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Exploring Novice Nonnative English-Speaking Doctoral Students’ Experiences With Academic Speaking, Writing, And Speaking-Writing Connections

Zhang, Meng
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1557174145811641

Abstract Details

2019, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, EDU Teaching and Learning.
This dissertation explores three novice nonnative English-speaking doctoral students’ experiences with academic speaking and writing practices and speaking-writing connections during their first year of doctoral study in the language education program at a Research One university in the U.S. By adopting the sociocognitve theoretical framework (Atkinson, 2002, 2011, 2014; Atkinson, Churchill, Nishino, & Okada, 2007), this study examines each of the three student participants’ perceptions towards and approaches to the speaking and writing practices they were asked to perform and investigates how and under what circumstances they sought or made connections between speaking and writing. Along with these investigations, this study identifies the challenges and struggles the three participants had with the practices, looking into how their experiences with speaking, writing, and speaking-writing connections affected their academic socialization into their disciplinary community. These examinations were achieved through the use of a longitudinal qualitative multi-case study design that yielded thick descriptions of the three participants’ speaking and writing experiences. The researcher followed the participants in five doctoral-level courses they took throughout the 2017-2018 academic year. The sources of data include classroom observations, extensive field notes, audio recordings of classroom discussions and the three participants’ oral presentations, semi-structured interviews with the participants and with their course instructors, participants’ writing samples, and other supplementary oral and written data provided by the participants. Two stages of data analysis were conducted for the purposes of this study. During the first, “within-case” analysis stage (Yin, 2014), the researcher moved from open to axial coding, with a focus on each individual participant’s speaking and writing experiences. In the second stage of analysis, the researcher cross-checked data of the three participants to seek corroborations and contrasts across cases in relation to their trajectory of engagement with speaking, writing, and speaking-writing connections. These analyses were mainly conducted through the use of the NvivoPro11 qualitative data analysis software. The principal findings of this study suggest that the three novice NNES doctoral students’ first-year speaking and writing experiences were multi-faceted, complicated, and individually driven. They used different strategies to interact with different kinds of practices based upon their perceptions towards and feelings about the practices they were engaged in. Their uses of strategies, in essence, demonstrated a “connections approach” to different types of coursework. The speaking-writing connections interweaved through their engagement with the complex array of course practices they encountered over the first year and were made through reading practices as well as through cross-course and cross-coursework relationships they generated. Through these connections, the three participants experienced “multimodal alignment” (Atkinson, 2010) with the rich sociocognitive affordances of the doctoral courses they took. Such alignment experiences were important aspects of their academic socialization, though there were variations in terms of how those experiences unfolded among them.
Alan Hirvela (Advisor)
Youngjoo Yi (Committee Member)
Peter Sayer (Committee Member)
427 p.
Education; English As A Second Language

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Zhang, M. (2019). Exploring Novice Nonnative English-Speaking Doctoral Students’ Experiences With Academic Speaking, Writing, And Speaking-Writing Connections [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1557174145811641

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Zhang, Meng. Exploring Novice Nonnative English-Speaking Doctoral Students’ Experiences With Academic Speaking, Writing, And Speaking-Writing Connections. 2019. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1557174145811641.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Zhang, Meng. "Exploring Novice Nonnative English-Speaking Doctoral Students’ Experiences With Academic Speaking, Writing, And Speaking-Writing Connections." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1557174145811641

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.