Effects of Varying Lengths of Study-Abroad Experiences on Japanese EFLStudentsrsquo L2 Writing Ability andMotivation A Longitudinal Study

MIYUKI SASAKINagoya Gakuin University

Nagoya Japan

The present study investigated the effects of varying lengths of overseasexperiences on 37 Japanese studentsrsquo English writing ability andmotivation over 35 years The students were observed at the beginningof their first year and in the middle of their second third and fourthyears at their university During the 35-year observation period 28 ofthe 37 students spent 15 to 11 months in English-speaking countriesThe results revealed that (1) studentsrsquo second language (L2) writingability did not change in a linear way (2) over the 35 years studentswho spent some time abroad significantly improved their L2 writingability whereas those who stayed in Japan did not (3) many of thosestudents who went abroad formed L2-related imagined communities thatpossibly motivated them to improve their L2 writing ability (4) thosestudents who spent more than 4 months abroad improved their L2writing ability significantly more than the other students and (5) onlythose students who spent more than 8 months abroad becameintrinsically motivated and voluntarily practiced to improve their L2writingdoi 105054tq2011240861

T he present study investigates changes over 35 years in the secondlanguage (L2) writing ability and motivation of 37 Japanese

students with special attention paid to the effects of varying lengths ofoverseas experience The study is a follow-up of Sasaki (2004) where Ireported on changes in L2 proficiency L2 writing quality and fluencyand the use of L2 writing strategies among 11 participants In that studyI found that the participantsrsquo 2- to 8-month study-abroad (SA)experiences had a significant impact on their L2 writing strategy useand on their motivation When the present study originally started I hadsimply intended to confirm these results by using a larger sample from asimilar population However having spent a total of 6 years observing 37

TESOL QUARTERLY Vol 45 No 1 March 2011 81

participants I realized that not only the overseas experience itself butalso its variable length could potentially impact this particular sample(see Sasaki 2009)1 As a result I changed the mode of the present studyfrom confirmatory to exploratory

Furthermore unlike in Sasaki (2004) where I mainly analyzed theparticipantsrsquo cognitive abilities and activities in the present study Idrew on modern sociocultural theory (eg Lantolf amp Thorne 2006)and examined the participantsrsquo cognitive changes as situated in theirenvironments I did so because the findings of my previous studies(eg Sasaki 2004 2007) convinced me that L2 learning could besignificantly influenced by the specific contexts in which it takes placeAmong many sociocultural research methods available to approachthe data I employed Yang Baba and Cummingrsquos (2004) frameworkwhich is based on Engestromrsquos (1987) expanded activity system andin order to explain the particularities of the data in the present studyI further adopted Kanno and Nortonrsquos (2003) notion of imaginedcommunities

Below I present the results of previous studies that have targeted thethree key factors considered in the present study L2 writing ability L2writing motivation and effects of SA experiences on L2 writing

L2 WRITING ABILITY DEVELOPMENT

Traditionally factors that might influence the development of L2writing ability have been investigated mainly through cross-sectionalstudies of cognitive variables These studies have usually involvedcomparing less skilled with more skilled writers The results of thesestudies have revealed that the quality of L2 writing tends to be high if thewriters have high L2 proficiency (eg Pennington amp So 1993) or highfirst-language (L1) writing ability (eg Cumming 1989) if they usegood writersrsquo strategies such as effective planning (Jones amp Tetroe1987) if they possess sufficient metaknowledge (eg Kobayashi ampRinnert 2001) and if they have practiced L2 writing sufficiently (egSasaki amp Hirose 1996)

Although these characteristics of good writers might be trulyinfluential in L2 writing ability development they could simply co-occurwith good L2 writing In contrast the findings of longitudinal casestudies may be more convincing because these studies employed theparticipantsrsquo own (emic) accounts of what they thought was actuallyuseful for their L2 writing development Past case studies have reported

1 In Sasaki (2009) I reported changes in the L2 writing ability and motivation of 22 of thesame 37 participants The study was based on the data I collected during the first 5 of the 6years I spent collecting data for the present study

82 TESOL QUARTERLY

how the participants managed to learn appropriate writing skills byemploying both cognitive strategies such as lsquolsquolooking for modelsrsquorsquo (Leki1995 p 249) and social strategies such as consulting lsquolsquoon a problemrelated to a taskrsquorsquo (Riazi 1997 p 127)

Motivated by these previous studies I conducted a series oflongitudinal studies targeting participants similar to those in the presentstudy (ie Japanese university students) For example in Sasaki (2004)I observed changes in L2 writing ability and strategy use in 11 Japanesestudents over 35 years Based on the participantsrsquo accounts frominterviews and on changes in their composition scores I concluded thattheir 35 years of both domestic and overseas education helped theparticipants improve their L2 writing ability although only those whospent more than 2 months abroad became more motivated to writebetter compositions In a subsequent study (Sasaki 2007) with yetanother group of participants I further compared six SA students whospent 4ndash9 months abroad with five at-home (AH) students whoremained in Japan for just over 1 year during which the SA studentsspent some time overseas The results indicate that the SA studentssignificantly improved their L2 writing ability and motivation whereasthe AH students did not improve in either of these two areas The resultsof these studies suggest that at least for students of Japanese English as aforeign language (EFL) overseas experiences can have a strong positiveimpact on their L2 writing ability and motivation but that the instructionthey receive inside Japan can also be useful for some students (eg thestudents in Sasaki 2004) These studies are precursors of the presentstudy

L2 WRITING MOTIVATION

Most current research on L2 motivation has investigated how L2motivation might interact with other cognitive psychological andorsocial factors such as attitude and anxiety and the methods used havebeen typically psychometric utilizing correlations among scores andquestionnaire responses (eg Tremblay amp Gardner 1995) Morerecently however researchers such as Dornyei (eg 1998) havecriticized such research for treating the construct of motivation as astatic state and for not taking into account variation over time and acrosssituations Dornyei and Otto (1998) for example developed analternative process model of L2 motivation positing motivation as lsquolsquoadynamically evolving and changing entityrsquorsquo (p 44) Based on thisassumption Dornyei and Ottorsquos model presents a panorama of how aperson starts with a lsquolsquopreactional phasersquorsquo (p 48 eg a lsquolsquogoalrsquorsquo) moves onto the actual execution of the intended task and ends with a

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 83

lsquolsquopostactional phasersquorsquo (p 48 eg lsquolsquofurther planningrsquorsquo) with each of thesephases affected by various lsquolsquomotivational influencesrsquorsquo (p 48) such as thepersonrsquos psychological orientation and external environments If wetreat motivation as such a dynamic and situated mechanism case studiesusing emic qualitative data provide appropriate avenues for the study ofL2 learnersrsquo motivational behaviors Shoaib and Dornyei (2005)exemplified one such study investigating motivational changes in 25participants over their lifetime through biographical interview data butto date such studies have been scarce Furthermore even with such adrastic shift in the focus of L2 motivation studies the target ofmotivation research has mostly remained general L2 proficiency andmotivation related to any particular skill or type of knowledge has rarelybeen examined

Thus the construct of L2 writing motivation was not considereduntil early 2000 when Alister Cumming and his colleagues started aseries of studies of L2 writing goals and motivation (see Cumming2006) Their participants were all English as a second language (ESL)students in university settings in Canada Addressing the above-mentioned criticism that L2 motivation research lacked the perspec-tive of time and context Cumming and his colleagues employedlongitudinal and situated data Yang et al (2004) for exampleprovided a microlevel analysis of changes in L2 motivation in six ESLstudents over the course of an ESL program To explain thequalitative changes in the participantsrsquo L2 writing motivation Yanget al used Engestromrsquos (1987) expanded activity system believing thatlsquolsquoindividual students are active responsive agents with their ownindividual goals orientations values beliefs and historiesrsquorsquo (Yanget al p 14) In addition to this activity theory perspective Cummingand his colleagues (2006) employed goal theory from the field ofpsychology for its lsquolsquomultiple theoretical framesrsquorsquo (p ix) in sevencollaborative studies focusing on both studentsrsquo and their teachersrsquogoals for learning and teaching L2 writing The results of these studiesare insightful in that they indicate how L2 studentsrsquo and teachersrsquomotivation constantly interacted with environmental factors Yet fromthe perspective of foreign language (FL) writing research theinvestigation of studentsrsquo goals for learning L2 writing may not bevery meaningful because FL students do not always have to set orachieve L2 writing goals to survive in their own communities wherethe L2 is not used for communicative purposes However no study todate has been conducted to investigate such L2 writing motivation inan FL setting

84 TESOL QUARTERLY

EFFECTS OF SA EXPERIENCES

Research on effects of SA experiences has become increasinglypopular especially during the past two decades (eg Kinginger 2008)Researchers have discovered that compared with their AH counterparts(1) SA students improved in their L2 speaking ability (eg Lafford2004) L2 listening ability (eg Allen 2002) and L2 reading ability (egDewey 2004) (2) SA students changed their sociolinguistic use of theL2 (eg Barron 2006) (3) their sociocultural environments played animportant role in such changes (eg Iino 2006) and (4) there weresubstantial individual differences in the scope and magnitude of thesechanges (eg Isabelli-Garcıa 2006)

Although these findings are informative many other aspects of theeffects of SA experiences remain unexplored For example Churchilland Dufon (2006) summarized previous studies investigating possible SAeffects on studentsrsquo linguistic skills but none of the studies they surveyedaddressed the acquisition of L2 writing skills specifically Similarly thevariable of L2 learning motivation has rarely been examined in terms ofthe effects of overseas experiences Even though previous studiesindicated that SA experiences tend to have positive impacts onparticipantsrsquo motivation (eg Simoes 1996) some studies reportedotherwise (eg Allen 2002)

In addition to the above-mentioned scarcity of studies of the effect ofSA experiences on L2 writing and motivation very few studies to datehave examined the effects of SA experiences on the specific variable ofL2 writing motivation one of the targeted variables in the present studyFurthermore very few studies have examined the effects of the length ofoverseas stays Although a stay of even a few weeks can have some impacton listening and speaking (Campbell 1996) lsquolsquothe question of how longis needed to make significant gains in specific skills remains unan-sweredrsquorsquo (Churchill amp Dufon 2006 p 23) Finally very few studies havereported any long-term effects of SA experiences Several qualitativestudies using retrospective accounts have examined the impact ofspending time abroad on studentsrsquo subsequent life (eg career choice)over quite a long period of time (8 years in Ehrenreich 2006) but fewquantitative studies have been conducted to investigate such effects onany L2 skill or motivation

Informed and motivated by the results (or lack thereof) of theseprevious studies as well as my own studies I undertook the present studywith the following four questions in mind

1 How does studentsrsquo L2 writing ability change over 35 years2 How does their L2 writing motivation change over 35 years3 How do any motivational changes interact with changes in their L2

writing ability

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 85

4 Do differences in length in the studentsrsquo SA experiences havedifferential impacts on their L2 writing ability and motivational changes

In Question 1 I defined L2 writing ability as an academic ability towrite in lsquolsquopedagogical genresrsquorsquo (Johns 1997 p 46) such as lsquolsquothe essayexamination response the term paper or the pedagogical summaryrsquorsquo(p 46) As regards Question 2 I follow Dornyei and Otto (1998 p 65) indefining motivation as lsquolsquothe dynamically changing cumulative arousal ina person that initiates directs coordinates amplifies terminates andevaluates the cognitive and motor processes whereby initial wishes anddesires are selected prioritized operationalised and (successfully orunsuccessfully) acted outrsquorsquo and I employed Dornyei and Ottorsquos processmodel of L2 motivation as the research baseline

METHOD

Participants

The 37 participants (9 in 2002 13 in 2003 and 15 in 2004) enteredthe same university in Japan as members of a cohort consisting each yearof about 150 British and American Studies majors2 They were all 18 yearsold at the time They came from three of five freshman English classes(with about 30 students each) offered under the same title each yearand I taught two of the three classes Each year I went to their first day ofclasses and asked for volunteers to participate in an English-writingproject that would require up to 90 minutes of their time once or twice ayear until graduation They were informed that they would receivemodest monetary compensation for their participation A total of 40students volunteered and 37 provided full data for the present studyThe 37 students had studied English for six years by the time the studybegan but they had received little L2 writing instruction while in highschool

Between their second and fourth year of university study (see Table 1)28 of the 37 students participated in SA programs provided by theuniversity spending different lengths of time in Canada England theUnited States Australia or New Zealand The participants weresubsequently divided into four groups according to the length of theiroverseas stay The SA-15ndash2 group (1 male and 8 females) spent 15ndash2months abroad3 the SA-4 group (2 males and 5 females) 4 months the

2 The official name of the department is English but the students do not study English asintensively as might be generally expected of English majors Instead they focus more ofcontent areas related to linguistics literature and area studies I thus decided to label theirmajor British and American Studies to avoid any misunderstanding

3 Four students spent 6 weeks and the other five students spent 2 months abroad

86 TESOL QUARTERLY

SA-8ndash11 group (3 males and 9 males) 8ndash11 months4 and the AH group(2 males and 7 females) remained in Japan during the 35-yearobservation period All the institutions where the SA students studiedwere 4-year universities admitting English-speaking students

The studentsrsquo English writing ability differed slightly even when theywere in their first year That is the SA-4 grouprsquos mean composition score(13814 out of a maximum of 200) was significantly higher than that ofthe SA-15ndash2 group (11644 see the Results and Discussion section)However there was no other significant difference across the fourgroupsrsquo composition scores In addition there was no significantdifference across the four groups when they were first-year students interms of general English proficiency measured by the sum of theListening and Structure Section scores of the Comprehensive EnglishLanguage Test Harris and Palmer (1986) F(3 33) 5 207 for a maximumof 200 At this university students had to earn high scores on theinstitutionalized TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign LanguageEducational Testing Service) to attend the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 (but notthe SA-15ndash2) programs and the SA-8ndash11 program was more competitivethan the SA-4 program In this sense the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups mayhave been more motivated to study English than the other groups fromthe beginning of the present study

4 Three students spent 8 months four spent 9 months three spent 10 months and twospent 11 months abroad

TABLE 1

English-Related Educational Experiences Over the Four University Years and Mean Departureand Return Points

Group

Meandepar-ture

point

Meanreturnpoint

Lengthof studyabroad(mon-ths)

Mean class hoursweek when abroad

Mean English class hoursweek when in Japan

ESLRegularsubject

1styear

2ndyear

3rdyear

4thyear

AH(n 5 9)

NA NA 0 0 0 88 62 61 10

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

2ndyear11thmonth

3rd year1st month

15ndash2 231 NA 90 57 45 12

SA-4(n 5 7)

2ndyear 6thmonth

2nd year11thmonth

4 107 43 90 54 65 24

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

2ndyear11thmonth

3rd year10thmonth

8ndash11 139 46 90 47 38 06

Note AH 5 at home SA 5 study abroad ESL 5 English as a second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 87

Table 1 presents the mean departure and returning-home times ofthe SA groups as well as the mean hours of English classes theparticipants took while overseas and in Japan Note that on average theSA-4 group went abroad earlier (2nd year 6th month) than the SA-15ndash2and SA-8ndash11 groups (2nd year 11th month for both groups) and theSA-4 group came home earliest (2nd year 11th month) and the SA-8ndash11group latest (3rd year 10th month) A total of 19 (679) out of the 28SA students had their overseas experiences between the second half oftheir second year and the first half of their third year at the universityWhile abroad the SA-15ndash2 students took ESL classes only whereas some(though not all) of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students took both ESL andregular subject classes The number of English classes these four groupstook at the Japanese university drastically decreased during their fourthyear because they had already taken the number of English classesrequired for graduation by the end of their third year and because theywere busy job-hunting during their fourth year

Data Collection

I collected L2 writing and motivation data at four different points inthe first month of the participantsrsquo first year (early-first-year period) andthe fourth month of their second third and fourth year (mid-second-year mid-third-year and mid-fourth-year periods) In the eighth monthof their fourth year (late-fourth-year period) I also interviewed thestudents to collect their own accounts of any changes in their L2 writingability and motivation

Composition Scores

The participants wrote an argumentative composition on a randomlyselected topic concerning such issues as living in a city or in the country(see Sasaki 2004) The prompts were selected in such a way that theparticipants were able to write about different topics on the fourdifferent occasions and so that similar ratios of participants in the fourgroups addressed the same topics

Two EFL writing specialists scored all the compositions followingJacobs Zinkgraf Wormuth Hartfiel and Hugheyrsquos (1981) EnglishComposition Profile The raters were not informed of the purpose of thepresent study when each composition was written or from whichparticipant group it came The interrater correlation (Pearson correla-tion coefficient) for the content subscore was 089 for the organizationsubscore 085 for the vocabulary subscore 078 for the language usesubscore 080 for the mechanics subscore 053 (caused by the very

88 TESOL QUARTERLY

narrow score range of 1ndash5)5 and for the total score 093 Overall Ijudged that these correlations were acceptable for the study

Interviews About L2 Writing Strategies L2 Classes andMotivation Conducted After Each Composition Session

After the participants wrote the compositions described above Iinterviewed each of them individually in Japanese about theirexperiences related to English learning over the previous year andwhich aspect of English writing they wanted to improve if any Thesessions lasted about 30 minutes each

Late-Fourth-Year Interviews on Changes in L2 Writing Abilityand Motivation

Four months after the participants wrote their mid-fourth-yearcompositions I interviewed them individually in Japanese again to collectaccounts of what they thought had influenced changes in their L2 writingability fluency and strategy use over the past 35 years During theinterviews I showed the participants a table or a graph showing theiractual changes on these variables over this period (I did not use thefluency and strategy use data in the present study) Addressingmotivational changes I showed them the transcripts of what they hadsaid when asked which aspects of English writing they wanted to improvein each of the four data collection sessions I also asked them additionalquestions about what other aspects if any they might have wanted toimprove over the given year why they had these particular goals and whatthey did to achieve these goals For those who did not mention any aspectthey wanted to improve I showed them a list (written in Japanese) ofpossible areas to be improved in L2 writing based on Cummingrsquos (2006)scheme probing L2 writing motivation (see Sasaki 2009 for list content)Each late-fourth-year interview session lasted 30ndash60 minutes All interviewaccounts were tape-recorded and subsequently transcribed

Analysis of Interview Data

When analyzing the transcribed interview data I followed Miles andHubermanrsquos (1994) data synthesis tactics especially those concerningnoting lsquolsquopatterns themesrsquorsquo (p 245) and making lsquolsquocontrastscompar-isonsrsquorsquo (p 245) I used the interview data about the participantsrsquo English-

5 Pearson correlation coefficients tend to be lower if the ranges of the given variables aremore restricted than others (see Linn 1968 for example)

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 89

related experiences and reasons for changes in their L2 writing ability inorder to better interpret the quantitative data on changes in theparticipantsrsquo L2 composition scores I also analyzed the interview dataabout the participantsrsquo motivational changes for their own sake As Imentioned earlier I adopted Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) definition of L2motivation and I analyzed the participantsrsquo changes in L2 writingmotivation using the research framework of Yang et al (2004) I decidedto employ this framework because it had worked successfully foranalyzing phenomena similar to the ones targeted in the present studyand because it shared with Dornyei and Ottorsquos model two crucialassumptions of methods accommodating sociocultural theory namely(1) that learners are active agents of L2 learning and (2) that L2learning processes can be influenced by various internalexternalfactors

The framework of Yang et al (2004) assumes that L2 learnersrsquothought processes and actions are mediated by artifacts or socioculturalentities when the participants as subjects operate on the object of learningL2 writing As Yang et al explain (p 15)

To take an example of second language (L2) learning a student (subject) in an ESLclass aims to improve her competence in academic English writing (object) Thisstudent may follow the teacherrsquos instruction do assignments read a textbook talk withfriends surf the Internet refer to dictionaries and so on (mediating artifacts) After aperiod of practice this student may achieve her goal such as getting a high grade on heressays (outcome) This activity happens in the ESL class (community) and thestudent intends to grasp the conventions of academic English writing (rules) In thisESL class the teacher provides model instruction gives assignments and offersfeedback and students follow their teacher and do the assignments (division of labor)

In addition to the original categories used by Yang et al (2004) Iincluded two more categories in the present study Imagined L2-relatedcommunity and Imagined non-L2-related community I did this becausein the process of analyzing the interview data I realized that thesecategories were also important for understanding the participantsrsquomotivational changes Subsequently I changed the term community inthe scheme of Yang et al to actual L2-related community to distinguish itfrom the two imagined communities For the term imagined community Ifollowed Kanno and Nortonrsquos (2003 p 241) definition of lsquolsquogroups ofpeople not immediately tangible and accessible with whom we connectthrough the power of imaginationrsquorsquo

In the framework of Yang et al (2004) we can assume that lsquolsquoobjectrsquorsquocorresponds to lsquolsquogoalrsquorsquo or lsquolsquointentionrsquorsquo in the lsquolsquopreactional phrasersquorsquo ofDornyei and Ottorsquos (1998 p 48) model If the subject actually tries toaccomplish hisher object through a range of mediating artifacts we can

90 TESOL QUARTERLY

say that heshe actually launches into what Dornyei and Otto (p 48) callthe lsquolsquoactional phasersquorsquo The other components of community imaginedcommunity and division of labor can form what Dornyei and Otto(p 48) call the lsquolsquomotivational influencesrsquorsquo affecting the studentrsquosmotivational behavior

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

L2 Writing Ability

I first present changes in the participantsrsquo L2 composition scores fordescriptive purposes I then present the results of an analysis of variance(ANOVA) to display the degree of change between the early-first-yearand mid-fourth-year periods using SPSS Version 61 (SPSS 1994)However because of the small sample sizes the results of the ANOVAanalyses should not be generalized

As shown in Table 2 the four groupsrsquo scores increased until theirsecond year but the AH grouprsquos score then decreased and even droppedbelow their first-year level in their fourth-year composition By contrastthe three SA groupsrsquo fourth-year composition scores were all higher thanthose of their first-year compositions but the SA-8ndash11 group was the onlyone that continually improved until the fourth year A two-way ANOVAcomparing the differences across the four groups between their first andfourth years indicated a significant interaction between time and groupeffects [F (3 33) 5 743 p 0001]

The results of subsequent post-hoc simple effects analysis andmultiple comparisons (Tanaka amp Yamagiwa 1992) revealed thefollowing First when the students were in their first year there wasno difference across the four groups except that the SA-4 grouprsquoscomposition scores were significantly higher than those of the SA-15ndash2group (mean square error (MSE) 5 23340 p 005) In the fourthyear the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groupsrsquo scores were significantly higher than

TABLE 2

Mean Total Composition Scores (Total Possible 5 200) at Four Observation Times

GroupEarly-1st-Year

M (SD)Mid-2nd-Year

M (SD)Mid-3rd-Year

M (SD)Late-4th-Year

M (SD)

AH (n 5 9) 13056 (1201) 13711 (1431) 13500 (1493) 12822(1044)SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

11644 (1837) 13178 (1821) 13056 (1549) 13389 (2097)

SA-4 (n 5 7) 13814 (1328) 14657 (1003) 16900 (707) 16143 (960)SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

13058 (1377) 15200 (1245) 15817 (1996) 16175 (859)

Note M 5 mean SD 5 standard deviation

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 91

those of the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups but there was no significantdifference between the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups or between the SA-4and the SA-8ndash11 groups (MSE 5 19607 p 005) Furthermore thethree SA groups significantly improved their composition scores over the35 years whereas the AH group did not F (1 33) 5 1009 p 001 forthe SA-15ndash2 group F (1 33) 5 1798 p 001 for the SA-4 group and F(1 33) 5 322 p 001 for the SA-8ndash11 group

At the individual level English composition scores for four of the nineAH students decreased over the 35 years and scores for the other fivestudents increased slightly Two of these five students mentioned thatEnglish classes at the Japanese university were helpful in learning towrite better However the other seven students (777) including thethree whose composition scores increased slightly felt that their Englishwriting ability deteriorated below their first-year level because from theirfourth year onward they took fewer English classes By contrast all ofthe SA studentsrsquo English composition scores improved over the 35 yearsFour SA-15ndash2 and three SA-4 students attributed this improvementmainly to the English writing classes they took at the Japanese universityOne SA-15ndash2 four SA-4 and four SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to theEnglish writing classes they took abroad and two SA-15ndash2 students andeight SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to the classes they took both in Japanand abroad Another SA-15ndash2 student said that writing e-mails to friendsshe made abroad was the only helpful factor and the last SA-15ndash2student said that the third- and fourth-year compositions were simplyeasier to write

It is noteworthy that many (607) of the SA students attributed theirEnglish writing improvement solely or partially to the English classesthey took in Japan As can be seen in Table 2 these students allimproved their English composition scores before going abroad as wellas after coming home The students reported that learning explicitlyhow to write in English (eg learning the idea of a topic sentence) andpracticing writing different types of texts (usually a paragraph long) inthese classes was useful

Similarly the 19 SA students who attributed their score increase atleast partially to their overseas L2 writing classes also added that theexperiences of learning how to write and having to write a lot and oftenoverseas were helpful However compared with the assignmentsrequired by their English classes in Japan the writing assignmentsrequired by their overseas classes were much more demanding Forexample in her first semester in the United States Eri an SA-8ndash11student took four classes two of which required writing papers In theESL writing class she learned how to organize effective paragraphs andwrote 4 two-page essays and 1 seven-page essay In her other class(Elementary Education) she wrote a total of 6 two-page papers In her

92 TESOL QUARTERLY

English classes in Japan she never wrote so much and so often (she onlywrote four paragraphs per semester at the maximum)

These SA studentsrsquo accounts concur with the findings of previouscross-sectional and longitudinal studies (eg Kobayashi amp Rinnert2001) in that the two factors of L2 writing metaknowledge and practiceinfluenced L2 writing development Given the greater percentages ofthe SA-4 (57) and SA-8ndash11 students (100) who attributed theirEnglish writing improvement at least partially to their overseas classescompared with the SA-15ndash2 students (333) and given that the SA-4and SA 8ndash11 groups improved significantly more than the SA-15ndash2group we could further speculate that long and intensive practice wasprobably a crucial factor in significantly improving these studentsrsquo L2writing By contrast as mentioned above many AH students felt thattheir English writing ability fell below their first-year level because theyhad fewer English classes during their fourth year This is especiallynoteworthy when we recall that many of the SA students whose scoresincreased for their fourth-year compositions also had fewer Englishclasses after becoming fourth-year students (Table 1) Consequentlydespite what they claimed the perceived and actual deterioration in theAH studentsrsquo L2 writing ability in the fourth year might be betterexplained by their low motivation rather than by the reduction in L2contact hours

L2 Writing Motivation

Tables 3andash3d present the four groupsrsquo changes in the relevantcomponents of the revised version of the research scheme of Yang et al(2004 see the Method section) Presented here are the tendenciesshared by more than 40 of the members of each group I did notinclude the components of rules and division of labor from Engestromrsquos(1987) expanded activity system because as in Yang et al in theparticipantsrsquo activity of studying L2 writing over 35 years the rule (iehow to write in the academic genre) and the division of labor (ie theparticipants studied and the teachers taught) were unchanged

Table 3a shows the characteristics of the four groupsrsquo L2 writingmotivation when they were first-year students Under the column forObject the four groups were all motivated to improve some aspects(mainly grammar vocabulary and quantity) of their L2 writing Theonly difference is that as can be seen in the column Mediating artifact(ie what was involved in the participantsrsquo trying to attain their objects)667 of the AH group reported doing nothing to improve their L2writing whereas all the other groups used textbooks dictionaries andteachers to achieve their goals Using Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) process

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 93

model of L2 motivation we can say that all four groups set some lsquolsquogoalsrsquorsquoor lsquolsquointentionsrsquorsquo (p 48) for improving their L2 writing but the AH groupremained in the lsquolsquopreactional phasersquorsquo (p 48) whereas the other threegroups crossed the lsquolsquometaphorical lsquoRubiconrsquo of actionrsquorsquo (p 57) In factmore than half of the AH students continued to do nothing to improvetheir L2 writing until their fourth year (as shown in Tables 3a to 3d)Such constantly low motivation in the AH group helps to explain whytheir L2 composition scores decreased below their first-year level whilethe other three groupsrsquo scores did not over the 35 years of myobservation period (seen in Table 2)

The four groupsrsquo characteristics (presented in Table 3b) for theirsecond year were similar to those for their first year except that 19(679) of the 28 SA students had an SA experience starting during thatyear (ie they experienced ESL classes as their L2-related actualcommunities) This probably influenced their subsequent motivationalbehavior for L2 writing One noticeable consequence of such influenceis that many members of the three SA groups in their third and fourth

TABLE 3a

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Artifact Components in First Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

community

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

Non-L2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity Outcome

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)

vocabulary(556)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)

vocabulary(887)quantity(444)

confidence(444)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(714)

vocabulary(857)quantity(429)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(714)

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(917)quantity(417)

EFL classes(100)

Note Descriptions in Tables 3andash3d are given if they were shared by more than 40 of theparticipants EFL 5 English as a foreign language

94 TESOL QUARTERLY

years in university formed some kind of L2-related imagined commu-nities that had not existed before That is after they became third-yearstudents when they had to write academic texts in the L2 as required intheir English classes many of them came to imagine communities wherepeople used L2 for actual communicative purposes Tables 3c and 3dshow how this imagined communitiesrsquo idea played out during their thirdand fourth years of study

Looking across these two tables for example many SA-15ndash2 groupmembers (667 in their fourth year) kept in touch with the L1 or L2English-speaking friends they had made while abroad and correspondedwith them in English through e-mail andor internet chat afterreturning to Japan In such correspondence the SA-15ndash2 studentsoften expressed the wish that they could still be among these pen pals inthe same English-speaking places where they had once studied and theytalked with their pen pals about topics (eg the basketball team of thetown) related to these places We can call such places imaginedcommunities because they were no longer physically accessible to thestudents6 The SA-15ndash2 students all felt that corresponding with these

TABLE 3b

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Second Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2 writingability

Improved Decreased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabulary(444)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

556 444

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabulary(667)Quantity(444)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

889 0

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(571)Vocabulary(571)Quantity(429)

Textbook-s refer-encebooks(571)

ESL classes(100 for4 months)

714 286

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(50)Quantity(417)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(50)

ESL classes(583 for8ndash11months)

100

EFL classes(100)

Note 12 5 second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 95

cybernet pen pals was useful for improving their English writing abilityIn fact writing good e-mails even became one of their major L2 writinggoals in their fourth year (as shown in Table 3d)

Similarly by their fourth year all members of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11groups communicated with overseas friends through e-mail or online chatand imagined during such cybernet correspondence the communities

TABLE 3c

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Third Year

Group Object

Medi-ating

artifact

L2-relatedactual com-

munity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2writing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(556)Vocabu-lary(556)

None(555)

EFL classes(100)

111 667

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabu-lary(444)Quantity(444)

E-mail oronlinechatting(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(444)

333 556

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Vocabu-lary(100)

Teachers(444)Textboo-ks(714)

EFL classes(100)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(857) ESLclasses(714)

857Motivatedto write be-tter in L2(857)

143

Organiza-tion(429)Planning(429)Content(857)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Grammar(583)Vocabu-lary (75)Content(667)

TOEICTOEFL(417)

ESL classes(417 for8ndash11months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(583) ESLclasses(583)

917 83

English-L1friends(417)

EFL classes(100)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(75)

Note TOEIC 5 Test of English for International Communication TOEFL 5 Test of English as aForeign Language

6 My interpretation of the term imagined community is thus different from that of otherresearchers who assume that the imagined communities should be physically located inplaces where the students have never been (eg Kinginger 2004)

96 TESOL QUARTERLY

TABLE 3d

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Fourth Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommun-

ity

Outcome L2 writ-ing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH (n5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabu-lary (556)

None(556)

EFLclasses(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(667)

667 333LostinterestinstudyingL2 writ-ing(778)

SA-15ndash2(n 59)

Grammar(778)Vocabulary(667)How towrite e-mailletters(667)

E-mail oronline chat-ting (667)

ESLclasses(112)-EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(667)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(555)

667 222

SA-4(n 57)

Vocabulary(714)

TOEIC orSTEP Test(714)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(857)

714Motivatedto writebetterin L2(857)

143

ESL classes(714)

SA-8ndash11 (n5 12)

Content(833)

Self-directedwriting(583)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(833)

833 167

Vocabulary(667)Grammar(50)

Dictionaryreferencebooks(583)

ESL classes(917)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(833)

Note STEP 5 Society for Testing English Proficiency

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 97

they had once shared with these friends However when they wroteacademic texts in English none of them thought about such correspon-dence Instead 714 of the SA-4 group and 917 of the SA-8ndash11 groupimagined how they had written in ESL and other regular subject classesthey took while abroad (see Table 3d) In contrast no SA-15ndash2 groupmember imagined such overseas classes when writing L2 academic textsThey simply drew on their experiences of how they could best respond totheir cybernet pen pals in such cases This difference between the SA-15ndash-2 group and the pair of SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups can be attributed to thefact that the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups experienced not only moreopportunities to write but also a longer duration of overseas classes thanthe SA-15ndash2 group

As mentioned earlier in these classes the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 studentslearned how to organize effective compositions and they wrote varioustypes of texts (eg term papers summaries) When they firstencountered writing assignments in these classes many were shockedto find that they could not write as well as their classmates includingother international students because none of them had ever learnedhow to write English texts longer than a paragraph After having readrelevant literature and written multiple drafts however they learnedhow to achieve higher grades Fourteen (737) out of the 19 SA-4 andSA-8ndash11 students also mentioned that the teachersrsquo praise (one of thepotential motivational influences for the postactional phase in Dornyeiand Ottorsquos 1998 model p 61) further encouraged them Drawing onthese episodes motivated the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students to write betteracademic texts even after returning home as shown in Sachirsquoscomments from her late-fourth-year interview

ExampleSachi who spent 11 months in the United States is talking about her

first in-class test essay in a psychology class in the United States whereshe was the only international student (All accounts were originally inJapanese and were translated by the author)

Sachi After 30 minutes [for the test] I was told to stop and I thoughtlsquolsquoYou are kidding I have only written three lines This is tragicrsquorsquo(laughter)

Miyuki (laughter)Sachi And then when the test was returned the teacher told me to

study English harder I was shocked because she meant that I shouldstudy English before I could study the content [of the class]

Miyuki OhSachi But the teacher had also made many suggestions on the test

sheet about how I could have written the answer betterMiyuki Oh she is kind isnrsquot sheSachi Yes and because of that I thought I should try harder

98 TESOL QUARTERLY

Miyuki You mean you had to live up to the teacherrsquos expectationsSachi Yes I thought I should try as a Japanese Hooray for Japanese

peopleMiyuki (laughter)Sachi And even now I feel that I should make efforts to write better

when I write [in English]Such motivation seems qualitatively different from the SA-15ndash2

studentsrsquo motivation to simply improve a single aspect of their L2 writing(ie writing messages in cyberspace) This difference in motivation mayalso account for the fact that only the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups weremotivated to improve the content of their L2 writing after their thirdyear (Tables 3c and 3d)

Last as regards their fourth year (Table 3d) the most noticeabledifference from the other years was that many participants formedimagined communities where they hoped to work after they graduatedfrom university This is related to the fact that many of them startedhunting for jobs near the end of their third year They spent thefollowing 6ndash12 months taking exams and being interviewed for the bestpossible jobs they could get Of the 37 participants however only 12students (324 3 AH 1 SA-15ndash2 3 SA-4 and 5 SA-8ndash11) imaginedprofessional communities that were English-related (eg a communityof English teachers) As in their third year many SA students continuedto imagine L2-related communities such as communities imaginedthrough e-mail correspondence or overseas classes when they wrote inEnglish However these communities were not directly related to theirfuture jobs Underlying this phenomenon was the fact that althoughtheir major (British and American Studies) was related to English notmany graduates at this university (only 16 in 2006) actually obtainedemployment directly related to English

Consequently the future-career-related imagined communities ofthese students did not necessarily lead to L2 writing improvement Infact 667 of the AH group and 857 of the SA-4 group showeddecreases in their L2 composition scores and in the late-fourth-yearinterviews all of them attributed this decrease to being busy job-huntingYet seven (583) of the 12 SA-8ndash11 students continued to voluntarilypractice L2 writing even though such activity benefited the future careerof only three of them For example Koji an SA-8ndash11 student who cameback to Japan in the middle of his third year wrote a final report inEnglish for his fourth-year sociology class when the teacher allowed himto do so even though writing the report in English was not required Hisfuture-career-related imagined community was not related to EnglishAnd yet he chose to write in English because he believed that he couldlsquolsquodo a good job if he tried with all the knowledge he had acquired inAmerica and in the subsequent yearsrsquorsquo (from his late-fourth year

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 99

interview) This suggests that the motivations of these students hadbecome more intrinsic or that they had become more autonomouslearners having acquired the ability to lsquolsquoidentify goals formulate theirown goals and change goals to suit their own learning needs andinterestsrsquorsquo (Dickinson 1995 p 167) No other students exhibited suchmotivation throughout the observation period Although it is not clearwhy only some SA-8ndash11 students acquired such learner autonomy theseSA-8ndash11 students are the most likely to keep trying to improve their L2writing ability in the future

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

In this section I summarize the results of this study and present somepractical implications First the AH grouprsquos motivational behaviors overthe 35 years were different from those of the three SA groups in thatfew AH students took concrete action to achieve their goals Despite thislack of strong motivation however the AH grouprsquos L2 writing abilitycontinued to improve around their third year probably because theytook a relatively large number of English classes up to that point(Table 1) To obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree they had to earn creditsfor these classes and one can speculate that such an lsquolsquoincentive value ofthe outcomersquorsquo (Dornyei and Otto 1998 p 53) was the major drivingforce behind their improvement Once the external motivational forceof L2 classes diminished however the students seemed to need toimagine L2-related communities in order to keep improving (Table 2)Furthermore among the three SA groups who formed some kind of L2-related imagined communities after coming home the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups improved their composition scores significantly more than didthe SA-15ndash2 group This might be because these two groups had moreand longer L2 writing practice but also because their imagined L2-related communities were more directly connected to learning theability targeted in the present study (ie academic writing) Lastalthough the reason for this is not clear only the SA-8ndash11 group becameintrinsically motivated and continued to develop despite impedingfourth-year factors such as job hunting

What implications for FL teaching do these results suggest Firstwhen instrumental motivation is in force regular instruction such asproviding students with L2 writing metaknowledge as well as differenttypes of practice can lead to improvement to some degree For a morelasting effect however it may be important for students to constructsome kind of L2-related imagined communities In the present study SAstudentsrsquo overseas experiences were helpful but we know that not all FLstudents can afford to spend time abroad It would be ideal if a way could

100 TESOL QUARTERLY

be found to create L2-related imagined communities without thenecessity of going abroad Yashima and Zenuk-Nishide (2008) reportedone such possibility where Japanese high school students became moremotivated and improved their English proficiency without going abroadby being introduced into lsquolsquoan imagined international communityrsquorsquo (ie amodel lsquolsquoUnited Nationsrsquorsquo p 569) in content-based English classes In asimilar vein preparing an L2 writing curriculum where students canparticipate in such communities through lsquolsquocognitively and emotionallyinvolving contentrsquorsquo (p 570) might be a promising approach in FLsettings

Another suggestion is based on the significant difference inimprovement between the SA-15ndash2 group and the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11pair If teachers want to make their studentsrsquo motivation moreinfluential it would probably be better for the L2-related imaginedcommunities to be accompanied by specific details of skills andknowledge related to the targeted abilities to be improved In the caseof L2 writing for example students must know how to plan and writeeffective compositions in the intended genre Accumulation of suchdeclarative and procedural knowledge would endow the students withwhat Dornyei and Otto (1998) call an lsquolsquointernal model of referencersquorsquo(p 57) which would be especially helpful for realizing preactionalintentions Furthermore such knowledge has to be implementedthrough sufficient and continuous practice to result in a truly significantdifference in output quality Affective support such as teachersrsquo praise isalso important for making the studentsrsquo motivation more enduringIdeally imagined communities should be substantial enough to trans-form dependent learners into autonomous ones so that they keepimproving even when demotivating external factors intervene

CONCLUSION

The present study investigated the long-term effects of varying lengthsof overseas experiences on the L2 writing ability and motivation of 37Japanese university students The study revealed characteristics uniqueto the FL situation For example unlike the ESL learners studied byCumming (2006) some learners took almost no action to achieve theirgoals This was mainly due to the fact that L2 writing improvement wasnot necessary for their social survival In contrast spending some timeoverseas proved helpful not only in enabling the students to improvetheir L2 writing ability but also in maintaining their motivation to writebetter The pedagogical implications presented in the last section of thisarticle can thus be particularly useful for those who study an L2 where itis not used for communicative purposes

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 101

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

participants I realized that not only the overseas experience itself butalso its variable length could potentially impact this particular sample(see Sasaki 2009)1 As a result I changed the mode of the present studyfrom confirmatory to exploratory

Furthermore unlike in Sasaki (2004) where I mainly analyzed theparticipantsrsquo cognitive abilities and activities in the present study Idrew on modern sociocultural theory (eg Lantolf amp Thorne 2006)and examined the participantsrsquo cognitive changes as situated in theirenvironments I did so because the findings of my previous studies(eg Sasaki 2004 2007) convinced me that L2 learning could besignificantly influenced by the specific contexts in which it takes placeAmong many sociocultural research methods available to approachthe data I employed Yang Baba and Cummingrsquos (2004) frameworkwhich is based on Engestromrsquos (1987) expanded activity system andin order to explain the particularities of the data in the present studyI further adopted Kanno and Nortonrsquos (2003) notion of imaginedcommunities

Below I present the results of previous studies that have targeted thethree key factors considered in the present study L2 writing ability L2writing motivation and effects of SA experiences on L2 writing

L2 WRITING ABILITY DEVELOPMENT

Traditionally factors that might influence the development of L2writing ability have been investigated mainly through cross-sectionalstudies of cognitive variables These studies have usually involvedcomparing less skilled with more skilled writers The results of thesestudies have revealed that the quality of L2 writing tends to be high if thewriters have high L2 proficiency (eg Pennington amp So 1993) or highfirst-language (L1) writing ability (eg Cumming 1989) if they usegood writersrsquo strategies such as effective planning (Jones amp Tetroe1987) if they possess sufficient metaknowledge (eg Kobayashi ampRinnert 2001) and if they have practiced L2 writing sufficiently (egSasaki amp Hirose 1996)

Although these characteristics of good writers might be trulyinfluential in L2 writing ability development they could simply co-occurwith good L2 writing In contrast the findings of longitudinal casestudies may be more convincing because these studies employed theparticipantsrsquo own (emic) accounts of what they thought was actuallyuseful for their L2 writing development Past case studies have reported

1 In Sasaki (2009) I reported changes in the L2 writing ability and motivation of 22 of thesame 37 participants The study was based on the data I collected during the first 5 of the 6years I spent collecting data for the present study

82 TESOL QUARTERLY

how the participants managed to learn appropriate writing skills byemploying both cognitive strategies such as lsquolsquolooking for modelsrsquorsquo (Leki1995 p 249) and social strategies such as consulting lsquolsquoon a problemrelated to a taskrsquorsquo (Riazi 1997 p 127)

Motivated by these previous studies I conducted a series oflongitudinal studies targeting participants similar to those in the presentstudy (ie Japanese university students) For example in Sasaki (2004)I observed changes in L2 writing ability and strategy use in 11 Japanesestudents over 35 years Based on the participantsrsquo accounts frominterviews and on changes in their composition scores I concluded thattheir 35 years of both domestic and overseas education helped theparticipants improve their L2 writing ability although only those whospent more than 2 months abroad became more motivated to writebetter compositions In a subsequent study (Sasaki 2007) with yetanother group of participants I further compared six SA students whospent 4ndash9 months abroad with five at-home (AH) students whoremained in Japan for just over 1 year during which the SA studentsspent some time overseas The results indicate that the SA studentssignificantly improved their L2 writing ability and motivation whereasthe AH students did not improve in either of these two areas The resultsof these studies suggest that at least for students of Japanese English as aforeign language (EFL) overseas experiences can have a strong positiveimpact on their L2 writing ability and motivation but that the instructionthey receive inside Japan can also be useful for some students (eg thestudents in Sasaki 2004) These studies are precursors of the presentstudy

L2 WRITING MOTIVATION

Most current research on L2 motivation has investigated how L2motivation might interact with other cognitive psychological andorsocial factors such as attitude and anxiety and the methods used havebeen typically psychometric utilizing correlations among scores andquestionnaire responses (eg Tremblay amp Gardner 1995) Morerecently however researchers such as Dornyei (eg 1998) havecriticized such research for treating the construct of motivation as astatic state and for not taking into account variation over time and acrosssituations Dornyei and Otto (1998) for example developed analternative process model of L2 motivation positing motivation as lsquolsquoadynamically evolving and changing entityrsquorsquo (p 44) Based on thisassumption Dornyei and Ottorsquos model presents a panorama of how aperson starts with a lsquolsquopreactional phasersquorsquo (p 48 eg a lsquolsquogoalrsquorsquo) moves onto the actual execution of the intended task and ends with a

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 83

lsquolsquopostactional phasersquorsquo (p 48 eg lsquolsquofurther planningrsquorsquo) with each of thesephases affected by various lsquolsquomotivational influencesrsquorsquo (p 48) such as thepersonrsquos psychological orientation and external environments If wetreat motivation as such a dynamic and situated mechanism case studiesusing emic qualitative data provide appropriate avenues for the study ofL2 learnersrsquo motivational behaviors Shoaib and Dornyei (2005)exemplified one such study investigating motivational changes in 25participants over their lifetime through biographical interview data butto date such studies have been scarce Furthermore even with such adrastic shift in the focus of L2 motivation studies the target ofmotivation research has mostly remained general L2 proficiency andmotivation related to any particular skill or type of knowledge has rarelybeen examined

Thus the construct of L2 writing motivation was not considereduntil early 2000 when Alister Cumming and his colleagues started aseries of studies of L2 writing goals and motivation (see Cumming2006) Their participants were all English as a second language (ESL)students in university settings in Canada Addressing the above-mentioned criticism that L2 motivation research lacked the perspec-tive of time and context Cumming and his colleagues employedlongitudinal and situated data Yang et al (2004) for exampleprovided a microlevel analysis of changes in L2 motivation in six ESLstudents over the course of an ESL program To explain thequalitative changes in the participantsrsquo L2 writing motivation Yanget al used Engestromrsquos (1987) expanded activity system believing thatlsquolsquoindividual students are active responsive agents with their ownindividual goals orientations values beliefs and historiesrsquorsquo (Yanget al p 14) In addition to this activity theory perspective Cummingand his colleagues (2006) employed goal theory from the field ofpsychology for its lsquolsquomultiple theoretical framesrsquorsquo (p ix) in sevencollaborative studies focusing on both studentsrsquo and their teachersrsquogoals for learning and teaching L2 writing The results of these studiesare insightful in that they indicate how L2 studentsrsquo and teachersrsquomotivation constantly interacted with environmental factors Yet fromthe perspective of foreign language (FL) writing research theinvestigation of studentsrsquo goals for learning L2 writing may not bevery meaningful because FL students do not always have to set orachieve L2 writing goals to survive in their own communities wherethe L2 is not used for communicative purposes However no study todate has been conducted to investigate such L2 writing motivation inan FL setting

84 TESOL QUARTERLY

EFFECTS OF SA EXPERIENCES

Research on effects of SA experiences has become increasinglypopular especially during the past two decades (eg Kinginger 2008)Researchers have discovered that compared with their AH counterparts(1) SA students improved in their L2 speaking ability (eg Lafford2004) L2 listening ability (eg Allen 2002) and L2 reading ability (egDewey 2004) (2) SA students changed their sociolinguistic use of theL2 (eg Barron 2006) (3) their sociocultural environments played animportant role in such changes (eg Iino 2006) and (4) there weresubstantial individual differences in the scope and magnitude of thesechanges (eg Isabelli-Garcıa 2006)

Although these findings are informative many other aspects of theeffects of SA experiences remain unexplored For example Churchilland Dufon (2006) summarized previous studies investigating possible SAeffects on studentsrsquo linguistic skills but none of the studies they surveyedaddressed the acquisition of L2 writing skills specifically Similarly thevariable of L2 learning motivation has rarely been examined in terms ofthe effects of overseas experiences Even though previous studiesindicated that SA experiences tend to have positive impacts onparticipantsrsquo motivation (eg Simoes 1996) some studies reportedotherwise (eg Allen 2002)

In addition to the above-mentioned scarcity of studies of the effect ofSA experiences on L2 writing and motivation very few studies to datehave examined the effects of SA experiences on the specific variable ofL2 writing motivation one of the targeted variables in the present studyFurthermore very few studies have examined the effects of the length ofoverseas stays Although a stay of even a few weeks can have some impacton listening and speaking (Campbell 1996) lsquolsquothe question of how longis needed to make significant gains in specific skills remains unan-sweredrsquorsquo (Churchill amp Dufon 2006 p 23) Finally very few studies havereported any long-term effects of SA experiences Several qualitativestudies using retrospective accounts have examined the impact ofspending time abroad on studentsrsquo subsequent life (eg career choice)over quite a long period of time (8 years in Ehrenreich 2006) but fewquantitative studies have been conducted to investigate such effects onany L2 skill or motivation

Informed and motivated by the results (or lack thereof) of theseprevious studies as well as my own studies I undertook the present studywith the following four questions in mind

1 How does studentsrsquo L2 writing ability change over 35 years2 How does their L2 writing motivation change over 35 years3 How do any motivational changes interact with changes in their L2

writing ability

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 85

4 Do differences in length in the studentsrsquo SA experiences havedifferential impacts on their L2 writing ability and motivational changes

In Question 1 I defined L2 writing ability as an academic ability towrite in lsquolsquopedagogical genresrsquorsquo (Johns 1997 p 46) such as lsquolsquothe essayexamination response the term paper or the pedagogical summaryrsquorsquo(p 46) As regards Question 2 I follow Dornyei and Otto (1998 p 65) indefining motivation as lsquolsquothe dynamically changing cumulative arousal ina person that initiates directs coordinates amplifies terminates andevaluates the cognitive and motor processes whereby initial wishes anddesires are selected prioritized operationalised and (successfully orunsuccessfully) acted outrsquorsquo and I employed Dornyei and Ottorsquos processmodel of L2 motivation as the research baseline

METHOD

Participants

The 37 participants (9 in 2002 13 in 2003 and 15 in 2004) enteredthe same university in Japan as members of a cohort consisting each yearof about 150 British and American Studies majors2 They were all 18 yearsold at the time They came from three of five freshman English classes(with about 30 students each) offered under the same title each yearand I taught two of the three classes Each year I went to their first day ofclasses and asked for volunteers to participate in an English-writingproject that would require up to 90 minutes of their time once or twice ayear until graduation They were informed that they would receivemodest monetary compensation for their participation A total of 40students volunteered and 37 provided full data for the present studyThe 37 students had studied English for six years by the time the studybegan but they had received little L2 writing instruction while in highschool

Between their second and fourth year of university study (see Table 1)28 of the 37 students participated in SA programs provided by theuniversity spending different lengths of time in Canada England theUnited States Australia or New Zealand The participants weresubsequently divided into four groups according to the length of theiroverseas stay The SA-15ndash2 group (1 male and 8 females) spent 15ndash2months abroad3 the SA-4 group (2 males and 5 females) 4 months the

2 The official name of the department is English but the students do not study English asintensively as might be generally expected of English majors Instead they focus more ofcontent areas related to linguistics literature and area studies I thus decided to label theirmajor British and American Studies to avoid any misunderstanding

3 Four students spent 6 weeks and the other five students spent 2 months abroad

86 TESOL QUARTERLY

SA-8ndash11 group (3 males and 9 males) 8ndash11 months4 and the AH group(2 males and 7 females) remained in Japan during the 35-yearobservation period All the institutions where the SA students studiedwere 4-year universities admitting English-speaking students

The studentsrsquo English writing ability differed slightly even when theywere in their first year That is the SA-4 grouprsquos mean composition score(13814 out of a maximum of 200) was significantly higher than that ofthe SA-15ndash2 group (11644 see the Results and Discussion section)However there was no other significant difference across the fourgroupsrsquo composition scores In addition there was no significantdifference across the four groups when they were first-year students interms of general English proficiency measured by the sum of theListening and Structure Section scores of the Comprehensive EnglishLanguage Test Harris and Palmer (1986) F(3 33) 5 207 for a maximumof 200 At this university students had to earn high scores on theinstitutionalized TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign LanguageEducational Testing Service) to attend the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 (but notthe SA-15ndash2) programs and the SA-8ndash11 program was more competitivethan the SA-4 program In this sense the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups mayhave been more motivated to study English than the other groups fromthe beginning of the present study

4 Three students spent 8 months four spent 9 months three spent 10 months and twospent 11 months abroad

TABLE 1

English-Related Educational Experiences Over the Four University Years and Mean Departureand Return Points

Group

Meandepar-ture

point

Meanreturnpoint

Lengthof studyabroad(mon-ths)

Mean class hoursweek when abroad

Mean English class hoursweek when in Japan

ESLRegularsubject

1styear

2ndyear

3rdyear

4thyear

AH(n 5 9)

NA NA 0 0 0 88 62 61 10

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

2ndyear11thmonth

3rd year1st month

15ndash2 231 NA 90 57 45 12

SA-4(n 5 7)

2ndyear 6thmonth

2nd year11thmonth

4 107 43 90 54 65 24

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

2ndyear11thmonth

3rd year10thmonth

8ndash11 139 46 90 47 38 06

Note AH 5 at home SA 5 study abroad ESL 5 English as a second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 87

Table 1 presents the mean departure and returning-home times ofthe SA groups as well as the mean hours of English classes theparticipants took while overseas and in Japan Note that on average theSA-4 group went abroad earlier (2nd year 6th month) than the SA-15ndash2and SA-8ndash11 groups (2nd year 11th month for both groups) and theSA-4 group came home earliest (2nd year 11th month) and the SA-8ndash11group latest (3rd year 10th month) A total of 19 (679) out of the 28SA students had their overseas experiences between the second half oftheir second year and the first half of their third year at the universityWhile abroad the SA-15ndash2 students took ESL classes only whereas some(though not all) of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students took both ESL andregular subject classes The number of English classes these four groupstook at the Japanese university drastically decreased during their fourthyear because they had already taken the number of English classesrequired for graduation by the end of their third year and because theywere busy job-hunting during their fourth year

Data Collection

I collected L2 writing and motivation data at four different points inthe first month of the participantsrsquo first year (early-first-year period) andthe fourth month of their second third and fourth year (mid-second-year mid-third-year and mid-fourth-year periods) In the eighth monthof their fourth year (late-fourth-year period) I also interviewed thestudents to collect their own accounts of any changes in their L2 writingability and motivation

Composition Scores

The participants wrote an argumentative composition on a randomlyselected topic concerning such issues as living in a city or in the country(see Sasaki 2004) The prompts were selected in such a way that theparticipants were able to write about different topics on the fourdifferent occasions and so that similar ratios of participants in the fourgroups addressed the same topics

Two EFL writing specialists scored all the compositions followingJacobs Zinkgraf Wormuth Hartfiel and Hugheyrsquos (1981) EnglishComposition Profile The raters were not informed of the purpose of thepresent study when each composition was written or from whichparticipant group it came The interrater correlation (Pearson correla-tion coefficient) for the content subscore was 089 for the organizationsubscore 085 for the vocabulary subscore 078 for the language usesubscore 080 for the mechanics subscore 053 (caused by the very

88 TESOL QUARTERLY

narrow score range of 1ndash5)5 and for the total score 093 Overall Ijudged that these correlations were acceptable for the study

Interviews About L2 Writing Strategies L2 Classes andMotivation Conducted After Each Composition Session

After the participants wrote the compositions described above Iinterviewed each of them individually in Japanese about theirexperiences related to English learning over the previous year andwhich aspect of English writing they wanted to improve if any Thesessions lasted about 30 minutes each

Late-Fourth-Year Interviews on Changes in L2 Writing Abilityand Motivation

Four months after the participants wrote their mid-fourth-yearcompositions I interviewed them individually in Japanese again to collectaccounts of what they thought had influenced changes in their L2 writingability fluency and strategy use over the past 35 years During theinterviews I showed the participants a table or a graph showing theiractual changes on these variables over this period (I did not use thefluency and strategy use data in the present study) Addressingmotivational changes I showed them the transcripts of what they hadsaid when asked which aspects of English writing they wanted to improvein each of the four data collection sessions I also asked them additionalquestions about what other aspects if any they might have wanted toimprove over the given year why they had these particular goals and whatthey did to achieve these goals For those who did not mention any aspectthey wanted to improve I showed them a list (written in Japanese) ofpossible areas to be improved in L2 writing based on Cummingrsquos (2006)scheme probing L2 writing motivation (see Sasaki 2009 for list content)Each late-fourth-year interview session lasted 30ndash60 minutes All interviewaccounts were tape-recorded and subsequently transcribed

Analysis of Interview Data

When analyzing the transcribed interview data I followed Miles andHubermanrsquos (1994) data synthesis tactics especially those concerningnoting lsquolsquopatterns themesrsquorsquo (p 245) and making lsquolsquocontrastscompar-isonsrsquorsquo (p 245) I used the interview data about the participantsrsquo English-

5 Pearson correlation coefficients tend to be lower if the ranges of the given variables aremore restricted than others (see Linn 1968 for example)

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 89

related experiences and reasons for changes in their L2 writing ability inorder to better interpret the quantitative data on changes in theparticipantsrsquo L2 composition scores I also analyzed the interview dataabout the participantsrsquo motivational changes for their own sake As Imentioned earlier I adopted Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) definition of L2motivation and I analyzed the participantsrsquo changes in L2 writingmotivation using the research framework of Yang et al (2004) I decidedto employ this framework because it had worked successfully foranalyzing phenomena similar to the ones targeted in the present studyand because it shared with Dornyei and Ottorsquos model two crucialassumptions of methods accommodating sociocultural theory namely(1) that learners are active agents of L2 learning and (2) that L2learning processes can be influenced by various internalexternalfactors

The framework of Yang et al (2004) assumes that L2 learnersrsquothought processes and actions are mediated by artifacts or socioculturalentities when the participants as subjects operate on the object of learningL2 writing As Yang et al explain (p 15)

To take an example of second language (L2) learning a student (subject) in an ESLclass aims to improve her competence in academic English writing (object) Thisstudent may follow the teacherrsquos instruction do assignments read a textbook talk withfriends surf the Internet refer to dictionaries and so on (mediating artifacts) After aperiod of practice this student may achieve her goal such as getting a high grade on heressays (outcome) This activity happens in the ESL class (community) and thestudent intends to grasp the conventions of academic English writing (rules) In thisESL class the teacher provides model instruction gives assignments and offersfeedback and students follow their teacher and do the assignments (division of labor)

In addition to the original categories used by Yang et al (2004) Iincluded two more categories in the present study Imagined L2-relatedcommunity and Imagined non-L2-related community I did this becausein the process of analyzing the interview data I realized that thesecategories were also important for understanding the participantsrsquomotivational changes Subsequently I changed the term community inthe scheme of Yang et al to actual L2-related community to distinguish itfrom the two imagined communities For the term imagined community Ifollowed Kanno and Nortonrsquos (2003 p 241) definition of lsquolsquogroups ofpeople not immediately tangible and accessible with whom we connectthrough the power of imaginationrsquorsquo

In the framework of Yang et al (2004) we can assume that lsquolsquoobjectrsquorsquocorresponds to lsquolsquogoalrsquorsquo or lsquolsquointentionrsquorsquo in the lsquolsquopreactional phrasersquorsquo ofDornyei and Ottorsquos (1998 p 48) model If the subject actually tries toaccomplish hisher object through a range of mediating artifacts we can

90 TESOL QUARTERLY

say that heshe actually launches into what Dornyei and Otto (p 48) callthe lsquolsquoactional phasersquorsquo The other components of community imaginedcommunity and division of labor can form what Dornyei and Otto(p 48) call the lsquolsquomotivational influencesrsquorsquo affecting the studentrsquosmotivational behavior

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

L2 Writing Ability

I first present changes in the participantsrsquo L2 composition scores fordescriptive purposes I then present the results of an analysis of variance(ANOVA) to display the degree of change between the early-first-yearand mid-fourth-year periods using SPSS Version 61 (SPSS 1994)However because of the small sample sizes the results of the ANOVAanalyses should not be generalized

As shown in Table 2 the four groupsrsquo scores increased until theirsecond year but the AH grouprsquos score then decreased and even droppedbelow their first-year level in their fourth-year composition By contrastthe three SA groupsrsquo fourth-year composition scores were all higher thanthose of their first-year compositions but the SA-8ndash11 group was the onlyone that continually improved until the fourth year A two-way ANOVAcomparing the differences across the four groups between their first andfourth years indicated a significant interaction between time and groupeffects [F (3 33) 5 743 p 0001]

The results of subsequent post-hoc simple effects analysis andmultiple comparisons (Tanaka amp Yamagiwa 1992) revealed thefollowing First when the students were in their first year there wasno difference across the four groups except that the SA-4 grouprsquoscomposition scores were significantly higher than those of the SA-15ndash2group (mean square error (MSE) 5 23340 p 005) In the fourthyear the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groupsrsquo scores were significantly higher than

TABLE 2

Mean Total Composition Scores (Total Possible 5 200) at Four Observation Times

GroupEarly-1st-Year

M (SD)Mid-2nd-Year

M (SD)Mid-3rd-Year

M (SD)Late-4th-Year

M (SD)

AH (n 5 9) 13056 (1201) 13711 (1431) 13500 (1493) 12822(1044)SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

11644 (1837) 13178 (1821) 13056 (1549) 13389 (2097)

SA-4 (n 5 7) 13814 (1328) 14657 (1003) 16900 (707) 16143 (960)SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

13058 (1377) 15200 (1245) 15817 (1996) 16175 (859)

Note M 5 mean SD 5 standard deviation

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 91

those of the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups but there was no significantdifference between the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups or between the SA-4and the SA-8ndash11 groups (MSE 5 19607 p 005) Furthermore thethree SA groups significantly improved their composition scores over the35 years whereas the AH group did not F (1 33) 5 1009 p 001 forthe SA-15ndash2 group F (1 33) 5 1798 p 001 for the SA-4 group and F(1 33) 5 322 p 001 for the SA-8ndash11 group

At the individual level English composition scores for four of the nineAH students decreased over the 35 years and scores for the other fivestudents increased slightly Two of these five students mentioned thatEnglish classes at the Japanese university were helpful in learning towrite better However the other seven students (777) including thethree whose composition scores increased slightly felt that their Englishwriting ability deteriorated below their first-year level because from theirfourth year onward they took fewer English classes By contrast all ofthe SA studentsrsquo English composition scores improved over the 35 yearsFour SA-15ndash2 and three SA-4 students attributed this improvementmainly to the English writing classes they took at the Japanese universityOne SA-15ndash2 four SA-4 and four SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to theEnglish writing classes they took abroad and two SA-15ndash2 students andeight SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to the classes they took both in Japanand abroad Another SA-15ndash2 student said that writing e-mails to friendsshe made abroad was the only helpful factor and the last SA-15ndash2student said that the third- and fourth-year compositions were simplyeasier to write

It is noteworthy that many (607) of the SA students attributed theirEnglish writing improvement solely or partially to the English classesthey took in Japan As can be seen in Table 2 these students allimproved their English composition scores before going abroad as wellas after coming home The students reported that learning explicitlyhow to write in English (eg learning the idea of a topic sentence) andpracticing writing different types of texts (usually a paragraph long) inthese classes was useful

Similarly the 19 SA students who attributed their score increase atleast partially to their overseas L2 writing classes also added that theexperiences of learning how to write and having to write a lot and oftenoverseas were helpful However compared with the assignmentsrequired by their English classes in Japan the writing assignmentsrequired by their overseas classes were much more demanding Forexample in her first semester in the United States Eri an SA-8ndash11student took four classes two of which required writing papers In theESL writing class she learned how to organize effective paragraphs andwrote 4 two-page essays and 1 seven-page essay In her other class(Elementary Education) she wrote a total of 6 two-page papers In her

92 TESOL QUARTERLY

English classes in Japan she never wrote so much and so often (she onlywrote four paragraphs per semester at the maximum)

These SA studentsrsquo accounts concur with the findings of previouscross-sectional and longitudinal studies (eg Kobayashi amp Rinnert2001) in that the two factors of L2 writing metaknowledge and practiceinfluenced L2 writing development Given the greater percentages ofthe SA-4 (57) and SA-8ndash11 students (100) who attributed theirEnglish writing improvement at least partially to their overseas classescompared with the SA-15ndash2 students (333) and given that the SA-4and SA 8ndash11 groups improved significantly more than the SA-15ndash2group we could further speculate that long and intensive practice wasprobably a crucial factor in significantly improving these studentsrsquo L2writing By contrast as mentioned above many AH students felt thattheir English writing ability fell below their first-year level because theyhad fewer English classes during their fourth year This is especiallynoteworthy when we recall that many of the SA students whose scoresincreased for their fourth-year compositions also had fewer Englishclasses after becoming fourth-year students (Table 1) Consequentlydespite what they claimed the perceived and actual deterioration in theAH studentsrsquo L2 writing ability in the fourth year might be betterexplained by their low motivation rather than by the reduction in L2contact hours

L2 Writing Motivation

Tables 3andash3d present the four groupsrsquo changes in the relevantcomponents of the revised version of the research scheme of Yang et al(2004 see the Method section) Presented here are the tendenciesshared by more than 40 of the members of each group I did notinclude the components of rules and division of labor from Engestromrsquos(1987) expanded activity system because as in Yang et al in theparticipantsrsquo activity of studying L2 writing over 35 years the rule (iehow to write in the academic genre) and the division of labor (ie theparticipants studied and the teachers taught) were unchanged

Table 3a shows the characteristics of the four groupsrsquo L2 writingmotivation when they were first-year students Under the column forObject the four groups were all motivated to improve some aspects(mainly grammar vocabulary and quantity) of their L2 writing Theonly difference is that as can be seen in the column Mediating artifact(ie what was involved in the participantsrsquo trying to attain their objects)667 of the AH group reported doing nothing to improve their L2writing whereas all the other groups used textbooks dictionaries andteachers to achieve their goals Using Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) process

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 93

model of L2 motivation we can say that all four groups set some lsquolsquogoalsrsquorsquoor lsquolsquointentionsrsquorsquo (p 48) for improving their L2 writing but the AH groupremained in the lsquolsquopreactional phasersquorsquo (p 48) whereas the other threegroups crossed the lsquolsquometaphorical lsquoRubiconrsquo of actionrsquorsquo (p 57) In factmore than half of the AH students continued to do nothing to improvetheir L2 writing until their fourth year (as shown in Tables 3a to 3d)Such constantly low motivation in the AH group helps to explain whytheir L2 composition scores decreased below their first-year level whilethe other three groupsrsquo scores did not over the 35 years of myobservation period (seen in Table 2)

The four groupsrsquo characteristics (presented in Table 3b) for theirsecond year were similar to those for their first year except that 19(679) of the 28 SA students had an SA experience starting during thatyear (ie they experienced ESL classes as their L2-related actualcommunities) This probably influenced their subsequent motivationalbehavior for L2 writing One noticeable consequence of such influenceis that many members of the three SA groups in their third and fourth

TABLE 3a

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Artifact Components in First Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

community

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

Non-L2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity Outcome

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)

vocabulary(556)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)

vocabulary(887)quantity(444)

confidence(444)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(714)

vocabulary(857)quantity(429)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(714)

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(917)quantity(417)

EFL classes(100)

Note Descriptions in Tables 3andash3d are given if they were shared by more than 40 of theparticipants EFL 5 English as a foreign language

94 TESOL QUARTERLY

years in university formed some kind of L2-related imagined commu-nities that had not existed before That is after they became third-yearstudents when they had to write academic texts in the L2 as required intheir English classes many of them came to imagine communities wherepeople used L2 for actual communicative purposes Tables 3c and 3dshow how this imagined communitiesrsquo idea played out during their thirdand fourth years of study

Looking across these two tables for example many SA-15ndash2 groupmembers (667 in their fourth year) kept in touch with the L1 or L2English-speaking friends they had made while abroad and correspondedwith them in English through e-mail andor internet chat afterreturning to Japan In such correspondence the SA-15ndash2 studentsoften expressed the wish that they could still be among these pen pals inthe same English-speaking places where they had once studied and theytalked with their pen pals about topics (eg the basketball team of thetown) related to these places We can call such places imaginedcommunities because they were no longer physically accessible to thestudents6 The SA-15ndash2 students all felt that corresponding with these

TABLE 3b

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Second Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2 writingability

Improved Decreased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabulary(444)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

556 444

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabulary(667)Quantity(444)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

889 0

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(571)Vocabulary(571)Quantity(429)

Textbook-s refer-encebooks(571)

ESL classes(100 for4 months)

714 286

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(50)Quantity(417)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(50)

ESL classes(583 for8ndash11months)

100

EFL classes(100)

Note 12 5 second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 95

cybernet pen pals was useful for improving their English writing abilityIn fact writing good e-mails even became one of their major L2 writinggoals in their fourth year (as shown in Table 3d)

Similarly by their fourth year all members of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11groups communicated with overseas friends through e-mail or online chatand imagined during such cybernet correspondence the communities

TABLE 3c

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Third Year

Group Object

Medi-ating

artifact

L2-relatedactual com-

munity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2writing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(556)Vocabu-lary(556)

None(555)

EFL classes(100)

111 667

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabu-lary(444)Quantity(444)

E-mail oronlinechatting(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(444)

333 556

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Vocabu-lary(100)

Teachers(444)Textboo-ks(714)

EFL classes(100)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(857) ESLclasses(714)

857Motivatedto write be-tter in L2(857)

143

Organiza-tion(429)Planning(429)Content(857)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Grammar(583)Vocabu-lary (75)Content(667)

TOEICTOEFL(417)

ESL classes(417 for8ndash11months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(583) ESLclasses(583)

917 83

English-L1friends(417)

EFL classes(100)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(75)

Note TOEIC 5 Test of English for International Communication TOEFL 5 Test of English as aForeign Language

6 My interpretation of the term imagined community is thus different from that of otherresearchers who assume that the imagined communities should be physically located inplaces where the students have never been (eg Kinginger 2004)

96 TESOL QUARTERLY

TABLE 3d

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Fourth Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommun-

ity

Outcome L2 writ-ing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH (n5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabu-lary (556)

None(556)

EFLclasses(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(667)

667 333LostinterestinstudyingL2 writ-ing(778)

SA-15ndash2(n 59)

Grammar(778)Vocabulary(667)How towrite e-mailletters(667)

E-mail oronline chat-ting (667)

ESLclasses(112)-EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(667)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(555)

667 222

SA-4(n 57)

Vocabulary(714)

TOEIC orSTEP Test(714)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(857)

714Motivatedto writebetterin L2(857)

143

ESL classes(714)

SA-8ndash11 (n5 12)

Content(833)

Self-directedwriting(583)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(833)

833 167

Vocabulary(667)Grammar(50)

Dictionaryreferencebooks(583)

ESL classes(917)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(833)

Note STEP 5 Society for Testing English Proficiency

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 97

they had once shared with these friends However when they wroteacademic texts in English none of them thought about such correspon-dence Instead 714 of the SA-4 group and 917 of the SA-8ndash11 groupimagined how they had written in ESL and other regular subject classesthey took while abroad (see Table 3d) In contrast no SA-15ndash2 groupmember imagined such overseas classes when writing L2 academic textsThey simply drew on their experiences of how they could best respond totheir cybernet pen pals in such cases This difference between the SA-15ndash-2 group and the pair of SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups can be attributed to thefact that the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups experienced not only moreopportunities to write but also a longer duration of overseas classes thanthe SA-15ndash2 group

As mentioned earlier in these classes the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 studentslearned how to organize effective compositions and they wrote varioustypes of texts (eg term papers summaries) When they firstencountered writing assignments in these classes many were shockedto find that they could not write as well as their classmates includingother international students because none of them had ever learnedhow to write English texts longer than a paragraph After having readrelevant literature and written multiple drafts however they learnedhow to achieve higher grades Fourteen (737) out of the 19 SA-4 andSA-8ndash11 students also mentioned that the teachersrsquo praise (one of thepotential motivational influences for the postactional phase in Dornyeiand Ottorsquos 1998 model p 61) further encouraged them Drawing onthese episodes motivated the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students to write betteracademic texts even after returning home as shown in Sachirsquoscomments from her late-fourth-year interview

ExampleSachi who spent 11 months in the United States is talking about her

first in-class test essay in a psychology class in the United States whereshe was the only international student (All accounts were originally inJapanese and were translated by the author)

Sachi After 30 minutes [for the test] I was told to stop and I thoughtlsquolsquoYou are kidding I have only written three lines This is tragicrsquorsquo(laughter)

Miyuki (laughter)Sachi And then when the test was returned the teacher told me to

study English harder I was shocked because she meant that I shouldstudy English before I could study the content [of the class]

Miyuki OhSachi But the teacher had also made many suggestions on the test

sheet about how I could have written the answer betterMiyuki Oh she is kind isnrsquot sheSachi Yes and because of that I thought I should try harder

98 TESOL QUARTERLY

Miyuki You mean you had to live up to the teacherrsquos expectationsSachi Yes I thought I should try as a Japanese Hooray for Japanese

peopleMiyuki (laughter)Sachi And even now I feel that I should make efforts to write better

when I write [in English]Such motivation seems qualitatively different from the SA-15ndash2

studentsrsquo motivation to simply improve a single aspect of their L2 writing(ie writing messages in cyberspace) This difference in motivation mayalso account for the fact that only the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups weremotivated to improve the content of their L2 writing after their thirdyear (Tables 3c and 3d)

Last as regards their fourth year (Table 3d) the most noticeabledifference from the other years was that many participants formedimagined communities where they hoped to work after they graduatedfrom university This is related to the fact that many of them startedhunting for jobs near the end of their third year They spent thefollowing 6ndash12 months taking exams and being interviewed for the bestpossible jobs they could get Of the 37 participants however only 12students (324 3 AH 1 SA-15ndash2 3 SA-4 and 5 SA-8ndash11) imaginedprofessional communities that were English-related (eg a communityof English teachers) As in their third year many SA students continuedto imagine L2-related communities such as communities imaginedthrough e-mail correspondence or overseas classes when they wrote inEnglish However these communities were not directly related to theirfuture jobs Underlying this phenomenon was the fact that althoughtheir major (British and American Studies) was related to English notmany graduates at this university (only 16 in 2006) actually obtainedemployment directly related to English

Consequently the future-career-related imagined communities ofthese students did not necessarily lead to L2 writing improvement Infact 667 of the AH group and 857 of the SA-4 group showeddecreases in their L2 composition scores and in the late-fourth-yearinterviews all of them attributed this decrease to being busy job-huntingYet seven (583) of the 12 SA-8ndash11 students continued to voluntarilypractice L2 writing even though such activity benefited the future careerof only three of them For example Koji an SA-8ndash11 student who cameback to Japan in the middle of his third year wrote a final report inEnglish for his fourth-year sociology class when the teacher allowed himto do so even though writing the report in English was not required Hisfuture-career-related imagined community was not related to EnglishAnd yet he chose to write in English because he believed that he couldlsquolsquodo a good job if he tried with all the knowledge he had acquired inAmerica and in the subsequent yearsrsquorsquo (from his late-fourth year

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 99

interview) This suggests that the motivations of these students hadbecome more intrinsic or that they had become more autonomouslearners having acquired the ability to lsquolsquoidentify goals formulate theirown goals and change goals to suit their own learning needs andinterestsrsquorsquo (Dickinson 1995 p 167) No other students exhibited suchmotivation throughout the observation period Although it is not clearwhy only some SA-8ndash11 students acquired such learner autonomy theseSA-8ndash11 students are the most likely to keep trying to improve their L2writing ability in the future

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

In this section I summarize the results of this study and present somepractical implications First the AH grouprsquos motivational behaviors overthe 35 years were different from those of the three SA groups in thatfew AH students took concrete action to achieve their goals Despite thislack of strong motivation however the AH grouprsquos L2 writing abilitycontinued to improve around their third year probably because theytook a relatively large number of English classes up to that point(Table 1) To obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree they had to earn creditsfor these classes and one can speculate that such an lsquolsquoincentive value ofthe outcomersquorsquo (Dornyei and Otto 1998 p 53) was the major drivingforce behind their improvement Once the external motivational forceof L2 classes diminished however the students seemed to need toimagine L2-related communities in order to keep improving (Table 2)Furthermore among the three SA groups who formed some kind of L2-related imagined communities after coming home the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups improved their composition scores significantly more than didthe SA-15ndash2 group This might be because these two groups had moreand longer L2 writing practice but also because their imagined L2-related communities were more directly connected to learning theability targeted in the present study (ie academic writing) Lastalthough the reason for this is not clear only the SA-8ndash11 group becameintrinsically motivated and continued to develop despite impedingfourth-year factors such as job hunting

What implications for FL teaching do these results suggest Firstwhen instrumental motivation is in force regular instruction such asproviding students with L2 writing metaknowledge as well as differenttypes of practice can lead to improvement to some degree For a morelasting effect however it may be important for students to constructsome kind of L2-related imagined communities In the present study SAstudentsrsquo overseas experiences were helpful but we know that not all FLstudents can afford to spend time abroad It would be ideal if a way could

100 TESOL QUARTERLY

be found to create L2-related imagined communities without thenecessity of going abroad Yashima and Zenuk-Nishide (2008) reportedone such possibility where Japanese high school students became moremotivated and improved their English proficiency without going abroadby being introduced into lsquolsquoan imagined international communityrsquorsquo (ie amodel lsquolsquoUnited Nationsrsquorsquo p 569) in content-based English classes In asimilar vein preparing an L2 writing curriculum where students canparticipate in such communities through lsquolsquocognitively and emotionallyinvolving contentrsquorsquo (p 570) might be a promising approach in FLsettings

Another suggestion is based on the significant difference inimprovement between the SA-15ndash2 group and the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11pair If teachers want to make their studentsrsquo motivation moreinfluential it would probably be better for the L2-related imaginedcommunities to be accompanied by specific details of skills andknowledge related to the targeted abilities to be improved In the caseof L2 writing for example students must know how to plan and writeeffective compositions in the intended genre Accumulation of suchdeclarative and procedural knowledge would endow the students withwhat Dornyei and Otto (1998) call an lsquolsquointernal model of referencersquorsquo(p 57) which would be especially helpful for realizing preactionalintentions Furthermore such knowledge has to be implementedthrough sufficient and continuous practice to result in a truly significantdifference in output quality Affective support such as teachersrsquo praise isalso important for making the studentsrsquo motivation more enduringIdeally imagined communities should be substantial enough to trans-form dependent learners into autonomous ones so that they keepimproving even when demotivating external factors intervene

CONCLUSION

The present study investigated the long-term effects of varying lengthsof overseas experiences on the L2 writing ability and motivation of 37Japanese university students The study revealed characteristics uniqueto the FL situation For example unlike the ESL learners studied byCumming (2006) some learners took almost no action to achieve theirgoals This was mainly due to the fact that L2 writing improvement wasnot necessary for their social survival In contrast spending some timeoverseas proved helpful not only in enabling the students to improvetheir L2 writing ability but also in maintaining their motivation to writebetter The pedagogical implications presented in the last section of thisarticle can thus be particularly useful for those who study an L2 where itis not used for communicative purposes

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 101

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

how the participants managed to learn appropriate writing skills byemploying both cognitive strategies such as lsquolsquolooking for modelsrsquorsquo (Leki1995 p 249) and social strategies such as consulting lsquolsquoon a problemrelated to a taskrsquorsquo (Riazi 1997 p 127)

Motivated by these previous studies I conducted a series oflongitudinal studies targeting participants similar to those in the presentstudy (ie Japanese university students) For example in Sasaki (2004)I observed changes in L2 writing ability and strategy use in 11 Japanesestudents over 35 years Based on the participantsrsquo accounts frominterviews and on changes in their composition scores I concluded thattheir 35 years of both domestic and overseas education helped theparticipants improve their L2 writing ability although only those whospent more than 2 months abroad became more motivated to writebetter compositions In a subsequent study (Sasaki 2007) with yetanother group of participants I further compared six SA students whospent 4ndash9 months abroad with five at-home (AH) students whoremained in Japan for just over 1 year during which the SA studentsspent some time overseas The results indicate that the SA studentssignificantly improved their L2 writing ability and motivation whereasthe AH students did not improve in either of these two areas The resultsof these studies suggest that at least for students of Japanese English as aforeign language (EFL) overseas experiences can have a strong positiveimpact on their L2 writing ability and motivation but that the instructionthey receive inside Japan can also be useful for some students (eg thestudents in Sasaki 2004) These studies are precursors of the presentstudy

L2 WRITING MOTIVATION

Most current research on L2 motivation has investigated how L2motivation might interact with other cognitive psychological andorsocial factors such as attitude and anxiety and the methods used havebeen typically psychometric utilizing correlations among scores andquestionnaire responses (eg Tremblay amp Gardner 1995) Morerecently however researchers such as Dornyei (eg 1998) havecriticized such research for treating the construct of motivation as astatic state and for not taking into account variation over time and acrosssituations Dornyei and Otto (1998) for example developed analternative process model of L2 motivation positing motivation as lsquolsquoadynamically evolving and changing entityrsquorsquo (p 44) Based on thisassumption Dornyei and Ottorsquos model presents a panorama of how aperson starts with a lsquolsquopreactional phasersquorsquo (p 48 eg a lsquolsquogoalrsquorsquo) moves onto the actual execution of the intended task and ends with a

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 83

lsquolsquopostactional phasersquorsquo (p 48 eg lsquolsquofurther planningrsquorsquo) with each of thesephases affected by various lsquolsquomotivational influencesrsquorsquo (p 48) such as thepersonrsquos psychological orientation and external environments If wetreat motivation as such a dynamic and situated mechanism case studiesusing emic qualitative data provide appropriate avenues for the study ofL2 learnersrsquo motivational behaviors Shoaib and Dornyei (2005)exemplified one such study investigating motivational changes in 25participants over their lifetime through biographical interview data butto date such studies have been scarce Furthermore even with such adrastic shift in the focus of L2 motivation studies the target ofmotivation research has mostly remained general L2 proficiency andmotivation related to any particular skill or type of knowledge has rarelybeen examined

Thus the construct of L2 writing motivation was not considereduntil early 2000 when Alister Cumming and his colleagues started aseries of studies of L2 writing goals and motivation (see Cumming2006) Their participants were all English as a second language (ESL)students in university settings in Canada Addressing the above-mentioned criticism that L2 motivation research lacked the perspec-tive of time and context Cumming and his colleagues employedlongitudinal and situated data Yang et al (2004) for exampleprovided a microlevel analysis of changes in L2 motivation in six ESLstudents over the course of an ESL program To explain thequalitative changes in the participantsrsquo L2 writing motivation Yanget al used Engestromrsquos (1987) expanded activity system believing thatlsquolsquoindividual students are active responsive agents with their ownindividual goals orientations values beliefs and historiesrsquorsquo (Yanget al p 14) In addition to this activity theory perspective Cummingand his colleagues (2006) employed goal theory from the field ofpsychology for its lsquolsquomultiple theoretical framesrsquorsquo (p ix) in sevencollaborative studies focusing on both studentsrsquo and their teachersrsquogoals for learning and teaching L2 writing The results of these studiesare insightful in that they indicate how L2 studentsrsquo and teachersrsquomotivation constantly interacted with environmental factors Yet fromthe perspective of foreign language (FL) writing research theinvestigation of studentsrsquo goals for learning L2 writing may not bevery meaningful because FL students do not always have to set orachieve L2 writing goals to survive in their own communities wherethe L2 is not used for communicative purposes However no study todate has been conducted to investigate such L2 writing motivation inan FL setting

84 TESOL QUARTERLY

EFFECTS OF SA EXPERIENCES

Research on effects of SA experiences has become increasinglypopular especially during the past two decades (eg Kinginger 2008)Researchers have discovered that compared with their AH counterparts(1) SA students improved in their L2 speaking ability (eg Lafford2004) L2 listening ability (eg Allen 2002) and L2 reading ability (egDewey 2004) (2) SA students changed their sociolinguistic use of theL2 (eg Barron 2006) (3) their sociocultural environments played animportant role in such changes (eg Iino 2006) and (4) there weresubstantial individual differences in the scope and magnitude of thesechanges (eg Isabelli-Garcıa 2006)

Although these findings are informative many other aspects of theeffects of SA experiences remain unexplored For example Churchilland Dufon (2006) summarized previous studies investigating possible SAeffects on studentsrsquo linguistic skills but none of the studies they surveyedaddressed the acquisition of L2 writing skills specifically Similarly thevariable of L2 learning motivation has rarely been examined in terms ofthe effects of overseas experiences Even though previous studiesindicated that SA experiences tend to have positive impacts onparticipantsrsquo motivation (eg Simoes 1996) some studies reportedotherwise (eg Allen 2002)

In addition to the above-mentioned scarcity of studies of the effect ofSA experiences on L2 writing and motivation very few studies to datehave examined the effects of SA experiences on the specific variable ofL2 writing motivation one of the targeted variables in the present studyFurthermore very few studies have examined the effects of the length ofoverseas stays Although a stay of even a few weeks can have some impacton listening and speaking (Campbell 1996) lsquolsquothe question of how longis needed to make significant gains in specific skills remains unan-sweredrsquorsquo (Churchill amp Dufon 2006 p 23) Finally very few studies havereported any long-term effects of SA experiences Several qualitativestudies using retrospective accounts have examined the impact ofspending time abroad on studentsrsquo subsequent life (eg career choice)over quite a long period of time (8 years in Ehrenreich 2006) but fewquantitative studies have been conducted to investigate such effects onany L2 skill or motivation

Informed and motivated by the results (or lack thereof) of theseprevious studies as well as my own studies I undertook the present studywith the following four questions in mind

1 How does studentsrsquo L2 writing ability change over 35 years2 How does their L2 writing motivation change over 35 years3 How do any motivational changes interact with changes in their L2

writing ability

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 85

4 Do differences in length in the studentsrsquo SA experiences havedifferential impacts on their L2 writing ability and motivational changes

In Question 1 I defined L2 writing ability as an academic ability towrite in lsquolsquopedagogical genresrsquorsquo (Johns 1997 p 46) such as lsquolsquothe essayexamination response the term paper or the pedagogical summaryrsquorsquo(p 46) As regards Question 2 I follow Dornyei and Otto (1998 p 65) indefining motivation as lsquolsquothe dynamically changing cumulative arousal ina person that initiates directs coordinates amplifies terminates andevaluates the cognitive and motor processes whereby initial wishes anddesires are selected prioritized operationalised and (successfully orunsuccessfully) acted outrsquorsquo and I employed Dornyei and Ottorsquos processmodel of L2 motivation as the research baseline

METHOD

Participants

The 37 participants (9 in 2002 13 in 2003 and 15 in 2004) enteredthe same university in Japan as members of a cohort consisting each yearof about 150 British and American Studies majors2 They were all 18 yearsold at the time They came from three of five freshman English classes(with about 30 students each) offered under the same title each yearand I taught two of the three classes Each year I went to their first day ofclasses and asked for volunteers to participate in an English-writingproject that would require up to 90 minutes of their time once or twice ayear until graduation They were informed that they would receivemodest monetary compensation for their participation A total of 40students volunteered and 37 provided full data for the present studyThe 37 students had studied English for six years by the time the studybegan but they had received little L2 writing instruction while in highschool

Between their second and fourth year of university study (see Table 1)28 of the 37 students participated in SA programs provided by theuniversity spending different lengths of time in Canada England theUnited States Australia or New Zealand The participants weresubsequently divided into four groups according to the length of theiroverseas stay The SA-15ndash2 group (1 male and 8 females) spent 15ndash2months abroad3 the SA-4 group (2 males and 5 females) 4 months the

2 The official name of the department is English but the students do not study English asintensively as might be generally expected of English majors Instead they focus more ofcontent areas related to linguistics literature and area studies I thus decided to label theirmajor British and American Studies to avoid any misunderstanding

3 Four students spent 6 weeks and the other five students spent 2 months abroad

86 TESOL QUARTERLY

SA-8ndash11 group (3 males and 9 males) 8ndash11 months4 and the AH group(2 males and 7 females) remained in Japan during the 35-yearobservation period All the institutions where the SA students studiedwere 4-year universities admitting English-speaking students

The studentsrsquo English writing ability differed slightly even when theywere in their first year That is the SA-4 grouprsquos mean composition score(13814 out of a maximum of 200) was significantly higher than that ofthe SA-15ndash2 group (11644 see the Results and Discussion section)However there was no other significant difference across the fourgroupsrsquo composition scores In addition there was no significantdifference across the four groups when they were first-year students interms of general English proficiency measured by the sum of theListening and Structure Section scores of the Comprehensive EnglishLanguage Test Harris and Palmer (1986) F(3 33) 5 207 for a maximumof 200 At this university students had to earn high scores on theinstitutionalized TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign LanguageEducational Testing Service) to attend the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 (but notthe SA-15ndash2) programs and the SA-8ndash11 program was more competitivethan the SA-4 program In this sense the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups mayhave been more motivated to study English than the other groups fromthe beginning of the present study

4 Three students spent 8 months four spent 9 months three spent 10 months and twospent 11 months abroad

TABLE 1

English-Related Educational Experiences Over the Four University Years and Mean Departureand Return Points

Group

Meandepar-ture

point

Meanreturnpoint

Lengthof studyabroad(mon-ths)

Mean class hoursweek when abroad

Mean English class hoursweek when in Japan

ESLRegularsubject

1styear

2ndyear

3rdyear

4thyear

AH(n 5 9)

NA NA 0 0 0 88 62 61 10

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

2ndyear11thmonth

3rd year1st month

15ndash2 231 NA 90 57 45 12

SA-4(n 5 7)

2ndyear 6thmonth

2nd year11thmonth

4 107 43 90 54 65 24

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

2ndyear11thmonth

3rd year10thmonth

8ndash11 139 46 90 47 38 06

Note AH 5 at home SA 5 study abroad ESL 5 English as a second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 87

Table 1 presents the mean departure and returning-home times ofthe SA groups as well as the mean hours of English classes theparticipants took while overseas and in Japan Note that on average theSA-4 group went abroad earlier (2nd year 6th month) than the SA-15ndash2and SA-8ndash11 groups (2nd year 11th month for both groups) and theSA-4 group came home earliest (2nd year 11th month) and the SA-8ndash11group latest (3rd year 10th month) A total of 19 (679) out of the 28SA students had their overseas experiences between the second half oftheir second year and the first half of their third year at the universityWhile abroad the SA-15ndash2 students took ESL classes only whereas some(though not all) of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students took both ESL andregular subject classes The number of English classes these four groupstook at the Japanese university drastically decreased during their fourthyear because they had already taken the number of English classesrequired for graduation by the end of their third year and because theywere busy job-hunting during their fourth year

Data Collection

I collected L2 writing and motivation data at four different points inthe first month of the participantsrsquo first year (early-first-year period) andthe fourth month of their second third and fourth year (mid-second-year mid-third-year and mid-fourth-year periods) In the eighth monthof their fourth year (late-fourth-year period) I also interviewed thestudents to collect their own accounts of any changes in their L2 writingability and motivation

Composition Scores

The participants wrote an argumentative composition on a randomlyselected topic concerning such issues as living in a city or in the country(see Sasaki 2004) The prompts were selected in such a way that theparticipants were able to write about different topics on the fourdifferent occasions and so that similar ratios of participants in the fourgroups addressed the same topics

Two EFL writing specialists scored all the compositions followingJacobs Zinkgraf Wormuth Hartfiel and Hugheyrsquos (1981) EnglishComposition Profile The raters were not informed of the purpose of thepresent study when each composition was written or from whichparticipant group it came The interrater correlation (Pearson correla-tion coefficient) for the content subscore was 089 for the organizationsubscore 085 for the vocabulary subscore 078 for the language usesubscore 080 for the mechanics subscore 053 (caused by the very

88 TESOL QUARTERLY

narrow score range of 1ndash5)5 and for the total score 093 Overall Ijudged that these correlations were acceptable for the study

Interviews About L2 Writing Strategies L2 Classes andMotivation Conducted After Each Composition Session

After the participants wrote the compositions described above Iinterviewed each of them individually in Japanese about theirexperiences related to English learning over the previous year andwhich aspect of English writing they wanted to improve if any Thesessions lasted about 30 minutes each

Late-Fourth-Year Interviews on Changes in L2 Writing Abilityand Motivation

Four months after the participants wrote their mid-fourth-yearcompositions I interviewed them individually in Japanese again to collectaccounts of what they thought had influenced changes in their L2 writingability fluency and strategy use over the past 35 years During theinterviews I showed the participants a table or a graph showing theiractual changes on these variables over this period (I did not use thefluency and strategy use data in the present study) Addressingmotivational changes I showed them the transcripts of what they hadsaid when asked which aspects of English writing they wanted to improvein each of the four data collection sessions I also asked them additionalquestions about what other aspects if any they might have wanted toimprove over the given year why they had these particular goals and whatthey did to achieve these goals For those who did not mention any aspectthey wanted to improve I showed them a list (written in Japanese) ofpossible areas to be improved in L2 writing based on Cummingrsquos (2006)scheme probing L2 writing motivation (see Sasaki 2009 for list content)Each late-fourth-year interview session lasted 30ndash60 minutes All interviewaccounts were tape-recorded and subsequently transcribed

Analysis of Interview Data

When analyzing the transcribed interview data I followed Miles andHubermanrsquos (1994) data synthesis tactics especially those concerningnoting lsquolsquopatterns themesrsquorsquo (p 245) and making lsquolsquocontrastscompar-isonsrsquorsquo (p 245) I used the interview data about the participantsrsquo English-

5 Pearson correlation coefficients tend to be lower if the ranges of the given variables aremore restricted than others (see Linn 1968 for example)

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 89

related experiences and reasons for changes in their L2 writing ability inorder to better interpret the quantitative data on changes in theparticipantsrsquo L2 composition scores I also analyzed the interview dataabout the participantsrsquo motivational changes for their own sake As Imentioned earlier I adopted Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) definition of L2motivation and I analyzed the participantsrsquo changes in L2 writingmotivation using the research framework of Yang et al (2004) I decidedto employ this framework because it had worked successfully foranalyzing phenomena similar to the ones targeted in the present studyand because it shared with Dornyei and Ottorsquos model two crucialassumptions of methods accommodating sociocultural theory namely(1) that learners are active agents of L2 learning and (2) that L2learning processes can be influenced by various internalexternalfactors

The framework of Yang et al (2004) assumes that L2 learnersrsquothought processes and actions are mediated by artifacts or socioculturalentities when the participants as subjects operate on the object of learningL2 writing As Yang et al explain (p 15)

To take an example of second language (L2) learning a student (subject) in an ESLclass aims to improve her competence in academic English writing (object) Thisstudent may follow the teacherrsquos instruction do assignments read a textbook talk withfriends surf the Internet refer to dictionaries and so on (mediating artifacts) After aperiod of practice this student may achieve her goal such as getting a high grade on heressays (outcome) This activity happens in the ESL class (community) and thestudent intends to grasp the conventions of academic English writing (rules) In thisESL class the teacher provides model instruction gives assignments and offersfeedback and students follow their teacher and do the assignments (division of labor)

In addition to the original categories used by Yang et al (2004) Iincluded two more categories in the present study Imagined L2-relatedcommunity and Imagined non-L2-related community I did this becausein the process of analyzing the interview data I realized that thesecategories were also important for understanding the participantsrsquomotivational changes Subsequently I changed the term community inthe scheme of Yang et al to actual L2-related community to distinguish itfrom the two imagined communities For the term imagined community Ifollowed Kanno and Nortonrsquos (2003 p 241) definition of lsquolsquogroups ofpeople not immediately tangible and accessible with whom we connectthrough the power of imaginationrsquorsquo

In the framework of Yang et al (2004) we can assume that lsquolsquoobjectrsquorsquocorresponds to lsquolsquogoalrsquorsquo or lsquolsquointentionrsquorsquo in the lsquolsquopreactional phrasersquorsquo ofDornyei and Ottorsquos (1998 p 48) model If the subject actually tries toaccomplish hisher object through a range of mediating artifacts we can

90 TESOL QUARTERLY

say that heshe actually launches into what Dornyei and Otto (p 48) callthe lsquolsquoactional phasersquorsquo The other components of community imaginedcommunity and division of labor can form what Dornyei and Otto(p 48) call the lsquolsquomotivational influencesrsquorsquo affecting the studentrsquosmotivational behavior

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

L2 Writing Ability

I first present changes in the participantsrsquo L2 composition scores fordescriptive purposes I then present the results of an analysis of variance(ANOVA) to display the degree of change between the early-first-yearand mid-fourth-year periods using SPSS Version 61 (SPSS 1994)However because of the small sample sizes the results of the ANOVAanalyses should not be generalized

As shown in Table 2 the four groupsrsquo scores increased until theirsecond year but the AH grouprsquos score then decreased and even droppedbelow their first-year level in their fourth-year composition By contrastthe three SA groupsrsquo fourth-year composition scores were all higher thanthose of their first-year compositions but the SA-8ndash11 group was the onlyone that continually improved until the fourth year A two-way ANOVAcomparing the differences across the four groups between their first andfourth years indicated a significant interaction between time and groupeffects [F (3 33) 5 743 p 0001]

The results of subsequent post-hoc simple effects analysis andmultiple comparisons (Tanaka amp Yamagiwa 1992) revealed thefollowing First when the students were in their first year there wasno difference across the four groups except that the SA-4 grouprsquoscomposition scores were significantly higher than those of the SA-15ndash2group (mean square error (MSE) 5 23340 p 005) In the fourthyear the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groupsrsquo scores were significantly higher than

TABLE 2

Mean Total Composition Scores (Total Possible 5 200) at Four Observation Times

GroupEarly-1st-Year

M (SD)Mid-2nd-Year

M (SD)Mid-3rd-Year

M (SD)Late-4th-Year

M (SD)

AH (n 5 9) 13056 (1201) 13711 (1431) 13500 (1493) 12822(1044)SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

11644 (1837) 13178 (1821) 13056 (1549) 13389 (2097)

SA-4 (n 5 7) 13814 (1328) 14657 (1003) 16900 (707) 16143 (960)SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

13058 (1377) 15200 (1245) 15817 (1996) 16175 (859)

Note M 5 mean SD 5 standard deviation

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 91

those of the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups but there was no significantdifference between the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups or between the SA-4and the SA-8ndash11 groups (MSE 5 19607 p 005) Furthermore thethree SA groups significantly improved their composition scores over the35 years whereas the AH group did not F (1 33) 5 1009 p 001 forthe SA-15ndash2 group F (1 33) 5 1798 p 001 for the SA-4 group and F(1 33) 5 322 p 001 for the SA-8ndash11 group

At the individual level English composition scores for four of the nineAH students decreased over the 35 years and scores for the other fivestudents increased slightly Two of these five students mentioned thatEnglish classes at the Japanese university were helpful in learning towrite better However the other seven students (777) including thethree whose composition scores increased slightly felt that their Englishwriting ability deteriorated below their first-year level because from theirfourth year onward they took fewer English classes By contrast all ofthe SA studentsrsquo English composition scores improved over the 35 yearsFour SA-15ndash2 and three SA-4 students attributed this improvementmainly to the English writing classes they took at the Japanese universityOne SA-15ndash2 four SA-4 and four SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to theEnglish writing classes they took abroad and two SA-15ndash2 students andeight SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to the classes they took both in Japanand abroad Another SA-15ndash2 student said that writing e-mails to friendsshe made abroad was the only helpful factor and the last SA-15ndash2student said that the third- and fourth-year compositions were simplyeasier to write

It is noteworthy that many (607) of the SA students attributed theirEnglish writing improvement solely or partially to the English classesthey took in Japan As can be seen in Table 2 these students allimproved their English composition scores before going abroad as wellas after coming home The students reported that learning explicitlyhow to write in English (eg learning the idea of a topic sentence) andpracticing writing different types of texts (usually a paragraph long) inthese classes was useful

Similarly the 19 SA students who attributed their score increase atleast partially to their overseas L2 writing classes also added that theexperiences of learning how to write and having to write a lot and oftenoverseas were helpful However compared with the assignmentsrequired by their English classes in Japan the writing assignmentsrequired by their overseas classes were much more demanding Forexample in her first semester in the United States Eri an SA-8ndash11student took four classes two of which required writing papers In theESL writing class she learned how to organize effective paragraphs andwrote 4 two-page essays and 1 seven-page essay In her other class(Elementary Education) she wrote a total of 6 two-page papers In her

92 TESOL QUARTERLY

English classes in Japan she never wrote so much and so often (she onlywrote four paragraphs per semester at the maximum)

These SA studentsrsquo accounts concur with the findings of previouscross-sectional and longitudinal studies (eg Kobayashi amp Rinnert2001) in that the two factors of L2 writing metaknowledge and practiceinfluenced L2 writing development Given the greater percentages ofthe SA-4 (57) and SA-8ndash11 students (100) who attributed theirEnglish writing improvement at least partially to their overseas classescompared with the SA-15ndash2 students (333) and given that the SA-4and SA 8ndash11 groups improved significantly more than the SA-15ndash2group we could further speculate that long and intensive practice wasprobably a crucial factor in significantly improving these studentsrsquo L2writing By contrast as mentioned above many AH students felt thattheir English writing ability fell below their first-year level because theyhad fewer English classes during their fourth year This is especiallynoteworthy when we recall that many of the SA students whose scoresincreased for their fourth-year compositions also had fewer Englishclasses after becoming fourth-year students (Table 1) Consequentlydespite what they claimed the perceived and actual deterioration in theAH studentsrsquo L2 writing ability in the fourth year might be betterexplained by their low motivation rather than by the reduction in L2contact hours

L2 Writing Motivation

Tables 3andash3d present the four groupsrsquo changes in the relevantcomponents of the revised version of the research scheme of Yang et al(2004 see the Method section) Presented here are the tendenciesshared by more than 40 of the members of each group I did notinclude the components of rules and division of labor from Engestromrsquos(1987) expanded activity system because as in Yang et al in theparticipantsrsquo activity of studying L2 writing over 35 years the rule (iehow to write in the academic genre) and the division of labor (ie theparticipants studied and the teachers taught) were unchanged

Table 3a shows the characteristics of the four groupsrsquo L2 writingmotivation when they were first-year students Under the column forObject the four groups were all motivated to improve some aspects(mainly grammar vocabulary and quantity) of their L2 writing Theonly difference is that as can be seen in the column Mediating artifact(ie what was involved in the participantsrsquo trying to attain their objects)667 of the AH group reported doing nothing to improve their L2writing whereas all the other groups used textbooks dictionaries andteachers to achieve their goals Using Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) process

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 93

model of L2 motivation we can say that all four groups set some lsquolsquogoalsrsquorsquoor lsquolsquointentionsrsquorsquo (p 48) for improving their L2 writing but the AH groupremained in the lsquolsquopreactional phasersquorsquo (p 48) whereas the other threegroups crossed the lsquolsquometaphorical lsquoRubiconrsquo of actionrsquorsquo (p 57) In factmore than half of the AH students continued to do nothing to improvetheir L2 writing until their fourth year (as shown in Tables 3a to 3d)Such constantly low motivation in the AH group helps to explain whytheir L2 composition scores decreased below their first-year level whilethe other three groupsrsquo scores did not over the 35 years of myobservation period (seen in Table 2)

The four groupsrsquo characteristics (presented in Table 3b) for theirsecond year were similar to those for their first year except that 19(679) of the 28 SA students had an SA experience starting during thatyear (ie they experienced ESL classes as their L2-related actualcommunities) This probably influenced their subsequent motivationalbehavior for L2 writing One noticeable consequence of such influenceis that many members of the three SA groups in their third and fourth

TABLE 3a

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Artifact Components in First Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

community

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

Non-L2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity Outcome

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)

vocabulary(556)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)

vocabulary(887)quantity(444)

confidence(444)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(714)

vocabulary(857)quantity(429)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(714)

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(917)quantity(417)

EFL classes(100)

Note Descriptions in Tables 3andash3d are given if they were shared by more than 40 of theparticipants EFL 5 English as a foreign language

94 TESOL QUARTERLY

years in university formed some kind of L2-related imagined commu-nities that had not existed before That is after they became third-yearstudents when they had to write academic texts in the L2 as required intheir English classes many of them came to imagine communities wherepeople used L2 for actual communicative purposes Tables 3c and 3dshow how this imagined communitiesrsquo idea played out during their thirdand fourth years of study

Looking across these two tables for example many SA-15ndash2 groupmembers (667 in their fourth year) kept in touch with the L1 or L2English-speaking friends they had made while abroad and correspondedwith them in English through e-mail andor internet chat afterreturning to Japan In such correspondence the SA-15ndash2 studentsoften expressed the wish that they could still be among these pen pals inthe same English-speaking places where they had once studied and theytalked with their pen pals about topics (eg the basketball team of thetown) related to these places We can call such places imaginedcommunities because they were no longer physically accessible to thestudents6 The SA-15ndash2 students all felt that corresponding with these

TABLE 3b

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Second Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2 writingability

Improved Decreased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabulary(444)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

556 444

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabulary(667)Quantity(444)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

889 0

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(571)Vocabulary(571)Quantity(429)

Textbook-s refer-encebooks(571)

ESL classes(100 for4 months)

714 286

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(50)Quantity(417)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(50)

ESL classes(583 for8ndash11months)

100

EFL classes(100)

Note 12 5 second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 95

cybernet pen pals was useful for improving their English writing abilityIn fact writing good e-mails even became one of their major L2 writinggoals in their fourth year (as shown in Table 3d)

Similarly by their fourth year all members of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11groups communicated with overseas friends through e-mail or online chatand imagined during such cybernet correspondence the communities

TABLE 3c

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Third Year

Group Object

Medi-ating

artifact

L2-relatedactual com-

munity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2writing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(556)Vocabu-lary(556)

None(555)

EFL classes(100)

111 667

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabu-lary(444)Quantity(444)

E-mail oronlinechatting(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(444)

333 556

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Vocabu-lary(100)

Teachers(444)Textboo-ks(714)

EFL classes(100)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(857) ESLclasses(714)

857Motivatedto write be-tter in L2(857)

143

Organiza-tion(429)Planning(429)Content(857)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Grammar(583)Vocabu-lary (75)Content(667)

TOEICTOEFL(417)

ESL classes(417 for8ndash11months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(583) ESLclasses(583)

917 83

English-L1friends(417)

EFL classes(100)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(75)

Note TOEIC 5 Test of English for International Communication TOEFL 5 Test of English as aForeign Language

6 My interpretation of the term imagined community is thus different from that of otherresearchers who assume that the imagined communities should be physically located inplaces where the students have never been (eg Kinginger 2004)

96 TESOL QUARTERLY

TABLE 3d

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Fourth Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommun-

ity

Outcome L2 writ-ing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH (n5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabu-lary (556)

None(556)

EFLclasses(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(667)

667 333LostinterestinstudyingL2 writ-ing(778)

SA-15ndash2(n 59)

Grammar(778)Vocabulary(667)How towrite e-mailletters(667)

E-mail oronline chat-ting (667)

ESLclasses(112)-EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(667)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(555)

667 222

SA-4(n 57)

Vocabulary(714)

TOEIC orSTEP Test(714)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(857)

714Motivatedto writebetterin L2(857)

143

ESL classes(714)

SA-8ndash11 (n5 12)

Content(833)

Self-directedwriting(583)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(833)

833 167

Vocabulary(667)Grammar(50)

Dictionaryreferencebooks(583)

ESL classes(917)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(833)

Note STEP 5 Society for Testing English Proficiency

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 97

they had once shared with these friends However when they wroteacademic texts in English none of them thought about such correspon-dence Instead 714 of the SA-4 group and 917 of the SA-8ndash11 groupimagined how they had written in ESL and other regular subject classesthey took while abroad (see Table 3d) In contrast no SA-15ndash2 groupmember imagined such overseas classes when writing L2 academic textsThey simply drew on their experiences of how they could best respond totheir cybernet pen pals in such cases This difference between the SA-15ndash-2 group and the pair of SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups can be attributed to thefact that the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups experienced not only moreopportunities to write but also a longer duration of overseas classes thanthe SA-15ndash2 group

As mentioned earlier in these classes the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 studentslearned how to organize effective compositions and they wrote varioustypes of texts (eg term papers summaries) When they firstencountered writing assignments in these classes many were shockedto find that they could not write as well as their classmates includingother international students because none of them had ever learnedhow to write English texts longer than a paragraph After having readrelevant literature and written multiple drafts however they learnedhow to achieve higher grades Fourteen (737) out of the 19 SA-4 andSA-8ndash11 students also mentioned that the teachersrsquo praise (one of thepotential motivational influences for the postactional phase in Dornyeiand Ottorsquos 1998 model p 61) further encouraged them Drawing onthese episodes motivated the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students to write betteracademic texts even after returning home as shown in Sachirsquoscomments from her late-fourth-year interview

ExampleSachi who spent 11 months in the United States is talking about her

first in-class test essay in a psychology class in the United States whereshe was the only international student (All accounts were originally inJapanese and were translated by the author)

Sachi After 30 minutes [for the test] I was told to stop and I thoughtlsquolsquoYou are kidding I have only written three lines This is tragicrsquorsquo(laughter)

Miyuki (laughter)Sachi And then when the test was returned the teacher told me to

study English harder I was shocked because she meant that I shouldstudy English before I could study the content [of the class]

Miyuki OhSachi But the teacher had also made many suggestions on the test

sheet about how I could have written the answer betterMiyuki Oh she is kind isnrsquot sheSachi Yes and because of that I thought I should try harder

98 TESOL QUARTERLY

Miyuki You mean you had to live up to the teacherrsquos expectationsSachi Yes I thought I should try as a Japanese Hooray for Japanese

peopleMiyuki (laughter)Sachi And even now I feel that I should make efforts to write better

when I write [in English]Such motivation seems qualitatively different from the SA-15ndash2

studentsrsquo motivation to simply improve a single aspect of their L2 writing(ie writing messages in cyberspace) This difference in motivation mayalso account for the fact that only the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups weremotivated to improve the content of their L2 writing after their thirdyear (Tables 3c and 3d)

Last as regards their fourth year (Table 3d) the most noticeabledifference from the other years was that many participants formedimagined communities where they hoped to work after they graduatedfrom university This is related to the fact that many of them startedhunting for jobs near the end of their third year They spent thefollowing 6ndash12 months taking exams and being interviewed for the bestpossible jobs they could get Of the 37 participants however only 12students (324 3 AH 1 SA-15ndash2 3 SA-4 and 5 SA-8ndash11) imaginedprofessional communities that were English-related (eg a communityof English teachers) As in their third year many SA students continuedto imagine L2-related communities such as communities imaginedthrough e-mail correspondence or overseas classes when they wrote inEnglish However these communities were not directly related to theirfuture jobs Underlying this phenomenon was the fact that althoughtheir major (British and American Studies) was related to English notmany graduates at this university (only 16 in 2006) actually obtainedemployment directly related to English

Consequently the future-career-related imagined communities ofthese students did not necessarily lead to L2 writing improvement Infact 667 of the AH group and 857 of the SA-4 group showeddecreases in their L2 composition scores and in the late-fourth-yearinterviews all of them attributed this decrease to being busy job-huntingYet seven (583) of the 12 SA-8ndash11 students continued to voluntarilypractice L2 writing even though such activity benefited the future careerof only three of them For example Koji an SA-8ndash11 student who cameback to Japan in the middle of his third year wrote a final report inEnglish for his fourth-year sociology class when the teacher allowed himto do so even though writing the report in English was not required Hisfuture-career-related imagined community was not related to EnglishAnd yet he chose to write in English because he believed that he couldlsquolsquodo a good job if he tried with all the knowledge he had acquired inAmerica and in the subsequent yearsrsquorsquo (from his late-fourth year

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 99

interview) This suggests that the motivations of these students hadbecome more intrinsic or that they had become more autonomouslearners having acquired the ability to lsquolsquoidentify goals formulate theirown goals and change goals to suit their own learning needs andinterestsrsquorsquo (Dickinson 1995 p 167) No other students exhibited suchmotivation throughout the observation period Although it is not clearwhy only some SA-8ndash11 students acquired such learner autonomy theseSA-8ndash11 students are the most likely to keep trying to improve their L2writing ability in the future

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

In this section I summarize the results of this study and present somepractical implications First the AH grouprsquos motivational behaviors overthe 35 years were different from those of the three SA groups in thatfew AH students took concrete action to achieve their goals Despite thislack of strong motivation however the AH grouprsquos L2 writing abilitycontinued to improve around their third year probably because theytook a relatively large number of English classes up to that point(Table 1) To obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree they had to earn creditsfor these classes and one can speculate that such an lsquolsquoincentive value ofthe outcomersquorsquo (Dornyei and Otto 1998 p 53) was the major drivingforce behind their improvement Once the external motivational forceof L2 classes diminished however the students seemed to need toimagine L2-related communities in order to keep improving (Table 2)Furthermore among the three SA groups who formed some kind of L2-related imagined communities after coming home the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups improved their composition scores significantly more than didthe SA-15ndash2 group This might be because these two groups had moreand longer L2 writing practice but also because their imagined L2-related communities were more directly connected to learning theability targeted in the present study (ie academic writing) Lastalthough the reason for this is not clear only the SA-8ndash11 group becameintrinsically motivated and continued to develop despite impedingfourth-year factors such as job hunting

What implications for FL teaching do these results suggest Firstwhen instrumental motivation is in force regular instruction such asproviding students with L2 writing metaknowledge as well as differenttypes of practice can lead to improvement to some degree For a morelasting effect however it may be important for students to constructsome kind of L2-related imagined communities In the present study SAstudentsrsquo overseas experiences were helpful but we know that not all FLstudents can afford to spend time abroad It would be ideal if a way could

100 TESOL QUARTERLY

be found to create L2-related imagined communities without thenecessity of going abroad Yashima and Zenuk-Nishide (2008) reportedone such possibility where Japanese high school students became moremotivated and improved their English proficiency without going abroadby being introduced into lsquolsquoan imagined international communityrsquorsquo (ie amodel lsquolsquoUnited Nationsrsquorsquo p 569) in content-based English classes In asimilar vein preparing an L2 writing curriculum where students canparticipate in such communities through lsquolsquocognitively and emotionallyinvolving contentrsquorsquo (p 570) might be a promising approach in FLsettings

Another suggestion is based on the significant difference inimprovement between the SA-15ndash2 group and the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11pair If teachers want to make their studentsrsquo motivation moreinfluential it would probably be better for the L2-related imaginedcommunities to be accompanied by specific details of skills andknowledge related to the targeted abilities to be improved In the caseof L2 writing for example students must know how to plan and writeeffective compositions in the intended genre Accumulation of suchdeclarative and procedural knowledge would endow the students withwhat Dornyei and Otto (1998) call an lsquolsquointernal model of referencersquorsquo(p 57) which would be especially helpful for realizing preactionalintentions Furthermore such knowledge has to be implementedthrough sufficient and continuous practice to result in a truly significantdifference in output quality Affective support such as teachersrsquo praise isalso important for making the studentsrsquo motivation more enduringIdeally imagined communities should be substantial enough to trans-form dependent learners into autonomous ones so that they keepimproving even when demotivating external factors intervene

CONCLUSION

The present study investigated the long-term effects of varying lengthsof overseas experiences on the L2 writing ability and motivation of 37Japanese university students The study revealed characteristics uniqueto the FL situation For example unlike the ESL learners studied byCumming (2006) some learners took almost no action to achieve theirgoals This was mainly due to the fact that L2 writing improvement wasnot necessary for their social survival In contrast spending some timeoverseas proved helpful not only in enabling the students to improvetheir L2 writing ability but also in maintaining their motivation to writebetter The pedagogical implications presented in the last section of thisarticle can thus be particularly useful for those who study an L2 where itis not used for communicative purposes

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 101

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

lsquolsquopostactional phasersquorsquo (p 48 eg lsquolsquofurther planningrsquorsquo) with each of thesephases affected by various lsquolsquomotivational influencesrsquorsquo (p 48) such as thepersonrsquos psychological orientation and external environments If wetreat motivation as such a dynamic and situated mechanism case studiesusing emic qualitative data provide appropriate avenues for the study ofL2 learnersrsquo motivational behaviors Shoaib and Dornyei (2005)exemplified one such study investigating motivational changes in 25participants over their lifetime through biographical interview data butto date such studies have been scarce Furthermore even with such adrastic shift in the focus of L2 motivation studies the target ofmotivation research has mostly remained general L2 proficiency andmotivation related to any particular skill or type of knowledge has rarelybeen examined

Thus the construct of L2 writing motivation was not considereduntil early 2000 when Alister Cumming and his colleagues started aseries of studies of L2 writing goals and motivation (see Cumming2006) Their participants were all English as a second language (ESL)students in university settings in Canada Addressing the above-mentioned criticism that L2 motivation research lacked the perspec-tive of time and context Cumming and his colleagues employedlongitudinal and situated data Yang et al (2004) for exampleprovided a microlevel analysis of changes in L2 motivation in six ESLstudents over the course of an ESL program To explain thequalitative changes in the participantsrsquo L2 writing motivation Yanget al used Engestromrsquos (1987) expanded activity system believing thatlsquolsquoindividual students are active responsive agents with their ownindividual goals orientations values beliefs and historiesrsquorsquo (Yanget al p 14) In addition to this activity theory perspective Cummingand his colleagues (2006) employed goal theory from the field ofpsychology for its lsquolsquomultiple theoretical framesrsquorsquo (p ix) in sevencollaborative studies focusing on both studentsrsquo and their teachersrsquogoals for learning and teaching L2 writing The results of these studiesare insightful in that they indicate how L2 studentsrsquo and teachersrsquomotivation constantly interacted with environmental factors Yet fromthe perspective of foreign language (FL) writing research theinvestigation of studentsrsquo goals for learning L2 writing may not bevery meaningful because FL students do not always have to set orachieve L2 writing goals to survive in their own communities wherethe L2 is not used for communicative purposes However no study todate has been conducted to investigate such L2 writing motivation inan FL setting

84 TESOL QUARTERLY

EFFECTS OF SA EXPERIENCES

Research on effects of SA experiences has become increasinglypopular especially during the past two decades (eg Kinginger 2008)Researchers have discovered that compared with their AH counterparts(1) SA students improved in their L2 speaking ability (eg Lafford2004) L2 listening ability (eg Allen 2002) and L2 reading ability (egDewey 2004) (2) SA students changed their sociolinguistic use of theL2 (eg Barron 2006) (3) their sociocultural environments played animportant role in such changes (eg Iino 2006) and (4) there weresubstantial individual differences in the scope and magnitude of thesechanges (eg Isabelli-Garcıa 2006)

Although these findings are informative many other aspects of theeffects of SA experiences remain unexplored For example Churchilland Dufon (2006) summarized previous studies investigating possible SAeffects on studentsrsquo linguistic skills but none of the studies they surveyedaddressed the acquisition of L2 writing skills specifically Similarly thevariable of L2 learning motivation has rarely been examined in terms ofthe effects of overseas experiences Even though previous studiesindicated that SA experiences tend to have positive impacts onparticipantsrsquo motivation (eg Simoes 1996) some studies reportedotherwise (eg Allen 2002)

In addition to the above-mentioned scarcity of studies of the effect ofSA experiences on L2 writing and motivation very few studies to datehave examined the effects of SA experiences on the specific variable ofL2 writing motivation one of the targeted variables in the present studyFurthermore very few studies have examined the effects of the length ofoverseas stays Although a stay of even a few weeks can have some impacton listening and speaking (Campbell 1996) lsquolsquothe question of how longis needed to make significant gains in specific skills remains unan-sweredrsquorsquo (Churchill amp Dufon 2006 p 23) Finally very few studies havereported any long-term effects of SA experiences Several qualitativestudies using retrospective accounts have examined the impact ofspending time abroad on studentsrsquo subsequent life (eg career choice)over quite a long period of time (8 years in Ehrenreich 2006) but fewquantitative studies have been conducted to investigate such effects onany L2 skill or motivation

Informed and motivated by the results (or lack thereof) of theseprevious studies as well as my own studies I undertook the present studywith the following four questions in mind

1 How does studentsrsquo L2 writing ability change over 35 years2 How does their L2 writing motivation change over 35 years3 How do any motivational changes interact with changes in their L2

writing ability

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 85

4 Do differences in length in the studentsrsquo SA experiences havedifferential impacts on their L2 writing ability and motivational changes

In Question 1 I defined L2 writing ability as an academic ability towrite in lsquolsquopedagogical genresrsquorsquo (Johns 1997 p 46) such as lsquolsquothe essayexamination response the term paper or the pedagogical summaryrsquorsquo(p 46) As regards Question 2 I follow Dornyei and Otto (1998 p 65) indefining motivation as lsquolsquothe dynamically changing cumulative arousal ina person that initiates directs coordinates amplifies terminates andevaluates the cognitive and motor processes whereby initial wishes anddesires are selected prioritized operationalised and (successfully orunsuccessfully) acted outrsquorsquo and I employed Dornyei and Ottorsquos processmodel of L2 motivation as the research baseline

METHOD

Participants

The 37 participants (9 in 2002 13 in 2003 and 15 in 2004) enteredthe same university in Japan as members of a cohort consisting each yearof about 150 British and American Studies majors2 They were all 18 yearsold at the time They came from three of five freshman English classes(with about 30 students each) offered under the same title each yearand I taught two of the three classes Each year I went to their first day ofclasses and asked for volunteers to participate in an English-writingproject that would require up to 90 minutes of their time once or twice ayear until graduation They were informed that they would receivemodest monetary compensation for their participation A total of 40students volunteered and 37 provided full data for the present studyThe 37 students had studied English for six years by the time the studybegan but they had received little L2 writing instruction while in highschool

Between their second and fourth year of university study (see Table 1)28 of the 37 students participated in SA programs provided by theuniversity spending different lengths of time in Canada England theUnited States Australia or New Zealand The participants weresubsequently divided into four groups according to the length of theiroverseas stay The SA-15ndash2 group (1 male and 8 females) spent 15ndash2months abroad3 the SA-4 group (2 males and 5 females) 4 months the

2 The official name of the department is English but the students do not study English asintensively as might be generally expected of English majors Instead they focus more ofcontent areas related to linguistics literature and area studies I thus decided to label theirmajor British and American Studies to avoid any misunderstanding

3 Four students spent 6 weeks and the other five students spent 2 months abroad

86 TESOL QUARTERLY

SA-8ndash11 group (3 males and 9 males) 8ndash11 months4 and the AH group(2 males and 7 females) remained in Japan during the 35-yearobservation period All the institutions where the SA students studiedwere 4-year universities admitting English-speaking students

The studentsrsquo English writing ability differed slightly even when theywere in their first year That is the SA-4 grouprsquos mean composition score(13814 out of a maximum of 200) was significantly higher than that ofthe SA-15ndash2 group (11644 see the Results and Discussion section)However there was no other significant difference across the fourgroupsrsquo composition scores In addition there was no significantdifference across the four groups when they were first-year students interms of general English proficiency measured by the sum of theListening and Structure Section scores of the Comprehensive EnglishLanguage Test Harris and Palmer (1986) F(3 33) 5 207 for a maximumof 200 At this university students had to earn high scores on theinstitutionalized TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign LanguageEducational Testing Service) to attend the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 (but notthe SA-15ndash2) programs and the SA-8ndash11 program was more competitivethan the SA-4 program In this sense the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups mayhave been more motivated to study English than the other groups fromthe beginning of the present study

4 Three students spent 8 months four spent 9 months three spent 10 months and twospent 11 months abroad

TABLE 1

English-Related Educational Experiences Over the Four University Years and Mean Departureand Return Points

Group

Meandepar-ture

point

Meanreturnpoint

Lengthof studyabroad(mon-ths)

Mean class hoursweek when abroad

Mean English class hoursweek when in Japan

ESLRegularsubject

1styear

2ndyear

3rdyear

4thyear

AH(n 5 9)

NA NA 0 0 0 88 62 61 10

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

2ndyear11thmonth

3rd year1st month

15ndash2 231 NA 90 57 45 12

SA-4(n 5 7)

2ndyear 6thmonth

2nd year11thmonth

4 107 43 90 54 65 24

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

2ndyear11thmonth

3rd year10thmonth

8ndash11 139 46 90 47 38 06

Note AH 5 at home SA 5 study abroad ESL 5 English as a second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 87

Table 1 presents the mean departure and returning-home times ofthe SA groups as well as the mean hours of English classes theparticipants took while overseas and in Japan Note that on average theSA-4 group went abroad earlier (2nd year 6th month) than the SA-15ndash2and SA-8ndash11 groups (2nd year 11th month for both groups) and theSA-4 group came home earliest (2nd year 11th month) and the SA-8ndash11group latest (3rd year 10th month) A total of 19 (679) out of the 28SA students had their overseas experiences between the second half oftheir second year and the first half of their third year at the universityWhile abroad the SA-15ndash2 students took ESL classes only whereas some(though not all) of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students took both ESL andregular subject classes The number of English classes these four groupstook at the Japanese university drastically decreased during their fourthyear because they had already taken the number of English classesrequired for graduation by the end of their third year and because theywere busy job-hunting during their fourth year

Data Collection

I collected L2 writing and motivation data at four different points inthe first month of the participantsrsquo first year (early-first-year period) andthe fourth month of their second third and fourth year (mid-second-year mid-third-year and mid-fourth-year periods) In the eighth monthof their fourth year (late-fourth-year period) I also interviewed thestudents to collect their own accounts of any changes in their L2 writingability and motivation

Composition Scores

The participants wrote an argumentative composition on a randomlyselected topic concerning such issues as living in a city or in the country(see Sasaki 2004) The prompts were selected in such a way that theparticipants were able to write about different topics on the fourdifferent occasions and so that similar ratios of participants in the fourgroups addressed the same topics

Two EFL writing specialists scored all the compositions followingJacobs Zinkgraf Wormuth Hartfiel and Hugheyrsquos (1981) EnglishComposition Profile The raters were not informed of the purpose of thepresent study when each composition was written or from whichparticipant group it came The interrater correlation (Pearson correla-tion coefficient) for the content subscore was 089 for the organizationsubscore 085 for the vocabulary subscore 078 for the language usesubscore 080 for the mechanics subscore 053 (caused by the very

88 TESOL QUARTERLY

narrow score range of 1ndash5)5 and for the total score 093 Overall Ijudged that these correlations were acceptable for the study

Interviews About L2 Writing Strategies L2 Classes andMotivation Conducted After Each Composition Session

After the participants wrote the compositions described above Iinterviewed each of them individually in Japanese about theirexperiences related to English learning over the previous year andwhich aspect of English writing they wanted to improve if any Thesessions lasted about 30 minutes each

Late-Fourth-Year Interviews on Changes in L2 Writing Abilityand Motivation

Four months after the participants wrote their mid-fourth-yearcompositions I interviewed them individually in Japanese again to collectaccounts of what they thought had influenced changes in their L2 writingability fluency and strategy use over the past 35 years During theinterviews I showed the participants a table or a graph showing theiractual changes on these variables over this period (I did not use thefluency and strategy use data in the present study) Addressingmotivational changes I showed them the transcripts of what they hadsaid when asked which aspects of English writing they wanted to improvein each of the four data collection sessions I also asked them additionalquestions about what other aspects if any they might have wanted toimprove over the given year why they had these particular goals and whatthey did to achieve these goals For those who did not mention any aspectthey wanted to improve I showed them a list (written in Japanese) ofpossible areas to be improved in L2 writing based on Cummingrsquos (2006)scheme probing L2 writing motivation (see Sasaki 2009 for list content)Each late-fourth-year interview session lasted 30ndash60 minutes All interviewaccounts were tape-recorded and subsequently transcribed

Analysis of Interview Data

When analyzing the transcribed interview data I followed Miles andHubermanrsquos (1994) data synthesis tactics especially those concerningnoting lsquolsquopatterns themesrsquorsquo (p 245) and making lsquolsquocontrastscompar-isonsrsquorsquo (p 245) I used the interview data about the participantsrsquo English-

5 Pearson correlation coefficients tend to be lower if the ranges of the given variables aremore restricted than others (see Linn 1968 for example)

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 89

related experiences and reasons for changes in their L2 writing ability inorder to better interpret the quantitative data on changes in theparticipantsrsquo L2 composition scores I also analyzed the interview dataabout the participantsrsquo motivational changes for their own sake As Imentioned earlier I adopted Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) definition of L2motivation and I analyzed the participantsrsquo changes in L2 writingmotivation using the research framework of Yang et al (2004) I decidedto employ this framework because it had worked successfully foranalyzing phenomena similar to the ones targeted in the present studyand because it shared with Dornyei and Ottorsquos model two crucialassumptions of methods accommodating sociocultural theory namely(1) that learners are active agents of L2 learning and (2) that L2learning processes can be influenced by various internalexternalfactors

The framework of Yang et al (2004) assumes that L2 learnersrsquothought processes and actions are mediated by artifacts or socioculturalentities when the participants as subjects operate on the object of learningL2 writing As Yang et al explain (p 15)

To take an example of second language (L2) learning a student (subject) in an ESLclass aims to improve her competence in academic English writing (object) Thisstudent may follow the teacherrsquos instruction do assignments read a textbook talk withfriends surf the Internet refer to dictionaries and so on (mediating artifacts) After aperiod of practice this student may achieve her goal such as getting a high grade on heressays (outcome) This activity happens in the ESL class (community) and thestudent intends to grasp the conventions of academic English writing (rules) In thisESL class the teacher provides model instruction gives assignments and offersfeedback and students follow their teacher and do the assignments (division of labor)

In addition to the original categories used by Yang et al (2004) Iincluded two more categories in the present study Imagined L2-relatedcommunity and Imagined non-L2-related community I did this becausein the process of analyzing the interview data I realized that thesecategories were also important for understanding the participantsrsquomotivational changes Subsequently I changed the term community inthe scheme of Yang et al to actual L2-related community to distinguish itfrom the two imagined communities For the term imagined community Ifollowed Kanno and Nortonrsquos (2003 p 241) definition of lsquolsquogroups ofpeople not immediately tangible and accessible with whom we connectthrough the power of imaginationrsquorsquo

In the framework of Yang et al (2004) we can assume that lsquolsquoobjectrsquorsquocorresponds to lsquolsquogoalrsquorsquo or lsquolsquointentionrsquorsquo in the lsquolsquopreactional phrasersquorsquo ofDornyei and Ottorsquos (1998 p 48) model If the subject actually tries toaccomplish hisher object through a range of mediating artifacts we can

90 TESOL QUARTERLY

say that heshe actually launches into what Dornyei and Otto (p 48) callthe lsquolsquoactional phasersquorsquo The other components of community imaginedcommunity and division of labor can form what Dornyei and Otto(p 48) call the lsquolsquomotivational influencesrsquorsquo affecting the studentrsquosmotivational behavior

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

L2 Writing Ability

I first present changes in the participantsrsquo L2 composition scores fordescriptive purposes I then present the results of an analysis of variance(ANOVA) to display the degree of change between the early-first-yearand mid-fourth-year periods using SPSS Version 61 (SPSS 1994)However because of the small sample sizes the results of the ANOVAanalyses should not be generalized

As shown in Table 2 the four groupsrsquo scores increased until theirsecond year but the AH grouprsquos score then decreased and even droppedbelow their first-year level in their fourth-year composition By contrastthe three SA groupsrsquo fourth-year composition scores were all higher thanthose of their first-year compositions but the SA-8ndash11 group was the onlyone that continually improved until the fourth year A two-way ANOVAcomparing the differences across the four groups between their first andfourth years indicated a significant interaction between time and groupeffects [F (3 33) 5 743 p 0001]

The results of subsequent post-hoc simple effects analysis andmultiple comparisons (Tanaka amp Yamagiwa 1992) revealed thefollowing First when the students were in their first year there wasno difference across the four groups except that the SA-4 grouprsquoscomposition scores were significantly higher than those of the SA-15ndash2group (mean square error (MSE) 5 23340 p 005) In the fourthyear the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groupsrsquo scores were significantly higher than

TABLE 2

Mean Total Composition Scores (Total Possible 5 200) at Four Observation Times

GroupEarly-1st-Year

M (SD)Mid-2nd-Year

M (SD)Mid-3rd-Year

M (SD)Late-4th-Year

M (SD)

AH (n 5 9) 13056 (1201) 13711 (1431) 13500 (1493) 12822(1044)SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

11644 (1837) 13178 (1821) 13056 (1549) 13389 (2097)

SA-4 (n 5 7) 13814 (1328) 14657 (1003) 16900 (707) 16143 (960)SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

13058 (1377) 15200 (1245) 15817 (1996) 16175 (859)

Note M 5 mean SD 5 standard deviation

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 91

those of the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups but there was no significantdifference between the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups or between the SA-4and the SA-8ndash11 groups (MSE 5 19607 p 005) Furthermore thethree SA groups significantly improved their composition scores over the35 years whereas the AH group did not F (1 33) 5 1009 p 001 forthe SA-15ndash2 group F (1 33) 5 1798 p 001 for the SA-4 group and F(1 33) 5 322 p 001 for the SA-8ndash11 group

At the individual level English composition scores for four of the nineAH students decreased over the 35 years and scores for the other fivestudents increased slightly Two of these five students mentioned thatEnglish classes at the Japanese university were helpful in learning towrite better However the other seven students (777) including thethree whose composition scores increased slightly felt that their Englishwriting ability deteriorated below their first-year level because from theirfourth year onward they took fewer English classes By contrast all ofthe SA studentsrsquo English composition scores improved over the 35 yearsFour SA-15ndash2 and three SA-4 students attributed this improvementmainly to the English writing classes they took at the Japanese universityOne SA-15ndash2 four SA-4 and four SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to theEnglish writing classes they took abroad and two SA-15ndash2 students andeight SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to the classes they took both in Japanand abroad Another SA-15ndash2 student said that writing e-mails to friendsshe made abroad was the only helpful factor and the last SA-15ndash2student said that the third- and fourth-year compositions were simplyeasier to write

It is noteworthy that many (607) of the SA students attributed theirEnglish writing improvement solely or partially to the English classesthey took in Japan As can be seen in Table 2 these students allimproved their English composition scores before going abroad as wellas after coming home The students reported that learning explicitlyhow to write in English (eg learning the idea of a topic sentence) andpracticing writing different types of texts (usually a paragraph long) inthese classes was useful

Similarly the 19 SA students who attributed their score increase atleast partially to their overseas L2 writing classes also added that theexperiences of learning how to write and having to write a lot and oftenoverseas were helpful However compared with the assignmentsrequired by their English classes in Japan the writing assignmentsrequired by their overseas classes were much more demanding Forexample in her first semester in the United States Eri an SA-8ndash11student took four classes two of which required writing papers In theESL writing class she learned how to organize effective paragraphs andwrote 4 two-page essays and 1 seven-page essay In her other class(Elementary Education) she wrote a total of 6 two-page papers In her

92 TESOL QUARTERLY

English classes in Japan she never wrote so much and so often (she onlywrote four paragraphs per semester at the maximum)

These SA studentsrsquo accounts concur with the findings of previouscross-sectional and longitudinal studies (eg Kobayashi amp Rinnert2001) in that the two factors of L2 writing metaknowledge and practiceinfluenced L2 writing development Given the greater percentages ofthe SA-4 (57) and SA-8ndash11 students (100) who attributed theirEnglish writing improvement at least partially to their overseas classescompared with the SA-15ndash2 students (333) and given that the SA-4and SA 8ndash11 groups improved significantly more than the SA-15ndash2group we could further speculate that long and intensive practice wasprobably a crucial factor in significantly improving these studentsrsquo L2writing By contrast as mentioned above many AH students felt thattheir English writing ability fell below their first-year level because theyhad fewer English classes during their fourth year This is especiallynoteworthy when we recall that many of the SA students whose scoresincreased for their fourth-year compositions also had fewer Englishclasses after becoming fourth-year students (Table 1) Consequentlydespite what they claimed the perceived and actual deterioration in theAH studentsrsquo L2 writing ability in the fourth year might be betterexplained by their low motivation rather than by the reduction in L2contact hours

L2 Writing Motivation

Tables 3andash3d present the four groupsrsquo changes in the relevantcomponents of the revised version of the research scheme of Yang et al(2004 see the Method section) Presented here are the tendenciesshared by more than 40 of the members of each group I did notinclude the components of rules and division of labor from Engestromrsquos(1987) expanded activity system because as in Yang et al in theparticipantsrsquo activity of studying L2 writing over 35 years the rule (iehow to write in the academic genre) and the division of labor (ie theparticipants studied and the teachers taught) were unchanged

Table 3a shows the characteristics of the four groupsrsquo L2 writingmotivation when they were first-year students Under the column forObject the four groups were all motivated to improve some aspects(mainly grammar vocabulary and quantity) of their L2 writing Theonly difference is that as can be seen in the column Mediating artifact(ie what was involved in the participantsrsquo trying to attain their objects)667 of the AH group reported doing nothing to improve their L2writing whereas all the other groups used textbooks dictionaries andteachers to achieve their goals Using Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) process

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 93

model of L2 motivation we can say that all four groups set some lsquolsquogoalsrsquorsquoor lsquolsquointentionsrsquorsquo (p 48) for improving their L2 writing but the AH groupremained in the lsquolsquopreactional phasersquorsquo (p 48) whereas the other threegroups crossed the lsquolsquometaphorical lsquoRubiconrsquo of actionrsquorsquo (p 57) In factmore than half of the AH students continued to do nothing to improvetheir L2 writing until their fourth year (as shown in Tables 3a to 3d)Such constantly low motivation in the AH group helps to explain whytheir L2 composition scores decreased below their first-year level whilethe other three groupsrsquo scores did not over the 35 years of myobservation period (seen in Table 2)

The four groupsrsquo characteristics (presented in Table 3b) for theirsecond year were similar to those for their first year except that 19(679) of the 28 SA students had an SA experience starting during thatyear (ie they experienced ESL classes as their L2-related actualcommunities) This probably influenced their subsequent motivationalbehavior for L2 writing One noticeable consequence of such influenceis that many members of the three SA groups in their third and fourth

TABLE 3a

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Artifact Components in First Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

community

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

Non-L2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity Outcome

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)

vocabulary(556)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)

vocabulary(887)quantity(444)

confidence(444)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(714)

vocabulary(857)quantity(429)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(714)

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(917)quantity(417)

EFL classes(100)

Note Descriptions in Tables 3andash3d are given if they were shared by more than 40 of theparticipants EFL 5 English as a foreign language

94 TESOL QUARTERLY

years in university formed some kind of L2-related imagined commu-nities that had not existed before That is after they became third-yearstudents when they had to write academic texts in the L2 as required intheir English classes many of them came to imagine communities wherepeople used L2 for actual communicative purposes Tables 3c and 3dshow how this imagined communitiesrsquo idea played out during their thirdand fourth years of study

Looking across these two tables for example many SA-15ndash2 groupmembers (667 in their fourth year) kept in touch with the L1 or L2English-speaking friends they had made while abroad and correspondedwith them in English through e-mail andor internet chat afterreturning to Japan In such correspondence the SA-15ndash2 studentsoften expressed the wish that they could still be among these pen pals inthe same English-speaking places where they had once studied and theytalked with their pen pals about topics (eg the basketball team of thetown) related to these places We can call such places imaginedcommunities because they were no longer physically accessible to thestudents6 The SA-15ndash2 students all felt that corresponding with these

TABLE 3b

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Second Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2 writingability

Improved Decreased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabulary(444)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

556 444

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabulary(667)Quantity(444)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

889 0

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(571)Vocabulary(571)Quantity(429)

Textbook-s refer-encebooks(571)

ESL classes(100 for4 months)

714 286

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(50)Quantity(417)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(50)

ESL classes(583 for8ndash11months)

100

EFL classes(100)

Note 12 5 second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 95

cybernet pen pals was useful for improving their English writing abilityIn fact writing good e-mails even became one of their major L2 writinggoals in their fourth year (as shown in Table 3d)

Similarly by their fourth year all members of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11groups communicated with overseas friends through e-mail or online chatand imagined during such cybernet correspondence the communities

TABLE 3c

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Third Year

Group Object

Medi-ating

artifact

L2-relatedactual com-

munity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2writing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(556)Vocabu-lary(556)

None(555)

EFL classes(100)

111 667

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabu-lary(444)Quantity(444)

E-mail oronlinechatting(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(444)

333 556

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Vocabu-lary(100)

Teachers(444)Textboo-ks(714)

EFL classes(100)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(857) ESLclasses(714)

857Motivatedto write be-tter in L2(857)

143

Organiza-tion(429)Planning(429)Content(857)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Grammar(583)Vocabu-lary (75)Content(667)

TOEICTOEFL(417)

ESL classes(417 for8ndash11months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(583) ESLclasses(583)

917 83

English-L1friends(417)

EFL classes(100)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(75)

Note TOEIC 5 Test of English for International Communication TOEFL 5 Test of English as aForeign Language

6 My interpretation of the term imagined community is thus different from that of otherresearchers who assume that the imagined communities should be physically located inplaces where the students have never been (eg Kinginger 2004)

96 TESOL QUARTERLY

TABLE 3d

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Fourth Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommun-

ity

Outcome L2 writ-ing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH (n5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabu-lary (556)

None(556)

EFLclasses(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(667)

667 333LostinterestinstudyingL2 writ-ing(778)

SA-15ndash2(n 59)

Grammar(778)Vocabulary(667)How towrite e-mailletters(667)

E-mail oronline chat-ting (667)

ESLclasses(112)-EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(667)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(555)

667 222

SA-4(n 57)

Vocabulary(714)

TOEIC orSTEP Test(714)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(857)

714Motivatedto writebetterin L2(857)

143

ESL classes(714)

SA-8ndash11 (n5 12)

Content(833)

Self-directedwriting(583)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(833)

833 167

Vocabulary(667)Grammar(50)

Dictionaryreferencebooks(583)

ESL classes(917)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(833)

Note STEP 5 Society for Testing English Proficiency

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 97

they had once shared with these friends However when they wroteacademic texts in English none of them thought about such correspon-dence Instead 714 of the SA-4 group and 917 of the SA-8ndash11 groupimagined how they had written in ESL and other regular subject classesthey took while abroad (see Table 3d) In contrast no SA-15ndash2 groupmember imagined such overseas classes when writing L2 academic textsThey simply drew on their experiences of how they could best respond totheir cybernet pen pals in such cases This difference between the SA-15ndash-2 group and the pair of SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups can be attributed to thefact that the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups experienced not only moreopportunities to write but also a longer duration of overseas classes thanthe SA-15ndash2 group

As mentioned earlier in these classes the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 studentslearned how to organize effective compositions and they wrote varioustypes of texts (eg term papers summaries) When they firstencountered writing assignments in these classes many were shockedto find that they could not write as well as their classmates includingother international students because none of them had ever learnedhow to write English texts longer than a paragraph After having readrelevant literature and written multiple drafts however they learnedhow to achieve higher grades Fourteen (737) out of the 19 SA-4 andSA-8ndash11 students also mentioned that the teachersrsquo praise (one of thepotential motivational influences for the postactional phase in Dornyeiand Ottorsquos 1998 model p 61) further encouraged them Drawing onthese episodes motivated the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students to write betteracademic texts even after returning home as shown in Sachirsquoscomments from her late-fourth-year interview

ExampleSachi who spent 11 months in the United States is talking about her

first in-class test essay in a psychology class in the United States whereshe was the only international student (All accounts were originally inJapanese and were translated by the author)

Sachi After 30 minutes [for the test] I was told to stop and I thoughtlsquolsquoYou are kidding I have only written three lines This is tragicrsquorsquo(laughter)

Miyuki (laughter)Sachi And then when the test was returned the teacher told me to

study English harder I was shocked because she meant that I shouldstudy English before I could study the content [of the class]

Miyuki OhSachi But the teacher had also made many suggestions on the test

sheet about how I could have written the answer betterMiyuki Oh she is kind isnrsquot sheSachi Yes and because of that I thought I should try harder

98 TESOL QUARTERLY

Miyuki You mean you had to live up to the teacherrsquos expectationsSachi Yes I thought I should try as a Japanese Hooray for Japanese

peopleMiyuki (laughter)Sachi And even now I feel that I should make efforts to write better

when I write [in English]Such motivation seems qualitatively different from the SA-15ndash2

studentsrsquo motivation to simply improve a single aspect of their L2 writing(ie writing messages in cyberspace) This difference in motivation mayalso account for the fact that only the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups weremotivated to improve the content of their L2 writing after their thirdyear (Tables 3c and 3d)

Last as regards their fourth year (Table 3d) the most noticeabledifference from the other years was that many participants formedimagined communities where they hoped to work after they graduatedfrom university This is related to the fact that many of them startedhunting for jobs near the end of their third year They spent thefollowing 6ndash12 months taking exams and being interviewed for the bestpossible jobs they could get Of the 37 participants however only 12students (324 3 AH 1 SA-15ndash2 3 SA-4 and 5 SA-8ndash11) imaginedprofessional communities that were English-related (eg a communityof English teachers) As in their third year many SA students continuedto imagine L2-related communities such as communities imaginedthrough e-mail correspondence or overseas classes when they wrote inEnglish However these communities were not directly related to theirfuture jobs Underlying this phenomenon was the fact that althoughtheir major (British and American Studies) was related to English notmany graduates at this university (only 16 in 2006) actually obtainedemployment directly related to English

Consequently the future-career-related imagined communities ofthese students did not necessarily lead to L2 writing improvement Infact 667 of the AH group and 857 of the SA-4 group showeddecreases in their L2 composition scores and in the late-fourth-yearinterviews all of them attributed this decrease to being busy job-huntingYet seven (583) of the 12 SA-8ndash11 students continued to voluntarilypractice L2 writing even though such activity benefited the future careerof only three of them For example Koji an SA-8ndash11 student who cameback to Japan in the middle of his third year wrote a final report inEnglish for his fourth-year sociology class when the teacher allowed himto do so even though writing the report in English was not required Hisfuture-career-related imagined community was not related to EnglishAnd yet he chose to write in English because he believed that he couldlsquolsquodo a good job if he tried with all the knowledge he had acquired inAmerica and in the subsequent yearsrsquorsquo (from his late-fourth year

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 99

interview) This suggests that the motivations of these students hadbecome more intrinsic or that they had become more autonomouslearners having acquired the ability to lsquolsquoidentify goals formulate theirown goals and change goals to suit their own learning needs andinterestsrsquorsquo (Dickinson 1995 p 167) No other students exhibited suchmotivation throughout the observation period Although it is not clearwhy only some SA-8ndash11 students acquired such learner autonomy theseSA-8ndash11 students are the most likely to keep trying to improve their L2writing ability in the future

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

In this section I summarize the results of this study and present somepractical implications First the AH grouprsquos motivational behaviors overthe 35 years were different from those of the three SA groups in thatfew AH students took concrete action to achieve their goals Despite thislack of strong motivation however the AH grouprsquos L2 writing abilitycontinued to improve around their third year probably because theytook a relatively large number of English classes up to that point(Table 1) To obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree they had to earn creditsfor these classes and one can speculate that such an lsquolsquoincentive value ofthe outcomersquorsquo (Dornyei and Otto 1998 p 53) was the major drivingforce behind their improvement Once the external motivational forceof L2 classes diminished however the students seemed to need toimagine L2-related communities in order to keep improving (Table 2)Furthermore among the three SA groups who formed some kind of L2-related imagined communities after coming home the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups improved their composition scores significantly more than didthe SA-15ndash2 group This might be because these two groups had moreand longer L2 writing practice but also because their imagined L2-related communities were more directly connected to learning theability targeted in the present study (ie academic writing) Lastalthough the reason for this is not clear only the SA-8ndash11 group becameintrinsically motivated and continued to develop despite impedingfourth-year factors such as job hunting

What implications for FL teaching do these results suggest Firstwhen instrumental motivation is in force regular instruction such asproviding students with L2 writing metaknowledge as well as differenttypes of practice can lead to improvement to some degree For a morelasting effect however it may be important for students to constructsome kind of L2-related imagined communities In the present study SAstudentsrsquo overseas experiences were helpful but we know that not all FLstudents can afford to spend time abroad It would be ideal if a way could

100 TESOL QUARTERLY

be found to create L2-related imagined communities without thenecessity of going abroad Yashima and Zenuk-Nishide (2008) reportedone such possibility where Japanese high school students became moremotivated and improved their English proficiency without going abroadby being introduced into lsquolsquoan imagined international communityrsquorsquo (ie amodel lsquolsquoUnited Nationsrsquorsquo p 569) in content-based English classes In asimilar vein preparing an L2 writing curriculum where students canparticipate in such communities through lsquolsquocognitively and emotionallyinvolving contentrsquorsquo (p 570) might be a promising approach in FLsettings

Another suggestion is based on the significant difference inimprovement between the SA-15ndash2 group and the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11pair If teachers want to make their studentsrsquo motivation moreinfluential it would probably be better for the L2-related imaginedcommunities to be accompanied by specific details of skills andknowledge related to the targeted abilities to be improved In the caseof L2 writing for example students must know how to plan and writeeffective compositions in the intended genre Accumulation of suchdeclarative and procedural knowledge would endow the students withwhat Dornyei and Otto (1998) call an lsquolsquointernal model of referencersquorsquo(p 57) which would be especially helpful for realizing preactionalintentions Furthermore such knowledge has to be implementedthrough sufficient and continuous practice to result in a truly significantdifference in output quality Affective support such as teachersrsquo praise isalso important for making the studentsrsquo motivation more enduringIdeally imagined communities should be substantial enough to trans-form dependent learners into autonomous ones so that they keepimproving even when demotivating external factors intervene

CONCLUSION

The present study investigated the long-term effects of varying lengthsof overseas experiences on the L2 writing ability and motivation of 37Japanese university students The study revealed characteristics uniqueto the FL situation For example unlike the ESL learners studied byCumming (2006) some learners took almost no action to achieve theirgoals This was mainly due to the fact that L2 writing improvement wasnot necessary for their social survival In contrast spending some timeoverseas proved helpful not only in enabling the students to improvetheir L2 writing ability but also in maintaining their motivation to writebetter The pedagogical implications presented in the last section of thisarticle can thus be particularly useful for those who study an L2 where itis not used for communicative purposes

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 101

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

EFFECTS OF SA EXPERIENCES

Research on effects of SA experiences has become increasinglypopular especially during the past two decades (eg Kinginger 2008)Researchers have discovered that compared with their AH counterparts(1) SA students improved in their L2 speaking ability (eg Lafford2004) L2 listening ability (eg Allen 2002) and L2 reading ability (egDewey 2004) (2) SA students changed their sociolinguistic use of theL2 (eg Barron 2006) (3) their sociocultural environments played animportant role in such changes (eg Iino 2006) and (4) there weresubstantial individual differences in the scope and magnitude of thesechanges (eg Isabelli-Garcıa 2006)

Although these findings are informative many other aspects of theeffects of SA experiences remain unexplored For example Churchilland Dufon (2006) summarized previous studies investigating possible SAeffects on studentsrsquo linguistic skills but none of the studies they surveyedaddressed the acquisition of L2 writing skills specifically Similarly thevariable of L2 learning motivation has rarely been examined in terms ofthe effects of overseas experiences Even though previous studiesindicated that SA experiences tend to have positive impacts onparticipantsrsquo motivation (eg Simoes 1996) some studies reportedotherwise (eg Allen 2002)

In addition to the above-mentioned scarcity of studies of the effect ofSA experiences on L2 writing and motivation very few studies to datehave examined the effects of SA experiences on the specific variable ofL2 writing motivation one of the targeted variables in the present studyFurthermore very few studies have examined the effects of the length ofoverseas stays Although a stay of even a few weeks can have some impacton listening and speaking (Campbell 1996) lsquolsquothe question of how longis needed to make significant gains in specific skills remains unan-sweredrsquorsquo (Churchill amp Dufon 2006 p 23) Finally very few studies havereported any long-term effects of SA experiences Several qualitativestudies using retrospective accounts have examined the impact ofspending time abroad on studentsrsquo subsequent life (eg career choice)over quite a long period of time (8 years in Ehrenreich 2006) but fewquantitative studies have been conducted to investigate such effects onany L2 skill or motivation

Informed and motivated by the results (or lack thereof) of theseprevious studies as well as my own studies I undertook the present studywith the following four questions in mind

1 How does studentsrsquo L2 writing ability change over 35 years2 How does their L2 writing motivation change over 35 years3 How do any motivational changes interact with changes in their L2

writing ability

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 85

4 Do differences in length in the studentsrsquo SA experiences havedifferential impacts on their L2 writing ability and motivational changes

In Question 1 I defined L2 writing ability as an academic ability towrite in lsquolsquopedagogical genresrsquorsquo (Johns 1997 p 46) such as lsquolsquothe essayexamination response the term paper or the pedagogical summaryrsquorsquo(p 46) As regards Question 2 I follow Dornyei and Otto (1998 p 65) indefining motivation as lsquolsquothe dynamically changing cumulative arousal ina person that initiates directs coordinates amplifies terminates andevaluates the cognitive and motor processes whereby initial wishes anddesires are selected prioritized operationalised and (successfully orunsuccessfully) acted outrsquorsquo and I employed Dornyei and Ottorsquos processmodel of L2 motivation as the research baseline

METHOD

Participants

The 37 participants (9 in 2002 13 in 2003 and 15 in 2004) enteredthe same university in Japan as members of a cohort consisting each yearof about 150 British and American Studies majors2 They were all 18 yearsold at the time They came from three of five freshman English classes(with about 30 students each) offered under the same title each yearand I taught two of the three classes Each year I went to their first day ofclasses and asked for volunteers to participate in an English-writingproject that would require up to 90 minutes of their time once or twice ayear until graduation They were informed that they would receivemodest monetary compensation for their participation A total of 40students volunteered and 37 provided full data for the present studyThe 37 students had studied English for six years by the time the studybegan but they had received little L2 writing instruction while in highschool

Between their second and fourth year of university study (see Table 1)28 of the 37 students participated in SA programs provided by theuniversity spending different lengths of time in Canada England theUnited States Australia or New Zealand The participants weresubsequently divided into four groups according to the length of theiroverseas stay The SA-15ndash2 group (1 male and 8 females) spent 15ndash2months abroad3 the SA-4 group (2 males and 5 females) 4 months the

2 The official name of the department is English but the students do not study English asintensively as might be generally expected of English majors Instead they focus more ofcontent areas related to linguistics literature and area studies I thus decided to label theirmajor British and American Studies to avoid any misunderstanding

3 Four students spent 6 weeks and the other five students spent 2 months abroad

86 TESOL QUARTERLY

SA-8ndash11 group (3 males and 9 males) 8ndash11 months4 and the AH group(2 males and 7 females) remained in Japan during the 35-yearobservation period All the institutions where the SA students studiedwere 4-year universities admitting English-speaking students

The studentsrsquo English writing ability differed slightly even when theywere in their first year That is the SA-4 grouprsquos mean composition score(13814 out of a maximum of 200) was significantly higher than that ofthe SA-15ndash2 group (11644 see the Results and Discussion section)However there was no other significant difference across the fourgroupsrsquo composition scores In addition there was no significantdifference across the four groups when they were first-year students interms of general English proficiency measured by the sum of theListening and Structure Section scores of the Comprehensive EnglishLanguage Test Harris and Palmer (1986) F(3 33) 5 207 for a maximumof 200 At this university students had to earn high scores on theinstitutionalized TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign LanguageEducational Testing Service) to attend the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 (but notthe SA-15ndash2) programs and the SA-8ndash11 program was more competitivethan the SA-4 program In this sense the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups mayhave been more motivated to study English than the other groups fromthe beginning of the present study

4 Three students spent 8 months four spent 9 months three spent 10 months and twospent 11 months abroad

TABLE 1

English-Related Educational Experiences Over the Four University Years and Mean Departureand Return Points

Group

Meandepar-ture

point

Meanreturnpoint

Lengthof studyabroad(mon-ths)

Mean class hoursweek when abroad

Mean English class hoursweek when in Japan

ESLRegularsubject

1styear

2ndyear

3rdyear

4thyear

AH(n 5 9)

NA NA 0 0 0 88 62 61 10

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

2ndyear11thmonth

3rd year1st month

15ndash2 231 NA 90 57 45 12

SA-4(n 5 7)

2ndyear 6thmonth

2nd year11thmonth

4 107 43 90 54 65 24

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

2ndyear11thmonth

3rd year10thmonth

8ndash11 139 46 90 47 38 06

Note AH 5 at home SA 5 study abroad ESL 5 English as a second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 87

Table 1 presents the mean departure and returning-home times ofthe SA groups as well as the mean hours of English classes theparticipants took while overseas and in Japan Note that on average theSA-4 group went abroad earlier (2nd year 6th month) than the SA-15ndash2and SA-8ndash11 groups (2nd year 11th month for both groups) and theSA-4 group came home earliest (2nd year 11th month) and the SA-8ndash11group latest (3rd year 10th month) A total of 19 (679) out of the 28SA students had their overseas experiences between the second half oftheir second year and the first half of their third year at the universityWhile abroad the SA-15ndash2 students took ESL classes only whereas some(though not all) of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students took both ESL andregular subject classes The number of English classes these four groupstook at the Japanese university drastically decreased during their fourthyear because they had already taken the number of English classesrequired for graduation by the end of their third year and because theywere busy job-hunting during their fourth year

Data Collection

I collected L2 writing and motivation data at four different points inthe first month of the participantsrsquo first year (early-first-year period) andthe fourth month of their second third and fourth year (mid-second-year mid-third-year and mid-fourth-year periods) In the eighth monthof their fourth year (late-fourth-year period) I also interviewed thestudents to collect their own accounts of any changes in their L2 writingability and motivation

Composition Scores

The participants wrote an argumentative composition on a randomlyselected topic concerning such issues as living in a city or in the country(see Sasaki 2004) The prompts were selected in such a way that theparticipants were able to write about different topics on the fourdifferent occasions and so that similar ratios of participants in the fourgroups addressed the same topics

Two EFL writing specialists scored all the compositions followingJacobs Zinkgraf Wormuth Hartfiel and Hugheyrsquos (1981) EnglishComposition Profile The raters were not informed of the purpose of thepresent study when each composition was written or from whichparticipant group it came The interrater correlation (Pearson correla-tion coefficient) for the content subscore was 089 for the organizationsubscore 085 for the vocabulary subscore 078 for the language usesubscore 080 for the mechanics subscore 053 (caused by the very

88 TESOL QUARTERLY

narrow score range of 1ndash5)5 and for the total score 093 Overall Ijudged that these correlations were acceptable for the study

Interviews About L2 Writing Strategies L2 Classes andMotivation Conducted After Each Composition Session

After the participants wrote the compositions described above Iinterviewed each of them individually in Japanese about theirexperiences related to English learning over the previous year andwhich aspect of English writing they wanted to improve if any Thesessions lasted about 30 minutes each

Late-Fourth-Year Interviews on Changes in L2 Writing Abilityand Motivation

Four months after the participants wrote their mid-fourth-yearcompositions I interviewed them individually in Japanese again to collectaccounts of what they thought had influenced changes in their L2 writingability fluency and strategy use over the past 35 years During theinterviews I showed the participants a table or a graph showing theiractual changes on these variables over this period (I did not use thefluency and strategy use data in the present study) Addressingmotivational changes I showed them the transcripts of what they hadsaid when asked which aspects of English writing they wanted to improvein each of the four data collection sessions I also asked them additionalquestions about what other aspects if any they might have wanted toimprove over the given year why they had these particular goals and whatthey did to achieve these goals For those who did not mention any aspectthey wanted to improve I showed them a list (written in Japanese) ofpossible areas to be improved in L2 writing based on Cummingrsquos (2006)scheme probing L2 writing motivation (see Sasaki 2009 for list content)Each late-fourth-year interview session lasted 30ndash60 minutes All interviewaccounts were tape-recorded and subsequently transcribed

Analysis of Interview Data

When analyzing the transcribed interview data I followed Miles andHubermanrsquos (1994) data synthesis tactics especially those concerningnoting lsquolsquopatterns themesrsquorsquo (p 245) and making lsquolsquocontrastscompar-isonsrsquorsquo (p 245) I used the interview data about the participantsrsquo English-

5 Pearson correlation coefficients tend to be lower if the ranges of the given variables aremore restricted than others (see Linn 1968 for example)

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 89

related experiences and reasons for changes in their L2 writing ability inorder to better interpret the quantitative data on changes in theparticipantsrsquo L2 composition scores I also analyzed the interview dataabout the participantsrsquo motivational changes for their own sake As Imentioned earlier I adopted Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) definition of L2motivation and I analyzed the participantsrsquo changes in L2 writingmotivation using the research framework of Yang et al (2004) I decidedto employ this framework because it had worked successfully foranalyzing phenomena similar to the ones targeted in the present studyand because it shared with Dornyei and Ottorsquos model two crucialassumptions of methods accommodating sociocultural theory namely(1) that learners are active agents of L2 learning and (2) that L2learning processes can be influenced by various internalexternalfactors

The framework of Yang et al (2004) assumes that L2 learnersrsquothought processes and actions are mediated by artifacts or socioculturalentities when the participants as subjects operate on the object of learningL2 writing As Yang et al explain (p 15)

To take an example of second language (L2) learning a student (subject) in an ESLclass aims to improve her competence in academic English writing (object) Thisstudent may follow the teacherrsquos instruction do assignments read a textbook talk withfriends surf the Internet refer to dictionaries and so on (mediating artifacts) After aperiod of practice this student may achieve her goal such as getting a high grade on heressays (outcome) This activity happens in the ESL class (community) and thestudent intends to grasp the conventions of academic English writing (rules) In thisESL class the teacher provides model instruction gives assignments and offersfeedback and students follow their teacher and do the assignments (division of labor)

In addition to the original categories used by Yang et al (2004) Iincluded two more categories in the present study Imagined L2-relatedcommunity and Imagined non-L2-related community I did this becausein the process of analyzing the interview data I realized that thesecategories were also important for understanding the participantsrsquomotivational changes Subsequently I changed the term community inthe scheme of Yang et al to actual L2-related community to distinguish itfrom the two imagined communities For the term imagined community Ifollowed Kanno and Nortonrsquos (2003 p 241) definition of lsquolsquogroups ofpeople not immediately tangible and accessible with whom we connectthrough the power of imaginationrsquorsquo

In the framework of Yang et al (2004) we can assume that lsquolsquoobjectrsquorsquocorresponds to lsquolsquogoalrsquorsquo or lsquolsquointentionrsquorsquo in the lsquolsquopreactional phrasersquorsquo ofDornyei and Ottorsquos (1998 p 48) model If the subject actually tries toaccomplish hisher object through a range of mediating artifacts we can

90 TESOL QUARTERLY

say that heshe actually launches into what Dornyei and Otto (p 48) callthe lsquolsquoactional phasersquorsquo The other components of community imaginedcommunity and division of labor can form what Dornyei and Otto(p 48) call the lsquolsquomotivational influencesrsquorsquo affecting the studentrsquosmotivational behavior

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

L2 Writing Ability

I first present changes in the participantsrsquo L2 composition scores fordescriptive purposes I then present the results of an analysis of variance(ANOVA) to display the degree of change between the early-first-yearand mid-fourth-year periods using SPSS Version 61 (SPSS 1994)However because of the small sample sizes the results of the ANOVAanalyses should not be generalized

As shown in Table 2 the four groupsrsquo scores increased until theirsecond year but the AH grouprsquos score then decreased and even droppedbelow their first-year level in their fourth-year composition By contrastthe three SA groupsrsquo fourth-year composition scores were all higher thanthose of their first-year compositions but the SA-8ndash11 group was the onlyone that continually improved until the fourth year A two-way ANOVAcomparing the differences across the four groups between their first andfourth years indicated a significant interaction between time and groupeffects [F (3 33) 5 743 p 0001]

The results of subsequent post-hoc simple effects analysis andmultiple comparisons (Tanaka amp Yamagiwa 1992) revealed thefollowing First when the students were in their first year there wasno difference across the four groups except that the SA-4 grouprsquoscomposition scores were significantly higher than those of the SA-15ndash2group (mean square error (MSE) 5 23340 p 005) In the fourthyear the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groupsrsquo scores were significantly higher than

TABLE 2

Mean Total Composition Scores (Total Possible 5 200) at Four Observation Times

GroupEarly-1st-Year

M (SD)Mid-2nd-Year

M (SD)Mid-3rd-Year

M (SD)Late-4th-Year

M (SD)

AH (n 5 9) 13056 (1201) 13711 (1431) 13500 (1493) 12822(1044)SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

11644 (1837) 13178 (1821) 13056 (1549) 13389 (2097)

SA-4 (n 5 7) 13814 (1328) 14657 (1003) 16900 (707) 16143 (960)SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

13058 (1377) 15200 (1245) 15817 (1996) 16175 (859)

Note M 5 mean SD 5 standard deviation

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 91

those of the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups but there was no significantdifference between the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups or between the SA-4and the SA-8ndash11 groups (MSE 5 19607 p 005) Furthermore thethree SA groups significantly improved their composition scores over the35 years whereas the AH group did not F (1 33) 5 1009 p 001 forthe SA-15ndash2 group F (1 33) 5 1798 p 001 for the SA-4 group and F(1 33) 5 322 p 001 for the SA-8ndash11 group

At the individual level English composition scores for four of the nineAH students decreased over the 35 years and scores for the other fivestudents increased slightly Two of these five students mentioned thatEnglish classes at the Japanese university were helpful in learning towrite better However the other seven students (777) including thethree whose composition scores increased slightly felt that their Englishwriting ability deteriorated below their first-year level because from theirfourth year onward they took fewer English classes By contrast all ofthe SA studentsrsquo English composition scores improved over the 35 yearsFour SA-15ndash2 and three SA-4 students attributed this improvementmainly to the English writing classes they took at the Japanese universityOne SA-15ndash2 four SA-4 and four SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to theEnglish writing classes they took abroad and two SA-15ndash2 students andeight SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to the classes they took both in Japanand abroad Another SA-15ndash2 student said that writing e-mails to friendsshe made abroad was the only helpful factor and the last SA-15ndash2student said that the third- and fourth-year compositions were simplyeasier to write

It is noteworthy that many (607) of the SA students attributed theirEnglish writing improvement solely or partially to the English classesthey took in Japan As can be seen in Table 2 these students allimproved their English composition scores before going abroad as wellas after coming home The students reported that learning explicitlyhow to write in English (eg learning the idea of a topic sentence) andpracticing writing different types of texts (usually a paragraph long) inthese classes was useful

Similarly the 19 SA students who attributed their score increase atleast partially to their overseas L2 writing classes also added that theexperiences of learning how to write and having to write a lot and oftenoverseas were helpful However compared with the assignmentsrequired by their English classes in Japan the writing assignmentsrequired by their overseas classes were much more demanding Forexample in her first semester in the United States Eri an SA-8ndash11student took four classes two of which required writing papers In theESL writing class she learned how to organize effective paragraphs andwrote 4 two-page essays and 1 seven-page essay In her other class(Elementary Education) she wrote a total of 6 two-page papers In her

92 TESOL QUARTERLY

English classes in Japan she never wrote so much and so often (she onlywrote four paragraphs per semester at the maximum)

These SA studentsrsquo accounts concur with the findings of previouscross-sectional and longitudinal studies (eg Kobayashi amp Rinnert2001) in that the two factors of L2 writing metaknowledge and practiceinfluenced L2 writing development Given the greater percentages ofthe SA-4 (57) and SA-8ndash11 students (100) who attributed theirEnglish writing improvement at least partially to their overseas classescompared with the SA-15ndash2 students (333) and given that the SA-4and SA 8ndash11 groups improved significantly more than the SA-15ndash2group we could further speculate that long and intensive practice wasprobably a crucial factor in significantly improving these studentsrsquo L2writing By contrast as mentioned above many AH students felt thattheir English writing ability fell below their first-year level because theyhad fewer English classes during their fourth year This is especiallynoteworthy when we recall that many of the SA students whose scoresincreased for their fourth-year compositions also had fewer Englishclasses after becoming fourth-year students (Table 1) Consequentlydespite what they claimed the perceived and actual deterioration in theAH studentsrsquo L2 writing ability in the fourth year might be betterexplained by their low motivation rather than by the reduction in L2contact hours

L2 Writing Motivation

Tables 3andash3d present the four groupsrsquo changes in the relevantcomponents of the revised version of the research scheme of Yang et al(2004 see the Method section) Presented here are the tendenciesshared by more than 40 of the members of each group I did notinclude the components of rules and division of labor from Engestromrsquos(1987) expanded activity system because as in Yang et al in theparticipantsrsquo activity of studying L2 writing over 35 years the rule (iehow to write in the academic genre) and the division of labor (ie theparticipants studied and the teachers taught) were unchanged

Table 3a shows the characteristics of the four groupsrsquo L2 writingmotivation when they were first-year students Under the column forObject the four groups were all motivated to improve some aspects(mainly grammar vocabulary and quantity) of their L2 writing Theonly difference is that as can be seen in the column Mediating artifact(ie what was involved in the participantsrsquo trying to attain their objects)667 of the AH group reported doing nothing to improve their L2writing whereas all the other groups used textbooks dictionaries andteachers to achieve their goals Using Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) process

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 93

model of L2 motivation we can say that all four groups set some lsquolsquogoalsrsquorsquoor lsquolsquointentionsrsquorsquo (p 48) for improving their L2 writing but the AH groupremained in the lsquolsquopreactional phasersquorsquo (p 48) whereas the other threegroups crossed the lsquolsquometaphorical lsquoRubiconrsquo of actionrsquorsquo (p 57) In factmore than half of the AH students continued to do nothing to improvetheir L2 writing until their fourth year (as shown in Tables 3a to 3d)Such constantly low motivation in the AH group helps to explain whytheir L2 composition scores decreased below their first-year level whilethe other three groupsrsquo scores did not over the 35 years of myobservation period (seen in Table 2)

The four groupsrsquo characteristics (presented in Table 3b) for theirsecond year were similar to those for their first year except that 19(679) of the 28 SA students had an SA experience starting during thatyear (ie they experienced ESL classes as their L2-related actualcommunities) This probably influenced their subsequent motivationalbehavior for L2 writing One noticeable consequence of such influenceis that many members of the three SA groups in their third and fourth

TABLE 3a

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Artifact Components in First Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

community

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

Non-L2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity Outcome

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)

vocabulary(556)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)

vocabulary(887)quantity(444)

confidence(444)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(714)

vocabulary(857)quantity(429)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(714)

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(917)quantity(417)

EFL classes(100)

Note Descriptions in Tables 3andash3d are given if they were shared by more than 40 of theparticipants EFL 5 English as a foreign language

94 TESOL QUARTERLY

years in university formed some kind of L2-related imagined commu-nities that had not existed before That is after they became third-yearstudents when they had to write academic texts in the L2 as required intheir English classes many of them came to imagine communities wherepeople used L2 for actual communicative purposes Tables 3c and 3dshow how this imagined communitiesrsquo idea played out during their thirdand fourth years of study

Looking across these two tables for example many SA-15ndash2 groupmembers (667 in their fourth year) kept in touch with the L1 or L2English-speaking friends they had made while abroad and correspondedwith them in English through e-mail andor internet chat afterreturning to Japan In such correspondence the SA-15ndash2 studentsoften expressed the wish that they could still be among these pen pals inthe same English-speaking places where they had once studied and theytalked with their pen pals about topics (eg the basketball team of thetown) related to these places We can call such places imaginedcommunities because they were no longer physically accessible to thestudents6 The SA-15ndash2 students all felt that corresponding with these

TABLE 3b

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Second Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2 writingability

Improved Decreased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabulary(444)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

556 444

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabulary(667)Quantity(444)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

889 0

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(571)Vocabulary(571)Quantity(429)

Textbook-s refer-encebooks(571)

ESL classes(100 for4 months)

714 286

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(50)Quantity(417)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(50)

ESL classes(583 for8ndash11months)

100

EFL classes(100)

Note 12 5 second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 95

cybernet pen pals was useful for improving their English writing abilityIn fact writing good e-mails even became one of their major L2 writinggoals in their fourth year (as shown in Table 3d)

Similarly by their fourth year all members of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11groups communicated with overseas friends through e-mail or online chatand imagined during such cybernet correspondence the communities

TABLE 3c

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Third Year

Group Object

Medi-ating

artifact

L2-relatedactual com-

munity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2writing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(556)Vocabu-lary(556)

None(555)

EFL classes(100)

111 667

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabu-lary(444)Quantity(444)

E-mail oronlinechatting(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(444)

333 556

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Vocabu-lary(100)

Teachers(444)Textboo-ks(714)

EFL classes(100)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(857) ESLclasses(714)

857Motivatedto write be-tter in L2(857)

143

Organiza-tion(429)Planning(429)Content(857)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Grammar(583)Vocabu-lary (75)Content(667)

TOEICTOEFL(417)

ESL classes(417 for8ndash11months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(583) ESLclasses(583)

917 83

English-L1friends(417)

EFL classes(100)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(75)

Note TOEIC 5 Test of English for International Communication TOEFL 5 Test of English as aForeign Language

6 My interpretation of the term imagined community is thus different from that of otherresearchers who assume that the imagined communities should be physically located inplaces where the students have never been (eg Kinginger 2004)

96 TESOL QUARTERLY

TABLE 3d

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Fourth Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommun-

ity

Outcome L2 writ-ing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH (n5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabu-lary (556)

None(556)

EFLclasses(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(667)

667 333LostinterestinstudyingL2 writ-ing(778)

SA-15ndash2(n 59)

Grammar(778)Vocabulary(667)How towrite e-mailletters(667)

E-mail oronline chat-ting (667)

ESLclasses(112)-EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(667)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(555)

667 222

SA-4(n 57)

Vocabulary(714)

TOEIC orSTEP Test(714)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(857)

714Motivatedto writebetterin L2(857)

143

ESL classes(714)

SA-8ndash11 (n5 12)

Content(833)

Self-directedwriting(583)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(833)

833 167

Vocabulary(667)Grammar(50)

Dictionaryreferencebooks(583)

ESL classes(917)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(833)

Note STEP 5 Society for Testing English Proficiency

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 97

they had once shared with these friends However when they wroteacademic texts in English none of them thought about such correspon-dence Instead 714 of the SA-4 group and 917 of the SA-8ndash11 groupimagined how they had written in ESL and other regular subject classesthey took while abroad (see Table 3d) In contrast no SA-15ndash2 groupmember imagined such overseas classes when writing L2 academic textsThey simply drew on their experiences of how they could best respond totheir cybernet pen pals in such cases This difference between the SA-15ndash-2 group and the pair of SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups can be attributed to thefact that the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups experienced not only moreopportunities to write but also a longer duration of overseas classes thanthe SA-15ndash2 group

As mentioned earlier in these classes the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 studentslearned how to organize effective compositions and they wrote varioustypes of texts (eg term papers summaries) When they firstencountered writing assignments in these classes many were shockedto find that they could not write as well as their classmates includingother international students because none of them had ever learnedhow to write English texts longer than a paragraph After having readrelevant literature and written multiple drafts however they learnedhow to achieve higher grades Fourteen (737) out of the 19 SA-4 andSA-8ndash11 students also mentioned that the teachersrsquo praise (one of thepotential motivational influences for the postactional phase in Dornyeiand Ottorsquos 1998 model p 61) further encouraged them Drawing onthese episodes motivated the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students to write betteracademic texts even after returning home as shown in Sachirsquoscomments from her late-fourth-year interview

ExampleSachi who spent 11 months in the United States is talking about her

first in-class test essay in a psychology class in the United States whereshe was the only international student (All accounts were originally inJapanese and were translated by the author)

Sachi After 30 minutes [for the test] I was told to stop and I thoughtlsquolsquoYou are kidding I have only written three lines This is tragicrsquorsquo(laughter)

Miyuki (laughter)Sachi And then when the test was returned the teacher told me to

study English harder I was shocked because she meant that I shouldstudy English before I could study the content [of the class]

Miyuki OhSachi But the teacher had also made many suggestions on the test

sheet about how I could have written the answer betterMiyuki Oh she is kind isnrsquot sheSachi Yes and because of that I thought I should try harder

98 TESOL QUARTERLY

Miyuki You mean you had to live up to the teacherrsquos expectationsSachi Yes I thought I should try as a Japanese Hooray for Japanese

peopleMiyuki (laughter)Sachi And even now I feel that I should make efforts to write better

when I write [in English]Such motivation seems qualitatively different from the SA-15ndash2

studentsrsquo motivation to simply improve a single aspect of their L2 writing(ie writing messages in cyberspace) This difference in motivation mayalso account for the fact that only the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups weremotivated to improve the content of their L2 writing after their thirdyear (Tables 3c and 3d)

Last as regards their fourth year (Table 3d) the most noticeabledifference from the other years was that many participants formedimagined communities where they hoped to work after they graduatedfrom university This is related to the fact that many of them startedhunting for jobs near the end of their third year They spent thefollowing 6ndash12 months taking exams and being interviewed for the bestpossible jobs they could get Of the 37 participants however only 12students (324 3 AH 1 SA-15ndash2 3 SA-4 and 5 SA-8ndash11) imaginedprofessional communities that were English-related (eg a communityof English teachers) As in their third year many SA students continuedto imagine L2-related communities such as communities imaginedthrough e-mail correspondence or overseas classes when they wrote inEnglish However these communities were not directly related to theirfuture jobs Underlying this phenomenon was the fact that althoughtheir major (British and American Studies) was related to English notmany graduates at this university (only 16 in 2006) actually obtainedemployment directly related to English

Consequently the future-career-related imagined communities ofthese students did not necessarily lead to L2 writing improvement Infact 667 of the AH group and 857 of the SA-4 group showeddecreases in their L2 composition scores and in the late-fourth-yearinterviews all of them attributed this decrease to being busy job-huntingYet seven (583) of the 12 SA-8ndash11 students continued to voluntarilypractice L2 writing even though such activity benefited the future careerof only three of them For example Koji an SA-8ndash11 student who cameback to Japan in the middle of his third year wrote a final report inEnglish for his fourth-year sociology class when the teacher allowed himto do so even though writing the report in English was not required Hisfuture-career-related imagined community was not related to EnglishAnd yet he chose to write in English because he believed that he couldlsquolsquodo a good job if he tried with all the knowledge he had acquired inAmerica and in the subsequent yearsrsquorsquo (from his late-fourth year

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 99

interview) This suggests that the motivations of these students hadbecome more intrinsic or that they had become more autonomouslearners having acquired the ability to lsquolsquoidentify goals formulate theirown goals and change goals to suit their own learning needs andinterestsrsquorsquo (Dickinson 1995 p 167) No other students exhibited suchmotivation throughout the observation period Although it is not clearwhy only some SA-8ndash11 students acquired such learner autonomy theseSA-8ndash11 students are the most likely to keep trying to improve their L2writing ability in the future

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

In this section I summarize the results of this study and present somepractical implications First the AH grouprsquos motivational behaviors overthe 35 years were different from those of the three SA groups in thatfew AH students took concrete action to achieve their goals Despite thislack of strong motivation however the AH grouprsquos L2 writing abilitycontinued to improve around their third year probably because theytook a relatively large number of English classes up to that point(Table 1) To obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree they had to earn creditsfor these classes and one can speculate that such an lsquolsquoincentive value ofthe outcomersquorsquo (Dornyei and Otto 1998 p 53) was the major drivingforce behind their improvement Once the external motivational forceof L2 classes diminished however the students seemed to need toimagine L2-related communities in order to keep improving (Table 2)Furthermore among the three SA groups who formed some kind of L2-related imagined communities after coming home the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups improved their composition scores significantly more than didthe SA-15ndash2 group This might be because these two groups had moreand longer L2 writing practice but also because their imagined L2-related communities were more directly connected to learning theability targeted in the present study (ie academic writing) Lastalthough the reason for this is not clear only the SA-8ndash11 group becameintrinsically motivated and continued to develop despite impedingfourth-year factors such as job hunting

What implications for FL teaching do these results suggest Firstwhen instrumental motivation is in force regular instruction such asproviding students with L2 writing metaknowledge as well as differenttypes of practice can lead to improvement to some degree For a morelasting effect however it may be important for students to constructsome kind of L2-related imagined communities In the present study SAstudentsrsquo overseas experiences were helpful but we know that not all FLstudents can afford to spend time abroad It would be ideal if a way could

100 TESOL QUARTERLY

be found to create L2-related imagined communities without thenecessity of going abroad Yashima and Zenuk-Nishide (2008) reportedone such possibility where Japanese high school students became moremotivated and improved their English proficiency without going abroadby being introduced into lsquolsquoan imagined international communityrsquorsquo (ie amodel lsquolsquoUnited Nationsrsquorsquo p 569) in content-based English classes In asimilar vein preparing an L2 writing curriculum where students canparticipate in such communities through lsquolsquocognitively and emotionallyinvolving contentrsquorsquo (p 570) might be a promising approach in FLsettings

Another suggestion is based on the significant difference inimprovement between the SA-15ndash2 group and the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11pair If teachers want to make their studentsrsquo motivation moreinfluential it would probably be better for the L2-related imaginedcommunities to be accompanied by specific details of skills andknowledge related to the targeted abilities to be improved In the caseof L2 writing for example students must know how to plan and writeeffective compositions in the intended genre Accumulation of suchdeclarative and procedural knowledge would endow the students withwhat Dornyei and Otto (1998) call an lsquolsquointernal model of referencersquorsquo(p 57) which would be especially helpful for realizing preactionalintentions Furthermore such knowledge has to be implementedthrough sufficient and continuous practice to result in a truly significantdifference in output quality Affective support such as teachersrsquo praise isalso important for making the studentsrsquo motivation more enduringIdeally imagined communities should be substantial enough to trans-form dependent learners into autonomous ones so that they keepimproving even when demotivating external factors intervene

CONCLUSION

The present study investigated the long-term effects of varying lengthsof overseas experiences on the L2 writing ability and motivation of 37Japanese university students The study revealed characteristics uniqueto the FL situation For example unlike the ESL learners studied byCumming (2006) some learners took almost no action to achieve theirgoals This was mainly due to the fact that L2 writing improvement wasnot necessary for their social survival In contrast spending some timeoverseas proved helpful not only in enabling the students to improvetheir L2 writing ability but also in maintaining their motivation to writebetter The pedagogical implications presented in the last section of thisarticle can thus be particularly useful for those who study an L2 where itis not used for communicative purposes

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 101

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

4 Do differences in length in the studentsrsquo SA experiences havedifferential impacts on their L2 writing ability and motivational changes

In Question 1 I defined L2 writing ability as an academic ability towrite in lsquolsquopedagogical genresrsquorsquo (Johns 1997 p 46) such as lsquolsquothe essayexamination response the term paper or the pedagogical summaryrsquorsquo(p 46) As regards Question 2 I follow Dornyei and Otto (1998 p 65) indefining motivation as lsquolsquothe dynamically changing cumulative arousal ina person that initiates directs coordinates amplifies terminates andevaluates the cognitive and motor processes whereby initial wishes anddesires are selected prioritized operationalised and (successfully orunsuccessfully) acted outrsquorsquo and I employed Dornyei and Ottorsquos processmodel of L2 motivation as the research baseline

METHOD

Participants

The 37 participants (9 in 2002 13 in 2003 and 15 in 2004) enteredthe same university in Japan as members of a cohort consisting each yearof about 150 British and American Studies majors2 They were all 18 yearsold at the time They came from three of five freshman English classes(with about 30 students each) offered under the same title each yearand I taught two of the three classes Each year I went to their first day ofclasses and asked for volunteers to participate in an English-writingproject that would require up to 90 minutes of their time once or twice ayear until graduation They were informed that they would receivemodest monetary compensation for their participation A total of 40students volunteered and 37 provided full data for the present studyThe 37 students had studied English for six years by the time the studybegan but they had received little L2 writing instruction while in highschool

Between their second and fourth year of university study (see Table 1)28 of the 37 students participated in SA programs provided by theuniversity spending different lengths of time in Canada England theUnited States Australia or New Zealand The participants weresubsequently divided into four groups according to the length of theiroverseas stay The SA-15ndash2 group (1 male and 8 females) spent 15ndash2months abroad3 the SA-4 group (2 males and 5 females) 4 months the

2 The official name of the department is English but the students do not study English asintensively as might be generally expected of English majors Instead they focus more ofcontent areas related to linguistics literature and area studies I thus decided to label theirmajor British and American Studies to avoid any misunderstanding

3 Four students spent 6 weeks and the other five students spent 2 months abroad

86 TESOL QUARTERLY

SA-8ndash11 group (3 males and 9 males) 8ndash11 months4 and the AH group(2 males and 7 females) remained in Japan during the 35-yearobservation period All the institutions where the SA students studiedwere 4-year universities admitting English-speaking students

The studentsrsquo English writing ability differed slightly even when theywere in their first year That is the SA-4 grouprsquos mean composition score(13814 out of a maximum of 200) was significantly higher than that ofthe SA-15ndash2 group (11644 see the Results and Discussion section)However there was no other significant difference across the fourgroupsrsquo composition scores In addition there was no significantdifference across the four groups when they were first-year students interms of general English proficiency measured by the sum of theListening and Structure Section scores of the Comprehensive EnglishLanguage Test Harris and Palmer (1986) F(3 33) 5 207 for a maximumof 200 At this university students had to earn high scores on theinstitutionalized TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign LanguageEducational Testing Service) to attend the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 (but notthe SA-15ndash2) programs and the SA-8ndash11 program was more competitivethan the SA-4 program In this sense the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups mayhave been more motivated to study English than the other groups fromthe beginning of the present study

4 Three students spent 8 months four spent 9 months three spent 10 months and twospent 11 months abroad

TABLE 1

English-Related Educational Experiences Over the Four University Years and Mean Departureand Return Points

Group

Meandepar-ture

point

Meanreturnpoint

Lengthof studyabroad(mon-ths)

Mean class hoursweek when abroad

Mean English class hoursweek when in Japan

ESLRegularsubject

1styear

2ndyear

3rdyear

4thyear

AH(n 5 9)

NA NA 0 0 0 88 62 61 10

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

2ndyear11thmonth

3rd year1st month

15ndash2 231 NA 90 57 45 12

SA-4(n 5 7)

2ndyear 6thmonth

2nd year11thmonth

4 107 43 90 54 65 24

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

2ndyear11thmonth

3rd year10thmonth

8ndash11 139 46 90 47 38 06

Note AH 5 at home SA 5 study abroad ESL 5 English as a second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 87

Table 1 presents the mean departure and returning-home times ofthe SA groups as well as the mean hours of English classes theparticipants took while overseas and in Japan Note that on average theSA-4 group went abroad earlier (2nd year 6th month) than the SA-15ndash2and SA-8ndash11 groups (2nd year 11th month for both groups) and theSA-4 group came home earliest (2nd year 11th month) and the SA-8ndash11group latest (3rd year 10th month) A total of 19 (679) out of the 28SA students had their overseas experiences between the second half oftheir second year and the first half of their third year at the universityWhile abroad the SA-15ndash2 students took ESL classes only whereas some(though not all) of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students took both ESL andregular subject classes The number of English classes these four groupstook at the Japanese university drastically decreased during their fourthyear because they had already taken the number of English classesrequired for graduation by the end of their third year and because theywere busy job-hunting during their fourth year

Data Collection

I collected L2 writing and motivation data at four different points inthe first month of the participantsrsquo first year (early-first-year period) andthe fourth month of their second third and fourth year (mid-second-year mid-third-year and mid-fourth-year periods) In the eighth monthof their fourth year (late-fourth-year period) I also interviewed thestudents to collect their own accounts of any changes in their L2 writingability and motivation

Composition Scores

The participants wrote an argumentative composition on a randomlyselected topic concerning such issues as living in a city or in the country(see Sasaki 2004) The prompts were selected in such a way that theparticipants were able to write about different topics on the fourdifferent occasions and so that similar ratios of participants in the fourgroups addressed the same topics

Two EFL writing specialists scored all the compositions followingJacobs Zinkgraf Wormuth Hartfiel and Hugheyrsquos (1981) EnglishComposition Profile The raters were not informed of the purpose of thepresent study when each composition was written or from whichparticipant group it came The interrater correlation (Pearson correla-tion coefficient) for the content subscore was 089 for the organizationsubscore 085 for the vocabulary subscore 078 for the language usesubscore 080 for the mechanics subscore 053 (caused by the very

88 TESOL QUARTERLY

narrow score range of 1ndash5)5 and for the total score 093 Overall Ijudged that these correlations were acceptable for the study

Interviews About L2 Writing Strategies L2 Classes andMotivation Conducted After Each Composition Session

After the participants wrote the compositions described above Iinterviewed each of them individually in Japanese about theirexperiences related to English learning over the previous year andwhich aspect of English writing they wanted to improve if any Thesessions lasted about 30 minutes each

Late-Fourth-Year Interviews on Changes in L2 Writing Abilityand Motivation

Four months after the participants wrote their mid-fourth-yearcompositions I interviewed them individually in Japanese again to collectaccounts of what they thought had influenced changes in their L2 writingability fluency and strategy use over the past 35 years During theinterviews I showed the participants a table or a graph showing theiractual changes on these variables over this period (I did not use thefluency and strategy use data in the present study) Addressingmotivational changes I showed them the transcripts of what they hadsaid when asked which aspects of English writing they wanted to improvein each of the four data collection sessions I also asked them additionalquestions about what other aspects if any they might have wanted toimprove over the given year why they had these particular goals and whatthey did to achieve these goals For those who did not mention any aspectthey wanted to improve I showed them a list (written in Japanese) ofpossible areas to be improved in L2 writing based on Cummingrsquos (2006)scheme probing L2 writing motivation (see Sasaki 2009 for list content)Each late-fourth-year interview session lasted 30ndash60 minutes All interviewaccounts were tape-recorded and subsequently transcribed

Analysis of Interview Data

When analyzing the transcribed interview data I followed Miles andHubermanrsquos (1994) data synthesis tactics especially those concerningnoting lsquolsquopatterns themesrsquorsquo (p 245) and making lsquolsquocontrastscompar-isonsrsquorsquo (p 245) I used the interview data about the participantsrsquo English-

5 Pearson correlation coefficients tend to be lower if the ranges of the given variables aremore restricted than others (see Linn 1968 for example)

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 89

related experiences and reasons for changes in their L2 writing ability inorder to better interpret the quantitative data on changes in theparticipantsrsquo L2 composition scores I also analyzed the interview dataabout the participantsrsquo motivational changes for their own sake As Imentioned earlier I adopted Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) definition of L2motivation and I analyzed the participantsrsquo changes in L2 writingmotivation using the research framework of Yang et al (2004) I decidedto employ this framework because it had worked successfully foranalyzing phenomena similar to the ones targeted in the present studyand because it shared with Dornyei and Ottorsquos model two crucialassumptions of methods accommodating sociocultural theory namely(1) that learners are active agents of L2 learning and (2) that L2learning processes can be influenced by various internalexternalfactors

The framework of Yang et al (2004) assumes that L2 learnersrsquothought processes and actions are mediated by artifacts or socioculturalentities when the participants as subjects operate on the object of learningL2 writing As Yang et al explain (p 15)

To take an example of second language (L2) learning a student (subject) in an ESLclass aims to improve her competence in academic English writing (object) Thisstudent may follow the teacherrsquos instruction do assignments read a textbook talk withfriends surf the Internet refer to dictionaries and so on (mediating artifacts) After aperiod of practice this student may achieve her goal such as getting a high grade on heressays (outcome) This activity happens in the ESL class (community) and thestudent intends to grasp the conventions of academic English writing (rules) In thisESL class the teacher provides model instruction gives assignments and offersfeedback and students follow their teacher and do the assignments (division of labor)

In addition to the original categories used by Yang et al (2004) Iincluded two more categories in the present study Imagined L2-relatedcommunity and Imagined non-L2-related community I did this becausein the process of analyzing the interview data I realized that thesecategories were also important for understanding the participantsrsquomotivational changes Subsequently I changed the term community inthe scheme of Yang et al to actual L2-related community to distinguish itfrom the two imagined communities For the term imagined community Ifollowed Kanno and Nortonrsquos (2003 p 241) definition of lsquolsquogroups ofpeople not immediately tangible and accessible with whom we connectthrough the power of imaginationrsquorsquo

In the framework of Yang et al (2004) we can assume that lsquolsquoobjectrsquorsquocorresponds to lsquolsquogoalrsquorsquo or lsquolsquointentionrsquorsquo in the lsquolsquopreactional phrasersquorsquo ofDornyei and Ottorsquos (1998 p 48) model If the subject actually tries toaccomplish hisher object through a range of mediating artifacts we can

90 TESOL QUARTERLY

say that heshe actually launches into what Dornyei and Otto (p 48) callthe lsquolsquoactional phasersquorsquo The other components of community imaginedcommunity and division of labor can form what Dornyei and Otto(p 48) call the lsquolsquomotivational influencesrsquorsquo affecting the studentrsquosmotivational behavior

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

L2 Writing Ability

I first present changes in the participantsrsquo L2 composition scores fordescriptive purposes I then present the results of an analysis of variance(ANOVA) to display the degree of change between the early-first-yearand mid-fourth-year periods using SPSS Version 61 (SPSS 1994)However because of the small sample sizes the results of the ANOVAanalyses should not be generalized

As shown in Table 2 the four groupsrsquo scores increased until theirsecond year but the AH grouprsquos score then decreased and even droppedbelow their first-year level in their fourth-year composition By contrastthe three SA groupsrsquo fourth-year composition scores were all higher thanthose of their first-year compositions but the SA-8ndash11 group was the onlyone that continually improved until the fourth year A two-way ANOVAcomparing the differences across the four groups between their first andfourth years indicated a significant interaction between time and groupeffects [F (3 33) 5 743 p 0001]

The results of subsequent post-hoc simple effects analysis andmultiple comparisons (Tanaka amp Yamagiwa 1992) revealed thefollowing First when the students were in their first year there wasno difference across the four groups except that the SA-4 grouprsquoscomposition scores were significantly higher than those of the SA-15ndash2group (mean square error (MSE) 5 23340 p 005) In the fourthyear the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groupsrsquo scores were significantly higher than

TABLE 2

Mean Total Composition Scores (Total Possible 5 200) at Four Observation Times

GroupEarly-1st-Year

M (SD)Mid-2nd-Year

M (SD)Mid-3rd-Year

M (SD)Late-4th-Year

M (SD)

AH (n 5 9) 13056 (1201) 13711 (1431) 13500 (1493) 12822(1044)SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

11644 (1837) 13178 (1821) 13056 (1549) 13389 (2097)

SA-4 (n 5 7) 13814 (1328) 14657 (1003) 16900 (707) 16143 (960)SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

13058 (1377) 15200 (1245) 15817 (1996) 16175 (859)

Note M 5 mean SD 5 standard deviation

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 91

those of the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups but there was no significantdifference between the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups or between the SA-4and the SA-8ndash11 groups (MSE 5 19607 p 005) Furthermore thethree SA groups significantly improved their composition scores over the35 years whereas the AH group did not F (1 33) 5 1009 p 001 forthe SA-15ndash2 group F (1 33) 5 1798 p 001 for the SA-4 group and F(1 33) 5 322 p 001 for the SA-8ndash11 group

At the individual level English composition scores for four of the nineAH students decreased over the 35 years and scores for the other fivestudents increased slightly Two of these five students mentioned thatEnglish classes at the Japanese university were helpful in learning towrite better However the other seven students (777) including thethree whose composition scores increased slightly felt that their Englishwriting ability deteriorated below their first-year level because from theirfourth year onward they took fewer English classes By contrast all ofthe SA studentsrsquo English composition scores improved over the 35 yearsFour SA-15ndash2 and three SA-4 students attributed this improvementmainly to the English writing classes they took at the Japanese universityOne SA-15ndash2 four SA-4 and four SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to theEnglish writing classes they took abroad and two SA-15ndash2 students andeight SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to the classes they took both in Japanand abroad Another SA-15ndash2 student said that writing e-mails to friendsshe made abroad was the only helpful factor and the last SA-15ndash2student said that the third- and fourth-year compositions were simplyeasier to write

It is noteworthy that many (607) of the SA students attributed theirEnglish writing improvement solely or partially to the English classesthey took in Japan As can be seen in Table 2 these students allimproved their English composition scores before going abroad as wellas after coming home The students reported that learning explicitlyhow to write in English (eg learning the idea of a topic sentence) andpracticing writing different types of texts (usually a paragraph long) inthese classes was useful

Similarly the 19 SA students who attributed their score increase atleast partially to their overseas L2 writing classes also added that theexperiences of learning how to write and having to write a lot and oftenoverseas were helpful However compared with the assignmentsrequired by their English classes in Japan the writing assignmentsrequired by their overseas classes were much more demanding Forexample in her first semester in the United States Eri an SA-8ndash11student took four classes two of which required writing papers In theESL writing class she learned how to organize effective paragraphs andwrote 4 two-page essays and 1 seven-page essay In her other class(Elementary Education) she wrote a total of 6 two-page papers In her

92 TESOL QUARTERLY

English classes in Japan she never wrote so much and so often (she onlywrote four paragraphs per semester at the maximum)

These SA studentsrsquo accounts concur with the findings of previouscross-sectional and longitudinal studies (eg Kobayashi amp Rinnert2001) in that the two factors of L2 writing metaknowledge and practiceinfluenced L2 writing development Given the greater percentages ofthe SA-4 (57) and SA-8ndash11 students (100) who attributed theirEnglish writing improvement at least partially to their overseas classescompared with the SA-15ndash2 students (333) and given that the SA-4and SA 8ndash11 groups improved significantly more than the SA-15ndash2group we could further speculate that long and intensive practice wasprobably a crucial factor in significantly improving these studentsrsquo L2writing By contrast as mentioned above many AH students felt thattheir English writing ability fell below their first-year level because theyhad fewer English classes during their fourth year This is especiallynoteworthy when we recall that many of the SA students whose scoresincreased for their fourth-year compositions also had fewer Englishclasses after becoming fourth-year students (Table 1) Consequentlydespite what they claimed the perceived and actual deterioration in theAH studentsrsquo L2 writing ability in the fourth year might be betterexplained by their low motivation rather than by the reduction in L2contact hours

L2 Writing Motivation

Tables 3andash3d present the four groupsrsquo changes in the relevantcomponents of the revised version of the research scheme of Yang et al(2004 see the Method section) Presented here are the tendenciesshared by more than 40 of the members of each group I did notinclude the components of rules and division of labor from Engestromrsquos(1987) expanded activity system because as in Yang et al in theparticipantsrsquo activity of studying L2 writing over 35 years the rule (iehow to write in the academic genre) and the division of labor (ie theparticipants studied and the teachers taught) were unchanged

Table 3a shows the characteristics of the four groupsrsquo L2 writingmotivation when they were first-year students Under the column forObject the four groups were all motivated to improve some aspects(mainly grammar vocabulary and quantity) of their L2 writing Theonly difference is that as can be seen in the column Mediating artifact(ie what was involved in the participantsrsquo trying to attain their objects)667 of the AH group reported doing nothing to improve their L2writing whereas all the other groups used textbooks dictionaries andteachers to achieve their goals Using Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) process

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 93

model of L2 motivation we can say that all four groups set some lsquolsquogoalsrsquorsquoor lsquolsquointentionsrsquorsquo (p 48) for improving their L2 writing but the AH groupremained in the lsquolsquopreactional phasersquorsquo (p 48) whereas the other threegroups crossed the lsquolsquometaphorical lsquoRubiconrsquo of actionrsquorsquo (p 57) In factmore than half of the AH students continued to do nothing to improvetheir L2 writing until their fourth year (as shown in Tables 3a to 3d)Such constantly low motivation in the AH group helps to explain whytheir L2 composition scores decreased below their first-year level whilethe other three groupsrsquo scores did not over the 35 years of myobservation period (seen in Table 2)

The four groupsrsquo characteristics (presented in Table 3b) for theirsecond year were similar to those for their first year except that 19(679) of the 28 SA students had an SA experience starting during thatyear (ie they experienced ESL classes as their L2-related actualcommunities) This probably influenced their subsequent motivationalbehavior for L2 writing One noticeable consequence of such influenceis that many members of the three SA groups in their third and fourth

TABLE 3a

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Artifact Components in First Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

community

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

Non-L2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity Outcome

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)

vocabulary(556)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)

vocabulary(887)quantity(444)

confidence(444)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(714)

vocabulary(857)quantity(429)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(714)

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(917)quantity(417)

EFL classes(100)

Note Descriptions in Tables 3andash3d are given if they were shared by more than 40 of theparticipants EFL 5 English as a foreign language

94 TESOL QUARTERLY

years in university formed some kind of L2-related imagined commu-nities that had not existed before That is after they became third-yearstudents when they had to write academic texts in the L2 as required intheir English classes many of them came to imagine communities wherepeople used L2 for actual communicative purposes Tables 3c and 3dshow how this imagined communitiesrsquo idea played out during their thirdand fourth years of study

Looking across these two tables for example many SA-15ndash2 groupmembers (667 in their fourth year) kept in touch with the L1 or L2English-speaking friends they had made while abroad and correspondedwith them in English through e-mail andor internet chat afterreturning to Japan In such correspondence the SA-15ndash2 studentsoften expressed the wish that they could still be among these pen pals inthe same English-speaking places where they had once studied and theytalked with their pen pals about topics (eg the basketball team of thetown) related to these places We can call such places imaginedcommunities because they were no longer physically accessible to thestudents6 The SA-15ndash2 students all felt that corresponding with these

TABLE 3b

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Second Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2 writingability

Improved Decreased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabulary(444)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

556 444

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabulary(667)Quantity(444)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

889 0

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(571)Vocabulary(571)Quantity(429)

Textbook-s refer-encebooks(571)

ESL classes(100 for4 months)

714 286

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(50)Quantity(417)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(50)

ESL classes(583 for8ndash11months)

100

EFL classes(100)

Note 12 5 second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 95

cybernet pen pals was useful for improving their English writing abilityIn fact writing good e-mails even became one of their major L2 writinggoals in their fourth year (as shown in Table 3d)

Similarly by their fourth year all members of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11groups communicated with overseas friends through e-mail or online chatand imagined during such cybernet correspondence the communities

TABLE 3c

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Third Year

Group Object

Medi-ating

artifact

L2-relatedactual com-

munity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2writing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(556)Vocabu-lary(556)

None(555)

EFL classes(100)

111 667

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabu-lary(444)Quantity(444)

E-mail oronlinechatting(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(444)

333 556

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Vocabu-lary(100)

Teachers(444)Textboo-ks(714)

EFL classes(100)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(857) ESLclasses(714)

857Motivatedto write be-tter in L2(857)

143

Organiza-tion(429)Planning(429)Content(857)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Grammar(583)Vocabu-lary (75)Content(667)

TOEICTOEFL(417)

ESL classes(417 for8ndash11months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(583) ESLclasses(583)

917 83

English-L1friends(417)

EFL classes(100)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(75)

Note TOEIC 5 Test of English for International Communication TOEFL 5 Test of English as aForeign Language

6 My interpretation of the term imagined community is thus different from that of otherresearchers who assume that the imagined communities should be physically located inplaces where the students have never been (eg Kinginger 2004)

96 TESOL QUARTERLY

TABLE 3d

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Fourth Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommun-

ity

Outcome L2 writ-ing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH (n5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabu-lary (556)

None(556)

EFLclasses(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(667)

667 333LostinterestinstudyingL2 writ-ing(778)

SA-15ndash2(n 59)

Grammar(778)Vocabulary(667)How towrite e-mailletters(667)

E-mail oronline chat-ting (667)

ESLclasses(112)-EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(667)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(555)

667 222

SA-4(n 57)

Vocabulary(714)

TOEIC orSTEP Test(714)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(857)

714Motivatedto writebetterin L2(857)

143

ESL classes(714)

SA-8ndash11 (n5 12)

Content(833)

Self-directedwriting(583)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(833)

833 167

Vocabulary(667)Grammar(50)

Dictionaryreferencebooks(583)

ESL classes(917)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(833)

Note STEP 5 Society for Testing English Proficiency

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 97

they had once shared with these friends However when they wroteacademic texts in English none of them thought about such correspon-dence Instead 714 of the SA-4 group and 917 of the SA-8ndash11 groupimagined how they had written in ESL and other regular subject classesthey took while abroad (see Table 3d) In contrast no SA-15ndash2 groupmember imagined such overseas classes when writing L2 academic textsThey simply drew on their experiences of how they could best respond totheir cybernet pen pals in such cases This difference between the SA-15ndash-2 group and the pair of SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups can be attributed to thefact that the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups experienced not only moreopportunities to write but also a longer duration of overseas classes thanthe SA-15ndash2 group

As mentioned earlier in these classes the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 studentslearned how to organize effective compositions and they wrote varioustypes of texts (eg term papers summaries) When they firstencountered writing assignments in these classes many were shockedto find that they could not write as well as their classmates includingother international students because none of them had ever learnedhow to write English texts longer than a paragraph After having readrelevant literature and written multiple drafts however they learnedhow to achieve higher grades Fourteen (737) out of the 19 SA-4 andSA-8ndash11 students also mentioned that the teachersrsquo praise (one of thepotential motivational influences for the postactional phase in Dornyeiand Ottorsquos 1998 model p 61) further encouraged them Drawing onthese episodes motivated the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students to write betteracademic texts even after returning home as shown in Sachirsquoscomments from her late-fourth-year interview

ExampleSachi who spent 11 months in the United States is talking about her

first in-class test essay in a psychology class in the United States whereshe was the only international student (All accounts were originally inJapanese and were translated by the author)

Sachi After 30 minutes [for the test] I was told to stop and I thoughtlsquolsquoYou are kidding I have only written three lines This is tragicrsquorsquo(laughter)

Miyuki (laughter)Sachi And then when the test was returned the teacher told me to

study English harder I was shocked because she meant that I shouldstudy English before I could study the content [of the class]

Miyuki OhSachi But the teacher had also made many suggestions on the test

sheet about how I could have written the answer betterMiyuki Oh she is kind isnrsquot sheSachi Yes and because of that I thought I should try harder

98 TESOL QUARTERLY

Miyuki You mean you had to live up to the teacherrsquos expectationsSachi Yes I thought I should try as a Japanese Hooray for Japanese

peopleMiyuki (laughter)Sachi And even now I feel that I should make efforts to write better

when I write [in English]Such motivation seems qualitatively different from the SA-15ndash2

studentsrsquo motivation to simply improve a single aspect of their L2 writing(ie writing messages in cyberspace) This difference in motivation mayalso account for the fact that only the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups weremotivated to improve the content of their L2 writing after their thirdyear (Tables 3c and 3d)

Last as regards their fourth year (Table 3d) the most noticeabledifference from the other years was that many participants formedimagined communities where they hoped to work after they graduatedfrom university This is related to the fact that many of them startedhunting for jobs near the end of their third year They spent thefollowing 6ndash12 months taking exams and being interviewed for the bestpossible jobs they could get Of the 37 participants however only 12students (324 3 AH 1 SA-15ndash2 3 SA-4 and 5 SA-8ndash11) imaginedprofessional communities that were English-related (eg a communityof English teachers) As in their third year many SA students continuedto imagine L2-related communities such as communities imaginedthrough e-mail correspondence or overseas classes when they wrote inEnglish However these communities were not directly related to theirfuture jobs Underlying this phenomenon was the fact that althoughtheir major (British and American Studies) was related to English notmany graduates at this university (only 16 in 2006) actually obtainedemployment directly related to English

Consequently the future-career-related imagined communities ofthese students did not necessarily lead to L2 writing improvement Infact 667 of the AH group and 857 of the SA-4 group showeddecreases in their L2 composition scores and in the late-fourth-yearinterviews all of them attributed this decrease to being busy job-huntingYet seven (583) of the 12 SA-8ndash11 students continued to voluntarilypractice L2 writing even though such activity benefited the future careerof only three of them For example Koji an SA-8ndash11 student who cameback to Japan in the middle of his third year wrote a final report inEnglish for his fourth-year sociology class when the teacher allowed himto do so even though writing the report in English was not required Hisfuture-career-related imagined community was not related to EnglishAnd yet he chose to write in English because he believed that he couldlsquolsquodo a good job if he tried with all the knowledge he had acquired inAmerica and in the subsequent yearsrsquorsquo (from his late-fourth year

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 99

interview) This suggests that the motivations of these students hadbecome more intrinsic or that they had become more autonomouslearners having acquired the ability to lsquolsquoidentify goals formulate theirown goals and change goals to suit their own learning needs andinterestsrsquorsquo (Dickinson 1995 p 167) No other students exhibited suchmotivation throughout the observation period Although it is not clearwhy only some SA-8ndash11 students acquired such learner autonomy theseSA-8ndash11 students are the most likely to keep trying to improve their L2writing ability in the future

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

In this section I summarize the results of this study and present somepractical implications First the AH grouprsquos motivational behaviors overthe 35 years were different from those of the three SA groups in thatfew AH students took concrete action to achieve their goals Despite thislack of strong motivation however the AH grouprsquos L2 writing abilitycontinued to improve around their third year probably because theytook a relatively large number of English classes up to that point(Table 1) To obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree they had to earn creditsfor these classes and one can speculate that such an lsquolsquoincentive value ofthe outcomersquorsquo (Dornyei and Otto 1998 p 53) was the major drivingforce behind their improvement Once the external motivational forceof L2 classes diminished however the students seemed to need toimagine L2-related communities in order to keep improving (Table 2)Furthermore among the three SA groups who formed some kind of L2-related imagined communities after coming home the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups improved their composition scores significantly more than didthe SA-15ndash2 group This might be because these two groups had moreand longer L2 writing practice but also because their imagined L2-related communities were more directly connected to learning theability targeted in the present study (ie academic writing) Lastalthough the reason for this is not clear only the SA-8ndash11 group becameintrinsically motivated and continued to develop despite impedingfourth-year factors such as job hunting

What implications for FL teaching do these results suggest Firstwhen instrumental motivation is in force regular instruction such asproviding students with L2 writing metaknowledge as well as differenttypes of practice can lead to improvement to some degree For a morelasting effect however it may be important for students to constructsome kind of L2-related imagined communities In the present study SAstudentsrsquo overseas experiences were helpful but we know that not all FLstudents can afford to spend time abroad It would be ideal if a way could

100 TESOL QUARTERLY

be found to create L2-related imagined communities without thenecessity of going abroad Yashima and Zenuk-Nishide (2008) reportedone such possibility where Japanese high school students became moremotivated and improved their English proficiency without going abroadby being introduced into lsquolsquoan imagined international communityrsquorsquo (ie amodel lsquolsquoUnited Nationsrsquorsquo p 569) in content-based English classes In asimilar vein preparing an L2 writing curriculum where students canparticipate in such communities through lsquolsquocognitively and emotionallyinvolving contentrsquorsquo (p 570) might be a promising approach in FLsettings

Another suggestion is based on the significant difference inimprovement between the SA-15ndash2 group and the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11pair If teachers want to make their studentsrsquo motivation moreinfluential it would probably be better for the L2-related imaginedcommunities to be accompanied by specific details of skills andknowledge related to the targeted abilities to be improved In the caseof L2 writing for example students must know how to plan and writeeffective compositions in the intended genre Accumulation of suchdeclarative and procedural knowledge would endow the students withwhat Dornyei and Otto (1998) call an lsquolsquointernal model of referencersquorsquo(p 57) which would be especially helpful for realizing preactionalintentions Furthermore such knowledge has to be implementedthrough sufficient and continuous practice to result in a truly significantdifference in output quality Affective support such as teachersrsquo praise isalso important for making the studentsrsquo motivation more enduringIdeally imagined communities should be substantial enough to trans-form dependent learners into autonomous ones so that they keepimproving even when demotivating external factors intervene

CONCLUSION

The present study investigated the long-term effects of varying lengthsof overseas experiences on the L2 writing ability and motivation of 37Japanese university students The study revealed characteristics uniqueto the FL situation For example unlike the ESL learners studied byCumming (2006) some learners took almost no action to achieve theirgoals This was mainly due to the fact that L2 writing improvement wasnot necessary for their social survival In contrast spending some timeoverseas proved helpful not only in enabling the students to improvetheir L2 writing ability but also in maintaining their motivation to writebetter The pedagogical implications presented in the last section of thisarticle can thus be particularly useful for those who study an L2 where itis not used for communicative purposes

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 101

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

SA-8ndash11 group (3 males and 9 males) 8ndash11 months4 and the AH group(2 males and 7 females) remained in Japan during the 35-yearobservation period All the institutions where the SA students studiedwere 4-year universities admitting English-speaking students

The studentsrsquo English writing ability differed slightly even when theywere in their first year That is the SA-4 grouprsquos mean composition score(13814 out of a maximum of 200) was significantly higher than that ofthe SA-15ndash2 group (11644 see the Results and Discussion section)However there was no other significant difference across the fourgroupsrsquo composition scores In addition there was no significantdifference across the four groups when they were first-year students interms of general English proficiency measured by the sum of theListening and Structure Section scores of the Comprehensive EnglishLanguage Test Harris and Palmer (1986) F(3 33) 5 207 for a maximumof 200 At this university students had to earn high scores on theinstitutionalized TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign LanguageEducational Testing Service) to attend the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 (but notthe SA-15ndash2) programs and the SA-8ndash11 program was more competitivethan the SA-4 program In this sense the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups mayhave been more motivated to study English than the other groups fromthe beginning of the present study

4 Three students spent 8 months four spent 9 months three spent 10 months and twospent 11 months abroad

TABLE 1

English-Related Educational Experiences Over the Four University Years and Mean Departureand Return Points

Group

Meandepar-ture

point

Meanreturnpoint

Lengthof studyabroad(mon-ths)

Mean class hoursweek when abroad

Mean English class hoursweek when in Japan

ESLRegularsubject

1styear

2ndyear

3rdyear

4thyear

AH(n 5 9)

NA NA 0 0 0 88 62 61 10

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

2ndyear11thmonth

3rd year1st month

15ndash2 231 NA 90 57 45 12

SA-4(n 5 7)

2ndyear 6thmonth

2nd year11thmonth

4 107 43 90 54 65 24

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

2ndyear11thmonth

3rd year10thmonth

8ndash11 139 46 90 47 38 06

Note AH 5 at home SA 5 study abroad ESL 5 English as a second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 87

Table 1 presents the mean departure and returning-home times ofthe SA groups as well as the mean hours of English classes theparticipants took while overseas and in Japan Note that on average theSA-4 group went abroad earlier (2nd year 6th month) than the SA-15ndash2and SA-8ndash11 groups (2nd year 11th month for both groups) and theSA-4 group came home earliest (2nd year 11th month) and the SA-8ndash11group latest (3rd year 10th month) A total of 19 (679) out of the 28SA students had their overseas experiences between the second half oftheir second year and the first half of their third year at the universityWhile abroad the SA-15ndash2 students took ESL classes only whereas some(though not all) of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students took both ESL andregular subject classes The number of English classes these four groupstook at the Japanese university drastically decreased during their fourthyear because they had already taken the number of English classesrequired for graduation by the end of their third year and because theywere busy job-hunting during their fourth year

Data Collection

I collected L2 writing and motivation data at four different points inthe first month of the participantsrsquo first year (early-first-year period) andthe fourth month of their second third and fourth year (mid-second-year mid-third-year and mid-fourth-year periods) In the eighth monthof their fourth year (late-fourth-year period) I also interviewed thestudents to collect their own accounts of any changes in their L2 writingability and motivation

Composition Scores

The participants wrote an argumentative composition on a randomlyselected topic concerning such issues as living in a city or in the country(see Sasaki 2004) The prompts were selected in such a way that theparticipants were able to write about different topics on the fourdifferent occasions and so that similar ratios of participants in the fourgroups addressed the same topics

Two EFL writing specialists scored all the compositions followingJacobs Zinkgraf Wormuth Hartfiel and Hugheyrsquos (1981) EnglishComposition Profile The raters were not informed of the purpose of thepresent study when each composition was written or from whichparticipant group it came The interrater correlation (Pearson correla-tion coefficient) for the content subscore was 089 for the organizationsubscore 085 for the vocabulary subscore 078 for the language usesubscore 080 for the mechanics subscore 053 (caused by the very

88 TESOL QUARTERLY

narrow score range of 1ndash5)5 and for the total score 093 Overall Ijudged that these correlations were acceptable for the study

Interviews About L2 Writing Strategies L2 Classes andMotivation Conducted After Each Composition Session

After the participants wrote the compositions described above Iinterviewed each of them individually in Japanese about theirexperiences related to English learning over the previous year andwhich aspect of English writing they wanted to improve if any Thesessions lasted about 30 minutes each

Late-Fourth-Year Interviews on Changes in L2 Writing Abilityand Motivation

Four months after the participants wrote their mid-fourth-yearcompositions I interviewed them individually in Japanese again to collectaccounts of what they thought had influenced changes in their L2 writingability fluency and strategy use over the past 35 years During theinterviews I showed the participants a table or a graph showing theiractual changes on these variables over this period (I did not use thefluency and strategy use data in the present study) Addressingmotivational changes I showed them the transcripts of what they hadsaid when asked which aspects of English writing they wanted to improvein each of the four data collection sessions I also asked them additionalquestions about what other aspects if any they might have wanted toimprove over the given year why they had these particular goals and whatthey did to achieve these goals For those who did not mention any aspectthey wanted to improve I showed them a list (written in Japanese) ofpossible areas to be improved in L2 writing based on Cummingrsquos (2006)scheme probing L2 writing motivation (see Sasaki 2009 for list content)Each late-fourth-year interview session lasted 30ndash60 minutes All interviewaccounts were tape-recorded and subsequently transcribed

Analysis of Interview Data

When analyzing the transcribed interview data I followed Miles andHubermanrsquos (1994) data synthesis tactics especially those concerningnoting lsquolsquopatterns themesrsquorsquo (p 245) and making lsquolsquocontrastscompar-isonsrsquorsquo (p 245) I used the interview data about the participantsrsquo English-

5 Pearson correlation coefficients tend to be lower if the ranges of the given variables aremore restricted than others (see Linn 1968 for example)

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 89

related experiences and reasons for changes in their L2 writing ability inorder to better interpret the quantitative data on changes in theparticipantsrsquo L2 composition scores I also analyzed the interview dataabout the participantsrsquo motivational changes for their own sake As Imentioned earlier I adopted Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) definition of L2motivation and I analyzed the participantsrsquo changes in L2 writingmotivation using the research framework of Yang et al (2004) I decidedto employ this framework because it had worked successfully foranalyzing phenomena similar to the ones targeted in the present studyand because it shared with Dornyei and Ottorsquos model two crucialassumptions of methods accommodating sociocultural theory namely(1) that learners are active agents of L2 learning and (2) that L2learning processes can be influenced by various internalexternalfactors

The framework of Yang et al (2004) assumes that L2 learnersrsquothought processes and actions are mediated by artifacts or socioculturalentities when the participants as subjects operate on the object of learningL2 writing As Yang et al explain (p 15)

To take an example of second language (L2) learning a student (subject) in an ESLclass aims to improve her competence in academic English writing (object) Thisstudent may follow the teacherrsquos instruction do assignments read a textbook talk withfriends surf the Internet refer to dictionaries and so on (mediating artifacts) After aperiod of practice this student may achieve her goal such as getting a high grade on heressays (outcome) This activity happens in the ESL class (community) and thestudent intends to grasp the conventions of academic English writing (rules) In thisESL class the teacher provides model instruction gives assignments and offersfeedback and students follow their teacher and do the assignments (division of labor)

In addition to the original categories used by Yang et al (2004) Iincluded two more categories in the present study Imagined L2-relatedcommunity and Imagined non-L2-related community I did this becausein the process of analyzing the interview data I realized that thesecategories were also important for understanding the participantsrsquomotivational changes Subsequently I changed the term community inthe scheme of Yang et al to actual L2-related community to distinguish itfrom the two imagined communities For the term imagined community Ifollowed Kanno and Nortonrsquos (2003 p 241) definition of lsquolsquogroups ofpeople not immediately tangible and accessible with whom we connectthrough the power of imaginationrsquorsquo

In the framework of Yang et al (2004) we can assume that lsquolsquoobjectrsquorsquocorresponds to lsquolsquogoalrsquorsquo or lsquolsquointentionrsquorsquo in the lsquolsquopreactional phrasersquorsquo ofDornyei and Ottorsquos (1998 p 48) model If the subject actually tries toaccomplish hisher object through a range of mediating artifacts we can

90 TESOL QUARTERLY

say that heshe actually launches into what Dornyei and Otto (p 48) callthe lsquolsquoactional phasersquorsquo The other components of community imaginedcommunity and division of labor can form what Dornyei and Otto(p 48) call the lsquolsquomotivational influencesrsquorsquo affecting the studentrsquosmotivational behavior

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

L2 Writing Ability

I first present changes in the participantsrsquo L2 composition scores fordescriptive purposes I then present the results of an analysis of variance(ANOVA) to display the degree of change between the early-first-yearand mid-fourth-year periods using SPSS Version 61 (SPSS 1994)However because of the small sample sizes the results of the ANOVAanalyses should not be generalized

As shown in Table 2 the four groupsrsquo scores increased until theirsecond year but the AH grouprsquos score then decreased and even droppedbelow their first-year level in their fourth-year composition By contrastthe three SA groupsrsquo fourth-year composition scores were all higher thanthose of their first-year compositions but the SA-8ndash11 group was the onlyone that continually improved until the fourth year A two-way ANOVAcomparing the differences across the four groups between their first andfourth years indicated a significant interaction between time and groupeffects [F (3 33) 5 743 p 0001]

The results of subsequent post-hoc simple effects analysis andmultiple comparisons (Tanaka amp Yamagiwa 1992) revealed thefollowing First when the students were in their first year there wasno difference across the four groups except that the SA-4 grouprsquoscomposition scores were significantly higher than those of the SA-15ndash2group (mean square error (MSE) 5 23340 p 005) In the fourthyear the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groupsrsquo scores were significantly higher than

TABLE 2

Mean Total Composition Scores (Total Possible 5 200) at Four Observation Times

GroupEarly-1st-Year

M (SD)Mid-2nd-Year

M (SD)Mid-3rd-Year

M (SD)Late-4th-Year

M (SD)

AH (n 5 9) 13056 (1201) 13711 (1431) 13500 (1493) 12822(1044)SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

11644 (1837) 13178 (1821) 13056 (1549) 13389 (2097)

SA-4 (n 5 7) 13814 (1328) 14657 (1003) 16900 (707) 16143 (960)SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

13058 (1377) 15200 (1245) 15817 (1996) 16175 (859)

Note M 5 mean SD 5 standard deviation

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 91

those of the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups but there was no significantdifference between the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups or between the SA-4and the SA-8ndash11 groups (MSE 5 19607 p 005) Furthermore thethree SA groups significantly improved their composition scores over the35 years whereas the AH group did not F (1 33) 5 1009 p 001 forthe SA-15ndash2 group F (1 33) 5 1798 p 001 for the SA-4 group and F(1 33) 5 322 p 001 for the SA-8ndash11 group

At the individual level English composition scores for four of the nineAH students decreased over the 35 years and scores for the other fivestudents increased slightly Two of these five students mentioned thatEnglish classes at the Japanese university were helpful in learning towrite better However the other seven students (777) including thethree whose composition scores increased slightly felt that their Englishwriting ability deteriorated below their first-year level because from theirfourth year onward they took fewer English classes By contrast all ofthe SA studentsrsquo English composition scores improved over the 35 yearsFour SA-15ndash2 and three SA-4 students attributed this improvementmainly to the English writing classes they took at the Japanese universityOne SA-15ndash2 four SA-4 and four SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to theEnglish writing classes they took abroad and two SA-15ndash2 students andeight SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to the classes they took both in Japanand abroad Another SA-15ndash2 student said that writing e-mails to friendsshe made abroad was the only helpful factor and the last SA-15ndash2student said that the third- and fourth-year compositions were simplyeasier to write

It is noteworthy that many (607) of the SA students attributed theirEnglish writing improvement solely or partially to the English classesthey took in Japan As can be seen in Table 2 these students allimproved their English composition scores before going abroad as wellas after coming home The students reported that learning explicitlyhow to write in English (eg learning the idea of a topic sentence) andpracticing writing different types of texts (usually a paragraph long) inthese classes was useful

Similarly the 19 SA students who attributed their score increase atleast partially to their overseas L2 writing classes also added that theexperiences of learning how to write and having to write a lot and oftenoverseas were helpful However compared with the assignmentsrequired by their English classes in Japan the writing assignmentsrequired by their overseas classes were much more demanding Forexample in her first semester in the United States Eri an SA-8ndash11student took four classes two of which required writing papers In theESL writing class she learned how to organize effective paragraphs andwrote 4 two-page essays and 1 seven-page essay In her other class(Elementary Education) she wrote a total of 6 two-page papers In her

92 TESOL QUARTERLY

English classes in Japan she never wrote so much and so often (she onlywrote four paragraphs per semester at the maximum)

These SA studentsrsquo accounts concur with the findings of previouscross-sectional and longitudinal studies (eg Kobayashi amp Rinnert2001) in that the two factors of L2 writing metaknowledge and practiceinfluenced L2 writing development Given the greater percentages ofthe SA-4 (57) and SA-8ndash11 students (100) who attributed theirEnglish writing improvement at least partially to their overseas classescompared with the SA-15ndash2 students (333) and given that the SA-4and SA 8ndash11 groups improved significantly more than the SA-15ndash2group we could further speculate that long and intensive practice wasprobably a crucial factor in significantly improving these studentsrsquo L2writing By contrast as mentioned above many AH students felt thattheir English writing ability fell below their first-year level because theyhad fewer English classes during their fourth year This is especiallynoteworthy when we recall that many of the SA students whose scoresincreased for their fourth-year compositions also had fewer Englishclasses after becoming fourth-year students (Table 1) Consequentlydespite what they claimed the perceived and actual deterioration in theAH studentsrsquo L2 writing ability in the fourth year might be betterexplained by their low motivation rather than by the reduction in L2contact hours

L2 Writing Motivation

Tables 3andash3d present the four groupsrsquo changes in the relevantcomponents of the revised version of the research scheme of Yang et al(2004 see the Method section) Presented here are the tendenciesshared by more than 40 of the members of each group I did notinclude the components of rules and division of labor from Engestromrsquos(1987) expanded activity system because as in Yang et al in theparticipantsrsquo activity of studying L2 writing over 35 years the rule (iehow to write in the academic genre) and the division of labor (ie theparticipants studied and the teachers taught) were unchanged

Table 3a shows the characteristics of the four groupsrsquo L2 writingmotivation when they were first-year students Under the column forObject the four groups were all motivated to improve some aspects(mainly grammar vocabulary and quantity) of their L2 writing Theonly difference is that as can be seen in the column Mediating artifact(ie what was involved in the participantsrsquo trying to attain their objects)667 of the AH group reported doing nothing to improve their L2writing whereas all the other groups used textbooks dictionaries andteachers to achieve their goals Using Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) process

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 93

model of L2 motivation we can say that all four groups set some lsquolsquogoalsrsquorsquoor lsquolsquointentionsrsquorsquo (p 48) for improving their L2 writing but the AH groupremained in the lsquolsquopreactional phasersquorsquo (p 48) whereas the other threegroups crossed the lsquolsquometaphorical lsquoRubiconrsquo of actionrsquorsquo (p 57) In factmore than half of the AH students continued to do nothing to improvetheir L2 writing until their fourth year (as shown in Tables 3a to 3d)Such constantly low motivation in the AH group helps to explain whytheir L2 composition scores decreased below their first-year level whilethe other three groupsrsquo scores did not over the 35 years of myobservation period (seen in Table 2)

The four groupsrsquo characteristics (presented in Table 3b) for theirsecond year were similar to those for their first year except that 19(679) of the 28 SA students had an SA experience starting during thatyear (ie they experienced ESL classes as their L2-related actualcommunities) This probably influenced their subsequent motivationalbehavior for L2 writing One noticeable consequence of such influenceis that many members of the three SA groups in their third and fourth

TABLE 3a

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Artifact Components in First Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

community

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

Non-L2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity Outcome

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)

vocabulary(556)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)

vocabulary(887)quantity(444)

confidence(444)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(714)

vocabulary(857)quantity(429)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(714)

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(917)quantity(417)

EFL classes(100)

Note Descriptions in Tables 3andash3d are given if they were shared by more than 40 of theparticipants EFL 5 English as a foreign language

94 TESOL QUARTERLY

years in university formed some kind of L2-related imagined commu-nities that had not existed before That is after they became third-yearstudents when they had to write academic texts in the L2 as required intheir English classes many of them came to imagine communities wherepeople used L2 for actual communicative purposes Tables 3c and 3dshow how this imagined communitiesrsquo idea played out during their thirdand fourth years of study

Looking across these two tables for example many SA-15ndash2 groupmembers (667 in their fourth year) kept in touch with the L1 or L2English-speaking friends they had made while abroad and correspondedwith them in English through e-mail andor internet chat afterreturning to Japan In such correspondence the SA-15ndash2 studentsoften expressed the wish that they could still be among these pen pals inthe same English-speaking places where they had once studied and theytalked with their pen pals about topics (eg the basketball team of thetown) related to these places We can call such places imaginedcommunities because they were no longer physically accessible to thestudents6 The SA-15ndash2 students all felt that corresponding with these

TABLE 3b

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Second Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2 writingability

Improved Decreased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabulary(444)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

556 444

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabulary(667)Quantity(444)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

889 0

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(571)Vocabulary(571)Quantity(429)

Textbook-s refer-encebooks(571)

ESL classes(100 for4 months)

714 286

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(50)Quantity(417)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(50)

ESL classes(583 for8ndash11months)

100

EFL classes(100)

Note 12 5 second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 95

cybernet pen pals was useful for improving their English writing abilityIn fact writing good e-mails even became one of their major L2 writinggoals in their fourth year (as shown in Table 3d)

Similarly by their fourth year all members of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11groups communicated with overseas friends through e-mail or online chatand imagined during such cybernet correspondence the communities

TABLE 3c

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Third Year

Group Object

Medi-ating

artifact

L2-relatedactual com-

munity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2writing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(556)Vocabu-lary(556)

None(555)

EFL classes(100)

111 667

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabu-lary(444)Quantity(444)

E-mail oronlinechatting(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(444)

333 556

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Vocabu-lary(100)

Teachers(444)Textboo-ks(714)

EFL classes(100)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(857) ESLclasses(714)

857Motivatedto write be-tter in L2(857)

143

Organiza-tion(429)Planning(429)Content(857)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Grammar(583)Vocabu-lary (75)Content(667)

TOEICTOEFL(417)

ESL classes(417 for8ndash11months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(583) ESLclasses(583)

917 83

English-L1friends(417)

EFL classes(100)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(75)

Note TOEIC 5 Test of English for International Communication TOEFL 5 Test of English as aForeign Language

6 My interpretation of the term imagined community is thus different from that of otherresearchers who assume that the imagined communities should be physically located inplaces where the students have never been (eg Kinginger 2004)

96 TESOL QUARTERLY

TABLE 3d

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Fourth Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommun-

ity

Outcome L2 writ-ing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH (n5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabu-lary (556)

None(556)

EFLclasses(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(667)

667 333LostinterestinstudyingL2 writ-ing(778)

SA-15ndash2(n 59)

Grammar(778)Vocabulary(667)How towrite e-mailletters(667)

E-mail oronline chat-ting (667)

ESLclasses(112)-EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(667)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(555)

667 222

SA-4(n 57)

Vocabulary(714)

TOEIC orSTEP Test(714)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(857)

714Motivatedto writebetterin L2(857)

143

ESL classes(714)

SA-8ndash11 (n5 12)

Content(833)

Self-directedwriting(583)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(833)

833 167

Vocabulary(667)Grammar(50)

Dictionaryreferencebooks(583)

ESL classes(917)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(833)

Note STEP 5 Society for Testing English Proficiency

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 97

they had once shared with these friends However when they wroteacademic texts in English none of them thought about such correspon-dence Instead 714 of the SA-4 group and 917 of the SA-8ndash11 groupimagined how they had written in ESL and other regular subject classesthey took while abroad (see Table 3d) In contrast no SA-15ndash2 groupmember imagined such overseas classes when writing L2 academic textsThey simply drew on their experiences of how they could best respond totheir cybernet pen pals in such cases This difference between the SA-15ndash-2 group and the pair of SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups can be attributed to thefact that the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups experienced not only moreopportunities to write but also a longer duration of overseas classes thanthe SA-15ndash2 group

As mentioned earlier in these classes the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 studentslearned how to organize effective compositions and they wrote varioustypes of texts (eg term papers summaries) When they firstencountered writing assignments in these classes many were shockedto find that they could not write as well as their classmates includingother international students because none of them had ever learnedhow to write English texts longer than a paragraph After having readrelevant literature and written multiple drafts however they learnedhow to achieve higher grades Fourteen (737) out of the 19 SA-4 andSA-8ndash11 students also mentioned that the teachersrsquo praise (one of thepotential motivational influences for the postactional phase in Dornyeiand Ottorsquos 1998 model p 61) further encouraged them Drawing onthese episodes motivated the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students to write betteracademic texts even after returning home as shown in Sachirsquoscomments from her late-fourth-year interview

ExampleSachi who spent 11 months in the United States is talking about her

first in-class test essay in a psychology class in the United States whereshe was the only international student (All accounts were originally inJapanese and were translated by the author)

Sachi After 30 minutes [for the test] I was told to stop and I thoughtlsquolsquoYou are kidding I have only written three lines This is tragicrsquorsquo(laughter)

Miyuki (laughter)Sachi And then when the test was returned the teacher told me to

study English harder I was shocked because she meant that I shouldstudy English before I could study the content [of the class]

Miyuki OhSachi But the teacher had also made many suggestions on the test

sheet about how I could have written the answer betterMiyuki Oh she is kind isnrsquot sheSachi Yes and because of that I thought I should try harder

98 TESOL QUARTERLY

Miyuki You mean you had to live up to the teacherrsquos expectationsSachi Yes I thought I should try as a Japanese Hooray for Japanese

peopleMiyuki (laughter)Sachi And even now I feel that I should make efforts to write better

when I write [in English]Such motivation seems qualitatively different from the SA-15ndash2

studentsrsquo motivation to simply improve a single aspect of their L2 writing(ie writing messages in cyberspace) This difference in motivation mayalso account for the fact that only the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups weremotivated to improve the content of their L2 writing after their thirdyear (Tables 3c and 3d)

Last as regards their fourth year (Table 3d) the most noticeabledifference from the other years was that many participants formedimagined communities where they hoped to work after they graduatedfrom university This is related to the fact that many of them startedhunting for jobs near the end of their third year They spent thefollowing 6ndash12 months taking exams and being interviewed for the bestpossible jobs they could get Of the 37 participants however only 12students (324 3 AH 1 SA-15ndash2 3 SA-4 and 5 SA-8ndash11) imaginedprofessional communities that were English-related (eg a communityof English teachers) As in their third year many SA students continuedto imagine L2-related communities such as communities imaginedthrough e-mail correspondence or overseas classes when they wrote inEnglish However these communities were not directly related to theirfuture jobs Underlying this phenomenon was the fact that althoughtheir major (British and American Studies) was related to English notmany graduates at this university (only 16 in 2006) actually obtainedemployment directly related to English

Consequently the future-career-related imagined communities ofthese students did not necessarily lead to L2 writing improvement Infact 667 of the AH group and 857 of the SA-4 group showeddecreases in their L2 composition scores and in the late-fourth-yearinterviews all of them attributed this decrease to being busy job-huntingYet seven (583) of the 12 SA-8ndash11 students continued to voluntarilypractice L2 writing even though such activity benefited the future careerof only three of them For example Koji an SA-8ndash11 student who cameback to Japan in the middle of his third year wrote a final report inEnglish for his fourth-year sociology class when the teacher allowed himto do so even though writing the report in English was not required Hisfuture-career-related imagined community was not related to EnglishAnd yet he chose to write in English because he believed that he couldlsquolsquodo a good job if he tried with all the knowledge he had acquired inAmerica and in the subsequent yearsrsquorsquo (from his late-fourth year

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 99

interview) This suggests that the motivations of these students hadbecome more intrinsic or that they had become more autonomouslearners having acquired the ability to lsquolsquoidentify goals formulate theirown goals and change goals to suit their own learning needs andinterestsrsquorsquo (Dickinson 1995 p 167) No other students exhibited suchmotivation throughout the observation period Although it is not clearwhy only some SA-8ndash11 students acquired such learner autonomy theseSA-8ndash11 students are the most likely to keep trying to improve their L2writing ability in the future

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

In this section I summarize the results of this study and present somepractical implications First the AH grouprsquos motivational behaviors overthe 35 years were different from those of the three SA groups in thatfew AH students took concrete action to achieve their goals Despite thislack of strong motivation however the AH grouprsquos L2 writing abilitycontinued to improve around their third year probably because theytook a relatively large number of English classes up to that point(Table 1) To obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree they had to earn creditsfor these classes and one can speculate that such an lsquolsquoincentive value ofthe outcomersquorsquo (Dornyei and Otto 1998 p 53) was the major drivingforce behind their improvement Once the external motivational forceof L2 classes diminished however the students seemed to need toimagine L2-related communities in order to keep improving (Table 2)Furthermore among the three SA groups who formed some kind of L2-related imagined communities after coming home the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups improved their composition scores significantly more than didthe SA-15ndash2 group This might be because these two groups had moreand longer L2 writing practice but also because their imagined L2-related communities were more directly connected to learning theability targeted in the present study (ie academic writing) Lastalthough the reason for this is not clear only the SA-8ndash11 group becameintrinsically motivated and continued to develop despite impedingfourth-year factors such as job hunting

What implications for FL teaching do these results suggest Firstwhen instrumental motivation is in force regular instruction such asproviding students with L2 writing metaknowledge as well as differenttypes of practice can lead to improvement to some degree For a morelasting effect however it may be important for students to constructsome kind of L2-related imagined communities In the present study SAstudentsrsquo overseas experiences were helpful but we know that not all FLstudents can afford to spend time abroad It would be ideal if a way could

100 TESOL QUARTERLY

be found to create L2-related imagined communities without thenecessity of going abroad Yashima and Zenuk-Nishide (2008) reportedone such possibility where Japanese high school students became moremotivated and improved their English proficiency without going abroadby being introduced into lsquolsquoan imagined international communityrsquorsquo (ie amodel lsquolsquoUnited Nationsrsquorsquo p 569) in content-based English classes In asimilar vein preparing an L2 writing curriculum where students canparticipate in such communities through lsquolsquocognitively and emotionallyinvolving contentrsquorsquo (p 570) might be a promising approach in FLsettings

Another suggestion is based on the significant difference inimprovement between the SA-15ndash2 group and the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11pair If teachers want to make their studentsrsquo motivation moreinfluential it would probably be better for the L2-related imaginedcommunities to be accompanied by specific details of skills andknowledge related to the targeted abilities to be improved In the caseof L2 writing for example students must know how to plan and writeeffective compositions in the intended genre Accumulation of suchdeclarative and procedural knowledge would endow the students withwhat Dornyei and Otto (1998) call an lsquolsquointernal model of referencersquorsquo(p 57) which would be especially helpful for realizing preactionalintentions Furthermore such knowledge has to be implementedthrough sufficient and continuous practice to result in a truly significantdifference in output quality Affective support such as teachersrsquo praise isalso important for making the studentsrsquo motivation more enduringIdeally imagined communities should be substantial enough to trans-form dependent learners into autonomous ones so that they keepimproving even when demotivating external factors intervene

CONCLUSION

The present study investigated the long-term effects of varying lengthsof overseas experiences on the L2 writing ability and motivation of 37Japanese university students The study revealed characteristics uniqueto the FL situation For example unlike the ESL learners studied byCumming (2006) some learners took almost no action to achieve theirgoals This was mainly due to the fact that L2 writing improvement wasnot necessary for their social survival In contrast spending some timeoverseas proved helpful not only in enabling the students to improvetheir L2 writing ability but also in maintaining their motivation to writebetter The pedagogical implications presented in the last section of thisarticle can thus be particularly useful for those who study an L2 where itis not used for communicative purposes

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 101

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

Table 1 presents the mean departure and returning-home times ofthe SA groups as well as the mean hours of English classes theparticipants took while overseas and in Japan Note that on average theSA-4 group went abroad earlier (2nd year 6th month) than the SA-15ndash2and SA-8ndash11 groups (2nd year 11th month for both groups) and theSA-4 group came home earliest (2nd year 11th month) and the SA-8ndash11group latest (3rd year 10th month) A total of 19 (679) out of the 28SA students had their overseas experiences between the second half oftheir second year and the first half of their third year at the universityWhile abroad the SA-15ndash2 students took ESL classes only whereas some(though not all) of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students took both ESL andregular subject classes The number of English classes these four groupstook at the Japanese university drastically decreased during their fourthyear because they had already taken the number of English classesrequired for graduation by the end of their third year and because theywere busy job-hunting during their fourth year

Data Collection

I collected L2 writing and motivation data at four different points inthe first month of the participantsrsquo first year (early-first-year period) andthe fourth month of their second third and fourth year (mid-second-year mid-third-year and mid-fourth-year periods) In the eighth monthof their fourth year (late-fourth-year period) I also interviewed thestudents to collect their own accounts of any changes in their L2 writingability and motivation

Composition Scores

The participants wrote an argumentative composition on a randomlyselected topic concerning such issues as living in a city or in the country(see Sasaki 2004) The prompts were selected in such a way that theparticipants were able to write about different topics on the fourdifferent occasions and so that similar ratios of participants in the fourgroups addressed the same topics

Two EFL writing specialists scored all the compositions followingJacobs Zinkgraf Wormuth Hartfiel and Hugheyrsquos (1981) EnglishComposition Profile The raters were not informed of the purpose of thepresent study when each composition was written or from whichparticipant group it came The interrater correlation (Pearson correla-tion coefficient) for the content subscore was 089 for the organizationsubscore 085 for the vocabulary subscore 078 for the language usesubscore 080 for the mechanics subscore 053 (caused by the very

88 TESOL QUARTERLY

narrow score range of 1ndash5)5 and for the total score 093 Overall Ijudged that these correlations were acceptable for the study

Interviews About L2 Writing Strategies L2 Classes andMotivation Conducted After Each Composition Session

After the participants wrote the compositions described above Iinterviewed each of them individually in Japanese about theirexperiences related to English learning over the previous year andwhich aspect of English writing they wanted to improve if any Thesessions lasted about 30 minutes each

Late-Fourth-Year Interviews on Changes in L2 Writing Abilityand Motivation

Four months after the participants wrote their mid-fourth-yearcompositions I interviewed them individually in Japanese again to collectaccounts of what they thought had influenced changes in their L2 writingability fluency and strategy use over the past 35 years During theinterviews I showed the participants a table or a graph showing theiractual changes on these variables over this period (I did not use thefluency and strategy use data in the present study) Addressingmotivational changes I showed them the transcripts of what they hadsaid when asked which aspects of English writing they wanted to improvein each of the four data collection sessions I also asked them additionalquestions about what other aspects if any they might have wanted toimprove over the given year why they had these particular goals and whatthey did to achieve these goals For those who did not mention any aspectthey wanted to improve I showed them a list (written in Japanese) ofpossible areas to be improved in L2 writing based on Cummingrsquos (2006)scheme probing L2 writing motivation (see Sasaki 2009 for list content)Each late-fourth-year interview session lasted 30ndash60 minutes All interviewaccounts were tape-recorded and subsequently transcribed

Analysis of Interview Data

When analyzing the transcribed interview data I followed Miles andHubermanrsquos (1994) data synthesis tactics especially those concerningnoting lsquolsquopatterns themesrsquorsquo (p 245) and making lsquolsquocontrastscompar-isonsrsquorsquo (p 245) I used the interview data about the participantsrsquo English-

5 Pearson correlation coefficients tend to be lower if the ranges of the given variables aremore restricted than others (see Linn 1968 for example)

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 89

related experiences and reasons for changes in their L2 writing ability inorder to better interpret the quantitative data on changes in theparticipantsrsquo L2 composition scores I also analyzed the interview dataabout the participantsrsquo motivational changes for their own sake As Imentioned earlier I adopted Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) definition of L2motivation and I analyzed the participantsrsquo changes in L2 writingmotivation using the research framework of Yang et al (2004) I decidedto employ this framework because it had worked successfully foranalyzing phenomena similar to the ones targeted in the present studyand because it shared with Dornyei and Ottorsquos model two crucialassumptions of methods accommodating sociocultural theory namely(1) that learners are active agents of L2 learning and (2) that L2learning processes can be influenced by various internalexternalfactors

The framework of Yang et al (2004) assumes that L2 learnersrsquothought processes and actions are mediated by artifacts or socioculturalentities when the participants as subjects operate on the object of learningL2 writing As Yang et al explain (p 15)

To take an example of second language (L2) learning a student (subject) in an ESLclass aims to improve her competence in academic English writing (object) Thisstudent may follow the teacherrsquos instruction do assignments read a textbook talk withfriends surf the Internet refer to dictionaries and so on (mediating artifacts) After aperiod of practice this student may achieve her goal such as getting a high grade on heressays (outcome) This activity happens in the ESL class (community) and thestudent intends to grasp the conventions of academic English writing (rules) In thisESL class the teacher provides model instruction gives assignments and offersfeedback and students follow their teacher and do the assignments (division of labor)

In addition to the original categories used by Yang et al (2004) Iincluded two more categories in the present study Imagined L2-relatedcommunity and Imagined non-L2-related community I did this becausein the process of analyzing the interview data I realized that thesecategories were also important for understanding the participantsrsquomotivational changes Subsequently I changed the term community inthe scheme of Yang et al to actual L2-related community to distinguish itfrom the two imagined communities For the term imagined community Ifollowed Kanno and Nortonrsquos (2003 p 241) definition of lsquolsquogroups ofpeople not immediately tangible and accessible with whom we connectthrough the power of imaginationrsquorsquo

In the framework of Yang et al (2004) we can assume that lsquolsquoobjectrsquorsquocorresponds to lsquolsquogoalrsquorsquo or lsquolsquointentionrsquorsquo in the lsquolsquopreactional phrasersquorsquo ofDornyei and Ottorsquos (1998 p 48) model If the subject actually tries toaccomplish hisher object through a range of mediating artifacts we can

90 TESOL QUARTERLY

say that heshe actually launches into what Dornyei and Otto (p 48) callthe lsquolsquoactional phasersquorsquo The other components of community imaginedcommunity and division of labor can form what Dornyei and Otto(p 48) call the lsquolsquomotivational influencesrsquorsquo affecting the studentrsquosmotivational behavior

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

L2 Writing Ability

I first present changes in the participantsrsquo L2 composition scores fordescriptive purposes I then present the results of an analysis of variance(ANOVA) to display the degree of change between the early-first-yearand mid-fourth-year periods using SPSS Version 61 (SPSS 1994)However because of the small sample sizes the results of the ANOVAanalyses should not be generalized

As shown in Table 2 the four groupsrsquo scores increased until theirsecond year but the AH grouprsquos score then decreased and even droppedbelow their first-year level in their fourth-year composition By contrastthe three SA groupsrsquo fourth-year composition scores were all higher thanthose of their first-year compositions but the SA-8ndash11 group was the onlyone that continually improved until the fourth year A two-way ANOVAcomparing the differences across the four groups between their first andfourth years indicated a significant interaction between time and groupeffects [F (3 33) 5 743 p 0001]

The results of subsequent post-hoc simple effects analysis andmultiple comparisons (Tanaka amp Yamagiwa 1992) revealed thefollowing First when the students were in their first year there wasno difference across the four groups except that the SA-4 grouprsquoscomposition scores were significantly higher than those of the SA-15ndash2group (mean square error (MSE) 5 23340 p 005) In the fourthyear the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groupsrsquo scores were significantly higher than

TABLE 2

Mean Total Composition Scores (Total Possible 5 200) at Four Observation Times

GroupEarly-1st-Year

M (SD)Mid-2nd-Year

M (SD)Mid-3rd-Year

M (SD)Late-4th-Year

M (SD)

AH (n 5 9) 13056 (1201) 13711 (1431) 13500 (1493) 12822(1044)SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

11644 (1837) 13178 (1821) 13056 (1549) 13389 (2097)

SA-4 (n 5 7) 13814 (1328) 14657 (1003) 16900 (707) 16143 (960)SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

13058 (1377) 15200 (1245) 15817 (1996) 16175 (859)

Note M 5 mean SD 5 standard deviation

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 91

those of the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups but there was no significantdifference between the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups or between the SA-4and the SA-8ndash11 groups (MSE 5 19607 p 005) Furthermore thethree SA groups significantly improved their composition scores over the35 years whereas the AH group did not F (1 33) 5 1009 p 001 forthe SA-15ndash2 group F (1 33) 5 1798 p 001 for the SA-4 group and F(1 33) 5 322 p 001 for the SA-8ndash11 group

At the individual level English composition scores for four of the nineAH students decreased over the 35 years and scores for the other fivestudents increased slightly Two of these five students mentioned thatEnglish classes at the Japanese university were helpful in learning towrite better However the other seven students (777) including thethree whose composition scores increased slightly felt that their Englishwriting ability deteriorated below their first-year level because from theirfourth year onward they took fewer English classes By contrast all ofthe SA studentsrsquo English composition scores improved over the 35 yearsFour SA-15ndash2 and three SA-4 students attributed this improvementmainly to the English writing classes they took at the Japanese universityOne SA-15ndash2 four SA-4 and four SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to theEnglish writing classes they took abroad and two SA-15ndash2 students andeight SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to the classes they took both in Japanand abroad Another SA-15ndash2 student said that writing e-mails to friendsshe made abroad was the only helpful factor and the last SA-15ndash2student said that the third- and fourth-year compositions were simplyeasier to write

It is noteworthy that many (607) of the SA students attributed theirEnglish writing improvement solely or partially to the English classesthey took in Japan As can be seen in Table 2 these students allimproved their English composition scores before going abroad as wellas after coming home The students reported that learning explicitlyhow to write in English (eg learning the idea of a topic sentence) andpracticing writing different types of texts (usually a paragraph long) inthese classes was useful

Similarly the 19 SA students who attributed their score increase atleast partially to their overseas L2 writing classes also added that theexperiences of learning how to write and having to write a lot and oftenoverseas were helpful However compared with the assignmentsrequired by their English classes in Japan the writing assignmentsrequired by their overseas classes were much more demanding Forexample in her first semester in the United States Eri an SA-8ndash11student took four classes two of which required writing papers In theESL writing class she learned how to organize effective paragraphs andwrote 4 two-page essays and 1 seven-page essay In her other class(Elementary Education) she wrote a total of 6 two-page papers In her

92 TESOL QUARTERLY

English classes in Japan she never wrote so much and so often (she onlywrote four paragraphs per semester at the maximum)

These SA studentsrsquo accounts concur with the findings of previouscross-sectional and longitudinal studies (eg Kobayashi amp Rinnert2001) in that the two factors of L2 writing metaknowledge and practiceinfluenced L2 writing development Given the greater percentages ofthe SA-4 (57) and SA-8ndash11 students (100) who attributed theirEnglish writing improvement at least partially to their overseas classescompared with the SA-15ndash2 students (333) and given that the SA-4and SA 8ndash11 groups improved significantly more than the SA-15ndash2group we could further speculate that long and intensive practice wasprobably a crucial factor in significantly improving these studentsrsquo L2writing By contrast as mentioned above many AH students felt thattheir English writing ability fell below their first-year level because theyhad fewer English classes during their fourth year This is especiallynoteworthy when we recall that many of the SA students whose scoresincreased for their fourth-year compositions also had fewer Englishclasses after becoming fourth-year students (Table 1) Consequentlydespite what they claimed the perceived and actual deterioration in theAH studentsrsquo L2 writing ability in the fourth year might be betterexplained by their low motivation rather than by the reduction in L2contact hours

L2 Writing Motivation

Tables 3andash3d present the four groupsrsquo changes in the relevantcomponents of the revised version of the research scheme of Yang et al(2004 see the Method section) Presented here are the tendenciesshared by more than 40 of the members of each group I did notinclude the components of rules and division of labor from Engestromrsquos(1987) expanded activity system because as in Yang et al in theparticipantsrsquo activity of studying L2 writing over 35 years the rule (iehow to write in the academic genre) and the division of labor (ie theparticipants studied and the teachers taught) were unchanged

Table 3a shows the characteristics of the four groupsrsquo L2 writingmotivation when they were first-year students Under the column forObject the four groups were all motivated to improve some aspects(mainly grammar vocabulary and quantity) of their L2 writing Theonly difference is that as can be seen in the column Mediating artifact(ie what was involved in the participantsrsquo trying to attain their objects)667 of the AH group reported doing nothing to improve their L2writing whereas all the other groups used textbooks dictionaries andteachers to achieve their goals Using Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) process

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 93

model of L2 motivation we can say that all four groups set some lsquolsquogoalsrsquorsquoor lsquolsquointentionsrsquorsquo (p 48) for improving their L2 writing but the AH groupremained in the lsquolsquopreactional phasersquorsquo (p 48) whereas the other threegroups crossed the lsquolsquometaphorical lsquoRubiconrsquo of actionrsquorsquo (p 57) In factmore than half of the AH students continued to do nothing to improvetheir L2 writing until their fourth year (as shown in Tables 3a to 3d)Such constantly low motivation in the AH group helps to explain whytheir L2 composition scores decreased below their first-year level whilethe other three groupsrsquo scores did not over the 35 years of myobservation period (seen in Table 2)

The four groupsrsquo characteristics (presented in Table 3b) for theirsecond year were similar to those for their first year except that 19(679) of the 28 SA students had an SA experience starting during thatyear (ie they experienced ESL classes as their L2-related actualcommunities) This probably influenced their subsequent motivationalbehavior for L2 writing One noticeable consequence of such influenceis that many members of the three SA groups in their third and fourth

TABLE 3a

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Artifact Components in First Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

community

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

Non-L2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity Outcome

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)

vocabulary(556)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)

vocabulary(887)quantity(444)

confidence(444)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(714)

vocabulary(857)quantity(429)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(714)

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(917)quantity(417)

EFL classes(100)

Note Descriptions in Tables 3andash3d are given if they were shared by more than 40 of theparticipants EFL 5 English as a foreign language

94 TESOL QUARTERLY

years in university formed some kind of L2-related imagined commu-nities that had not existed before That is after they became third-yearstudents when they had to write academic texts in the L2 as required intheir English classes many of them came to imagine communities wherepeople used L2 for actual communicative purposes Tables 3c and 3dshow how this imagined communitiesrsquo idea played out during their thirdand fourth years of study

Looking across these two tables for example many SA-15ndash2 groupmembers (667 in their fourth year) kept in touch with the L1 or L2English-speaking friends they had made while abroad and correspondedwith them in English through e-mail andor internet chat afterreturning to Japan In such correspondence the SA-15ndash2 studentsoften expressed the wish that they could still be among these pen pals inthe same English-speaking places where they had once studied and theytalked with their pen pals about topics (eg the basketball team of thetown) related to these places We can call such places imaginedcommunities because they were no longer physically accessible to thestudents6 The SA-15ndash2 students all felt that corresponding with these

TABLE 3b

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Second Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2 writingability

Improved Decreased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabulary(444)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

556 444

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabulary(667)Quantity(444)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

889 0

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(571)Vocabulary(571)Quantity(429)

Textbook-s refer-encebooks(571)

ESL classes(100 for4 months)

714 286

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(50)Quantity(417)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(50)

ESL classes(583 for8ndash11months)

100

EFL classes(100)

Note 12 5 second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 95

cybernet pen pals was useful for improving their English writing abilityIn fact writing good e-mails even became one of their major L2 writinggoals in their fourth year (as shown in Table 3d)

Similarly by their fourth year all members of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11groups communicated with overseas friends through e-mail or online chatand imagined during such cybernet correspondence the communities

TABLE 3c

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Third Year

Group Object

Medi-ating

artifact

L2-relatedactual com-

munity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2writing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(556)Vocabu-lary(556)

None(555)

EFL classes(100)

111 667

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabu-lary(444)Quantity(444)

E-mail oronlinechatting(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(444)

333 556

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Vocabu-lary(100)

Teachers(444)Textboo-ks(714)

EFL classes(100)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(857) ESLclasses(714)

857Motivatedto write be-tter in L2(857)

143

Organiza-tion(429)Planning(429)Content(857)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Grammar(583)Vocabu-lary (75)Content(667)

TOEICTOEFL(417)

ESL classes(417 for8ndash11months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(583) ESLclasses(583)

917 83

English-L1friends(417)

EFL classes(100)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(75)

Note TOEIC 5 Test of English for International Communication TOEFL 5 Test of English as aForeign Language

6 My interpretation of the term imagined community is thus different from that of otherresearchers who assume that the imagined communities should be physically located inplaces where the students have never been (eg Kinginger 2004)

96 TESOL QUARTERLY

TABLE 3d

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Fourth Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommun-

ity

Outcome L2 writ-ing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH (n5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabu-lary (556)

None(556)

EFLclasses(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(667)

667 333LostinterestinstudyingL2 writ-ing(778)

SA-15ndash2(n 59)

Grammar(778)Vocabulary(667)How towrite e-mailletters(667)

E-mail oronline chat-ting (667)

ESLclasses(112)-EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(667)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(555)

667 222

SA-4(n 57)

Vocabulary(714)

TOEIC orSTEP Test(714)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(857)

714Motivatedto writebetterin L2(857)

143

ESL classes(714)

SA-8ndash11 (n5 12)

Content(833)

Self-directedwriting(583)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(833)

833 167

Vocabulary(667)Grammar(50)

Dictionaryreferencebooks(583)

ESL classes(917)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(833)

Note STEP 5 Society for Testing English Proficiency

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 97

they had once shared with these friends However when they wroteacademic texts in English none of them thought about such correspon-dence Instead 714 of the SA-4 group and 917 of the SA-8ndash11 groupimagined how they had written in ESL and other regular subject classesthey took while abroad (see Table 3d) In contrast no SA-15ndash2 groupmember imagined such overseas classes when writing L2 academic textsThey simply drew on their experiences of how they could best respond totheir cybernet pen pals in such cases This difference between the SA-15ndash-2 group and the pair of SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups can be attributed to thefact that the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups experienced not only moreopportunities to write but also a longer duration of overseas classes thanthe SA-15ndash2 group

As mentioned earlier in these classes the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 studentslearned how to organize effective compositions and they wrote varioustypes of texts (eg term papers summaries) When they firstencountered writing assignments in these classes many were shockedto find that they could not write as well as their classmates includingother international students because none of them had ever learnedhow to write English texts longer than a paragraph After having readrelevant literature and written multiple drafts however they learnedhow to achieve higher grades Fourteen (737) out of the 19 SA-4 andSA-8ndash11 students also mentioned that the teachersrsquo praise (one of thepotential motivational influences for the postactional phase in Dornyeiand Ottorsquos 1998 model p 61) further encouraged them Drawing onthese episodes motivated the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students to write betteracademic texts even after returning home as shown in Sachirsquoscomments from her late-fourth-year interview

ExampleSachi who spent 11 months in the United States is talking about her

first in-class test essay in a psychology class in the United States whereshe was the only international student (All accounts were originally inJapanese and were translated by the author)

Sachi After 30 minutes [for the test] I was told to stop and I thoughtlsquolsquoYou are kidding I have only written three lines This is tragicrsquorsquo(laughter)

Miyuki (laughter)Sachi And then when the test was returned the teacher told me to

study English harder I was shocked because she meant that I shouldstudy English before I could study the content [of the class]

Miyuki OhSachi But the teacher had also made many suggestions on the test

sheet about how I could have written the answer betterMiyuki Oh she is kind isnrsquot sheSachi Yes and because of that I thought I should try harder

98 TESOL QUARTERLY

Miyuki You mean you had to live up to the teacherrsquos expectationsSachi Yes I thought I should try as a Japanese Hooray for Japanese

peopleMiyuki (laughter)Sachi And even now I feel that I should make efforts to write better

when I write [in English]Such motivation seems qualitatively different from the SA-15ndash2

studentsrsquo motivation to simply improve a single aspect of their L2 writing(ie writing messages in cyberspace) This difference in motivation mayalso account for the fact that only the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups weremotivated to improve the content of their L2 writing after their thirdyear (Tables 3c and 3d)

Last as regards their fourth year (Table 3d) the most noticeabledifference from the other years was that many participants formedimagined communities where they hoped to work after they graduatedfrom university This is related to the fact that many of them startedhunting for jobs near the end of their third year They spent thefollowing 6ndash12 months taking exams and being interviewed for the bestpossible jobs they could get Of the 37 participants however only 12students (324 3 AH 1 SA-15ndash2 3 SA-4 and 5 SA-8ndash11) imaginedprofessional communities that were English-related (eg a communityof English teachers) As in their third year many SA students continuedto imagine L2-related communities such as communities imaginedthrough e-mail correspondence or overseas classes when they wrote inEnglish However these communities were not directly related to theirfuture jobs Underlying this phenomenon was the fact that althoughtheir major (British and American Studies) was related to English notmany graduates at this university (only 16 in 2006) actually obtainedemployment directly related to English

Consequently the future-career-related imagined communities ofthese students did not necessarily lead to L2 writing improvement Infact 667 of the AH group and 857 of the SA-4 group showeddecreases in their L2 composition scores and in the late-fourth-yearinterviews all of them attributed this decrease to being busy job-huntingYet seven (583) of the 12 SA-8ndash11 students continued to voluntarilypractice L2 writing even though such activity benefited the future careerof only three of them For example Koji an SA-8ndash11 student who cameback to Japan in the middle of his third year wrote a final report inEnglish for his fourth-year sociology class when the teacher allowed himto do so even though writing the report in English was not required Hisfuture-career-related imagined community was not related to EnglishAnd yet he chose to write in English because he believed that he couldlsquolsquodo a good job if he tried with all the knowledge he had acquired inAmerica and in the subsequent yearsrsquorsquo (from his late-fourth year

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 99

interview) This suggests that the motivations of these students hadbecome more intrinsic or that they had become more autonomouslearners having acquired the ability to lsquolsquoidentify goals formulate theirown goals and change goals to suit their own learning needs andinterestsrsquorsquo (Dickinson 1995 p 167) No other students exhibited suchmotivation throughout the observation period Although it is not clearwhy only some SA-8ndash11 students acquired such learner autonomy theseSA-8ndash11 students are the most likely to keep trying to improve their L2writing ability in the future

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

In this section I summarize the results of this study and present somepractical implications First the AH grouprsquos motivational behaviors overthe 35 years were different from those of the three SA groups in thatfew AH students took concrete action to achieve their goals Despite thislack of strong motivation however the AH grouprsquos L2 writing abilitycontinued to improve around their third year probably because theytook a relatively large number of English classes up to that point(Table 1) To obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree they had to earn creditsfor these classes and one can speculate that such an lsquolsquoincentive value ofthe outcomersquorsquo (Dornyei and Otto 1998 p 53) was the major drivingforce behind their improvement Once the external motivational forceof L2 classes diminished however the students seemed to need toimagine L2-related communities in order to keep improving (Table 2)Furthermore among the three SA groups who formed some kind of L2-related imagined communities after coming home the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups improved their composition scores significantly more than didthe SA-15ndash2 group This might be because these two groups had moreand longer L2 writing practice but also because their imagined L2-related communities were more directly connected to learning theability targeted in the present study (ie academic writing) Lastalthough the reason for this is not clear only the SA-8ndash11 group becameintrinsically motivated and continued to develop despite impedingfourth-year factors such as job hunting

What implications for FL teaching do these results suggest Firstwhen instrumental motivation is in force regular instruction such asproviding students with L2 writing metaknowledge as well as differenttypes of practice can lead to improvement to some degree For a morelasting effect however it may be important for students to constructsome kind of L2-related imagined communities In the present study SAstudentsrsquo overseas experiences were helpful but we know that not all FLstudents can afford to spend time abroad It would be ideal if a way could

100 TESOL QUARTERLY

be found to create L2-related imagined communities without thenecessity of going abroad Yashima and Zenuk-Nishide (2008) reportedone such possibility where Japanese high school students became moremotivated and improved their English proficiency without going abroadby being introduced into lsquolsquoan imagined international communityrsquorsquo (ie amodel lsquolsquoUnited Nationsrsquorsquo p 569) in content-based English classes In asimilar vein preparing an L2 writing curriculum where students canparticipate in such communities through lsquolsquocognitively and emotionallyinvolving contentrsquorsquo (p 570) might be a promising approach in FLsettings

Another suggestion is based on the significant difference inimprovement between the SA-15ndash2 group and the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11pair If teachers want to make their studentsrsquo motivation moreinfluential it would probably be better for the L2-related imaginedcommunities to be accompanied by specific details of skills andknowledge related to the targeted abilities to be improved In the caseof L2 writing for example students must know how to plan and writeeffective compositions in the intended genre Accumulation of suchdeclarative and procedural knowledge would endow the students withwhat Dornyei and Otto (1998) call an lsquolsquointernal model of referencersquorsquo(p 57) which would be especially helpful for realizing preactionalintentions Furthermore such knowledge has to be implementedthrough sufficient and continuous practice to result in a truly significantdifference in output quality Affective support such as teachersrsquo praise isalso important for making the studentsrsquo motivation more enduringIdeally imagined communities should be substantial enough to trans-form dependent learners into autonomous ones so that they keepimproving even when demotivating external factors intervene

CONCLUSION

The present study investigated the long-term effects of varying lengthsof overseas experiences on the L2 writing ability and motivation of 37Japanese university students The study revealed characteristics uniqueto the FL situation For example unlike the ESL learners studied byCumming (2006) some learners took almost no action to achieve theirgoals This was mainly due to the fact that L2 writing improvement wasnot necessary for their social survival In contrast spending some timeoverseas proved helpful not only in enabling the students to improvetheir L2 writing ability but also in maintaining their motivation to writebetter The pedagogical implications presented in the last section of thisarticle can thus be particularly useful for those who study an L2 where itis not used for communicative purposes

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 101

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

narrow score range of 1ndash5)5 and for the total score 093 Overall Ijudged that these correlations were acceptable for the study

Interviews About L2 Writing Strategies L2 Classes andMotivation Conducted After Each Composition Session

After the participants wrote the compositions described above Iinterviewed each of them individually in Japanese about theirexperiences related to English learning over the previous year andwhich aspect of English writing they wanted to improve if any Thesessions lasted about 30 minutes each

Late-Fourth-Year Interviews on Changes in L2 Writing Abilityand Motivation

Four months after the participants wrote their mid-fourth-yearcompositions I interviewed them individually in Japanese again to collectaccounts of what they thought had influenced changes in their L2 writingability fluency and strategy use over the past 35 years During theinterviews I showed the participants a table or a graph showing theiractual changes on these variables over this period (I did not use thefluency and strategy use data in the present study) Addressingmotivational changes I showed them the transcripts of what they hadsaid when asked which aspects of English writing they wanted to improvein each of the four data collection sessions I also asked them additionalquestions about what other aspects if any they might have wanted toimprove over the given year why they had these particular goals and whatthey did to achieve these goals For those who did not mention any aspectthey wanted to improve I showed them a list (written in Japanese) ofpossible areas to be improved in L2 writing based on Cummingrsquos (2006)scheme probing L2 writing motivation (see Sasaki 2009 for list content)Each late-fourth-year interview session lasted 30ndash60 minutes All interviewaccounts were tape-recorded and subsequently transcribed

Analysis of Interview Data

When analyzing the transcribed interview data I followed Miles andHubermanrsquos (1994) data synthesis tactics especially those concerningnoting lsquolsquopatterns themesrsquorsquo (p 245) and making lsquolsquocontrastscompar-isonsrsquorsquo (p 245) I used the interview data about the participantsrsquo English-

5 Pearson correlation coefficients tend to be lower if the ranges of the given variables aremore restricted than others (see Linn 1968 for example)

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 89

related experiences and reasons for changes in their L2 writing ability inorder to better interpret the quantitative data on changes in theparticipantsrsquo L2 composition scores I also analyzed the interview dataabout the participantsrsquo motivational changes for their own sake As Imentioned earlier I adopted Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) definition of L2motivation and I analyzed the participantsrsquo changes in L2 writingmotivation using the research framework of Yang et al (2004) I decidedto employ this framework because it had worked successfully foranalyzing phenomena similar to the ones targeted in the present studyand because it shared with Dornyei and Ottorsquos model two crucialassumptions of methods accommodating sociocultural theory namely(1) that learners are active agents of L2 learning and (2) that L2learning processes can be influenced by various internalexternalfactors

The framework of Yang et al (2004) assumes that L2 learnersrsquothought processes and actions are mediated by artifacts or socioculturalentities when the participants as subjects operate on the object of learningL2 writing As Yang et al explain (p 15)

To take an example of second language (L2) learning a student (subject) in an ESLclass aims to improve her competence in academic English writing (object) Thisstudent may follow the teacherrsquos instruction do assignments read a textbook talk withfriends surf the Internet refer to dictionaries and so on (mediating artifacts) After aperiod of practice this student may achieve her goal such as getting a high grade on heressays (outcome) This activity happens in the ESL class (community) and thestudent intends to grasp the conventions of academic English writing (rules) In thisESL class the teacher provides model instruction gives assignments and offersfeedback and students follow their teacher and do the assignments (division of labor)

In addition to the original categories used by Yang et al (2004) Iincluded two more categories in the present study Imagined L2-relatedcommunity and Imagined non-L2-related community I did this becausein the process of analyzing the interview data I realized that thesecategories were also important for understanding the participantsrsquomotivational changes Subsequently I changed the term community inthe scheme of Yang et al to actual L2-related community to distinguish itfrom the two imagined communities For the term imagined community Ifollowed Kanno and Nortonrsquos (2003 p 241) definition of lsquolsquogroups ofpeople not immediately tangible and accessible with whom we connectthrough the power of imaginationrsquorsquo

In the framework of Yang et al (2004) we can assume that lsquolsquoobjectrsquorsquocorresponds to lsquolsquogoalrsquorsquo or lsquolsquointentionrsquorsquo in the lsquolsquopreactional phrasersquorsquo ofDornyei and Ottorsquos (1998 p 48) model If the subject actually tries toaccomplish hisher object through a range of mediating artifacts we can

90 TESOL QUARTERLY

say that heshe actually launches into what Dornyei and Otto (p 48) callthe lsquolsquoactional phasersquorsquo The other components of community imaginedcommunity and division of labor can form what Dornyei and Otto(p 48) call the lsquolsquomotivational influencesrsquorsquo affecting the studentrsquosmotivational behavior

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

L2 Writing Ability

I first present changes in the participantsrsquo L2 composition scores fordescriptive purposes I then present the results of an analysis of variance(ANOVA) to display the degree of change between the early-first-yearand mid-fourth-year periods using SPSS Version 61 (SPSS 1994)However because of the small sample sizes the results of the ANOVAanalyses should not be generalized

As shown in Table 2 the four groupsrsquo scores increased until theirsecond year but the AH grouprsquos score then decreased and even droppedbelow their first-year level in their fourth-year composition By contrastthe three SA groupsrsquo fourth-year composition scores were all higher thanthose of their first-year compositions but the SA-8ndash11 group was the onlyone that continually improved until the fourth year A two-way ANOVAcomparing the differences across the four groups between their first andfourth years indicated a significant interaction between time and groupeffects [F (3 33) 5 743 p 0001]

The results of subsequent post-hoc simple effects analysis andmultiple comparisons (Tanaka amp Yamagiwa 1992) revealed thefollowing First when the students were in their first year there wasno difference across the four groups except that the SA-4 grouprsquoscomposition scores were significantly higher than those of the SA-15ndash2group (mean square error (MSE) 5 23340 p 005) In the fourthyear the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groupsrsquo scores were significantly higher than

TABLE 2

Mean Total Composition Scores (Total Possible 5 200) at Four Observation Times

GroupEarly-1st-Year

M (SD)Mid-2nd-Year

M (SD)Mid-3rd-Year

M (SD)Late-4th-Year

M (SD)

AH (n 5 9) 13056 (1201) 13711 (1431) 13500 (1493) 12822(1044)SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

11644 (1837) 13178 (1821) 13056 (1549) 13389 (2097)

SA-4 (n 5 7) 13814 (1328) 14657 (1003) 16900 (707) 16143 (960)SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

13058 (1377) 15200 (1245) 15817 (1996) 16175 (859)

Note M 5 mean SD 5 standard deviation

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 91

those of the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups but there was no significantdifference between the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups or between the SA-4and the SA-8ndash11 groups (MSE 5 19607 p 005) Furthermore thethree SA groups significantly improved their composition scores over the35 years whereas the AH group did not F (1 33) 5 1009 p 001 forthe SA-15ndash2 group F (1 33) 5 1798 p 001 for the SA-4 group and F(1 33) 5 322 p 001 for the SA-8ndash11 group

At the individual level English composition scores for four of the nineAH students decreased over the 35 years and scores for the other fivestudents increased slightly Two of these five students mentioned thatEnglish classes at the Japanese university were helpful in learning towrite better However the other seven students (777) including thethree whose composition scores increased slightly felt that their Englishwriting ability deteriorated below their first-year level because from theirfourth year onward they took fewer English classes By contrast all ofthe SA studentsrsquo English composition scores improved over the 35 yearsFour SA-15ndash2 and three SA-4 students attributed this improvementmainly to the English writing classes they took at the Japanese universityOne SA-15ndash2 four SA-4 and four SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to theEnglish writing classes they took abroad and two SA-15ndash2 students andeight SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to the classes they took both in Japanand abroad Another SA-15ndash2 student said that writing e-mails to friendsshe made abroad was the only helpful factor and the last SA-15ndash2student said that the third- and fourth-year compositions were simplyeasier to write

It is noteworthy that many (607) of the SA students attributed theirEnglish writing improvement solely or partially to the English classesthey took in Japan As can be seen in Table 2 these students allimproved their English composition scores before going abroad as wellas after coming home The students reported that learning explicitlyhow to write in English (eg learning the idea of a topic sentence) andpracticing writing different types of texts (usually a paragraph long) inthese classes was useful

Similarly the 19 SA students who attributed their score increase atleast partially to their overseas L2 writing classes also added that theexperiences of learning how to write and having to write a lot and oftenoverseas were helpful However compared with the assignmentsrequired by their English classes in Japan the writing assignmentsrequired by their overseas classes were much more demanding Forexample in her first semester in the United States Eri an SA-8ndash11student took four classes two of which required writing papers In theESL writing class she learned how to organize effective paragraphs andwrote 4 two-page essays and 1 seven-page essay In her other class(Elementary Education) she wrote a total of 6 two-page papers In her

92 TESOL QUARTERLY

English classes in Japan she never wrote so much and so often (she onlywrote four paragraphs per semester at the maximum)

These SA studentsrsquo accounts concur with the findings of previouscross-sectional and longitudinal studies (eg Kobayashi amp Rinnert2001) in that the two factors of L2 writing metaknowledge and practiceinfluenced L2 writing development Given the greater percentages ofthe SA-4 (57) and SA-8ndash11 students (100) who attributed theirEnglish writing improvement at least partially to their overseas classescompared with the SA-15ndash2 students (333) and given that the SA-4and SA 8ndash11 groups improved significantly more than the SA-15ndash2group we could further speculate that long and intensive practice wasprobably a crucial factor in significantly improving these studentsrsquo L2writing By contrast as mentioned above many AH students felt thattheir English writing ability fell below their first-year level because theyhad fewer English classes during their fourth year This is especiallynoteworthy when we recall that many of the SA students whose scoresincreased for their fourth-year compositions also had fewer Englishclasses after becoming fourth-year students (Table 1) Consequentlydespite what they claimed the perceived and actual deterioration in theAH studentsrsquo L2 writing ability in the fourth year might be betterexplained by their low motivation rather than by the reduction in L2contact hours

L2 Writing Motivation

Tables 3andash3d present the four groupsrsquo changes in the relevantcomponents of the revised version of the research scheme of Yang et al(2004 see the Method section) Presented here are the tendenciesshared by more than 40 of the members of each group I did notinclude the components of rules and division of labor from Engestromrsquos(1987) expanded activity system because as in Yang et al in theparticipantsrsquo activity of studying L2 writing over 35 years the rule (iehow to write in the academic genre) and the division of labor (ie theparticipants studied and the teachers taught) were unchanged

Table 3a shows the characteristics of the four groupsrsquo L2 writingmotivation when they were first-year students Under the column forObject the four groups were all motivated to improve some aspects(mainly grammar vocabulary and quantity) of their L2 writing Theonly difference is that as can be seen in the column Mediating artifact(ie what was involved in the participantsrsquo trying to attain their objects)667 of the AH group reported doing nothing to improve their L2writing whereas all the other groups used textbooks dictionaries andteachers to achieve their goals Using Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) process

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 93

model of L2 motivation we can say that all four groups set some lsquolsquogoalsrsquorsquoor lsquolsquointentionsrsquorsquo (p 48) for improving their L2 writing but the AH groupremained in the lsquolsquopreactional phasersquorsquo (p 48) whereas the other threegroups crossed the lsquolsquometaphorical lsquoRubiconrsquo of actionrsquorsquo (p 57) In factmore than half of the AH students continued to do nothing to improvetheir L2 writing until their fourth year (as shown in Tables 3a to 3d)Such constantly low motivation in the AH group helps to explain whytheir L2 composition scores decreased below their first-year level whilethe other three groupsrsquo scores did not over the 35 years of myobservation period (seen in Table 2)

The four groupsrsquo characteristics (presented in Table 3b) for theirsecond year were similar to those for their first year except that 19(679) of the 28 SA students had an SA experience starting during thatyear (ie they experienced ESL classes as their L2-related actualcommunities) This probably influenced their subsequent motivationalbehavior for L2 writing One noticeable consequence of such influenceis that many members of the three SA groups in their third and fourth

TABLE 3a

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Artifact Components in First Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

community

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

Non-L2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity Outcome

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)

vocabulary(556)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)

vocabulary(887)quantity(444)

confidence(444)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(714)

vocabulary(857)quantity(429)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(714)

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(917)quantity(417)

EFL classes(100)

Note Descriptions in Tables 3andash3d are given if they were shared by more than 40 of theparticipants EFL 5 English as a foreign language

94 TESOL QUARTERLY

years in university formed some kind of L2-related imagined commu-nities that had not existed before That is after they became third-yearstudents when they had to write academic texts in the L2 as required intheir English classes many of them came to imagine communities wherepeople used L2 for actual communicative purposes Tables 3c and 3dshow how this imagined communitiesrsquo idea played out during their thirdand fourth years of study

Looking across these two tables for example many SA-15ndash2 groupmembers (667 in their fourth year) kept in touch with the L1 or L2English-speaking friends they had made while abroad and correspondedwith them in English through e-mail andor internet chat afterreturning to Japan In such correspondence the SA-15ndash2 studentsoften expressed the wish that they could still be among these pen pals inthe same English-speaking places where they had once studied and theytalked with their pen pals about topics (eg the basketball team of thetown) related to these places We can call such places imaginedcommunities because they were no longer physically accessible to thestudents6 The SA-15ndash2 students all felt that corresponding with these

TABLE 3b

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Second Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2 writingability

Improved Decreased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabulary(444)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

556 444

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabulary(667)Quantity(444)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

889 0

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(571)Vocabulary(571)Quantity(429)

Textbook-s refer-encebooks(571)

ESL classes(100 for4 months)

714 286

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(50)Quantity(417)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(50)

ESL classes(583 for8ndash11months)

100

EFL classes(100)

Note 12 5 second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 95

cybernet pen pals was useful for improving their English writing abilityIn fact writing good e-mails even became one of their major L2 writinggoals in their fourth year (as shown in Table 3d)

Similarly by their fourth year all members of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11groups communicated with overseas friends through e-mail or online chatand imagined during such cybernet correspondence the communities

TABLE 3c

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Third Year

Group Object

Medi-ating

artifact

L2-relatedactual com-

munity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2writing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(556)Vocabu-lary(556)

None(555)

EFL classes(100)

111 667

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabu-lary(444)Quantity(444)

E-mail oronlinechatting(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(444)

333 556

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Vocabu-lary(100)

Teachers(444)Textboo-ks(714)

EFL classes(100)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(857) ESLclasses(714)

857Motivatedto write be-tter in L2(857)

143

Organiza-tion(429)Planning(429)Content(857)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Grammar(583)Vocabu-lary (75)Content(667)

TOEICTOEFL(417)

ESL classes(417 for8ndash11months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(583) ESLclasses(583)

917 83

English-L1friends(417)

EFL classes(100)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(75)

Note TOEIC 5 Test of English for International Communication TOEFL 5 Test of English as aForeign Language

6 My interpretation of the term imagined community is thus different from that of otherresearchers who assume that the imagined communities should be physically located inplaces where the students have never been (eg Kinginger 2004)

96 TESOL QUARTERLY

TABLE 3d

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Fourth Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommun-

ity

Outcome L2 writ-ing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH (n5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabu-lary (556)

None(556)

EFLclasses(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(667)

667 333LostinterestinstudyingL2 writ-ing(778)

SA-15ndash2(n 59)

Grammar(778)Vocabulary(667)How towrite e-mailletters(667)

E-mail oronline chat-ting (667)

ESLclasses(112)-EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(667)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(555)

667 222

SA-4(n 57)

Vocabulary(714)

TOEIC orSTEP Test(714)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(857)

714Motivatedto writebetterin L2(857)

143

ESL classes(714)

SA-8ndash11 (n5 12)

Content(833)

Self-directedwriting(583)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(833)

833 167

Vocabulary(667)Grammar(50)

Dictionaryreferencebooks(583)

ESL classes(917)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(833)

Note STEP 5 Society for Testing English Proficiency

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 97

they had once shared with these friends However when they wroteacademic texts in English none of them thought about such correspon-dence Instead 714 of the SA-4 group and 917 of the SA-8ndash11 groupimagined how they had written in ESL and other regular subject classesthey took while abroad (see Table 3d) In contrast no SA-15ndash2 groupmember imagined such overseas classes when writing L2 academic textsThey simply drew on their experiences of how they could best respond totheir cybernet pen pals in such cases This difference between the SA-15ndash-2 group and the pair of SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups can be attributed to thefact that the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups experienced not only moreopportunities to write but also a longer duration of overseas classes thanthe SA-15ndash2 group

As mentioned earlier in these classes the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 studentslearned how to organize effective compositions and they wrote varioustypes of texts (eg term papers summaries) When they firstencountered writing assignments in these classes many were shockedto find that they could not write as well as their classmates includingother international students because none of them had ever learnedhow to write English texts longer than a paragraph After having readrelevant literature and written multiple drafts however they learnedhow to achieve higher grades Fourteen (737) out of the 19 SA-4 andSA-8ndash11 students also mentioned that the teachersrsquo praise (one of thepotential motivational influences for the postactional phase in Dornyeiand Ottorsquos 1998 model p 61) further encouraged them Drawing onthese episodes motivated the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students to write betteracademic texts even after returning home as shown in Sachirsquoscomments from her late-fourth-year interview

ExampleSachi who spent 11 months in the United States is talking about her

first in-class test essay in a psychology class in the United States whereshe was the only international student (All accounts were originally inJapanese and were translated by the author)

Sachi After 30 minutes [for the test] I was told to stop and I thoughtlsquolsquoYou are kidding I have only written three lines This is tragicrsquorsquo(laughter)

Miyuki (laughter)Sachi And then when the test was returned the teacher told me to

study English harder I was shocked because she meant that I shouldstudy English before I could study the content [of the class]

Miyuki OhSachi But the teacher had also made many suggestions on the test

sheet about how I could have written the answer betterMiyuki Oh she is kind isnrsquot sheSachi Yes and because of that I thought I should try harder

98 TESOL QUARTERLY

Miyuki You mean you had to live up to the teacherrsquos expectationsSachi Yes I thought I should try as a Japanese Hooray for Japanese

peopleMiyuki (laughter)Sachi And even now I feel that I should make efforts to write better

when I write [in English]Such motivation seems qualitatively different from the SA-15ndash2

studentsrsquo motivation to simply improve a single aspect of their L2 writing(ie writing messages in cyberspace) This difference in motivation mayalso account for the fact that only the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups weremotivated to improve the content of their L2 writing after their thirdyear (Tables 3c and 3d)

Last as regards their fourth year (Table 3d) the most noticeabledifference from the other years was that many participants formedimagined communities where they hoped to work after they graduatedfrom university This is related to the fact that many of them startedhunting for jobs near the end of their third year They spent thefollowing 6ndash12 months taking exams and being interviewed for the bestpossible jobs they could get Of the 37 participants however only 12students (324 3 AH 1 SA-15ndash2 3 SA-4 and 5 SA-8ndash11) imaginedprofessional communities that were English-related (eg a communityof English teachers) As in their third year many SA students continuedto imagine L2-related communities such as communities imaginedthrough e-mail correspondence or overseas classes when they wrote inEnglish However these communities were not directly related to theirfuture jobs Underlying this phenomenon was the fact that althoughtheir major (British and American Studies) was related to English notmany graduates at this university (only 16 in 2006) actually obtainedemployment directly related to English

Consequently the future-career-related imagined communities ofthese students did not necessarily lead to L2 writing improvement Infact 667 of the AH group and 857 of the SA-4 group showeddecreases in their L2 composition scores and in the late-fourth-yearinterviews all of them attributed this decrease to being busy job-huntingYet seven (583) of the 12 SA-8ndash11 students continued to voluntarilypractice L2 writing even though such activity benefited the future careerof only three of them For example Koji an SA-8ndash11 student who cameback to Japan in the middle of his third year wrote a final report inEnglish for his fourth-year sociology class when the teacher allowed himto do so even though writing the report in English was not required Hisfuture-career-related imagined community was not related to EnglishAnd yet he chose to write in English because he believed that he couldlsquolsquodo a good job if he tried with all the knowledge he had acquired inAmerica and in the subsequent yearsrsquorsquo (from his late-fourth year

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 99

interview) This suggests that the motivations of these students hadbecome more intrinsic or that they had become more autonomouslearners having acquired the ability to lsquolsquoidentify goals formulate theirown goals and change goals to suit their own learning needs andinterestsrsquorsquo (Dickinson 1995 p 167) No other students exhibited suchmotivation throughout the observation period Although it is not clearwhy only some SA-8ndash11 students acquired such learner autonomy theseSA-8ndash11 students are the most likely to keep trying to improve their L2writing ability in the future

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

In this section I summarize the results of this study and present somepractical implications First the AH grouprsquos motivational behaviors overthe 35 years were different from those of the three SA groups in thatfew AH students took concrete action to achieve their goals Despite thislack of strong motivation however the AH grouprsquos L2 writing abilitycontinued to improve around their third year probably because theytook a relatively large number of English classes up to that point(Table 1) To obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree they had to earn creditsfor these classes and one can speculate that such an lsquolsquoincentive value ofthe outcomersquorsquo (Dornyei and Otto 1998 p 53) was the major drivingforce behind their improvement Once the external motivational forceof L2 classes diminished however the students seemed to need toimagine L2-related communities in order to keep improving (Table 2)Furthermore among the three SA groups who formed some kind of L2-related imagined communities after coming home the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups improved their composition scores significantly more than didthe SA-15ndash2 group This might be because these two groups had moreand longer L2 writing practice but also because their imagined L2-related communities were more directly connected to learning theability targeted in the present study (ie academic writing) Lastalthough the reason for this is not clear only the SA-8ndash11 group becameintrinsically motivated and continued to develop despite impedingfourth-year factors such as job hunting

What implications for FL teaching do these results suggest Firstwhen instrumental motivation is in force regular instruction such asproviding students with L2 writing metaknowledge as well as differenttypes of practice can lead to improvement to some degree For a morelasting effect however it may be important for students to constructsome kind of L2-related imagined communities In the present study SAstudentsrsquo overseas experiences were helpful but we know that not all FLstudents can afford to spend time abroad It would be ideal if a way could

100 TESOL QUARTERLY

be found to create L2-related imagined communities without thenecessity of going abroad Yashima and Zenuk-Nishide (2008) reportedone such possibility where Japanese high school students became moremotivated and improved their English proficiency without going abroadby being introduced into lsquolsquoan imagined international communityrsquorsquo (ie amodel lsquolsquoUnited Nationsrsquorsquo p 569) in content-based English classes In asimilar vein preparing an L2 writing curriculum where students canparticipate in such communities through lsquolsquocognitively and emotionallyinvolving contentrsquorsquo (p 570) might be a promising approach in FLsettings

Another suggestion is based on the significant difference inimprovement between the SA-15ndash2 group and the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11pair If teachers want to make their studentsrsquo motivation moreinfluential it would probably be better for the L2-related imaginedcommunities to be accompanied by specific details of skills andknowledge related to the targeted abilities to be improved In the caseof L2 writing for example students must know how to plan and writeeffective compositions in the intended genre Accumulation of suchdeclarative and procedural knowledge would endow the students withwhat Dornyei and Otto (1998) call an lsquolsquointernal model of referencersquorsquo(p 57) which would be especially helpful for realizing preactionalintentions Furthermore such knowledge has to be implementedthrough sufficient and continuous practice to result in a truly significantdifference in output quality Affective support such as teachersrsquo praise isalso important for making the studentsrsquo motivation more enduringIdeally imagined communities should be substantial enough to trans-form dependent learners into autonomous ones so that they keepimproving even when demotivating external factors intervene

CONCLUSION

The present study investigated the long-term effects of varying lengthsof overseas experiences on the L2 writing ability and motivation of 37Japanese university students The study revealed characteristics uniqueto the FL situation For example unlike the ESL learners studied byCumming (2006) some learners took almost no action to achieve theirgoals This was mainly due to the fact that L2 writing improvement wasnot necessary for their social survival In contrast spending some timeoverseas proved helpful not only in enabling the students to improvetheir L2 writing ability but also in maintaining their motivation to writebetter The pedagogical implications presented in the last section of thisarticle can thus be particularly useful for those who study an L2 where itis not used for communicative purposes

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 101

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

related experiences and reasons for changes in their L2 writing ability inorder to better interpret the quantitative data on changes in theparticipantsrsquo L2 composition scores I also analyzed the interview dataabout the participantsrsquo motivational changes for their own sake As Imentioned earlier I adopted Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) definition of L2motivation and I analyzed the participantsrsquo changes in L2 writingmotivation using the research framework of Yang et al (2004) I decidedto employ this framework because it had worked successfully foranalyzing phenomena similar to the ones targeted in the present studyand because it shared with Dornyei and Ottorsquos model two crucialassumptions of methods accommodating sociocultural theory namely(1) that learners are active agents of L2 learning and (2) that L2learning processes can be influenced by various internalexternalfactors

The framework of Yang et al (2004) assumes that L2 learnersrsquothought processes and actions are mediated by artifacts or socioculturalentities when the participants as subjects operate on the object of learningL2 writing As Yang et al explain (p 15)

To take an example of second language (L2) learning a student (subject) in an ESLclass aims to improve her competence in academic English writing (object) Thisstudent may follow the teacherrsquos instruction do assignments read a textbook talk withfriends surf the Internet refer to dictionaries and so on (mediating artifacts) After aperiod of practice this student may achieve her goal such as getting a high grade on heressays (outcome) This activity happens in the ESL class (community) and thestudent intends to grasp the conventions of academic English writing (rules) In thisESL class the teacher provides model instruction gives assignments and offersfeedback and students follow their teacher and do the assignments (division of labor)

In addition to the original categories used by Yang et al (2004) Iincluded two more categories in the present study Imagined L2-relatedcommunity and Imagined non-L2-related community I did this becausein the process of analyzing the interview data I realized that thesecategories were also important for understanding the participantsrsquomotivational changes Subsequently I changed the term community inthe scheme of Yang et al to actual L2-related community to distinguish itfrom the two imagined communities For the term imagined community Ifollowed Kanno and Nortonrsquos (2003 p 241) definition of lsquolsquogroups ofpeople not immediately tangible and accessible with whom we connectthrough the power of imaginationrsquorsquo

In the framework of Yang et al (2004) we can assume that lsquolsquoobjectrsquorsquocorresponds to lsquolsquogoalrsquorsquo or lsquolsquointentionrsquorsquo in the lsquolsquopreactional phrasersquorsquo ofDornyei and Ottorsquos (1998 p 48) model If the subject actually tries toaccomplish hisher object through a range of mediating artifacts we can

90 TESOL QUARTERLY

say that heshe actually launches into what Dornyei and Otto (p 48) callthe lsquolsquoactional phasersquorsquo The other components of community imaginedcommunity and division of labor can form what Dornyei and Otto(p 48) call the lsquolsquomotivational influencesrsquorsquo affecting the studentrsquosmotivational behavior

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

L2 Writing Ability

I first present changes in the participantsrsquo L2 composition scores fordescriptive purposes I then present the results of an analysis of variance(ANOVA) to display the degree of change between the early-first-yearand mid-fourth-year periods using SPSS Version 61 (SPSS 1994)However because of the small sample sizes the results of the ANOVAanalyses should not be generalized

As shown in Table 2 the four groupsrsquo scores increased until theirsecond year but the AH grouprsquos score then decreased and even droppedbelow their first-year level in their fourth-year composition By contrastthe three SA groupsrsquo fourth-year composition scores were all higher thanthose of their first-year compositions but the SA-8ndash11 group was the onlyone that continually improved until the fourth year A two-way ANOVAcomparing the differences across the four groups between their first andfourth years indicated a significant interaction between time and groupeffects [F (3 33) 5 743 p 0001]

The results of subsequent post-hoc simple effects analysis andmultiple comparisons (Tanaka amp Yamagiwa 1992) revealed thefollowing First when the students were in their first year there wasno difference across the four groups except that the SA-4 grouprsquoscomposition scores were significantly higher than those of the SA-15ndash2group (mean square error (MSE) 5 23340 p 005) In the fourthyear the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groupsrsquo scores were significantly higher than

TABLE 2

Mean Total Composition Scores (Total Possible 5 200) at Four Observation Times

GroupEarly-1st-Year

M (SD)Mid-2nd-Year

M (SD)Mid-3rd-Year

M (SD)Late-4th-Year

M (SD)

AH (n 5 9) 13056 (1201) 13711 (1431) 13500 (1493) 12822(1044)SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

11644 (1837) 13178 (1821) 13056 (1549) 13389 (2097)

SA-4 (n 5 7) 13814 (1328) 14657 (1003) 16900 (707) 16143 (960)SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

13058 (1377) 15200 (1245) 15817 (1996) 16175 (859)

Note M 5 mean SD 5 standard deviation

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 91

those of the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups but there was no significantdifference between the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups or between the SA-4and the SA-8ndash11 groups (MSE 5 19607 p 005) Furthermore thethree SA groups significantly improved their composition scores over the35 years whereas the AH group did not F (1 33) 5 1009 p 001 forthe SA-15ndash2 group F (1 33) 5 1798 p 001 for the SA-4 group and F(1 33) 5 322 p 001 for the SA-8ndash11 group

At the individual level English composition scores for four of the nineAH students decreased over the 35 years and scores for the other fivestudents increased slightly Two of these five students mentioned thatEnglish classes at the Japanese university were helpful in learning towrite better However the other seven students (777) including thethree whose composition scores increased slightly felt that their Englishwriting ability deteriorated below their first-year level because from theirfourth year onward they took fewer English classes By contrast all ofthe SA studentsrsquo English composition scores improved over the 35 yearsFour SA-15ndash2 and three SA-4 students attributed this improvementmainly to the English writing classes they took at the Japanese universityOne SA-15ndash2 four SA-4 and four SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to theEnglish writing classes they took abroad and two SA-15ndash2 students andeight SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to the classes they took both in Japanand abroad Another SA-15ndash2 student said that writing e-mails to friendsshe made abroad was the only helpful factor and the last SA-15ndash2student said that the third- and fourth-year compositions were simplyeasier to write

It is noteworthy that many (607) of the SA students attributed theirEnglish writing improvement solely or partially to the English classesthey took in Japan As can be seen in Table 2 these students allimproved their English composition scores before going abroad as wellas after coming home The students reported that learning explicitlyhow to write in English (eg learning the idea of a topic sentence) andpracticing writing different types of texts (usually a paragraph long) inthese classes was useful

Similarly the 19 SA students who attributed their score increase atleast partially to their overseas L2 writing classes also added that theexperiences of learning how to write and having to write a lot and oftenoverseas were helpful However compared with the assignmentsrequired by their English classes in Japan the writing assignmentsrequired by their overseas classes were much more demanding Forexample in her first semester in the United States Eri an SA-8ndash11student took four classes two of which required writing papers In theESL writing class she learned how to organize effective paragraphs andwrote 4 two-page essays and 1 seven-page essay In her other class(Elementary Education) she wrote a total of 6 two-page papers In her

92 TESOL QUARTERLY

English classes in Japan she never wrote so much and so often (she onlywrote four paragraphs per semester at the maximum)

These SA studentsrsquo accounts concur with the findings of previouscross-sectional and longitudinal studies (eg Kobayashi amp Rinnert2001) in that the two factors of L2 writing metaknowledge and practiceinfluenced L2 writing development Given the greater percentages ofthe SA-4 (57) and SA-8ndash11 students (100) who attributed theirEnglish writing improvement at least partially to their overseas classescompared with the SA-15ndash2 students (333) and given that the SA-4and SA 8ndash11 groups improved significantly more than the SA-15ndash2group we could further speculate that long and intensive practice wasprobably a crucial factor in significantly improving these studentsrsquo L2writing By contrast as mentioned above many AH students felt thattheir English writing ability fell below their first-year level because theyhad fewer English classes during their fourth year This is especiallynoteworthy when we recall that many of the SA students whose scoresincreased for their fourth-year compositions also had fewer Englishclasses after becoming fourth-year students (Table 1) Consequentlydespite what they claimed the perceived and actual deterioration in theAH studentsrsquo L2 writing ability in the fourth year might be betterexplained by their low motivation rather than by the reduction in L2contact hours

L2 Writing Motivation

Tables 3andash3d present the four groupsrsquo changes in the relevantcomponents of the revised version of the research scheme of Yang et al(2004 see the Method section) Presented here are the tendenciesshared by more than 40 of the members of each group I did notinclude the components of rules and division of labor from Engestromrsquos(1987) expanded activity system because as in Yang et al in theparticipantsrsquo activity of studying L2 writing over 35 years the rule (iehow to write in the academic genre) and the division of labor (ie theparticipants studied and the teachers taught) were unchanged

Table 3a shows the characteristics of the four groupsrsquo L2 writingmotivation when they were first-year students Under the column forObject the four groups were all motivated to improve some aspects(mainly grammar vocabulary and quantity) of their L2 writing Theonly difference is that as can be seen in the column Mediating artifact(ie what was involved in the participantsrsquo trying to attain their objects)667 of the AH group reported doing nothing to improve their L2writing whereas all the other groups used textbooks dictionaries andteachers to achieve their goals Using Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) process

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 93

model of L2 motivation we can say that all four groups set some lsquolsquogoalsrsquorsquoor lsquolsquointentionsrsquorsquo (p 48) for improving their L2 writing but the AH groupremained in the lsquolsquopreactional phasersquorsquo (p 48) whereas the other threegroups crossed the lsquolsquometaphorical lsquoRubiconrsquo of actionrsquorsquo (p 57) In factmore than half of the AH students continued to do nothing to improvetheir L2 writing until their fourth year (as shown in Tables 3a to 3d)Such constantly low motivation in the AH group helps to explain whytheir L2 composition scores decreased below their first-year level whilethe other three groupsrsquo scores did not over the 35 years of myobservation period (seen in Table 2)

The four groupsrsquo characteristics (presented in Table 3b) for theirsecond year were similar to those for their first year except that 19(679) of the 28 SA students had an SA experience starting during thatyear (ie they experienced ESL classes as their L2-related actualcommunities) This probably influenced their subsequent motivationalbehavior for L2 writing One noticeable consequence of such influenceis that many members of the three SA groups in their third and fourth

TABLE 3a

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Artifact Components in First Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

community

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

Non-L2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity Outcome

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)

vocabulary(556)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)

vocabulary(887)quantity(444)

confidence(444)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(714)

vocabulary(857)quantity(429)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(714)

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(917)quantity(417)

EFL classes(100)

Note Descriptions in Tables 3andash3d are given if they were shared by more than 40 of theparticipants EFL 5 English as a foreign language

94 TESOL QUARTERLY

years in university formed some kind of L2-related imagined commu-nities that had not existed before That is after they became third-yearstudents when they had to write academic texts in the L2 as required intheir English classes many of them came to imagine communities wherepeople used L2 for actual communicative purposes Tables 3c and 3dshow how this imagined communitiesrsquo idea played out during their thirdand fourth years of study

Looking across these two tables for example many SA-15ndash2 groupmembers (667 in their fourth year) kept in touch with the L1 or L2English-speaking friends they had made while abroad and correspondedwith them in English through e-mail andor internet chat afterreturning to Japan In such correspondence the SA-15ndash2 studentsoften expressed the wish that they could still be among these pen pals inthe same English-speaking places where they had once studied and theytalked with their pen pals about topics (eg the basketball team of thetown) related to these places We can call such places imaginedcommunities because they were no longer physically accessible to thestudents6 The SA-15ndash2 students all felt that corresponding with these

TABLE 3b

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Second Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2 writingability

Improved Decreased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabulary(444)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

556 444

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabulary(667)Quantity(444)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

889 0

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(571)Vocabulary(571)Quantity(429)

Textbook-s refer-encebooks(571)

ESL classes(100 for4 months)

714 286

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(50)Quantity(417)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(50)

ESL classes(583 for8ndash11months)

100

EFL classes(100)

Note 12 5 second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 95

cybernet pen pals was useful for improving their English writing abilityIn fact writing good e-mails even became one of their major L2 writinggoals in their fourth year (as shown in Table 3d)

Similarly by their fourth year all members of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11groups communicated with overseas friends through e-mail or online chatand imagined during such cybernet correspondence the communities

TABLE 3c

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Third Year

Group Object

Medi-ating

artifact

L2-relatedactual com-

munity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2writing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(556)Vocabu-lary(556)

None(555)

EFL classes(100)

111 667

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabu-lary(444)Quantity(444)

E-mail oronlinechatting(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(444)

333 556

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Vocabu-lary(100)

Teachers(444)Textboo-ks(714)

EFL classes(100)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(857) ESLclasses(714)

857Motivatedto write be-tter in L2(857)

143

Organiza-tion(429)Planning(429)Content(857)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Grammar(583)Vocabu-lary (75)Content(667)

TOEICTOEFL(417)

ESL classes(417 for8ndash11months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(583) ESLclasses(583)

917 83

English-L1friends(417)

EFL classes(100)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(75)

Note TOEIC 5 Test of English for International Communication TOEFL 5 Test of English as aForeign Language

6 My interpretation of the term imagined community is thus different from that of otherresearchers who assume that the imagined communities should be physically located inplaces where the students have never been (eg Kinginger 2004)

96 TESOL QUARTERLY

TABLE 3d

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Fourth Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommun-

ity

Outcome L2 writ-ing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH (n5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabu-lary (556)

None(556)

EFLclasses(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(667)

667 333LostinterestinstudyingL2 writ-ing(778)

SA-15ndash2(n 59)

Grammar(778)Vocabulary(667)How towrite e-mailletters(667)

E-mail oronline chat-ting (667)

ESLclasses(112)-EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(667)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(555)

667 222

SA-4(n 57)

Vocabulary(714)

TOEIC orSTEP Test(714)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(857)

714Motivatedto writebetterin L2(857)

143

ESL classes(714)

SA-8ndash11 (n5 12)

Content(833)

Self-directedwriting(583)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(833)

833 167

Vocabulary(667)Grammar(50)

Dictionaryreferencebooks(583)

ESL classes(917)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(833)

Note STEP 5 Society for Testing English Proficiency

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 97

they had once shared with these friends However when they wroteacademic texts in English none of them thought about such correspon-dence Instead 714 of the SA-4 group and 917 of the SA-8ndash11 groupimagined how they had written in ESL and other regular subject classesthey took while abroad (see Table 3d) In contrast no SA-15ndash2 groupmember imagined such overseas classes when writing L2 academic textsThey simply drew on their experiences of how they could best respond totheir cybernet pen pals in such cases This difference between the SA-15ndash-2 group and the pair of SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups can be attributed to thefact that the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups experienced not only moreopportunities to write but also a longer duration of overseas classes thanthe SA-15ndash2 group

As mentioned earlier in these classes the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 studentslearned how to organize effective compositions and they wrote varioustypes of texts (eg term papers summaries) When they firstencountered writing assignments in these classes many were shockedto find that they could not write as well as their classmates includingother international students because none of them had ever learnedhow to write English texts longer than a paragraph After having readrelevant literature and written multiple drafts however they learnedhow to achieve higher grades Fourteen (737) out of the 19 SA-4 andSA-8ndash11 students also mentioned that the teachersrsquo praise (one of thepotential motivational influences for the postactional phase in Dornyeiand Ottorsquos 1998 model p 61) further encouraged them Drawing onthese episodes motivated the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students to write betteracademic texts even after returning home as shown in Sachirsquoscomments from her late-fourth-year interview

ExampleSachi who spent 11 months in the United States is talking about her

first in-class test essay in a psychology class in the United States whereshe was the only international student (All accounts were originally inJapanese and were translated by the author)

Sachi After 30 minutes [for the test] I was told to stop and I thoughtlsquolsquoYou are kidding I have only written three lines This is tragicrsquorsquo(laughter)

Miyuki (laughter)Sachi And then when the test was returned the teacher told me to

study English harder I was shocked because she meant that I shouldstudy English before I could study the content [of the class]

Miyuki OhSachi But the teacher had also made many suggestions on the test

sheet about how I could have written the answer betterMiyuki Oh she is kind isnrsquot sheSachi Yes and because of that I thought I should try harder

98 TESOL QUARTERLY

Miyuki You mean you had to live up to the teacherrsquos expectationsSachi Yes I thought I should try as a Japanese Hooray for Japanese

peopleMiyuki (laughter)Sachi And even now I feel that I should make efforts to write better

when I write [in English]Such motivation seems qualitatively different from the SA-15ndash2

studentsrsquo motivation to simply improve a single aspect of their L2 writing(ie writing messages in cyberspace) This difference in motivation mayalso account for the fact that only the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups weremotivated to improve the content of their L2 writing after their thirdyear (Tables 3c and 3d)

Last as regards their fourth year (Table 3d) the most noticeabledifference from the other years was that many participants formedimagined communities where they hoped to work after they graduatedfrom university This is related to the fact that many of them startedhunting for jobs near the end of their third year They spent thefollowing 6ndash12 months taking exams and being interviewed for the bestpossible jobs they could get Of the 37 participants however only 12students (324 3 AH 1 SA-15ndash2 3 SA-4 and 5 SA-8ndash11) imaginedprofessional communities that were English-related (eg a communityof English teachers) As in their third year many SA students continuedto imagine L2-related communities such as communities imaginedthrough e-mail correspondence or overseas classes when they wrote inEnglish However these communities were not directly related to theirfuture jobs Underlying this phenomenon was the fact that althoughtheir major (British and American Studies) was related to English notmany graduates at this university (only 16 in 2006) actually obtainedemployment directly related to English

Consequently the future-career-related imagined communities ofthese students did not necessarily lead to L2 writing improvement Infact 667 of the AH group and 857 of the SA-4 group showeddecreases in their L2 composition scores and in the late-fourth-yearinterviews all of them attributed this decrease to being busy job-huntingYet seven (583) of the 12 SA-8ndash11 students continued to voluntarilypractice L2 writing even though such activity benefited the future careerof only three of them For example Koji an SA-8ndash11 student who cameback to Japan in the middle of his third year wrote a final report inEnglish for his fourth-year sociology class when the teacher allowed himto do so even though writing the report in English was not required Hisfuture-career-related imagined community was not related to EnglishAnd yet he chose to write in English because he believed that he couldlsquolsquodo a good job if he tried with all the knowledge he had acquired inAmerica and in the subsequent yearsrsquorsquo (from his late-fourth year

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 99

interview) This suggests that the motivations of these students hadbecome more intrinsic or that they had become more autonomouslearners having acquired the ability to lsquolsquoidentify goals formulate theirown goals and change goals to suit their own learning needs andinterestsrsquorsquo (Dickinson 1995 p 167) No other students exhibited suchmotivation throughout the observation period Although it is not clearwhy only some SA-8ndash11 students acquired such learner autonomy theseSA-8ndash11 students are the most likely to keep trying to improve their L2writing ability in the future

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

In this section I summarize the results of this study and present somepractical implications First the AH grouprsquos motivational behaviors overthe 35 years were different from those of the three SA groups in thatfew AH students took concrete action to achieve their goals Despite thislack of strong motivation however the AH grouprsquos L2 writing abilitycontinued to improve around their third year probably because theytook a relatively large number of English classes up to that point(Table 1) To obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree they had to earn creditsfor these classes and one can speculate that such an lsquolsquoincentive value ofthe outcomersquorsquo (Dornyei and Otto 1998 p 53) was the major drivingforce behind their improvement Once the external motivational forceof L2 classes diminished however the students seemed to need toimagine L2-related communities in order to keep improving (Table 2)Furthermore among the three SA groups who formed some kind of L2-related imagined communities after coming home the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups improved their composition scores significantly more than didthe SA-15ndash2 group This might be because these two groups had moreand longer L2 writing practice but also because their imagined L2-related communities were more directly connected to learning theability targeted in the present study (ie academic writing) Lastalthough the reason for this is not clear only the SA-8ndash11 group becameintrinsically motivated and continued to develop despite impedingfourth-year factors such as job hunting

What implications for FL teaching do these results suggest Firstwhen instrumental motivation is in force regular instruction such asproviding students with L2 writing metaknowledge as well as differenttypes of practice can lead to improvement to some degree For a morelasting effect however it may be important for students to constructsome kind of L2-related imagined communities In the present study SAstudentsrsquo overseas experiences were helpful but we know that not all FLstudents can afford to spend time abroad It would be ideal if a way could

100 TESOL QUARTERLY

be found to create L2-related imagined communities without thenecessity of going abroad Yashima and Zenuk-Nishide (2008) reportedone such possibility where Japanese high school students became moremotivated and improved their English proficiency without going abroadby being introduced into lsquolsquoan imagined international communityrsquorsquo (ie amodel lsquolsquoUnited Nationsrsquorsquo p 569) in content-based English classes In asimilar vein preparing an L2 writing curriculum where students canparticipate in such communities through lsquolsquocognitively and emotionallyinvolving contentrsquorsquo (p 570) might be a promising approach in FLsettings

Another suggestion is based on the significant difference inimprovement between the SA-15ndash2 group and the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11pair If teachers want to make their studentsrsquo motivation moreinfluential it would probably be better for the L2-related imaginedcommunities to be accompanied by specific details of skills andknowledge related to the targeted abilities to be improved In the caseof L2 writing for example students must know how to plan and writeeffective compositions in the intended genre Accumulation of suchdeclarative and procedural knowledge would endow the students withwhat Dornyei and Otto (1998) call an lsquolsquointernal model of referencersquorsquo(p 57) which would be especially helpful for realizing preactionalintentions Furthermore such knowledge has to be implementedthrough sufficient and continuous practice to result in a truly significantdifference in output quality Affective support such as teachersrsquo praise isalso important for making the studentsrsquo motivation more enduringIdeally imagined communities should be substantial enough to trans-form dependent learners into autonomous ones so that they keepimproving even when demotivating external factors intervene

CONCLUSION

The present study investigated the long-term effects of varying lengthsof overseas experiences on the L2 writing ability and motivation of 37Japanese university students The study revealed characteristics uniqueto the FL situation For example unlike the ESL learners studied byCumming (2006) some learners took almost no action to achieve theirgoals This was mainly due to the fact that L2 writing improvement wasnot necessary for their social survival In contrast spending some timeoverseas proved helpful not only in enabling the students to improvetheir L2 writing ability but also in maintaining their motivation to writebetter The pedagogical implications presented in the last section of thisarticle can thus be particularly useful for those who study an L2 where itis not used for communicative purposes

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 101

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

say that heshe actually launches into what Dornyei and Otto (p 48) callthe lsquolsquoactional phasersquorsquo The other components of community imaginedcommunity and division of labor can form what Dornyei and Otto(p 48) call the lsquolsquomotivational influencesrsquorsquo affecting the studentrsquosmotivational behavior

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

L2 Writing Ability

I first present changes in the participantsrsquo L2 composition scores fordescriptive purposes I then present the results of an analysis of variance(ANOVA) to display the degree of change between the early-first-yearand mid-fourth-year periods using SPSS Version 61 (SPSS 1994)However because of the small sample sizes the results of the ANOVAanalyses should not be generalized

As shown in Table 2 the four groupsrsquo scores increased until theirsecond year but the AH grouprsquos score then decreased and even droppedbelow their first-year level in their fourth-year composition By contrastthe three SA groupsrsquo fourth-year composition scores were all higher thanthose of their first-year compositions but the SA-8ndash11 group was the onlyone that continually improved until the fourth year A two-way ANOVAcomparing the differences across the four groups between their first andfourth years indicated a significant interaction between time and groupeffects [F (3 33) 5 743 p 0001]

The results of subsequent post-hoc simple effects analysis andmultiple comparisons (Tanaka amp Yamagiwa 1992) revealed thefollowing First when the students were in their first year there wasno difference across the four groups except that the SA-4 grouprsquoscomposition scores were significantly higher than those of the SA-15ndash2group (mean square error (MSE) 5 23340 p 005) In the fourthyear the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groupsrsquo scores were significantly higher than

TABLE 2

Mean Total Composition Scores (Total Possible 5 200) at Four Observation Times

GroupEarly-1st-Year

M (SD)Mid-2nd-Year

M (SD)Mid-3rd-Year

M (SD)Late-4th-Year

M (SD)

AH (n 5 9) 13056 (1201) 13711 (1431) 13500 (1493) 12822(1044)SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

11644 (1837) 13178 (1821) 13056 (1549) 13389 (2097)

SA-4 (n 5 7) 13814 (1328) 14657 (1003) 16900 (707) 16143 (960)SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

13058 (1377) 15200 (1245) 15817 (1996) 16175 (859)

Note M 5 mean SD 5 standard deviation

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 91

those of the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups but there was no significantdifference between the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups or between the SA-4and the SA-8ndash11 groups (MSE 5 19607 p 005) Furthermore thethree SA groups significantly improved their composition scores over the35 years whereas the AH group did not F (1 33) 5 1009 p 001 forthe SA-15ndash2 group F (1 33) 5 1798 p 001 for the SA-4 group and F(1 33) 5 322 p 001 for the SA-8ndash11 group

At the individual level English composition scores for four of the nineAH students decreased over the 35 years and scores for the other fivestudents increased slightly Two of these five students mentioned thatEnglish classes at the Japanese university were helpful in learning towrite better However the other seven students (777) including thethree whose composition scores increased slightly felt that their Englishwriting ability deteriorated below their first-year level because from theirfourth year onward they took fewer English classes By contrast all ofthe SA studentsrsquo English composition scores improved over the 35 yearsFour SA-15ndash2 and three SA-4 students attributed this improvementmainly to the English writing classes they took at the Japanese universityOne SA-15ndash2 four SA-4 and four SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to theEnglish writing classes they took abroad and two SA-15ndash2 students andeight SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to the classes they took both in Japanand abroad Another SA-15ndash2 student said that writing e-mails to friendsshe made abroad was the only helpful factor and the last SA-15ndash2student said that the third- and fourth-year compositions were simplyeasier to write

It is noteworthy that many (607) of the SA students attributed theirEnglish writing improvement solely or partially to the English classesthey took in Japan As can be seen in Table 2 these students allimproved their English composition scores before going abroad as wellas after coming home The students reported that learning explicitlyhow to write in English (eg learning the idea of a topic sentence) andpracticing writing different types of texts (usually a paragraph long) inthese classes was useful

Similarly the 19 SA students who attributed their score increase atleast partially to their overseas L2 writing classes also added that theexperiences of learning how to write and having to write a lot and oftenoverseas were helpful However compared with the assignmentsrequired by their English classes in Japan the writing assignmentsrequired by their overseas classes were much more demanding Forexample in her first semester in the United States Eri an SA-8ndash11student took four classes two of which required writing papers In theESL writing class she learned how to organize effective paragraphs andwrote 4 two-page essays and 1 seven-page essay In her other class(Elementary Education) she wrote a total of 6 two-page papers In her

92 TESOL QUARTERLY

English classes in Japan she never wrote so much and so often (she onlywrote four paragraphs per semester at the maximum)

These SA studentsrsquo accounts concur with the findings of previouscross-sectional and longitudinal studies (eg Kobayashi amp Rinnert2001) in that the two factors of L2 writing metaknowledge and practiceinfluenced L2 writing development Given the greater percentages ofthe SA-4 (57) and SA-8ndash11 students (100) who attributed theirEnglish writing improvement at least partially to their overseas classescompared with the SA-15ndash2 students (333) and given that the SA-4and SA 8ndash11 groups improved significantly more than the SA-15ndash2group we could further speculate that long and intensive practice wasprobably a crucial factor in significantly improving these studentsrsquo L2writing By contrast as mentioned above many AH students felt thattheir English writing ability fell below their first-year level because theyhad fewer English classes during their fourth year This is especiallynoteworthy when we recall that many of the SA students whose scoresincreased for their fourth-year compositions also had fewer Englishclasses after becoming fourth-year students (Table 1) Consequentlydespite what they claimed the perceived and actual deterioration in theAH studentsrsquo L2 writing ability in the fourth year might be betterexplained by their low motivation rather than by the reduction in L2contact hours

L2 Writing Motivation

Tables 3andash3d present the four groupsrsquo changes in the relevantcomponents of the revised version of the research scheme of Yang et al(2004 see the Method section) Presented here are the tendenciesshared by more than 40 of the members of each group I did notinclude the components of rules and division of labor from Engestromrsquos(1987) expanded activity system because as in Yang et al in theparticipantsrsquo activity of studying L2 writing over 35 years the rule (iehow to write in the academic genre) and the division of labor (ie theparticipants studied and the teachers taught) were unchanged

Table 3a shows the characteristics of the four groupsrsquo L2 writingmotivation when they were first-year students Under the column forObject the four groups were all motivated to improve some aspects(mainly grammar vocabulary and quantity) of their L2 writing Theonly difference is that as can be seen in the column Mediating artifact(ie what was involved in the participantsrsquo trying to attain their objects)667 of the AH group reported doing nothing to improve their L2writing whereas all the other groups used textbooks dictionaries andteachers to achieve their goals Using Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) process

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 93

model of L2 motivation we can say that all four groups set some lsquolsquogoalsrsquorsquoor lsquolsquointentionsrsquorsquo (p 48) for improving their L2 writing but the AH groupremained in the lsquolsquopreactional phasersquorsquo (p 48) whereas the other threegroups crossed the lsquolsquometaphorical lsquoRubiconrsquo of actionrsquorsquo (p 57) In factmore than half of the AH students continued to do nothing to improvetheir L2 writing until their fourth year (as shown in Tables 3a to 3d)Such constantly low motivation in the AH group helps to explain whytheir L2 composition scores decreased below their first-year level whilethe other three groupsrsquo scores did not over the 35 years of myobservation period (seen in Table 2)

The four groupsrsquo characteristics (presented in Table 3b) for theirsecond year were similar to those for their first year except that 19(679) of the 28 SA students had an SA experience starting during thatyear (ie they experienced ESL classes as their L2-related actualcommunities) This probably influenced their subsequent motivationalbehavior for L2 writing One noticeable consequence of such influenceis that many members of the three SA groups in their third and fourth

TABLE 3a

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Artifact Components in First Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

community

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

Non-L2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity Outcome

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)

vocabulary(556)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)

vocabulary(887)quantity(444)

confidence(444)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(714)

vocabulary(857)quantity(429)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(714)

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(917)quantity(417)

EFL classes(100)

Note Descriptions in Tables 3andash3d are given if they were shared by more than 40 of theparticipants EFL 5 English as a foreign language

94 TESOL QUARTERLY

years in university formed some kind of L2-related imagined commu-nities that had not existed before That is after they became third-yearstudents when they had to write academic texts in the L2 as required intheir English classes many of them came to imagine communities wherepeople used L2 for actual communicative purposes Tables 3c and 3dshow how this imagined communitiesrsquo idea played out during their thirdand fourth years of study

Looking across these two tables for example many SA-15ndash2 groupmembers (667 in their fourth year) kept in touch with the L1 or L2English-speaking friends they had made while abroad and correspondedwith them in English through e-mail andor internet chat afterreturning to Japan In such correspondence the SA-15ndash2 studentsoften expressed the wish that they could still be among these pen pals inthe same English-speaking places where they had once studied and theytalked with their pen pals about topics (eg the basketball team of thetown) related to these places We can call such places imaginedcommunities because they were no longer physically accessible to thestudents6 The SA-15ndash2 students all felt that corresponding with these

TABLE 3b

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Second Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2 writingability

Improved Decreased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabulary(444)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

556 444

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabulary(667)Quantity(444)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

889 0

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(571)Vocabulary(571)Quantity(429)

Textbook-s refer-encebooks(571)

ESL classes(100 for4 months)

714 286

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(50)Quantity(417)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(50)

ESL classes(583 for8ndash11months)

100

EFL classes(100)

Note 12 5 second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 95

cybernet pen pals was useful for improving their English writing abilityIn fact writing good e-mails even became one of their major L2 writinggoals in their fourth year (as shown in Table 3d)

Similarly by their fourth year all members of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11groups communicated with overseas friends through e-mail or online chatand imagined during such cybernet correspondence the communities

TABLE 3c

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Third Year

Group Object

Medi-ating

artifact

L2-relatedactual com-

munity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2writing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(556)Vocabu-lary(556)

None(555)

EFL classes(100)

111 667

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabu-lary(444)Quantity(444)

E-mail oronlinechatting(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(444)

333 556

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Vocabu-lary(100)

Teachers(444)Textboo-ks(714)

EFL classes(100)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(857) ESLclasses(714)

857Motivatedto write be-tter in L2(857)

143

Organiza-tion(429)Planning(429)Content(857)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Grammar(583)Vocabu-lary (75)Content(667)

TOEICTOEFL(417)

ESL classes(417 for8ndash11months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(583) ESLclasses(583)

917 83

English-L1friends(417)

EFL classes(100)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(75)

Note TOEIC 5 Test of English for International Communication TOEFL 5 Test of English as aForeign Language

6 My interpretation of the term imagined community is thus different from that of otherresearchers who assume that the imagined communities should be physically located inplaces where the students have never been (eg Kinginger 2004)

96 TESOL QUARTERLY

TABLE 3d

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Fourth Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommun-

ity

Outcome L2 writ-ing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH (n5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabu-lary (556)

None(556)

EFLclasses(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(667)

667 333LostinterestinstudyingL2 writ-ing(778)

SA-15ndash2(n 59)

Grammar(778)Vocabulary(667)How towrite e-mailletters(667)

E-mail oronline chat-ting (667)

ESLclasses(112)-EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(667)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(555)

667 222

SA-4(n 57)

Vocabulary(714)

TOEIC orSTEP Test(714)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(857)

714Motivatedto writebetterin L2(857)

143

ESL classes(714)

SA-8ndash11 (n5 12)

Content(833)

Self-directedwriting(583)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(833)

833 167

Vocabulary(667)Grammar(50)

Dictionaryreferencebooks(583)

ESL classes(917)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(833)

Note STEP 5 Society for Testing English Proficiency

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 97

they had once shared with these friends However when they wroteacademic texts in English none of them thought about such correspon-dence Instead 714 of the SA-4 group and 917 of the SA-8ndash11 groupimagined how they had written in ESL and other regular subject classesthey took while abroad (see Table 3d) In contrast no SA-15ndash2 groupmember imagined such overseas classes when writing L2 academic textsThey simply drew on their experiences of how they could best respond totheir cybernet pen pals in such cases This difference between the SA-15ndash-2 group and the pair of SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups can be attributed to thefact that the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups experienced not only moreopportunities to write but also a longer duration of overseas classes thanthe SA-15ndash2 group

As mentioned earlier in these classes the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 studentslearned how to organize effective compositions and they wrote varioustypes of texts (eg term papers summaries) When they firstencountered writing assignments in these classes many were shockedto find that they could not write as well as their classmates includingother international students because none of them had ever learnedhow to write English texts longer than a paragraph After having readrelevant literature and written multiple drafts however they learnedhow to achieve higher grades Fourteen (737) out of the 19 SA-4 andSA-8ndash11 students also mentioned that the teachersrsquo praise (one of thepotential motivational influences for the postactional phase in Dornyeiand Ottorsquos 1998 model p 61) further encouraged them Drawing onthese episodes motivated the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students to write betteracademic texts even after returning home as shown in Sachirsquoscomments from her late-fourth-year interview

ExampleSachi who spent 11 months in the United States is talking about her

first in-class test essay in a psychology class in the United States whereshe was the only international student (All accounts were originally inJapanese and were translated by the author)

Sachi After 30 minutes [for the test] I was told to stop and I thoughtlsquolsquoYou are kidding I have only written three lines This is tragicrsquorsquo(laughter)

Miyuki (laughter)Sachi And then when the test was returned the teacher told me to

study English harder I was shocked because she meant that I shouldstudy English before I could study the content [of the class]

Miyuki OhSachi But the teacher had also made many suggestions on the test

sheet about how I could have written the answer betterMiyuki Oh she is kind isnrsquot sheSachi Yes and because of that I thought I should try harder

98 TESOL QUARTERLY

Miyuki You mean you had to live up to the teacherrsquos expectationsSachi Yes I thought I should try as a Japanese Hooray for Japanese

peopleMiyuki (laughter)Sachi And even now I feel that I should make efforts to write better

when I write [in English]Such motivation seems qualitatively different from the SA-15ndash2

studentsrsquo motivation to simply improve a single aspect of their L2 writing(ie writing messages in cyberspace) This difference in motivation mayalso account for the fact that only the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups weremotivated to improve the content of their L2 writing after their thirdyear (Tables 3c and 3d)

Last as regards their fourth year (Table 3d) the most noticeabledifference from the other years was that many participants formedimagined communities where they hoped to work after they graduatedfrom university This is related to the fact that many of them startedhunting for jobs near the end of their third year They spent thefollowing 6ndash12 months taking exams and being interviewed for the bestpossible jobs they could get Of the 37 participants however only 12students (324 3 AH 1 SA-15ndash2 3 SA-4 and 5 SA-8ndash11) imaginedprofessional communities that were English-related (eg a communityof English teachers) As in their third year many SA students continuedto imagine L2-related communities such as communities imaginedthrough e-mail correspondence or overseas classes when they wrote inEnglish However these communities were not directly related to theirfuture jobs Underlying this phenomenon was the fact that althoughtheir major (British and American Studies) was related to English notmany graduates at this university (only 16 in 2006) actually obtainedemployment directly related to English

Consequently the future-career-related imagined communities ofthese students did not necessarily lead to L2 writing improvement Infact 667 of the AH group and 857 of the SA-4 group showeddecreases in their L2 composition scores and in the late-fourth-yearinterviews all of them attributed this decrease to being busy job-huntingYet seven (583) of the 12 SA-8ndash11 students continued to voluntarilypractice L2 writing even though such activity benefited the future careerof only three of them For example Koji an SA-8ndash11 student who cameback to Japan in the middle of his third year wrote a final report inEnglish for his fourth-year sociology class when the teacher allowed himto do so even though writing the report in English was not required Hisfuture-career-related imagined community was not related to EnglishAnd yet he chose to write in English because he believed that he couldlsquolsquodo a good job if he tried with all the knowledge he had acquired inAmerica and in the subsequent yearsrsquorsquo (from his late-fourth year

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 99

interview) This suggests that the motivations of these students hadbecome more intrinsic or that they had become more autonomouslearners having acquired the ability to lsquolsquoidentify goals formulate theirown goals and change goals to suit their own learning needs andinterestsrsquorsquo (Dickinson 1995 p 167) No other students exhibited suchmotivation throughout the observation period Although it is not clearwhy only some SA-8ndash11 students acquired such learner autonomy theseSA-8ndash11 students are the most likely to keep trying to improve their L2writing ability in the future

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

In this section I summarize the results of this study and present somepractical implications First the AH grouprsquos motivational behaviors overthe 35 years were different from those of the three SA groups in thatfew AH students took concrete action to achieve their goals Despite thislack of strong motivation however the AH grouprsquos L2 writing abilitycontinued to improve around their third year probably because theytook a relatively large number of English classes up to that point(Table 1) To obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree they had to earn creditsfor these classes and one can speculate that such an lsquolsquoincentive value ofthe outcomersquorsquo (Dornyei and Otto 1998 p 53) was the major drivingforce behind their improvement Once the external motivational forceof L2 classes diminished however the students seemed to need toimagine L2-related communities in order to keep improving (Table 2)Furthermore among the three SA groups who formed some kind of L2-related imagined communities after coming home the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups improved their composition scores significantly more than didthe SA-15ndash2 group This might be because these two groups had moreand longer L2 writing practice but also because their imagined L2-related communities were more directly connected to learning theability targeted in the present study (ie academic writing) Lastalthough the reason for this is not clear only the SA-8ndash11 group becameintrinsically motivated and continued to develop despite impedingfourth-year factors such as job hunting

What implications for FL teaching do these results suggest Firstwhen instrumental motivation is in force regular instruction such asproviding students with L2 writing metaknowledge as well as differenttypes of practice can lead to improvement to some degree For a morelasting effect however it may be important for students to constructsome kind of L2-related imagined communities In the present study SAstudentsrsquo overseas experiences were helpful but we know that not all FLstudents can afford to spend time abroad It would be ideal if a way could

100 TESOL QUARTERLY

be found to create L2-related imagined communities without thenecessity of going abroad Yashima and Zenuk-Nishide (2008) reportedone such possibility where Japanese high school students became moremotivated and improved their English proficiency without going abroadby being introduced into lsquolsquoan imagined international communityrsquorsquo (ie amodel lsquolsquoUnited Nationsrsquorsquo p 569) in content-based English classes In asimilar vein preparing an L2 writing curriculum where students canparticipate in such communities through lsquolsquocognitively and emotionallyinvolving contentrsquorsquo (p 570) might be a promising approach in FLsettings

Another suggestion is based on the significant difference inimprovement between the SA-15ndash2 group and the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11pair If teachers want to make their studentsrsquo motivation moreinfluential it would probably be better for the L2-related imaginedcommunities to be accompanied by specific details of skills andknowledge related to the targeted abilities to be improved In the caseof L2 writing for example students must know how to plan and writeeffective compositions in the intended genre Accumulation of suchdeclarative and procedural knowledge would endow the students withwhat Dornyei and Otto (1998) call an lsquolsquointernal model of referencersquorsquo(p 57) which would be especially helpful for realizing preactionalintentions Furthermore such knowledge has to be implementedthrough sufficient and continuous practice to result in a truly significantdifference in output quality Affective support such as teachersrsquo praise isalso important for making the studentsrsquo motivation more enduringIdeally imagined communities should be substantial enough to trans-form dependent learners into autonomous ones so that they keepimproving even when demotivating external factors intervene

CONCLUSION

The present study investigated the long-term effects of varying lengthsof overseas experiences on the L2 writing ability and motivation of 37Japanese university students The study revealed characteristics uniqueto the FL situation For example unlike the ESL learners studied byCumming (2006) some learners took almost no action to achieve theirgoals This was mainly due to the fact that L2 writing improvement wasnot necessary for their social survival In contrast spending some timeoverseas proved helpful not only in enabling the students to improvetheir L2 writing ability but also in maintaining their motivation to writebetter The pedagogical implications presented in the last section of thisarticle can thus be particularly useful for those who study an L2 where itis not used for communicative purposes

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 101

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

those of the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups but there was no significantdifference between the AH and SA-15ndash2 groups or between the SA-4and the SA-8ndash11 groups (MSE 5 19607 p 005) Furthermore thethree SA groups significantly improved their composition scores over the35 years whereas the AH group did not F (1 33) 5 1009 p 001 forthe SA-15ndash2 group F (1 33) 5 1798 p 001 for the SA-4 group and F(1 33) 5 322 p 001 for the SA-8ndash11 group

At the individual level English composition scores for four of the nineAH students decreased over the 35 years and scores for the other fivestudents increased slightly Two of these five students mentioned thatEnglish classes at the Japanese university were helpful in learning towrite better However the other seven students (777) including thethree whose composition scores increased slightly felt that their Englishwriting ability deteriorated below their first-year level because from theirfourth year onward they took fewer English classes By contrast all ofthe SA studentsrsquo English composition scores improved over the 35 yearsFour SA-15ndash2 and three SA-4 students attributed this improvementmainly to the English writing classes they took at the Japanese universityOne SA-15ndash2 four SA-4 and four SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to theEnglish writing classes they took abroad and two SA-15ndash2 students andeight SA-8ndash11 students attributed it to the classes they took both in Japanand abroad Another SA-15ndash2 student said that writing e-mails to friendsshe made abroad was the only helpful factor and the last SA-15ndash2student said that the third- and fourth-year compositions were simplyeasier to write

It is noteworthy that many (607) of the SA students attributed theirEnglish writing improvement solely or partially to the English classesthey took in Japan As can be seen in Table 2 these students allimproved their English composition scores before going abroad as wellas after coming home The students reported that learning explicitlyhow to write in English (eg learning the idea of a topic sentence) andpracticing writing different types of texts (usually a paragraph long) inthese classes was useful

Similarly the 19 SA students who attributed their score increase atleast partially to their overseas L2 writing classes also added that theexperiences of learning how to write and having to write a lot and oftenoverseas were helpful However compared with the assignmentsrequired by their English classes in Japan the writing assignmentsrequired by their overseas classes were much more demanding Forexample in her first semester in the United States Eri an SA-8ndash11student took four classes two of which required writing papers In theESL writing class she learned how to organize effective paragraphs andwrote 4 two-page essays and 1 seven-page essay In her other class(Elementary Education) she wrote a total of 6 two-page papers In her

92 TESOL QUARTERLY

English classes in Japan she never wrote so much and so often (she onlywrote four paragraphs per semester at the maximum)

These SA studentsrsquo accounts concur with the findings of previouscross-sectional and longitudinal studies (eg Kobayashi amp Rinnert2001) in that the two factors of L2 writing metaknowledge and practiceinfluenced L2 writing development Given the greater percentages ofthe SA-4 (57) and SA-8ndash11 students (100) who attributed theirEnglish writing improvement at least partially to their overseas classescompared with the SA-15ndash2 students (333) and given that the SA-4and SA 8ndash11 groups improved significantly more than the SA-15ndash2group we could further speculate that long and intensive practice wasprobably a crucial factor in significantly improving these studentsrsquo L2writing By contrast as mentioned above many AH students felt thattheir English writing ability fell below their first-year level because theyhad fewer English classes during their fourth year This is especiallynoteworthy when we recall that many of the SA students whose scoresincreased for their fourth-year compositions also had fewer Englishclasses after becoming fourth-year students (Table 1) Consequentlydespite what they claimed the perceived and actual deterioration in theAH studentsrsquo L2 writing ability in the fourth year might be betterexplained by their low motivation rather than by the reduction in L2contact hours

L2 Writing Motivation

Tables 3andash3d present the four groupsrsquo changes in the relevantcomponents of the revised version of the research scheme of Yang et al(2004 see the Method section) Presented here are the tendenciesshared by more than 40 of the members of each group I did notinclude the components of rules and division of labor from Engestromrsquos(1987) expanded activity system because as in Yang et al in theparticipantsrsquo activity of studying L2 writing over 35 years the rule (iehow to write in the academic genre) and the division of labor (ie theparticipants studied and the teachers taught) were unchanged

Table 3a shows the characteristics of the four groupsrsquo L2 writingmotivation when they were first-year students Under the column forObject the four groups were all motivated to improve some aspects(mainly grammar vocabulary and quantity) of their L2 writing Theonly difference is that as can be seen in the column Mediating artifact(ie what was involved in the participantsrsquo trying to attain their objects)667 of the AH group reported doing nothing to improve their L2writing whereas all the other groups used textbooks dictionaries andteachers to achieve their goals Using Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) process

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 93

model of L2 motivation we can say that all four groups set some lsquolsquogoalsrsquorsquoor lsquolsquointentionsrsquorsquo (p 48) for improving their L2 writing but the AH groupremained in the lsquolsquopreactional phasersquorsquo (p 48) whereas the other threegroups crossed the lsquolsquometaphorical lsquoRubiconrsquo of actionrsquorsquo (p 57) In factmore than half of the AH students continued to do nothing to improvetheir L2 writing until their fourth year (as shown in Tables 3a to 3d)Such constantly low motivation in the AH group helps to explain whytheir L2 composition scores decreased below their first-year level whilethe other three groupsrsquo scores did not over the 35 years of myobservation period (seen in Table 2)

The four groupsrsquo characteristics (presented in Table 3b) for theirsecond year were similar to those for their first year except that 19(679) of the 28 SA students had an SA experience starting during thatyear (ie they experienced ESL classes as their L2-related actualcommunities) This probably influenced their subsequent motivationalbehavior for L2 writing One noticeable consequence of such influenceis that many members of the three SA groups in their third and fourth

TABLE 3a

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Artifact Components in First Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

community

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

Non-L2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity Outcome

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)

vocabulary(556)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)

vocabulary(887)quantity(444)

confidence(444)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(714)

vocabulary(857)quantity(429)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(714)

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(917)quantity(417)

EFL classes(100)

Note Descriptions in Tables 3andash3d are given if they were shared by more than 40 of theparticipants EFL 5 English as a foreign language

94 TESOL QUARTERLY

years in university formed some kind of L2-related imagined commu-nities that had not existed before That is after they became third-yearstudents when they had to write academic texts in the L2 as required intheir English classes many of them came to imagine communities wherepeople used L2 for actual communicative purposes Tables 3c and 3dshow how this imagined communitiesrsquo idea played out during their thirdand fourth years of study

Looking across these two tables for example many SA-15ndash2 groupmembers (667 in their fourth year) kept in touch with the L1 or L2English-speaking friends they had made while abroad and correspondedwith them in English through e-mail andor internet chat afterreturning to Japan In such correspondence the SA-15ndash2 studentsoften expressed the wish that they could still be among these pen pals inthe same English-speaking places where they had once studied and theytalked with their pen pals about topics (eg the basketball team of thetown) related to these places We can call such places imaginedcommunities because they were no longer physically accessible to thestudents6 The SA-15ndash2 students all felt that corresponding with these

TABLE 3b

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Second Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2 writingability

Improved Decreased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabulary(444)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

556 444

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabulary(667)Quantity(444)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

889 0

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(571)Vocabulary(571)Quantity(429)

Textbook-s refer-encebooks(571)

ESL classes(100 for4 months)

714 286

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(50)Quantity(417)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(50)

ESL classes(583 for8ndash11months)

100

EFL classes(100)

Note 12 5 second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 95

cybernet pen pals was useful for improving their English writing abilityIn fact writing good e-mails even became one of their major L2 writinggoals in their fourth year (as shown in Table 3d)

Similarly by their fourth year all members of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11groups communicated with overseas friends through e-mail or online chatand imagined during such cybernet correspondence the communities

TABLE 3c

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Third Year

Group Object

Medi-ating

artifact

L2-relatedactual com-

munity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2writing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(556)Vocabu-lary(556)

None(555)

EFL classes(100)

111 667

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabu-lary(444)Quantity(444)

E-mail oronlinechatting(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(444)

333 556

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Vocabu-lary(100)

Teachers(444)Textboo-ks(714)

EFL classes(100)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(857) ESLclasses(714)

857Motivatedto write be-tter in L2(857)

143

Organiza-tion(429)Planning(429)Content(857)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Grammar(583)Vocabu-lary (75)Content(667)

TOEICTOEFL(417)

ESL classes(417 for8ndash11months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(583) ESLclasses(583)

917 83

English-L1friends(417)

EFL classes(100)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(75)

Note TOEIC 5 Test of English for International Communication TOEFL 5 Test of English as aForeign Language

6 My interpretation of the term imagined community is thus different from that of otherresearchers who assume that the imagined communities should be physically located inplaces where the students have never been (eg Kinginger 2004)

96 TESOL QUARTERLY

TABLE 3d

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Fourth Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommun-

ity

Outcome L2 writ-ing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH (n5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabu-lary (556)

None(556)

EFLclasses(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(667)

667 333LostinterestinstudyingL2 writ-ing(778)

SA-15ndash2(n 59)

Grammar(778)Vocabulary(667)How towrite e-mailletters(667)

E-mail oronline chat-ting (667)

ESLclasses(112)-EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(667)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(555)

667 222

SA-4(n 57)

Vocabulary(714)

TOEIC orSTEP Test(714)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(857)

714Motivatedto writebetterin L2(857)

143

ESL classes(714)

SA-8ndash11 (n5 12)

Content(833)

Self-directedwriting(583)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(833)

833 167

Vocabulary(667)Grammar(50)

Dictionaryreferencebooks(583)

ESL classes(917)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(833)

Note STEP 5 Society for Testing English Proficiency

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 97

they had once shared with these friends However when they wroteacademic texts in English none of them thought about such correspon-dence Instead 714 of the SA-4 group and 917 of the SA-8ndash11 groupimagined how they had written in ESL and other regular subject classesthey took while abroad (see Table 3d) In contrast no SA-15ndash2 groupmember imagined such overseas classes when writing L2 academic textsThey simply drew on their experiences of how they could best respond totheir cybernet pen pals in such cases This difference between the SA-15ndash-2 group and the pair of SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups can be attributed to thefact that the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups experienced not only moreopportunities to write but also a longer duration of overseas classes thanthe SA-15ndash2 group

As mentioned earlier in these classes the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 studentslearned how to organize effective compositions and they wrote varioustypes of texts (eg term papers summaries) When they firstencountered writing assignments in these classes many were shockedto find that they could not write as well as their classmates includingother international students because none of them had ever learnedhow to write English texts longer than a paragraph After having readrelevant literature and written multiple drafts however they learnedhow to achieve higher grades Fourteen (737) out of the 19 SA-4 andSA-8ndash11 students also mentioned that the teachersrsquo praise (one of thepotential motivational influences for the postactional phase in Dornyeiand Ottorsquos 1998 model p 61) further encouraged them Drawing onthese episodes motivated the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students to write betteracademic texts even after returning home as shown in Sachirsquoscomments from her late-fourth-year interview

ExampleSachi who spent 11 months in the United States is talking about her

first in-class test essay in a psychology class in the United States whereshe was the only international student (All accounts were originally inJapanese and were translated by the author)

Sachi After 30 minutes [for the test] I was told to stop and I thoughtlsquolsquoYou are kidding I have only written three lines This is tragicrsquorsquo(laughter)

Miyuki (laughter)Sachi And then when the test was returned the teacher told me to

study English harder I was shocked because she meant that I shouldstudy English before I could study the content [of the class]

Miyuki OhSachi But the teacher had also made many suggestions on the test

sheet about how I could have written the answer betterMiyuki Oh she is kind isnrsquot sheSachi Yes and because of that I thought I should try harder

98 TESOL QUARTERLY

Miyuki You mean you had to live up to the teacherrsquos expectationsSachi Yes I thought I should try as a Japanese Hooray for Japanese

peopleMiyuki (laughter)Sachi And even now I feel that I should make efforts to write better

when I write [in English]Such motivation seems qualitatively different from the SA-15ndash2

studentsrsquo motivation to simply improve a single aspect of their L2 writing(ie writing messages in cyberspace) This difference in motivation mayalso account for the fact that only the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups weremotivated to improve the content of their L2 writing after their thirdyear (Tables 3c and 3d)

Last as regards their fourth year (Table 3d) the most noticeabledifference from the other years was that many participants formedimagined communities where they hoped to work after they graduatedfrom university This is related to the fact that many of them startedhunting for jobs near the end of their third year They spent thefollowing 6ndash12 months taking exams and being interviewed for the bestpossible jobs they could get Of the 37 participants however only 12students (324 3 AH 1 SA-15ndash2 3 SA-4 and 5 SA-8ndash11) imaginedprofessional communities that were English-related (eg a communityof English teachers) As in their third year many SA students continuedto imagine L2-related communities such as communities imaginedthrough e-mail correspondence or overseas classes when they wrote inEnglish However these communities were not directly related to theirfuture jobs Underlying this phenomenon was the fact that althoughtheir major (British and American Studies) was related to English notmany graduates at this university (only 16 in 2006) actually obtainedemployment directly related to English

Consequently the future-career-related imagined communities ofthese students did not necessarily lead to L2 writing improvement Infact 667 of the AH group and 857 of the SA-4 group showeddecreases in their L2 composition scores and in the late-fourth-yearinterviews all of them attributed this decrease to being busy job-huntingYet seven (583) of the 12 SA-8ndash11 students continued to voluntarilypractice L2 writing even though such activity benefited the future careerof only three of them For example Koji an SA-8ndash11 student who cameback to Japan in the middle of his third year wrote a final report inEnglish for his fourth-year sociology class when the teacher allowed himto do so even though writing the report in English was not required Hisfuture-career-related imagined community was not related to EnglishAnd yet he chose to write in English because he believed that he couldlsquolsquodo a good job if he tried with all the knowledge he had acquired inAmerica and in the subsequent yearsrsquorsquo (from his late-fourth year

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 99

interview) This suggests that the motivations of these students hadbecome more intrinsic or that they had become more autonomouslearners having acquired the ability to lsquolsquoidentify goals formulate theirown goals and change goals to suit their own learning needs andinterestsrsquorsquo (Dickinson 1995 p 167) No other students exhibited suchmotivation throughout the observation period Although it is not clearwhy only some SA-8ndash11 students acquired such learner autonomy theseSA-8ndash11 students are the most likely to keep trying to improve their L2writing ability in the future

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

In this section I summarize the results of this study and present somepractical implications First the AH grouprsquos motivational behaviors overthe 35 years were different from those of the three SA groups in thatfew AH students took concrete action to achieve their goals Despite thislack of strong motivation however the AH grouprsquos L2 writing abilitycontinued to improve around their third year probably because theytook a relatively large number of English classes up to that point(Table 1) To obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree they had to earn creditsfor these classes and one can speculate that such an lsquolsquoincentive value ofthe outcomersquorsquo (Dornyei and Otto 1998 p 53) was the major drivingforce behind their improvement Once the external motivational forceof L2 classes diminished however the students seemed to need toimagine L2-related communities in order to keep improving (Table 2)Furthermore among the three SA groups who formed some kind of L2-related imagined communities after coming home the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups improved their composition scores significantly more than didthe SA-15ndash2 group This might be because these two groups had moreand longer L2 writing practice but also because their imagined L2-related communities were more directly connected to learning theability targeted in the present study (ie academic writing) Lastalthough the reason for this is not clear only the SA-8ndash11 group becameintrinsically motivated and continued to develop despite impedingfourth-year factors such as job hunting

What implications for FL teaching do these results suggest Firstwhen instrumental motivation is in force regular instruction such asproviding students with L2 writing metaknowledge as well as differenttypes of practice can lead to improvement to some degree For a morelasting effect however it may be important for students to constructsome kind of L2-related imagined communities In the present study SAstudentsrsquo overseas experiences were helpful but we know that not all FLstudents can afford to spend time abroad It would be ideal if a way could

100 TESOL QUARTERLY

be found to create L2-related imagined communities without thenecessity of going abroad Yashima and Zenuk-Nishide (2008) reportedone such possibility where Japanese high school students became moremotivated and improved their English proficiency without going abroadby being introduced into lsquolsquoan imagined international communityrsquorsquo (ie amodel lsquolsquoUnited Nationsrsquorsquo p 569) in content-based English classes In asimilar vein preparing an L2 writing curriculum where students canparticipate in such communities through lsquolsquocognitively and emotionallyinvolving contentrsquorsquo (p 570) might be a promising approach in FLsettings

Another suggestion is based on the significant difference inimprovement between the SA-15ndash2 group and the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11pair If teachers want to make their studentsrsquo motivation moreinfluential it would probably be better for the L2-related imaginedcommunities to be accompanied by specific details of skills andknowledge related to the targeted abilities to be improved In the caseof L2 writing for example students must know how to plan and writeeffective compositions in the intended genre Accumulation of suchdeclarative and procedural knowledge would endow the students withwhat Dornyei and Otto (1998) call an lsquolsquointernal model of referencersquorsquo(p 57) which would be especially helpful for realizing preactionalintentions Furthermore such knowledge has to be implementedthrough sufficient and continuous practice to result in a truly significantdifference in output quality Affective support such as teachersrsquo praise isalso important for making the studentsrsquo motivation more enduringIdeally imagined communities should be substantial enough to trans-form dependent learners into autonomous ones so that they keepimproving even when demotivating external factors intervene

CONCLUSION

The present study investigated the long-term effects of varying lengthsof overseas experiences on the L2 writing ability and motivation of 37Japanese university students The study revealed characteristics uniqueto the FL situation For example unlike the ESL learners studied byCumming (2006) some learners took almost no action to achieve theirgoals This was mainly due to the fact that L2 writing improvement wasnot necessary for their social survival In contrast spending some timeoverseas proved helpful not only in enabling the students to improvetheir L2 writing ability but also in maintaining their motivation to writebetter The pedagogical implications presented in the last section of thisarticle can thus be particularly useful for those who study an L2 where itis not used for communicative purposes

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 101

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

English classes in Japan she never wrote so much and so often (she onlywrote four paragraphs per semester at the maximum)

These SA studentsrsquo accounts concur with the findings of previouscross-sectional and longitudinal studies (eg Kobayashi amp Rinnert2001) in that the two factors of L2 writing metaknowledge and practiceinfluenced L2 writing development Given the greater percentages ofthe SA-4 (57) and SA-8ndash11 students (100) who attributed theirEnglish writing improvement at least partially to their overseas classescompared with the SA-15ndash2 students (333) and given that the SA-4and SA 8ndash11 groups improved significantly more than the SA-15ndash2group we could further speculate that long and intensive practice wasprobably a crucial factor in significantly improving these studentsrsquo L2writing By contrast as mentioned above many AH students felt thattheir English writing ability fell below their first-year level because theyhad fewer English classes during their fourth year This is especiallynoteworthy when we recall that many of the SA students whose scoresincreased for their fourth-year compositions also had fewer Englishclasses after becoming fourth-year students (Table 1) Consequentlydespite what they claimed the perceived and actual deterioration in theAH studentsrsquo L2 writing ability in the fourth year might be betterexplained by their low motivation rather than by the reduction in L2contact hours

L2 Writing Motivation

Tables 3andash3d present the four groupsrsquo changes in the relevantcomponents of the revised version of the research scheme of Yang et al(2004 see the Method section) Presented here are the tendenciesshared by more than 40 of the members of each group I did notinclude the components of rules and division of labor from Engestromrsquos(1987) expanded activity system because as in Yang et al in theparticipantsrsquo activity of studying L2 writing over 35 years the rule (iehow to write in the academic genre) and the division of labor (ie theparticipants studied and the teachers taught) were unchanged

Table 3a shows the characteristics of the four groupsrsquo L2 writingmotivation when they were first-year students Under the column forObject the four groups were all motivated to improve some aspects(mainly grammar vocabulary and quantity) of their L2 writing Theonly difference is that as can be seen in the column Mediating artifact(ie what was involved in the participantsrsquo trying to attain their objects)667 of the AH group reported doing nothing to improve their L2writing whereas all the other groups used textbooks dictionaries andteachers to achieve their goals Using Dornyei and Ottorsquos (1998) process

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 93

model of L2 motivation we can say that all four groups set some lsquolsquogoalsrsquorsquoor lsquolsquointentionsrsquorsquo (p 48) for improving their L2 writing but the AH groupremained in the lsquolsquopreactional phasersquorsquo (p 48) whereas the other threegroups crossed the lsquolsquometaphorical lsquoRubiconrsquo of actionrsquorsquo (p 57) In factmore than half of the AH students continued to do nothing to improvetheir L2 writing until their fourth year (as shown in Tables 3a to 3d)Such constantly low motivation in the AH group helps to explain whytheir L2 composition scores decreased below their first-year level whilethe other three groupsrsquo scores did not over the 35 years of myobservation period (seen in Table 2)

The four groupsrsquo characteristics (presented in Table 3b) for theirsecond year were similar to those for their first year except that 19(679) of the 28 SA students had an SA experience starting during thatyear (ie they experienced ESL classes as their L2-related actualcommunities) This probably influenced their subsequent motivationalbehavior for L2 writing One noticeable consequence of such influenceis that many members of the three SA groups in their third and fourth

TABLE 3a

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Artifact Components in First Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

community

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

Non-L2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity Outcome

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)

vocabulary(556)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)

vocabulary(887)quantity(444)

confidence(444)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(714)

vocabulary(857)quantity(429)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(714)

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(917)quantity(417)

EFL classes(100)

Note Descriptions in Tables 3andash3d are given if they were shared by more than 40 of theparticipants EFL 5 English as a foreign language

94 TESOL QUARTERLY

years in university formed some kind of L2-related imagined commu-nities that had not existed before That is after they became third-yearstudents when they had to write academic texts in the L2 as required intheir English classes many of them came to imagine communities wherepeople used L2 for actual communicative purposes Tables 3c and 3dshow how this imagined communitiesrsquo idea played out during their thirdand fourth years of study

Looking across these two tables for example many SA-15ndash2 groupmembers (667 in their fourth year) kept in touch with the L1 or L2English-speaking friends they had made while abroad and correspondedwith them in English through e-mail andor internet chat afterreturning to Japan In such correspondence the SA-15ndash2 studentsoften expressed the wish that they could still be among these pen pals inthe same English-speaking places where they had once studied and theytalked with their pen pals about topics (eg the basketball team of thetown) related to these places We can call such places imaginedcommunities because they were no longer physically accessible to thestudents6 The SA-15ndash2 students all felt that corresponding with these

TABLE 3b

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Second Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2 writingability

Improved Decreased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabulary(444)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

556 444

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabulary(667)Quantity(444)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

889 0

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(571)Vocabulary(571)Quantity(429)

Textbook-s refer-encebooks(571)

ESL classes(100 for4 months)

714 286

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(50)Quantity(417)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(50)

ESL classes(583 for8ndash11months)

100

EFL classes(100)

Note 12 5 second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 95

cybernet pen pals was useful for improving their English writing abilityIn fact writing good e-mails even became one of their major L2 writinggoals in their fourth year (as shown in Table 3d)

Similarly by their fourth year all members of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11groups communicated with overseas friends through e-mail or online chatand imagined during such cybernet correspondence the communities

TABLE 3c

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Third Year

Group Object

Medi-ating

artifact

L2-relatedactual com-

munity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2writing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(556)Vocabu-lary(556)

None(555)

EFL classes(100)

111 667

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabu-lary(444)Quantity(444)

E-mail oronlinechatting(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(444)

333 556

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Vocabu-lary(100)

Teachers(444)Textboo-ks(714)

EFL classes(100)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(857) ESLclasses(714)

857Motivatedto write be-tter in L2(857)

143

Organiza-tion(429)Planning(429)Content(857)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Grammar(583)Vocabu-lary (75)Content(667)

TOEICTOEFL(417)

ESL classes(417 for8ndash11months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(583) ESLclasses(583)

917 83

English-L1friends(417)

EFL classes(100)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(75)

Note TOEIC 5 Test of English for International Communication TOEFL 5 Test of English as aForeign Language

6 My interpretation of the term imagined community is thus different from that of otherresearchers who assume that the imagined communities should be physically located inplaces where the students have never been (eg Kinginger 2004)

96 TESOL QUARTERLY

TABLE 3d

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Fourth Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommun-

ity

Outcome L2 writ-ing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH (n5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabu-lary (556)

None(556)

EFLclasses(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(667)

667 333LostinterestinstudyingL2 writ-ing(778)

SA-15ndash2(n 59)

Grammar(778)Vocabulary(667)How towrite e-mailletters(667)

E-mail oronline chat-ting (667)

ESLclasses(112)-EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(667)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(555)

667 222

SA-4(n 57)

Vocabulary(714)

TOEIC orSTEP Test(714)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(857)

714Motivatedto writebetterin L2(857)

143

ESL classes(714)

SA-8ndash11 (n5 12)

Content(833)

Self-directedwriting(583)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(833)

833 167

Vocabulary(667)Grammar(50)

Dictionaryreferencebooks(583)

ESL classes(917)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(833)

Note STEP 5 Society for Testing English Proficiency

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 97

they had once shared with these friends However when they wroteacademic texts in English none of them thought about such correspon-dence Instead 714 of the SA-4 group and 917 of the SA-8ndash11 groupimagined how they had written in ESL and other regular subject classesthey took while abroad (see Table 3d) In contrast no SA-15ndash2 groupmember imagined such overseas classes when writing L2 academic textsThey simply drew on their experiences of how they could best respond totheir cybernet pen pals in such cases This difference between the SA-15ndash-2 group and the pair of SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups can be attributed to thefact that the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups experienced not only moreopportunities to write but also a longer duration of overseas classes thanthe SA-15ndash2 group

As mentioned earlier in these classes the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 studentslearned how to organize effective compositions and they wrote varioustypes of texts (eg term papers summaries) When they firstencountered writing assignments in these classes many were shockedto find that they could not write as well as their classmates includingother international students because none of them had ever learnedhow to write English texts longer than a paragraph After having readrelevant literature and written multiple drafts however they learnedhow to achieve higher grades Fourteen (737) out of the 19 SA-4 andSA-8ndash11 students also mentioned that the teachersrsquo praise (one of thepotential motivational influences for the postactional phase in Dornyeiand Ottorsquos 1998 model p 61) further encouraged them Drawing onthese episodes motivated the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students to write betteracademic texts even after returning home as shown in Sachirsquoscomments from her late-fourth-year interview

ExampleSachi who spent 11 months in the United States is talking about her

first in-class test essay in a psychology class in the United States whereshe was the only international student (All accounts were originally inJapanese and were translated by the author)

Sachi After 30 minutes [for the test] I was told to stop and I thoughtlsquolsquoYou are kidding I have only written three lines This is tragicrsquorsquo(laughter)

Miyuki (laughter)Sachi And then when the test was returned the teacher told me to

study English harder I was shocked because she meant that I shouldstudy English before I could study the content [of the class]

Miyuki OhSachi But the teacher had also made many suggestions on the test

sheet about how I could have written the answer betterMiyuki Oh she is kind isnrsquot sheSachi Yes and because of that I thought I should try harder

98 TESOL QUARTERLY

Miyuki You mean you had to live up to the teacherrsquos expectationsSachi Yes I thought I should try as a Japanese Hooray for Japanese

peopleMiyuki (laughter)Sachi And even now I feel that I should make efforts to write better

when I write [in English]Such motivation seems qualitatively different from the SA-15ndash2

studentsrsquo motivation to simply improve a single aspect of their L2 writing(ie writing messages in cyberspace) This difference in motivation mayalso account for the fact that only the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups weremotivated to improve the content of their L2 writing after their thirdyear (Tables 3c and 3d)

Last as regards their fourth year (Table 3d) the most noticeabledifference from the other years was that many participants formedimagined communities where they hoped to work after they graduatedfrom university This is related to the fact that many of them startedhunting for jobs near the end of their third year They spent thefollowing 6ndash12 months taking exams and being interviewed for the bestpossible jobs they could get Of the 37 participants however only 12students (324 3 AH 1 SA-15ndash2 3 SA-4 and 5 SA-8ndash11) imaginedprofessional communities that were English-related (eg a communityof English teachers) As in their third year many SA students continuedto imagine L2-related communities such as communities imaginedthrough e-mail correspondence or overseas classes when they wrote inEnglish However these communities were not directly related to theirfuture jobs Underlying this phenomenon was the fact that althoughtheir major (British and American Studies) was related to English notmany graduates at this university (only 16 in 2006) actually obtainedemployment directly related to English

Consequently the future-career-related imagined communities ofthese students did not necessarily lead to L2 writing improvement Infact 667 of the AH group and 857 of the SA-4 group showeddecreases in their L2 composition scores and in the late-fourth-yearinterviews all of them attributed this decrease to being busy job-huntingYet seven (583) of the 12 SA-8ndash11 students continued to voluntarilypractice L2 writing even though such activity benefited the future careerof only three of them For example Koji an SA-8ndash11 student who cameback to Japan in the middle of his third year wrote a final report inEnglish for his fourth-year sociology class when the teacher allowed himto do so even though writing the report in English was not required Hisfuture-career-related imagined community was not related to EnglishAnd yet he chose to write in English because he believed that he couldlsquolsquodo a good job if he tried with all the knowledge he had acquired inAmerica and in the subsequent yearsrsquorsquo (from his late-fourth year

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 99

interview) This suggests that the motivations of these students hadbecome more intrinsic or that they had become more autonomouslearners having acquired the ability to lsquolsquoidentify goals formulate theirown goals and change goals to suit their own learning needs andinterestsrsquorsquo (Dickinson 1995 p 167) No other students exhibited suchmotivation throughout the observation period Although it is not clearwhy only some SA-8ndash11 students acquired such learner autonomy theseSA-8ndash11 students are the most likely to keep trying to improve their L2writing ability in the future

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

In this section I summarize the results of this study and present somepractical implications First the AH grouprsquos motivational behaviors overthe 35 years were different from those of the three SA groups in thatfew AH students took concrete action to achieve their goals Despite thislack of strong motivation however the AH grouprsquos L2 writing abilitycontinued to improve around their third year probably because theytook a relatively large number of English classes up to that point(Table 1) To obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree they had to earn creditsfor these classes and one can speculate that such an lsquolsquoincentive value ofthe outcomersquorsquo (Dornyei and Otto 1998 p 53) was the major drivingforce behind their improvement Once the external motivational forceof L2 classes diminished however the students seemed to need toimagine L2-related communities in order to keep improving (Table 2)Furthermore among the three SA groups who formed some kind of L2-related imagined communities after coming home the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups improved their composition scores significantly more than didthe SA-15ndash2 group This might be because these two groups had moreand longer L2 writing practice but also because their imagined L2-related communities were more directly connected to learning theability targeted in the present study (ie academic writing) Lastalthough the reason for this is not clear only the SA-8ndash11 group becameintrinsically motivated and continued to develop despite impedingfourth-year factors such as job hunting

What implications for FL teaching do these results suggest Firstwhen instrumental motivation is in force regular instruction such asproviding students with L2 writing metaknowledge as well as differenttypes of practice can lead to improvement to some degree For a morelasting effect however it may be important for students to constructsome kind of L2-related imagined communities In the present study SAstudentsrsquo overseas experiences were helpful but we know that not all FLstudents can afford to spend time abroad It would be ideal if a way could

100 TESOL QUARTERLY

be found to create L2-related imagined communities without thenecessity of going abroad Yashima and Zenuk-Nishide (2008) reportedone such possibility where Japanese high school students became moremotivated and improved their English proficiency without going abroadby being introduced into lsquolsquoan imagined international communityrsquorsquo (ie amodel lsquolsquoUnited Nationsrsquorsquo p 569) in content-based English classes In asimilar vein preparing an L2 writing curriculum where students canparticipate in such communities through lsquolsquocognitively and emotionallyinvolving contentrsquorsquo (p 570) might be a promising approach in FLsettings

Another suggestion is based on the significant difference inimprovement between the SA-15ndash2 group and the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11pair If teachers want to make their studentsrsquo motivation moreinfluential it would probably be better for the L2-related imaginedcommunities to be accompanied by specific details of skills andknowledge related to the targeted abilities to be improved In the caseof L2 writing for example students must know how to plan and writeeffective compositions in the intended genre Accumulation of suchdeclarative and procedural knowledge would endow the students withwhat Dornyei and Otto (1998) call an lsquolsquointernal model of referencersquorsquo(p 57) which would be especially helpful for realizing preactionalintentions Furthermore such knowledge has to be implementedthrough sufficient and continuous practice to result in a truly significantdifference in output quality Affective support such as teachersrsquo praise isalso important for making the studentsrsquo motivation more enduringIdeally imagined communities should be substantial enough to trans-form dependent learners into autonomous ones so that they keepimproving even when demotivating external factors intervene

CONCLUSION

The present study investigated the long-term effects of varying lengthsof overseas experiences on the L2 writing ability and motivation of 37Japanese university students The study revealed characteristics uniqueto the FL situation For example unlike the ESL learners studied byCumming (2006) some learners took almost no action to achieve theirgoals This was mainly due to the fact that L2 writing improvement wasnot necessary for their social survival In contrast spending some timeoverseas proved helpful not only in enabling the students to improvetheir L2 writing ability but also in maintaining their motivation to writebetter The pedagogical implications presented in the last section of thisarticle can thus be particularly useful for those who study an L2 where itis not used for communicative purposes

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 101

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

model of L2 motivation we can say that all four groups set some lsquolsquogoalsrsquorsquoor lsquolsquointentionsrsquorsquo (p 48) for improving their L2 writing but the AH groupremained in the lsquolsquopreactional phasersquorsquo (p 48) whereas the other threegroups crossed the lsquolsquometaphorical lsquoRubiconrsquo of actionrsquorsquo (p 57) In factmore than half of the AH students continued to do nothing to improvetheir L2 writing until their fourth year (as shown in Tables 3a to 3d)Such constantly low motivation in the AH group helps to explain whytheir L2 composition scores decreased below their first-year level whilethe other three groupsrsquo scores did not over the 35 years of myobservation period (seen in Table 2)

The four groupsrsquo characteristics (presented in Table 3b) for theirsecond year were similar to those for their first year except that 19(679) of the 28 SA students had an SA experience starting during thatyear (ie they experienced ESL classes as their L2-related actualcommunities) This probably influenced their subsequent motivationalbehavior for L2 writing One noticeable consequence of such influenceis that many members of the three SA groups in their third and fourth

TABLE 3a

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Artifact Components in First Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

community

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

Non-L2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity Outcome

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)

vocabulary(556)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)

vocabulary(887)quantity(444)

confidence(444)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(667)

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(714)

vocabulary(857)quantity(429)

Textbooksdictionaryteachers(714)

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(917)quantity(417)

EFL classes(100)

Note Descriptions in Tables 3andash3d are given if they were shared by more than 40 of theparticipants EFL 5 English as a foreign language

94 TESOL QUARTERLY

years in university formed some kind of L2-related imagined commu-nities that had not existed before That is after they became third-yearstudents when they had to write academic texts in the L2 as required intheir English classes many of them came to imagine communities wherepeople used L2 for actual communicative purposes Tables 3c and 3dshow how this imagined communitiesrsquo idea played out during their thirdand fourth years of study

Looking across these two tables for example many SA-15ndash2 groupmembers (667 in their fourth year) kept in touch with the L1 or L2English-speaking friends they had made while abroad and correspondedwith them in English through e-mail andor internet chat afterreturning to Japan In such correspondence the SA-15ndash2 studentsoften expressed the wish that they could still be among these pen pals inthe same English-speaking places where they had once studied and theytalked with their pen pals about topics (eg the basketball team of thetown) related to these places We can call such places imaginedcommunities because they were no longer physically accessible to thestudents6 The SA-15ndash2 students all felt that corresponding with these

TABLE 3b

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Second Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2 writingability

Improved Decreased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabulary(444)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

556 444

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabulary(667)Quantity(444)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

889 0

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(571)Vocabulary(571)Quantity(429)

Textbook-s refer-encebooks(571)

ESL classes(100 for4 months)

714 286

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(50)Quantity(417)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(50)

ESL classes(583 for8ndash11months)

100

EFL classes(100)

Note 12 5 second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 95

cybernet pen pals was useful for improving their English writing abilityIn fact writing good e-mails even became one of their major L2 writinggoals in their fourth year (as shown in Table 3d)

Similarly by their fourth year all members of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11groups communicated with overseas friends through e-mail or online chatand imagined during such cybernet correspondence the communities

TABLE 3c

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Third Year

Group Object

Medi-ating

artifact

L2-relatedactual com-

munity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2writing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(556)Vocabu-lary(556)

None(555)

EFL classes(100)

111 667

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabu-lary(444)Quantity(444)

E-mail oronlinechatting(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(444)

333 556

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Vocabu-lary(100)

Teachers(444)Textboo-ks(714)

EFL classes(100)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(857) ESLclasses(714)

857Motivatedto write be-tter in L2(857)

143

Organiza-tion(429)Planning(429)Content(857)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Grammar(583)Vocabu-lary (75)Content(667)

TOEICTOEFL(417)

ESL classes(417 for8ndash11months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(583) ESLclasses(583)

917 83

English-L1friends(417)

EFL classes(100)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(75)

Note TOEIC 5 Test of English for International Communication TOEFL 5 Test of English as aForeign Language

6 My interpretation of the term imagined community is thus different from that of otherresearchers who assume that the imagined communities should be physically located inplaces where the students have never been (eg Kinginger 2004)

96 TESOL QUARTERLY

TABLE 3d

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Fourth Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommun-

ity

Outcome L2 writ-ing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH (n5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabu-lary (556)

None(556)

EFLclasses(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(667)

667 333LostinterestinstudyingL2 writ-ing(778)

SA-15ndash2(n 59)

Grammar(778)Vocabulary(667)How towrite e-mailletters(667)

E-mail oronline chat-ting (667)

ESLclasses(112)-EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(667)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(555)

667 222

SA-4(n 57)

Vocabulary(714)

TOEIC orSTEP Test(714)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(857)

714Motivatedto writebetterin L2(857)

143

ESL classes(714)

SA-8ndash11 (n5 12)

Content(833)

Self-directedwriting(583)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(833)

833 167

Vocabulary(667)Grammar(50)

Dictionaryreferencebooks(583)

ESL classes(917)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(833)

Note STEP 5 Society for Testing English Proficiency

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 97

they had once shared with these friends However when they wroteacademic texts in English none of them thought about such correspon-dence Instead 714 of the SA-4 group and 917 of the SA-8ndash11 groupimagined how they had written in ESL and other regular subject classesthey took while abroad (see Table 3d) In contrast no SA-15ndash2 groupmember imagined such overseas classes when writing L2 academic textsThey simply drew on their experiences of how they could best respond totheir cybernet pen pals in such cases This difference between the SA-15ndash-2 group and the pair of SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups can be attributed to thefact that the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups experienced not only moreopportunities to write but also a longer duration of overseas classes thanthe SA-15ndash2 group

As mentioned earlier in these classes the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 studentslearned how to organize effective compositions and they wrote varioustypes of texts (eg term papers summaries) When they firstencountered writing assignments in these classes many were shockedto find that they could not write as well as their classmates includingother international students because none of them had ever learnedhow to write English texts longer than a paragraph After having readrelevant literature and written multiple drafts however they learnedhow to achieve higher grades Fourteen (737) out of the 19 SA-4 andSA-8ndash11 students also mentioned that the teachersrsquo praise (one of thepotential motivational influences for the postactional phase in Dornyeiand Ottorsquos 1998 model p 61) further encouraged them Drawing onthese episodes motivated the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students to write betteracademic texts even after returning home as shown in Sachirsquoscomments from her late-fourth-year interview

ExampleSachi who spent 11 months in the United States is talking about her

first in-class test essay in a psychology class in the United States whereshe was the only international student (All accounts were originally inJapanese and were translated by the author)

Sachi After 30 minutes [for the test] I was told to stop and I thoughtlsquolsquoYou are kidding I have only written three lines This is tragicrsquorsquo(laughter)

Miyuki (laughter)Sachi And then when the test was returned the teacher told me to

study English harder I was shocked because she meant that I shouldstudy English before I could study the content [of the class]

Miyuki OhSachi But the teacher had also made many suggestions on the test

sheet about how I could have written the answer betterMiyuki Oh she is kind isnrsquot sheSachi Yes and because of that I thought I should try harder

98 TESOL QUARTERLY

Miyuki You mean you had to live up to the teacherrsquos expectationsSachi Yes I thought I should try as a Japanese Hooray for Japanese

peopleMiyuki (laughter)Sachi And even now I feel that I should make efforts to write better

when I write [in English]Such motivation seems qualitatively different from the SA-15ndash2

studentsrsquo motivation to simply improve a single aspect of their L2 writing(ie writing messages in cyberspace) This difference in motivation mayalso account for the fact that only the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups weremotivated to improve the content of their L2 writing after their thirdyear (Tables 3c and 3d)

Last as regards their fourth year (Table 3d) the most noticeabledifference from the other years was that many participants formedimagined communities where they hoped to work after they graduatedfrom university This is related to the fact that many of them startedhunting for jobs near the end of their third year They spent thefollowing 6ndash12 months taking exams and being interviewed for the bestpossible jobs they could get Of the 37 participants however only 12students (324 3 AH 1 SA-15ndash2 3 SA-4 and 5 SA-8ndash11) imaginedprofessional communities that were English-related (eg a communityof English teachers) As in their third year many SA students continuedto imagine L2-related communities such as communities imaginedthrough e-mail correspondence or overseas classes when they wrote inEnglish However these communities were not directly related to theirfuture jobs Underlying this phenomenon was the fact that althoughtheir major (British and American Studies) was related to English notmany graduates at this university (only 16 in 2006) actually obtainedemployment directly related to English

Consequently the future-career-related imagined communities ofthese students did not necessarily lead to L2 writing improvement Infact 667 of the AH group and 857 of the SA-4 group showeddecreases in their L2 composition scores and in the late-fourth-yearinterviews all of them attributed this decrease to being busy job-huntingYet seven (583) of the 12 SA-8ndash11 students continued to voluntarilypractice L2 writing even though such activity benefited the future careerof only three of them For example Koji an SA-8ndash11 student who cameback to Japan in the middle of his third year wrote a final report inEnglish for his fourth-year sociology class when the teacher allowed himto do so even though writing the report in English was not required Hisfuture-career-related imagined community was not related to EnglishAnd yet he chose to write in English because he believed that he couldlsquolsquodo a good job if he tried with all the knowledge he had acquired inAmerica and in the subsequent yearsrsquorsquo (from his late-fourth year

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 99

interview) This suggests that the motivations of these students hadbecome more intrinsic or that they had become more autonomouslearners having acquired the ability to lsquolsquoidentify goals formulate theirown goals and change goals to suit their own learning needs andinterestsrsquorsquo (Dickinson 1995 p 167) No other students exhibited suchmotivation throughout the observation period Although it is not clearwhy only some SA-8ndash11 students acquired such learner autonomy theseSA-8ndash11 students are the most likely to keep trying to improve their L2writing ability in the future

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

In this section I summarize the results of this study and present somepractical implications First the AH grouprsquos motivational behaviors overthe 35 years were different from those of the three SA groups in thatfew AH students took concrete action to achieve their goals Despite thislack of strong motivation however the AH grouprsquos L2 writing abilitycontinued to improve around their third year probably because theytook a relatively large number of English classes up to that point(Table 1) To obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree they had to earn creditsfor these classes and one can speculate that such an lsquolsquoincentive value ofthe outcomersquorsquo (Dornyei and Otto 1998 p 53) was the major drivingforce behind their improvement Once the external motivational forceof L2 classes diminished however the students seemed to need toimagine L2-related communities in order to keep improving (Table 2)Furthermore among the three SA groups who formed some kind of L2-related imagined communities after coming home the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups improved their composition scores significantly more than didthe SA-15ndash2 group This might be because these two groups had moreand longer L2 writing practice but also because their imagined L2-related communities were more directly connected to learning theability targeted in the present study (ie academic writing) Lastalthough the reason for this is not clear only the SA-8ndash11 group becameintrinsically motivated and continued to develop despite impedingfourth-year factors such as job hunting

What implications for FL teaching do these results suggest Firstwhen instrumental motivation is in force regular instruction such asproviding students with L2 writing metaknowledge as well as differenttypes of practice can lead to improvement to some degree For a morelasting effect however it may be important for students to constructsome kind of L2-related imagined communities In the present study SAstudentsrsquo overseas experiences were helpful but we know that not all FLstudents can afford to spend time abroad It would be ideal if a way could

100 TESOL QUARTERLY

be found to create L2-related imagined communities without thenecessity of going abroad Yashima and Zenuk-Nishide (2008) reportedone such possibility where Japanese high school students became moremotivated and improved their English proficiency without going abroadby being introduced into lsquolsquoan imagined international communityrsquorsquo (ie amodel lsquolsquoUnited Nationsrsquorsquo p 569) in content-based English classes In asimilar vein preparing an L2 writing curriculum where students canparticipate in such communities through lsquolsquocognitively and emotionallyinvolving contentrsquorsquo (p 570) might be a promising approach in FLsettings

Another suggestion is based on the significant difference inimprovement between the SA-15ndash2 group and the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11pair If teachers want to make their studentsrsquo motivation moreinfluential it would probably be better for the L2-related imaginedcommunities to be accompanied by specific details of skills andknowledge related to the targeted abilities to be improved In the caseof L2 writing for example students must know how to plan and writeeffective compositions in the intended genre Accumulation of suchdeclarative and procedural knowledge would endow the students withwhat Dornyei and Otto (1998) call an lsquolsquointernal model of referencersquorsquo(p 57) which would be especially helpful for realizing preactionalintentions Furthermore such knowledge has to be implementedthrough sufficient and continuous practice to result in a truly significantdifference in output quality Affective support such as teachersrsquo praise isalso important for making the studentsrsquo motivation more enduringIdeally imagined communities should be substantial enough to trans-form dependent learners into autonomous ones so that they keepimproving even when demotivating external factors intervene

CONCLUSION

The present study investigated the long-term effects of varying lengthsof overseas experiences on the L2 writing ability and motivation of 37Japanese university students The study revealed characteristics uniqueto the FL situation For example unlike the ESL learners studied byCumming (2006) some learners took almost no action to achieve theirgoals This was mainly due to the fact that L2 writing improvement wasnot necessary for their social survival In contrast spending some timeoverseas proved helpful not only in enabling the students to improvetheir L2 writing ability but also in maintaining their motivation to writebetter The pedagogical implications presented in the last section of thisarticle can thus be particularly useful for those who study an L2 where itis not used for communicative purposes

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 101

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

years in university formed some kind of L2-related imagined commu-nities that had not existed before That is after they became third-yearstudents when they had to write academic texts in the L2 as required intheir English classes many of them came to imagine communities wherepeople used L2 for actual communicative purposes Tables 3c and 3dshow how this imagined communitiesrsquo idea played out during their thirdand fourth years of study

Looking across these two tables for example many SA-15ndash2 groupmembers (667 in their fourth year) kept in touch with the L1 or L2English-speaking friends they had made while abroad and correspondedwith them in English through e-mail andor internet chat afterreturning to Japan In such correspondence the SA-15ndash2 studentsoften expressed the wish that they could still be among these pen pals inthe same English-speaking places where they had once studied and theytalked with their pen pals about topics (eg the basketball team of thetown) related to these places We can call such places imaginedcommunities because they were no longer physically accessible to thestudents6 The SA-15ndash2 students all felt that corresponding with these

TABLE 3b

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Second Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimaginedcommu-

nity

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2 writingability

Improved Decreased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabulary(444)

None(667)

EFL classes(100)

556 444

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabulary(667)Quantity(444)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

889 0

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Grammar(571)Vocabulary(571)Quantity(429)

Textbook-s refer-encebooks(571)

ESL classes(100 for4 months)

714 286

EFL classes(100)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Vocabulary(50)Quantity(417)

Textbook-s refer-encebooksteachers(50)

ESL classes(583 for8ndash11months)

100

EFL classes(100)

Note 12 5 second language

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 95

cybernet pen pals was useful for improving their English writing abilityIn fact writing good e-mails even became one of their major L2 writinggoals in their fourth year (as shown in Table 3d)

Similarly by their fourth year all members of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11groups communicated with overseas friends through e-mail or online chatand imagined during such cybernet correspondence the communities

TABLE 3c

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Third Year

Group Object

Medi-ating

artifact

L2-relatedactual com-

munity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2writing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(556)Vocabu-lary(556)

None(555)

EFL classes(100)

111 667

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabu-lary(444)Quantity(444)

E-mail oronlinechatting(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(444)

333 556

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Vocabu-lary(100)

Teachers(444)Textboo-ks(714)

EFL classes(100)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(857) ESLclasses(714)

857Motivatedto write be-tter in L2(857)

143

Organiza-tion(429)Planning(429)Content(857)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Grammar(583)Vocabu-lary (75)Content(667)

TOEICTOEFL(417)

ESL classes(417 for8ndash11months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(583) ESLclasses(583)

917 83

English-L1friends(417)

EFL classes(100)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(75)

Note TOEIC 5 Test of English for International Communication TOEFL 5 Test of English as aForeign Language

6 My interpretation of the term imagined community is thus different from that of otherresearchers who assume that the imagined communities should be physically located inplaces where the students have never been (eg Kinginger 2004)

96 TESOL QUARTERLY

TABLE 3d

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Fourth Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommun-

ity

Outcome L2 writ-ing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH (n5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabu-lary (556)

None(556)

EFLclasses(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(667)

667 333LostinterestinstudyingL2 writ-ing(778)

SA-15ndash2(n 59)

Grammar(778)Vocabulary(667)How towrite e-mailletters(667)

E-mail oronline chat-ting (667)

ESLclasses(112)-EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(667)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(555)

667 222

SA-4(n 57)

Vocabulary(714)

TOEIC orSTEP Test(714)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(857)

714Motivatedto writebetterin L2(857)

143

ESL classes(714)

SA-8ndash11 (n5 12)

Content(833)

Self-directedwriting(583)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(833)

833 167

Vocabulary(667)Grammar(50)

Dictionaryreferencebooks(583)

ESL classes(917)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(833)

Note STEP 5 Society for Testing English Proficiency

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 97

they had once shared with these friends However when they wroteacademic texts in English none of them thought about such correspon-dence Instead 714 of the SA-4 group and 917 of the SA-8ndash11 groupimagined how they had written in ESL and other regular subject classesthey took while abroad (see Table 3d) In contrast no SA-15ndash2 groupmember imagined such overseas classes when writing L2 academic textsThey simply drew on their experiences of how they could best respond totheir cybernet pen pals in such cases This difference between the SA-15ndash-2 group and the pair of SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups can be attributed to thefact that the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups experienced not only moreopportunities to write but also a longer duration of overseas classes thanthe SA-15ndash2 group

As mentioned earlier in these classes the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 studentslearned how to organize effective compositions and they wrote varioustypes of texts (eg term papers summaries) When they firstencountered writing assignments in these classes many were shockedto find that they could not write as well as their classmates includingother international students because none of them had ever learnedhow to write English texts longer than a paragraph After having readrelevant literature and written multiple drafts however they learnedhow to achieve higher grades Fourteen (737) out of the 19 SA-4 andSA-8ndash11 students also mentioned that the teachersrsquo praise (one of thepotential motivational influences for the postactional phase in Dornyeiand Ottorsquos 1998 model p 61) further encouraged them Drawing onthese episodes motivated the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students to write betteracademic texts even after returning home as shown in Sachirsquoscomments from her late-fourth-year interview

ExampleSachi who spent 11 months in the United States is talking about her

first in-class test essay in a psychology class in the United States whereshe was the only international student (All accounts were originally inJapanese and were translated by the author)

Sachi After 30 minutes [for the test] I was told to stop and I thoughtlsquolsquoYou are kidding I have only written three lines This is tragicrsquorsquo(laughter)

Miyuki (laughter)Sachi And then when the test was returned the teacher told me to

study English harder I was shocked because she meant that I shouldstudy English before I could study the content [of the class]

Miyuki OhSachi But the teacher had also made many suggestions on the test

sheet about how I could have written the answer betterMiyuki Oh she is kind isnrsquot sheSachi Yes and because of that I thought I should try harder

98 TESOL QUARTERLY

Miyuki You mean you had to live up to the teacherrsquos expectationsSachi Yes I thought I should try as a Japanese Hooray for Japanese

peopleMiyuki (laughter)Sachi And even now I feel that I should make efforts to write better

when I write [in English]Such motivation seems qualitatively different from the SA-15ndash2

studentsrsquo motivation to simply improve a single aspect of their L2 writing(ie writing messages in cyberspace) This difference in motivation mayalso account for the fact that only the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups weremotivated to improve the content of their L2 writing after their thirdyear (Tables 3c and 3d)

Last as regards their fourth year (Table 3d) the most noticeabledifference from the other years was that many participants formedimagined communities where they hoped to work after they graduatedfrom university This is related to the fact that many of them startedhunting for jobs near the end of their third year They spent thefollowing 6ndash12 months taking exams and being interviewed for the bestpossible jobs they could get Of the 37 participants however only 12students (324 3 AH 1 SA-15ndash2 3 SA-4 and 5 SA-8ndash11) imaginedprofessional communities that were English-related (eg a communityof English teachers) As in their third year many SA students continuedto imagine L2-related communities such as communities imaginedthrough e-mail correspondence or overseas classes when they wrote inEnglish However these communities were not directly related to theirfuture jobs Underlying this phenomenon was the fact that althoughtheir major (British and American Studies) was related to English notmany graduates at this university (only 16 in 2006) actually obtainedemployment directly related to English

Consequently the future-career-related imagined communities ofthese students did not necessarily lead to L2 writing improvement Infact 667 of the AH group and 857 of the SA-4 group showeddecreases in their L2 composition scores and in the late-fourth-yearinterviews all of them attributed this decrease to being busy job-huntingYet seven (583) of the 12 SA-8ndash11 students continued to voluntarilypractice L2 writing even though such activity benefited the future careerof only three of them For example Koji an SA-8ndash11 student who cameback to Japan in the middle of his third year wrote a final report inEnglish for his fourth-year sociology class when the teacher allowed himto do so even though writing the report in English was not required Hisfuture-career-related imagined community was not related to EnglishAnd yet he chose to write in English because he believed that he couldlsquolsquodo a good job if he tried with all the knowledge he had acquired inAmerica and in the subsequent yearsrsquorsquo (from his late-fourth year

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 99

interview) This suggests that the motivations of these students hadbecome more intrinsic or that they had become more autonomouslearners having acquired the ability to lsquolsquoidentify goals formulate theirown goals and change goals to suit their own learning needs andinterestsrsquorsquo (Dickinson 1995 p 167) No other students exhibited suchmotivation throughout the observation period Although it is not clearwhy only some SA-8ndash11 students acquired such learner autonomy theseSA-8ndash11 students are the most likely to keep trying to improve their L2writing ability in the future

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

In this section I summarize the results of this study and present somepractical implications First the AH grouprsquos motivational behaviors overthe 35 years were different from those of the three SA groups in thatfew AH students took concrete action to achieve their goals Despite thislack of strong motivation however the AH grouprsquos L2 writing abilitycontinued to improve around their third year probably because theytook a relatively large number of English classes up to that point(Table 1) To obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree they had to earn creditsfor these classes and one can speculate that such an lsquolsquoincentive value ofthe outcomersquorsquo (Dornyei and Otto 1998 p 53) was the major drivingforce behind their improvement Once the external motivational forceof L2 classes diminished however the students seemed to need toimagine L2-related communities in order to keep improving (Table 2)Furthermore among the three SA groups who formed some kind of L2-related imagined communities after coming home the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups improved their composition scores significantly more than didthe SA-15ndash2 group This might be because these two groups had moreand longer L2 writing practice but also because their imagined L2-related communities were more directly connected to learning theability targeted in the present study (ie academic writing) Lastalthough the reason for this is not clear only the SA-8ndash11 group becameintrinsically motivated and continued to develop despite impedingfourth-year factors such as job hunting

What implications for FL teaching do these results suggest Firstwhen instrumental motivation is in force regular instruction such asproviding students with L2 writing metaknowledge as well as differenttypes of practice can lead to improvement to some degree For a morelasting effect however it may be important for students to constructsome kind of L2-related imagined communities In the present study SAstudentsrsquo overseas experiences were helpful but we know that not all FLstudents can afford to spend time abroad It would be ideal if a way could

100 TESOL QUARTERLY

be found to create L2-related imagined communities without thenecessity of going abroad Yashima and Zenuk-Nishide (2008) reportedone such possibility where Japanese high school students became moremotivated and improved their English proficiency without going abroadby being introduced into lsquolsquoan imagined international communityrsquorsquo (ie amodel lsquolsquoUnited Nationsrsquorsquo p 569) in content-based English classes In asimilar vein preparing an L2 writing curriculum where students canparticipate in such communities through lsquolsquocognitively and emotionallyinvolving contentrsquorsquo (p 570) might be a promising approach in FLsettings

Another suggestion is based on the significant difference inimprovement between the SA-15ndash2 group and the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11pair If teachers want to make their studentsrsquo motivation moreinfluential it would probably be better for the L2-related imaginedcommunities to be accompanied by specific details of skills andknowledge related to the targeted abilities to be improved In the caseof L2 writing for example students must know how to plan and writeeffective compositions in the intended genre Accumulation of suchdeclarative and procedural knowledge would endow the students withwhat Dornyei and Otto (1998) call an lsquolsquointernal model of referencersquorsquo(p 57) which would be especially helpful for realizing preactionalintentions Furthermore such knowledge has to be implementedthrough sufficient and continuous practice to result in a truly significantdifference in output quality Affective support such as teachersrsquo praise isalso important for making the studentsrsquo motivation more enduringIdeally imagined communities should be substantial enough to trans-form dependent learners into autonomous ones so that they keepimproving even when demotivating external factors intervene

CONCLUSION

The present study investigated the long-term effects of varying lengthsof overseas experiences on the L2 writing ability and motivation of 37Japanese university students The study revealed characteristics uniqueto the FL situation For example unlike the ESL learners studied byCumming (2006) some learners took almost no action to achieve theirgoals This was mainly due to the fact that L2 writing improvement wasnot necessary for their social survival In contrast spending some timeoverseas proved helpful not only in enabling the students to improvetheir L2 writing ability but also in maintaining their motivation to writebetter The pedagogical implications presented in the last section of thisarticle can thus be particularly useful for those who study an L2 where itis not used for communicative purposes

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 101

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

cybernet pen pals was useful for improving their English writing abilityIn fact writing good e-mails even became one of their major L2 writinggoals in their fourth year (as shown in Table 3d)

Similarly by their fourth year all members of the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11groups communicated with overseas friends through e-mail or online chatand imagined during such cybernet correspondence the communities

TABLE 3c

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Third Year

Group Object

Medi-ating

artifact

L2-relatedactual com-

munity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommu-

nity

Outcome L2writing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH(n 5 9)

Grammar(556)Vocabu-lary(556)

None(555)

EFL classes(100)

111 667

SA-15ndash2(n 5 9)

Grammar(444)Vocabu-lary(444)Quantity(444)

E-mail oronlinechatting(667)

ESL classes(444 for2 months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(444)

333 556

EFL classes(100)

SA-4(n 5 7)

Vocabu-lary(100)

Teachers(444)Textboo-ks(714)

EFL classes(100)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(857) ESLclasses(714)

857Motivatedto write be-tter in L2(857)

143

Organiza-tion(429)Planning(429)Content(857)

SA-8ndash11(n 5 12)

Grammar(583)Vocabu-lary (75)Content(667)

TOEICTOEFL(417)

ESL classes(417 for8ndash11months)

English-speakingcommunitiesimaginedthroughcybernet cor-respondence(583) ESLclasses(583)

917 83

English-L1friends(417)

EFL classes(100)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(75)

Note TOEIC 5 Test of English for International Communication TOEFL 5 Test of English as aForeign Language

6 My interpretation of the term imagined community is thus different from that of otherresearchers who assume that the imagined communities should be physically located inplaces where the students have never been (eg Kinginger 2004)

96 TESOL QUARTERLY

TABLE 3d

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Fourth Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommun-

ity

Outcome L2 writ-ing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH (n5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabu-lary (556)

None(556)

EFLclasses(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(667)

667 333LostinterestinstudyingL2 writ-ing(778)

SA-15ndash2(n 59)

Grammar(778)Vocabulary(667)How towrite e-mailletters(667)

E-mail oronline chat-ting (667)

ESLclasses(112)-EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(667)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(555)

667 222

SA-4(n 57)

Vocabulary(714)

TOEIC orSTEP Test(714)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(857)

714Motivatedto writebetterin L2(857)

143

ESL classes(714)

SA-8ndash11 (n5 12)

Content(833)

Self-directedwriting(583)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(833)

833 167

Vocabulary(667)Grammar(50)

Dictionaryreferencebooks(583)

ESL classes(917)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(833)

Note STEP 5 Society for Testing English Proficiency

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 97

they had once shared with these friends However when they wroteacademic texts in English none of them thought about such correspon-dence Instead 714 of the SA-4 group and 917 of the SA-8ndash11 groupimagined how they had written in ESL and other regular subject classesthey took while abroad (see Table 3d) In contrast no SA-15ndash2 groupmember imagined such overseas classes when writing L2 academic textsThey simply drew on their experiences of how they could best respond totheir cybernet pen pals in such cases This difference between the SA-15ndash-2 group and the pair of SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups can be attributed to thefact that the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups experienced not only moreopportunities to write but also a longer duration of overseas classes thanthe SA-15ndash2 group

As mentioned earlier in these classes the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 studentslearned how to organize effective compositions and they wrote varioustypes of texts (eg term papers summaries) When they firstencountered writing assignments in these classes many were shockedto find that they could not write as well as their classmates includingother international students because none of them had ever learnedhow to write English texts longer than a paragraph After having readrelevant literature and written multiple drafts however they learnedhow to achieve higher grades Fourteen (737) out of the 19 SA-4 andSA-8ndash11 students also mentioned that the teachersrsquo praise (one of thepotential motivational influences for the postactional phase in Dornyeiand Ottorsquos 1998 model p 61) further encouraged them Drawing onthese episodes motivated the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students to write betteracademic texts even after returning home as shown in Sachirsquoscomments from her late-fourth-year interview

ExampleSachi who spent 11 months in the United States is talking about her

first in-class test essay in a psychology class in the United States whereshe was the only international student (All accounts were originally inJapanese and were translated by the author)

Sachi After 30 minutes [for the test] I was told to stop and I thoughtlsquolsquoYou are kidding I have only written three lines This is tragicrsquorsquo(laughter)

Miyuki (laughter)Sachi And then when the test was returned the teacher told me to

study English harder I was shocked because she meant that I shouldstudy English before I could study the content [of the class]

Miyuki OhSachi But the teacher had also made many suggestions on the test

sheet about how I could have written the answer betterMiyuki Oh she is kind isnrsquot sheSachi Yes and because of that I thought I should try harder

98 TESOL QUARTERLY

Miyuki You mean you had to live up to the teacherrsquos expectationsSachi Yes I thought I should try as a Japanese Hooray for Japanese

peopleMiyuki (laughter)Sachi And even now I feel that I should make efforts to write better

when I write [in English]Such motivation seems qualitatively different from the SA-15ndash2

studentsrsquo motivation to simply improve a single aspect of their L2 writing(ie writing messages in cyberspace) This difference in motivation mayalso account for the fact that only the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups weremotivated to improve the content of their L2 writing after their thirdyear (Tables 3c and 3d)

Last as regards their fourth year (Table 3d) the most noticeabledifference from the other years was that many participants formedimagined communities where they hoped to work after they graduatedfrom university This is related to the fact that many of them startedhunting for jobs near the end of their third year They spent thefollowing 6ndash12 months taking exams and being interviewed for the bestpossible jobs they could get Of the 37 participants however only 12students (324 3 AH 1 SA-15ndash2 3 SA-4 and 5 SA-8ndash11) imaginedprofessional communities that were English-related (eg a communityof English teachers) As in their third year many SA students continuedto imagine L2-related communities such as communities imaginedthrough e-mail correspondence or overseas classes when they wrote inEnglish However these communities were not directly related to theirfuture jobs Underlying this phenomenon was the fact that althoughtheir major (British and American Studies) was related to English notmany graduates at this university (only 16 in 2006) actually obtainedemployment directly related to English

Consequently the future-career-related imagined communities ofthese students did not necessarily lead to L2 writing improvement Infact 667 of the AH group and 857 of the SA-4 group showeddecreases in their L2 composition scores and in the late-fourth-yearinterviews all of them attributed this decrease to being busy job-huntingYet seven (583) of the 12 SA-8ndash11 students continued to voluntarilypractice L2 writing even though such activity benefited the future careerof only three of them For example Koji an SA-8ndash11 student who cameback to Japan in the middle of his third year wrote a final report inEnglish for his fourth-year sociology class when the teacher allowed himto do so even though writing the report in English was not required Hisfuture-career-related imagined community was not related to EnglishAnd yet he chose to write in English because he believed that he couldlsquolsquodo a good job if he tried with all the knowledge he had acquired inAmerica and in the subsequent yearsrsquorsquo (from his late-fourth year

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 99

interview) This suggests that the motivations of these students hadbecome more intrinsic or that they had become more autonomouslearners having acquired the ability to lsquolsquoidentify goals formulate theirown goals and change goals to suit their own learning needs andinterestsrsquorsquo (Dickinson 1995 p 167) No other students exhibited suchmotivation throughout the observation period Although it is not clearwhy only some SA-8ndash11 students acquired such learner autonomy theseSA-8ndash11 students are the most likely to keep trying to improve their L2writing ability in the future

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

In this section I summarize the results of this study and present somepractical implications First the AH grouprsquos motivational behaviors overthe 35 years were different from those of the three SA groups in thatfew AH students took concrete action to achieve their goals Despite thislack of strong motivation however the AH grouprsquos L2 writing abilitycontinued to improve around their third year probably because theytook a relatively large number of English classes up to that point(Table 1) To obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree they had to earn creditsfor these classes and one can speculate that such an lsquolsquoincentive value ofthe outcomersquorsquo (Dornyei and Otto 1998 p 53) was the major drivingforce behind their improvement Once the external motivational forceof L2 classes diminished however the students seemed to need toimagine L2-related communities in order to keep improving (Table 2)Furthermore among the three SA groups who formed some kind of L2-related imagined communities after coming home the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups improved their composition scores significantly more than didthe SA-15ndash2 group This might be because these two groups had moreand longer L2 writing practice but also because their imagined L2-related communities were more directly connected to learning theability targeted in the present study (ie academic writing) Lastalthough the reason for this is not clear only the SA-8ndash11 group becameintrinsically motivated and continued to develop despite impedingfourth-year factors such as job hunting

What implications for FL teaching do these results suggest Firstwhen instrumental motivation is in force regular instruction such asproviding students with L2 writing metaknowledge as well as differenttypes of practice can lead to improvement to some degree For a morelasting effect however it may be important for students to constructsome kind of L2-related imagined communities In the present study SAstudentsrsquo overseas experiences were helpful but we know that not all FLstudents can afford to spend time abroad It would be ideal if a way could

100 TESOL QUARTERLY

be found to create L2-related imagined communities without thenecessity of going abroad Yashima and Zenuk-Nishide (2008) reportedone such possibility where Japanese high school students became moremotivated and improved their English proficiency without going abroadby being introduced into lsquolsquoan imagined international communityrsquorsquo (ie amodel lsquolsquoUnited Nationsrsquorsquo p 569) in content-based English classes In asimilar vein preparing an L2 writing curriculum where students canparticipate in such communities through lsquolsquocognitively and emotionallyinvolving contentrsquorsquo (p 570) might be a promising approach in FLsettings

Another suggestion is based on the significant difference inimprovement between the SA-15ndash2 group and the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11pair If teachers want to make their studentsrsquo motivation moreinfluential it would probably be better for the L2-related imaginedcommunities to be accompanied by specific details of skills andknowledge related to the targeted abilities to be improved In the caseof L2 writing for example students must know how to plan and writeeffective compositions in the intended genre Accumulation of suchdeclarative and procedural knowledge would endow the students withwhat Dornyei and Otto (1998) call an lsquolsquointernal model of referencersquorsquo(p 57) which would be especially helpful for realizing preactionalintentions Furthermore such knowledge has to be implementedthrough sufficient and continuous practice to result in a truly significantdifference in output quality Affective support such as teachersrsquo praise isalso important for making the studentsrsquo motivation more enduringIdeally imagined communities should be substantial enough to trans-form dependent learners into autonomous ones so that they keepimproving even when demotivating external factors intervene

CONCLUSION

The present study investigated the long-term effects of varying lengthsof overseas experiences on the L2 writing ability and motivation of 37Japanese university students The study revealed characteristics uniqueto the FL situation For example unlike the ESL learners studied byCumming (2006) some learners took almost no action to achieve theirgoals This was mainly due to the fact that L2 writing improvement wasnot necessary for their social survival In contrast spending some timeoverseas proved helpful not only in enabling the students to improvetheir L2 writing ability but also in maintaining their motivation to writebetter The pedagogical implications presented in the last section of thisarticle can thus be particularly useful for those who study an L2 where itis not used for communicative purposes

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 101

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

TABLE 3d

Studentsrsquo L2 Writing Motivation and Related Components in Fourth Year

Group ObjectMediating

artifact

L2-relatedactual

commu-nity

L2-relatedimagined

community

NonndashL2-related

imaginedcommun-

ity

Outcome L2 writ-ing ability

Im-proved

De-creased

AH (n5 9)

Grammar(667)Vocabu-lary (556)

None(556)

EFLclasses(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(667)

667 333LostinterestinstudyingL2 writ-ing(778)

SA-15ndash2(n 59)

Grammar(778)Vocabulary(667)How towrite e-mailletters(667)

E-mail oronline chat-ting (667)

ESLclasses(112)-EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(667)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(555)

667 222

SA-4(n 57)

Vocabulary(714)

TOEIC orSTEP Test(714)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(857)

714Motivatedto writebetterin L2(857)

143

ESL classes(714)

SA-8ndash11 (n5 12)

Content(833)

Self-directedwriting(583)

EFLclasses(100)

English-speakingcommuni-ties ima-ginedthroughcybernetcorrespon-dence(100)

Commu-nity ofprofes-sionals oftheirchoice(833)

833 167

Vocabulary(667)Grammar(50)

Dictionaryreferencebooks(583)

ESL classes(917)

Moti-vated towrite bet-ter in L2(833)

Note STEP 5 Society for Testing English Proficiency

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 97

they had once shared with these friends However when they wroteacademic texts in English none of them thought about such correspon-dence Instead 714 of the SA-4 group and 917 of the SA-8ndash11 groupimagined how they had written in ESL and other regular subject classesthey took while abroad (see Table 3d) In contrast no SA-15ndash2 groupmember imagined such overseas classes when writing L2 academic textsThey simply drew on their experiences of how they could best respond totheir cybernet pen pals in such cases This difference between the SA-15ndash-2 group and the pair of SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups can be attributed to thefact that the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups experienced not only moreopportunities to write but also a longer duration of overseas classes thanthe SA-15ndash2 group

As mentioned earlier in these classes the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 studentslearned how to organize effective compositions and they wrote varioustypes of texts (eg term papers summaries) When they firstencountered writing assignments in these classes many were shockedto find that they could not write as well as their classmates includingother international students because none of them had ever learnedhow to write English texts longer than a paragraph After having readrelevant literature and written multiple drafts however they learnedhow to achieve higher grades Fourteen (737) out of the 19 SA-4 andSA-8ndash11 students also mentioned that the teachersrsquo praise (one of thepotential motivational influences for the postactional phase in Dornyeiand Ottorsquos 1998 model p 61) further encouraged them Drawing onthese episodes motivated the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students to write betteracademic texts even after returning home as shown in Sachirsquoscomments from her late-fourth-year interview

ExampleSachi who spent 11 months in the United States is talking about her

first in-class test essay in a psychology class in the United States whereshe was the only international student (All accounts were originally inJapanese and were translated by the author)

Sachi After 30 minutes [for the test] I was told to stop and I thoughtlsquolsquoYou are kidding I have only written three lines This is tragicrsquorsquo(laughter)

Miyuki (laughter)Sachi And then when the test was returned the teacher told me to

study English harder I was shocked because she meant that I shouldstudy English before I could study the content [of the class]

Miyuki OhSachi But the teacher had also made many suggestions on the test

sheet about how I could have written the answer betterMiyuki Oh she is kind isnrsquot sheSachi Yes and because of that I thought I should try harder

98 TESOL QUARTERLY

Miyuki You mean you had to live up to the teacherrsquos expectationsSachi Yes I thought I should try as a Japanese Hooray for Japanese

peopleMiyuki (laughter)Sachi And even now I feel that I should make efforts to write better

when I write [in English]Such motivation seems qualitatively different from the SA-15ndash2

studentsrsquo motivation to simply improve a single aspect of their L2 writing(ie writing messages in cyberspace) This difference in motivation mayalso account for the fact that only the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups weremotivated to improve the content of their L2 writing after their thirdyear (Tables 3c and 3d)

Last as regards their fourth year (Table 3d) the most noticeabledifference from the other years was that many participants formedimagined communities where they hoped to work after they graduatedfrom university This is related to the fact that many of them startedhunting for jobs near the end of their third year They spent thefollowing 6ndash12 months taking exams and being interviewed for the bestpossible jobs they could get Of the 37 participants however only 12students (324 3 AH 1 SA-15ndash2 3 SA-4 and 5 SA-8ndash11) imaginedprofessional communities that were English-related (eg a communityof English teachers) As in their third year many SA students continuedto imagine L2-related communities such as communities imaginedthrough e-mail correspondence or overseas classes when they wrote inEnglish However these communities were not directly related to theirfuture jobs Underlying this phenomenon was the fact that althoughtheir major (British and American Studies) was related to English notmany graduates at this university (only 16 in 2006) actually obtainedemployment directly related to English

Consequently the future-career-related imagined communities ofthese students did not necessarily lead to L2 writing improvement Infact 667 of the AH group and 857 of the SA-4 group showeddecreases in their L2 composition scores and in the late-fourth-yearinterviews all of them attributed this decrease to being busy job-huntingYet seven (583) of the 12 SA-8ndash11 students continued to voluntarilypractice L2 writing even though such activity benefited the future careerof only three of them For example Koji an SA-8ndash11 student who cameback to Japan in the middle of his third year wrote a final report inEnglish for his fourth-year sociology class when the teacher allowed himto do so even though writing the report in English was not required Hisfuture-career-related imagined community was not related to EnglishAnd yet he chose to write in English because he believed that he couldlsquolsquodo a good job if he tried with all the knowledge he had acquired inAmerica and in the subsequent yearsrsquorsquo (from his late-fourth year

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 99

interview) This suggests that the motivations of these students hadbecome more intrinsic or that they had become more autonomouslearners having acquired the ability to lsquolsquoidentify goals formulate theirown goals and change goals to suit their own learning needs andinterestsrsquorsquo (Dickinson 1995 p 167) No other students exhibited suchmotivation throughout the observation period Although it is not clearwhy only some SA-8ndash11 students acquired such learner autonomy theseSA-8ndash11 students are the most likely to keep trying to improve their L2writing ability in the future

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

In this section I summarize the results of this study and present somepractical implications First the AH grouprsquos motivational behaviors overthe 35 years were different from those of the three SA groups in thatfew AH students took concrete action to achieve their goals Despite thislack of strong motivation however the AH grouprsquos L2 writing abilitycontinued to improve around their third year probably because theytook a relatively large number of English classes up to that point(Table 1) To obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree they had to earn creditsfor these classes and one can speculate that such an lsquolsquoincentive value ofthe outcomersquorsquo (Dornyei and Otto 1998 p 53) was the major drivingforce behind their improvement Once the external motivational forceof L2 classes diminished however the students seemed to need toimagine L2-related communities in order to keep improving (Table 2)Furthermore among the three SA groups who formed some kind of L2-related imagined communities after coming home the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups improved their composition scores significantly more than didthe SA-15ndash2 group This might be because these two groups had moreand longer L2 writing practice but also because their imagined L2-related communities were more directly connected to learning theability targeted in the present study (ie academic writing) Lastalthough the reason for this is not clear only the SA-8ndash11 group becameintrinsically motivated and continued to develop despite impedingfourth-year factors such as job hunting

What implications for FL teaching do these results suggest Firstwhen instrumental motivation is in force regular instruction such asproviding students with L2 writing metaknowledge as well as differenttypes of practice can lead to improvement to some degree For a morelasting effect however it may be important for students to constructsome kind of L2-related imagined communities In the present study SAstudentsrsquo overseas experiences were helpful but we know that not all FLstudents can afford to spend time abroad It would be ideal if a way could

100 TESOL QUARTERLY

be found to create L2-related imagined communities without thenecessity of going abroad Yashima and Zenuk-Nishide (2008) reportedone such possibility where Japanese high school students became moremotivated and improved their English proficiency without going abroadby being introduced into lsquolsquoan imagined international communityrsquorsquo (ie amodel lsquolsquoUnited Nationsrsquorsquo p 569) in content-based English classes In asimilar vein preparing an L2 writing curriculum where students canparticipate in such communities through lsquolsquocognitively and emotionallyinvolving contentrsquorsquo (p 570) might be a promising approach in FLsettings

Another suggestion is based on the significant difference inimprovement between the SA-15ndash2 group and the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11pair If teachers want to make their studentsrsquo motivation moreinfluential it would probably be better for the L2-related imaginedcommunities to be accompanied by specific details of skills andknowledge related to the targeted abilities to be improved In the caseof L2 writing for example students must know how to plan and writeeffective compositions in the intended genre Accumulation of suchdeclarative and procedural knowledge would endow the students withwhat Dornyei and Otto (1998) call an lsquolsquointernal model of referencersquorsquo(p 57) which would be especially helpful for realizing preactionalintentions Furthermore such knowledge has to be implementedthrough sufficient and continuous practice to result in a truly significantdifference in output quality Affective support such as teachersrsquo praise isalso important for making the studentsrsquo motivation more enduringIdeally imagined communities should be substantial enough to trans-form dependent learners into autonomous ones so that they keepimproving even when demotivating external factors intervene

CONCLUSION

The present study investigated the long-term effects of varying lengthsof overseas experiences on the L2 writing ability and motivation of 37Japanese university students The study revealed characteristics uniqueto the FL situation For example unlike the ESL learners studied byCumming (2006) some learners took almost no action to achieve theirgoals This was mainly due to the fact that L2 writing improvement wasnot necessary for their social survival In contrast spending some timeoverseas proved helpful not only in enabling the students to improvetheir L2 writing ability but also in maintaining their motivation to writebetter The pedagogical implications presented in the last section of thisarticle can thus be particularly useful for those who study an L2 where itis not used for communicative purposes

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 101

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

they had once shared with these friends However when they wroteacademic texts in English none of them thought about such correspon-dence Instead 714 of the SA-4 group and 917 of the SA-8ndash11 groupimagined how they had written in ESL and other regular subject classesthey took while abroad (see Table 3d) In contrast no SA-15ndash2 groupmember imagined such overseas classes when writing L2 academic textsThey simply drew on their experiences of how they could best respond totheir cybernet pen pals in such cases This difference between the SA-15ndash-2 group and the pair of SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups can be attributed to thefact that the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups experienced not only moreopportunities to write but also a longer duration of overseas classes thanthe SA-15ndash2 group

As mentioned earlier in these classes the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 studentslearned how to organize effective compositions and they wrote varioustypes of texts (eg term papers summaries) When they firstencountered writing assignments in these classes many were shockedto find that they could not write as well as their classmates includingother international students because none of them had ever learnedhow to write English texts longer than a paragraph After having readrelevant literature and written multiple drafts however they learnedhow to achieve higher grades Fourteen (737) out of the 19 SA-4 andSA-8ndash11 students also mentioned that the teachersrsquo praise (one of thepotential motivational influences for the postactional phase in Dornyeiand Ottorsquos 1998 model p 61) further encouraged them Drawing onthese episodes motivated the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 students to write betteracademic texts even after returning home as shown in Sachirsquoscomments from her late-fourth-year interview

ExampleSachi who spent 11 months in the United States is talking about her

first in-class test essay in a psychology class in the United States whereshe was the only international student (All accounts were originally inJapanese and were translated by the author)

Sachi After 30 minutes [for the test] I was told to stop and I thoughtlsquolsquoYou are kidding I have only written three lines This is tragicrsquorsquo(laughter)

Miyuki (laughter)Sachi And then when the test was returned the teacher told me to

study English harder I was shocked because she meant that I shouldstudy English before I could study the content [of the class]

Miyuki OhSachi But the teacher had also made many suggestions on the test

sheet about how I could have written the answer betterMiyuki Oh she is kind isnrsquot sheSachi Yes and because of that I thought I should try harder

98 TESOL QUARTERLY

Miyuki You mean you had to live up to the teacherrsquos expectationsSachi Yes I thought I should try as a Japanese Hooray for Japanese

peopleMiyuki (laughter)Sachi And even now I feel that I should make efforts to write better

when I write [in English]Such motivation seems qualitatively different from the SA-15ndash2

studentsrsquo motivation to simply improve a single aspect of their L2 writing(ie writing messages in cyberspace) This difference in motivation mayalso account for the fact that only the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups weremotivated to improve the content of their L2 writing after their thirdyear (Tables 3c and 3d)

Last as regards their fourth year (Table 3d) the most noticeabledifference from the other years was that many participants formedimagined communities where they hoped to work after they graduatedfrom university This is related to the fact that many of them startedhunting for jobs near the end of their third year They spent thefollowing 6ndash12 months taking exams and being interviewed for the bestpossible jobs they could get Of the 37 participants however only 12students (324 3 AH 1 SA-15ndash2 3 SA-4 and 5 SA-8ndash11) imaginedprofessional communities that were English-related (eg a communityof English teachers) As in their third year many SA students continuedto imagine L2-related communities such as communities imaginedthrough e-mail correspondence or overseas classes when they wrote inEnglish However these communities were not directly related to theirfuture jobs Underlying this phenomenon was the fact that althoughtheir major (British and American Studies) was related to English notmany graduates at this university (only 16 in 2006) actually obtainedemployment directly related to English

Consequently the future-career-related imagined communities ofthese students did not necessarily lead to L2 writing improvement Infact 667 of the AH group and 857 of the SA-4 group showeddecreases in their L2 composition scores and in the late-fourth-yearinterviews all of them attributed this decrease to being busy job-huntingYet seven (583) of the 12 SA-8ndash11 students continued to voluntarilypractice L2 writing even though such activity benefited the future careerof only three of them For example Koji an SA-8ndash11 student who cameback to Japan in the middle of his third year wrote a final report inEnglish for his fourth-year sociology class when the teacher allowed himto do so even though writing the report in English was not required Hisfuture-career-related imagined community was not related to EnglishAnd yet he chose to write in English because he believed that he couldlsquolsquodo a good job if he tried with all the knowledge he had acquired inAmerica and in the subsequent yearsrsquorsquo (from his late-fourth year

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 99

interview) This suggests that the motivations of these students hadbecome more intrinsic or that they had become more autonomouslearners having acquired the ability to lsquolsquoidentify goals formulate theirown goals and change goals to suit their own learning needs andinterestsrsquorsquo (Dickinson 1995 p 167) No other students exhibited suchmotivation throughout the observation period Although it is not clearwhy only some SA-8ndash11 students acquired such learner autonomy theseSA-8ndash11 students are the most likely to keep trying to improve their L2writing ability in the future

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

In this section I summarize the results of this study and present somepractical implications First the AH grouprsquos motivational behaviors overthe 35 years were different from those of the three SA groups in thatfew AH students took concrete action to achieve their goals Despite thislack of strong motivation however the AH grouprsquos L2 writing abilitycontinued to improve around their third year probably because theytook a relatively large number of English classes up to that point(Table 1) To obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree they had to earn creditsfor these classes and one can speculate that such an lsquolsquoincentive value ofthe outcomersquorsquo (Dornyei and Otto 1998 p 53) was the major drivingforce behind their improvement Once the external motivational forceof L2 classes diminished however the students seemed to need toimagine L2-related communities in order to keep improving (Table 2)Furthermore among the three SA groups who formed some kind of L2-related imagined communities after coming home the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups improved their composition scores significantly more than didthe SA-15ndash2 group This might be because these two groups had moreand longer L2 writing practice but also because their imagined L2-related communities were more directly connected to learning theability targeted in the present study (ie academic writing) Lastalthough the reason for this is not clear only the SA-8ndash11 group becameintrinsically motivated and continued to develop despite impedingfourth-year factors such as job hunting

What implications for FL teaching do these results suggest Firstwhen instrumental motivation is in force regular instruction such asproviding students with L2 writing metaknowledge as well as differenttypes of practice can lead to improvement to some degree For a morelasting effect however it may be important for students to constructsome kind of L2-related imagined communities In the present study SAstudentsrsquo overseas experiences were helpful but we know that not all FLstudents can afford to spend time abroad It would be ideal if a way could

100 TESOL QUARTERLY

be found to create L2-related imagined communities without thenecessity of going abroad Yashima and Zenuk-Nishide (2008) reportedone such possibility where Japanese high school students became moremotivated and improved their English proficiency without going abroadby being introduced into lsquolsquoan imagined international communityrsquorsquo (ie amodel lsquolsquoUnited Nationsrsquorsquo p 569) in content-based English classes In asimilar vein preparing an L2 writing curriculum where students canparticipate in such communities through lsquolsquocognitively and emotionallyinvolving contentrsquorsquo (p 570) might be a promising approach in FLsettings

Another suggestion is based on the significant difference inimprovement between the SA-15ndash2 group and the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11pair If teachers want to make their studentsrsquo motivation moreinfluential it would probably be better for the L2-related imaginedcommunities to be accompanied by specific details of skills andknowledge related to the targeted abilities to be improved In the caseof L2 writing for example students must know how to plan and writeeffective compositions in the intended genre Accumulation of suchdeclarative and procedural knowledge would endow the students withwhat Dornyei and Otto (1998) call an lsquolsquointernal model of referencersquorsquo(p 57) which would be especially helpful for realizing preactionalintentions Furthermore such knowledge has to be implementedthrough sufficient and continuous practice to result in a truly significantdifference in output quality Affective support such as teachersrsquo praise isalso important for making the studentsrsquo motivation more enduringIdeally imagined communities should be substantial enough to trans-form dependent learners into autonomous ones so that they keepimproving even when demotivating external factors intervene

CONCLUSION

The present study investigated the long-term effects of varying lengthsof overseas experiences on the L2 writing ability and motivation of 37Japanese university students The study revealed characteristics uniqueto the FL situation For example unlike the ESL learners studied byCumming (2006) some learners took almost no action to achieve theirgoals This was mainly due to the fact that L2 writing improvement wasnot necessary for their social survival In contrast spending some timeoverseas proved helpful not only in enabling the students to improvetheir L2 writing ability but also in maintaining their motivation to writebetter The pedagogical implications presented in the last section of thisarticle can thus be particularly useful for those who study an L2 where itis not used for communicative purposes

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 101

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

Miyuki You mean you had to live up to the teacherrsquos expectationsSachi Yes I thought I should try as a Japanese Hooray for Japanese

peopleMiyuki (laughter)Sachi And even now I feel that I should make efforts to write better

when I write [in English]Such motivation seems qualitatively different from the SA-15ndash2

studentsrsquo motivation to simply improve a single aspect of their L2 writing(ie writing messages in cyberspace) This difference in motivation mayalso account for the fact that only the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups weremotivated to improve the content of their L2 writing after their thirdyear (Tables 3c and 3d)

Last as regards their fourth year (Table 3d) the most noticeabledifference from the other years was that many participants formedimagined communities where they hoped to work after they graduatedfrom university This is related to the fact that many of them startedhunting for jobs near the end of their third year They spent thefollowing 6ndash12 months taking exams and being interviewed for the bestpossible jobs they could get Of the 37 participants however only 12students (324 3 AH 1 SA-15ndash2 3 SA-4 and 5 SA-8ndash11) imaginedprofessional communities that were English-related (eg a communityof English teachers) As in their third year many SA students continuedto imagine L2-related communities such as communities imaginedthrough e-mail correspondence or overseas classes when they wrote inEnglish However these communities were not directly related to theirfuture jobs Underlying this phenomenon was the fact that althoughtheir major (British and American Studies) was related to English notmany graduates at this university (only 16 in 2006) actually obtainedemployment directly related to English

Consequently the future-career-related imagined communities ofthese students did not necessarily lead to L2 writing improvement Infact 667 of the AH group and 857 of the SA-4 group showeddecreases in their L2 composition scores and in the late-fourth-yearinterviews all of them attributed this decrease to being busy job-huntingYet seven (583) of the 12 SA-8ndash11 students continued to voluntarilypractice L2 writing even though such activity benefited the future careerof only three of them For example Koji an SA-8ndash11 student who cameback to Japan in the middle of his third year wrote a final report inEnglish for his fourth-year sociology class when the teacher allowed himto do so even though writing the report in English was not required Hisfuture-career-related imagined community was not related to EnglishAnd yet he chose to write in English because he believed that he couldlsquolsquodo a good job if he tried with all the knowledge he had acquired inAmerica and in the subsequent yearsrsquorsquo (from his late-fourth year

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 99

interview) This suggests that the motivations of these students hadbecome more intrinsic or that they had become more autonomouslearners having acquired the ability to lsquolsquoidentify goals formulate theirown goals and change goals to suit their own learning needs andinterestsrsquorsquo (Dickinson 1995 p 167) No other students exhibited suchmotivation throughout the observation period Although it is not clearwhy only some SA-8ndash11 students acquired such learner autonomy theseSA-8ndash11 students are the most likely to keep trying to improve their L2writing ability in the future

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

In this section I summarize the results of this study and present somepractical implications First the AH grouprsquos motivational behaviors overthe 35 years were different from those of the three SA groups in thatfew AH students took concrete action to achieve their goals Despite thislack of strong motivation however the AH grouprsquos L2 writing abilitycontinued to improve around their third year probably because theytook a relatively large number of English classes up to that point(Table 1) To obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree they had to earn creditsfor these classes and one can speculate that such an lsquolsquoincentive value ofthe outcomersquorsquo (Dornyei and Otto 1998 p 53) was the major drivingforce behind their improvement Once the external motivational forceof L2 classes diminished however the students seemed to need toimagine L2-related communities in order to keep improving (Table 2)Furthermore among the three SA groups who formed some kind of L2-related imagined communities after coming home the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups improved their composition scores significantly more than didthe SA-15ndash2 group This might be because these two groups had moreand longer L2 writing practice but also because their imagined L2-related communities were more directly connected to learning theability targeted in the present study (ie academic writing) Lastalthough the reason for this is not clear only the SA-8ndash11 group becameintrinsically motivated and continued to develop despite impedingfourth-year factors such as job hunting

What implications for FL teaching do these results suggest Firstwhen instrumental motivation is in force regular instruction such asproviding students with L2 writing metaknowledge as well as differenttypes of practice can lead to improvement to some degree For a morelasting effect however it may be important for students to constructsome kind of L2-related imagined communities In the present study SAstudentsrsquo overseas experiences were helpful but we know that not all FLstudents can afford to spend time abroad It would be ideal if a way could

100 TESOL QUARTERLY

be found to create L2-related imagined communities without thenecessity of going abroad Yashima and Zenuk-Nishide (2008) reportedone such possibility where Japanese high school students became moremotivated and improved their English proficiency without going abroadby being introduced into lsquolsquoan imagined international communityrsquorsquo (ie amodel lsquolsquoUnited Nationsrsquorsquo p 569) in content-based English classes In asimilar vein preparing an L2 writing curriculum where students canparticipate in such communities through lsquolsquocognitively and emotionallyinvolving contentrsquorsquo (p 570) might be a promising approach in FLsettings

Another suggestion is based on the significant difference inimprovement between the SA-15ndash2 group and the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11pair If teachers want to make their studentsrsquo motivation moreinfluential it would probably be better for the L2-related imaginedcommunities to be accompanied by specific details of skills andknowledge related to the targeted abilities to be improved In the caseof L2 writing for example students must know how to plan and writeeffective compositions in the intended genre Accumulation of suchdeclarative and procedural knowledge would endow the students withwhat Dornyei and Otto (1998) call an lsquolsquointernal model of referencersquorsquo(p 57) which would be especially helpful for realizing preactionalintentions Furthermore such knowledge has to be implementedthrough sufficient and continuous practice to result in a truly significantdifference in output quality Affective support such as teachersrsquo praise isalso important for making the studentsrsquo motivation more enduringIdeally imagined communities should be substantial enough to trans-form dependent learners into autonomous ones so that they keepimproving even when demotivating external factors intervene

CONCLUSION

The present study investigated the long-term effects of varying lengthsof overseas experiences on the L2 writing ability and motivation of 37Japanese university students The study revealed characteristics uniqueto the FL situation For example unlike the ESL learners studied byCumming (2006) some learners took almost no action to achieve theirgoals This was mainly due to the fact that L2 writing improvement wasnot necessary for their social survival In contrast spending some timeoverseas proved helpful not only in enabling the students to improvetheir L2 writing ability but also in maintaining their motivation to writebetter The pedagogical implications presented in the last section of thisarticle can thus be particularly useful for those who study an L2 where itis not used for communicative purposes

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 101

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

interview) This suggests that the motivations of these students hadbecome more intrinsic or that they had become more autonomouslearners having acquired the ability to lsquolsquoidentify goals formulate theirown goals and change goals to suit their own learning needs andinterestsrsquorsquo (Dickinson 1995 p 167) No other students exhibited suchmotivation throughout the observation period Although it is not clearwhy only some SA-8ndash11 students acquired such learner autonomy theseSA-8ndash11 students are the most likely to keep trying to improve their L2writing ability in the future

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

In this section I summarize the results of this study and present somepractical implications First the AH grouprsquos motivational behaviors overthe 35 years were different from those of the three SA groups in thatfew AH students took concrete action to achieve their goals Despite thislack of strong motivation however the AH grouprsquos L2 writing abilitycontinued to improve around their third year probably because theytook a relatively large number of English classes up to that point(Table 1) To obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree they had to earn creditsfor these classes and one can speculate that such an lsquolsquoincentive value ofthe outcomersquorsquo (Dornyei and Otto 1998 p 53) was the major drivingforce behind their improvement Once the external motivational forceof L2 classes diminished however the students seemed to need toimagine L2-related communities in order to keep improving (Table 2)Furthermore among the three SA groups who formed some kind of L2-related imagined communities after coming home the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11 groups improved their composition scores significantly more than didthe SA-15ndash2 group This might be because these two groups had moreand longer L2 writing practice but also because their imagined L2-related communities were more directly connected to learning theability targeted in the present study (ie academic writing) Lastalthough the reason for this is not clear only the SA-8ndash11 group becameintrinsically motivated and continued to develop despite impedingfourth-year factors such as job hunting

What implications for FL teaching do these results suggest Firstwhen instrumental motivation is in force regular instruction such asproviding students with L2 writing metaknowledge as well as differenttypes of practice can lead to improvement to some degree For a morelasting effect however it may be important for students to constructsome kind of L2-related imagined communities In the present study SAstudentsrsquo overseas experiences were helpful but we know that not all FLstudents can afford to spend time abroad It would be ideal if a way could

100 TESOL QUARTERLY

be found to create L2-related imagined communities without thenecessity of going abroad Yashima and Zenuk-Nishide (2008) reportedone such possibility where Japanese high school students became moremotivated and improved their English proficiency without going abroadby being introduced into lsquolsquoan imagined international communityrsquorsquo (ie amodel lsquolsquoUnited Nationsrsquorsquo p 569) in content-based English classes In asimilar vein preparing an L2 writing curriculum where students canparticipate in such communities through lsquolsquocognitively and emotionallyinvolving contentrsquorsquo (p 570) might be a promising approach in FLsettings

Another suggestion is based on the significant difference inimprovement between the SA-15ndash2 group and the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11pair If teachers want to make their studentsrsquo motivation moreinfluential it would probably be better for the L2-related imaginedcommunities to be accompanied by specific details of skills andknowledge related to the targeted abilities to be improved In the caseof L2 writing for example students must know how to plan and writeeffective compositions in the intended genre Accumulation of suchdeclarative and procedural knowledge would endow the students withwhat Dornyei and Otto (1998) call an lsquolsquointernal model of referencersquorsquo(p 57) which would be especially helpful for realizing preactionalintentions Furthermore such knowledge has to be implementedthrough sufficient and continuous practice to result in a truly significantdifference in output quality Affective support such as teachersrsquo praise isalso important for making the studentsrsquo motivation more enduringIdeally imagined communities should be substantial enough to trans-form dependent learners into autonomous ones so that they keepimproving even when demotivating external factors intervene

CONCLUSION

The present study investigated the long-term effects of varying lengthsof overseas experiences on the L2 writing ability and motivation of 37Japanese university students The study revealed characteristics uniqueto the FL situation For example unlike the ESL learners studied byCumming (2006) some learners took almost no action to achieve theirgoals This was mainly due to the fact that L2 writing improvement wasnot necessary for their social survival In contrast spending some timeoverseas proved helpful not only in enabling the students to improvetheir L2 writing ability but also in maintaining their motivation to writebetter The pedagogical implications presented in the last section of thisarticle can thus be particularly useful for those who study an L2 where itis not used for communicative purposes

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 101

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

be found to create L2-related imagined communities without thenecessity of going abroad Yashima and Zenuk-Nishide (2008) reportedone such possibility where Japanese high school students became moremotivated and improved their English proficiency without going abroadby being introduced into lsquolsquoan imagined international communityrsquorsquo (ie amodel lsquolsquoUnited Nationsrsquorsquo p 569) in content-based English classes In asimilar vein preparing an L2 writing curriculum where students canparticipate in such communities through lsquolsquocognitively and emotionallyinvolving contentrsquorsquo (p 570) might be a promising approach in FLsettings

Another suggestion is based on the significant difference inimprovement between the SA-15ndash2 group and the SA-4 and SA-8ndash11pair If teachers want to make their studentsrsquo motivation moreinfluential it would probably be better for the L2-related imaginedcommunities to be accompanied by specific details of skills andknowledge related to the targeted abilities to be improved In the caseof L2 writing for example students must know how to plan and writeeffective compositions in the intended genre Accumulation of suchdeclarative and procedural knowledge would endow the students withwhat Dornyei and Otto (1998) call an lsquolsquointernal model of referencersquorsquo(p 57) which would be especially helpful for realizing preactionalintentions Furthermore such knowledge has to be implementedthrough sufficient and continuous practice to result in a truly significantdifference in output quality Affective support such as teachersrsquo praise isalso important for making the studentsrsquo motivation more enduringIdeally imagined communities should be substantial enough to trans-form dependent learners into autonomous ones so that they keepimproving even when demotivating external factors intervene

CONCLUSION

The present study investigated the long-term effects of varying lengthsof overseas experiences on the L2 writing ability and motivation of 37Japanese university students The study revealed characteristics uniqueto the FL situation For example unlike the ESL learners studied byCumming (2006) some learners took almost no action to achieve theirgoals This was mainly due to the fact that L2 writing improvement wasnot necessary for their social survival In contrast spending some timeoverseas proved helpful not only in enabling the students to improvetheir L2 writing ability but also in maintaining their motivation to writebetter The pedagogical implications presented in the last section of thisarticle can thus be particularly useful for those who study an L2 where itis not used for communicative purposes

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 101

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

Second the sociocultural perspective adopted in the present studyproved effective in capturing how different external factors (eg the lengthof overseas experiences) affect changes in learnersrsquo cognitive ability (egL2 writing) It is interesting to consider how the four groups of studentswith similar L2 writing ability at the start became significantly different overa period of 35 years These results make what Kramsch (2002) called thelsquolsquoecology metaphorrsquorsquo of L2 learning look more convincing than theconventional cognitive-only approach because the former sees languagelearning in terms of lsquolsquothe dynamic interaction between language users andthe environment as between parts of a living organismrsquorsquo (p 3)

Finally it should be noted that the present study is limited in terms ofresearch design and should be followed by further studies in two mainways First from a positivistic perspective the study should be replicatedwith a larger sample size for each of the four groups Because of the smallsample sizes in the present study individual differences may have maskedgeneral patterns that might have emerged In addition we also need morein-depth studies of how changes in each individual are affected by variouscontextual factors in order not to overlook critical individual differencesthat might be diluted in the search for generalizable patterns Forexample we need to investigate in more detail how different SA groupsform their L2-related imagined communities We also need to know whysome students (like those in the SA-8ndash11 group) become self-regulatedlearners Investigating these questions will provide further insight intohow we can effectively enhance FL learnersrsquo L2 writing motivation andconsequently their L2 writing ability on a long-term basis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AILA 2008 World Congress ofApplied Linguistics University of Essen Germany on August 26 2008 I would liketo thank Ryu Itoh for coding the protocol data and scoring the compositions JunkoHayashi and Harumi Oishi for scoring the compositions Takashi Shimokido for hisstatistical advice and Paul Bruthiaux Sandra McKay Ryo Nitta and four anonymousreviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their valuable comments and suggestions Thepreparation of this article was aided by Research Grant No 20520533 for the 2008 to2010 academic years from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science andTechnology of Japan

THE AUTHOR

Miyuki Sasaki is professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nagoya GakuinUniversity She is currently interested in how studentsrsquo L2 writing abilitydevelopment interacts with changes in their motivational makeup in different EFLcontexts over the long term

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

REFERENCES

Allen H W (2002) Does study abroad make a difference An investigation oflinguistic and motivational outcomes Dissertation Abstracts International Section A632(4) 1279

Barron A (2006) Learning to say lsquolsquoyoursquorsquo in German The acquisition ofsociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context In M A Dufon amp EChurchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 59ndash88) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Campbell C (1996) Socializing with teachers and prior language learningexperience A diary study In K Bailey amp D Nunan (Eds) Voices from thelanguage classroom (pp 201ndash223) Cambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Churchill E amp Dufon M A (2006) Evolving threads in study abroad research InM A Dufon amp E Churchill (Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 1ndash27) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Cumming A (1989) Writing expertise and second language proficiency LanguageLearning 39 81ndash141 doi101111j1467-17701989tb00592x

Cumming A (Ed) (2006) Goals for academic writing ESL students and their instructorsAmsterdam The Netherlands John Benjamins

Dewey D P (2004) A comparison of reading development by learners of Japanesein intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts Studies in SecondLanguage Acquisition 26 303ndash327 doi101017S0272263104262076

Dickinson L (1995) Autonomy and motivation A literature review System 23 165ndash174 doi1010160346-251X(95)00005-5

Dornyei Z (1998) Motivation in second and foreign language learning LanguageTeaching 31 117ndash135 doi101017S026144480001315X

Dornyei Z amp Otto I (1998) Motivation in action A process model of L2motivation Thames Valley University Working Papers in Applied Linguistics 4 43ndash69

Ehrenreich S (2006) The assistant experience in retrospect and its educational andprofessional significance in teachersrsquo biographies In M Byram amp F Anwei(Eds) Living and studying abroad Research and practice (pp 186ndash209) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Engestrom Y (1987) Learning by expanding An activity-theoretical approach todevelopmental research Helsinki Finland Orienta-Konsultiti

Harris D P amp Palmer L A (1986) CELT Examinersrsquo instruction and technicalmanual New York NY McGraw-Hill

Iino M (2006) Norms of interaction in a Japanese homestay setting Toward a two-way flow of linguistic and cultural resources In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 151ndash173) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Isabelli-Garcıa C L (2006) Study abroad social networks motivation and attitudesImplications for second language acquisition In M A Dufon amp E Churchill(Eds) Language learners in study abroad contexts (pp 231ndash258) ClevedonEngland Multilingual Matters

Jacobs H L Zinkgraf S A Wormuth D R Hartfiel V F amp Hughey J B (1981)Testing EFL composition A practical approach Rowley MA Newbury House

Johns A M (1997) Text role and context Developing academic literacies CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

Jones S amp Tetroe J (1987) Composing in a second language In A Matsuhashi(Ed) Writing in real time Modeling production processes (pp 34ndash57) Norwood NJAblex

JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 103

Kanno Y amp Norton B (2003) Imagined communities and educationalpossibilities Introduction Journal of Language Identity and Education 2 241ndash249 doi101207S15327701JLIE0204_1

Kinginger C (2004) Alice doesnrsquot live here any more Foreign language learningand identity reconstruction In A Pavlenko amp A Blackledge (Eds) Negotiation ofidentities in multilingual contexts (pp 219ndash242) Clevedon England MultilingualMatters

Kinginger C (2008) Language learning in study abroad Case studies of Americansin France [Monograph] The Modern Language Journal 92 (Suppl)

Kobayashi H amp Rinnert C (2001) Factors relating to EFL writersrsquo discourse levelrevision skills International Journal of English Studies 1 71ndash101

Kramsch C (2002) Introduction How can we tell the dancer from the dance In CKramsch (Ed) Language acquisition and language socialization Ecological perspectives(pp 1ndash30) London England Continuum

Lafford B A (2004) The effect of the context of learning on the use ofcommunication strategies by learners of Spanish as a second language Studies inSecond Language Acquisition 26 201ndash225

Lantolf J P amp Thorne S L (2006) Sociocultural theory and the genesis of secondlanguage development Oxford England Oxford University Press

Leki I (1995) Coping strategies of ESL students in writing tasks across thecurriculum TESOL Quarterly 29 235ndash260 doi1023073587624

Linn R L (1968) Range restriction problems in the use of self-selected groups fortest validation Psychological Bulletin 69 69ndash73 doi101037h0025263

Miles M B amp Huberman A M (1994) Qualitative data analysis An expandedsourcebook (2nd ed) Thousand Oaks CA Sage

Pennington M C amp So S (1993) Comparing writing process and product acrosstwo languages A study of six Singaporean university student writers Journal ofSecond Language Writing 2 41ndash63 doi1010161060-3743(93)90005-N

Riazi A (1997) Acquiring disciplinary literacy A social-cognitive analysis of textproduction and learning among Iranian graduate students of education Journalof Second Language Writing 6 105ndash137 doi101016S1060-3743(97)90030-8

Sasaki M (2004) A multiple-data analysis of the 35-year development of EFLstudent writers Language Learning 54 525ndash582 doi101111j0023-8333200400264x

Sasaki M (2007) Effects of study-abroad experiences on EFL writers A multiple-data analysis The Modern Language Journal 91 602ndash620 doi101111j1540-4781200700625x

Sasaki M (2009) Changes in EFL studentsrsquo writing over 35 years A socio-cognitiveaccount In R M Manchon (Ed) Learning teaching and researching writing inforeign language contexts (pp 49ndash76) Clevedon England Multilingual Matters

Sasaki M amp Hirose K (1996) Exploratory variables for EFL studentsrsquo expositorywriting Language Learning 46 137ndash174 doi101111j1467-17701996tb00643x

Shoaib A amp Dornyei Z (2005) Affect in life-long learning Exploring L2motivation as a dynamic process In P Benson amp D Nunan (Eds) Learnersrsquostories Difference and diversity in language learning (pp 22ndash41) CambridgeEngland Cambridge University Press

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SPSS (1994) SPSS 61 base system Userrsquos guide Macintosh version Chicago IL SPSSTanaka S amp Yamagiwa Y (1992) Yuuzaa no tameno kyouiku-shinritoukei to

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104 TESOL QUARTERLY

Tremblay P F amp Gardner R C (1995) Expanding the motivation construct inlanguage learning The Modern Language Journal 79 505ndash520 doi102307330002

Yang L Baba K amp Cumming A (2004) Activity systems for ESL writingimprovement Case studies of three Chinese and three Japanese adult learners ofEnglish Angles on the English-Speaking World 4 13ndash33

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JAPANESE EFL STUDENTSrsquo L2 WRITING ABILITY AND MOTIVATION 105