A Design Model for Beginner-Level Computer-Mediated EFL Writing

This article chronicles the search for an effective CALL writing course design model for beginner-level EFL students at a Japanese technical university. The search is described from course inception in 1997 through to 2000, three successive years of trial and change in course implementation. The his...
Ausführliche Beschreibung

This article chronicles the search for an effective CALL writing course design model for beginner-level EFL students at a Japanese technical university. The search is described from course inception in 1997 through to 2000, three successive years of trial and change in course implementation. The historical overview lays the theoretical foundation, discusses the practical realities, and provides a rationale for the decision-making steps in the design and application of a CALL writing course model. The designers, who are also the instructors, attempt to apply theoretical and research-based tenets for computer-mediated L2 writing courses to their design model. These tenets are catalogued under three general headings: stakeholders, technological considerations, and writing outcomes. In their attempts to apply theoretical recommendations, the designers found that such theory often collides with practical constraints. The constraints, sometimes of a sociocultural nature and sometimes of a methodological nature, are described and discussed. The course design model which emerges to a certain degree compromises theory and research in order to accommodate practice, but, as the article concludes, it is workable and it works. Ausführliche Beschreibung