressively more focused and specific. Initially, the participants largely depended on their L1 to write their L2 essays, being chiefly occupied with the grammatical encoding of their communicative intentions. Subsequently, the participants displayed unique patterns in developing their SRL skills, which exerted positive influences on building their self-efficacy beliefs as writers and on improving the quality of their essays. Based on these findings, I emphasize the growing need for L2 writing teachers to incorporate language-focused, vocabulary-centered, and corpora-based instruction into their teaching practices. In turn, students require individual support and untimed writing tasks to develop SRL skills in writing.Ph