Engagement With Language During Transcript Revision: Japanese University English Learners’ Processes, Products, And Perspectives

This classroom-based study investigated the use of Transcript Revision Tasks (TRTs) as a means of focusing learner attention to divergences between their output and English norms. TRTs entailed learners self-transcribing recordings of their oral production and then revising transcripts for accuracy in pairs. Previous TRT studies have predominantly focused on the products of transcript revision but understudied how learners arrived at their revisions (their processes). To investigate in more depth how learners attended to form during transcript revision, this study employed Svalberg's (2009, 2012) ‘Engagement with language’ (EWL) construct which encompasses learners’ cognitive as well as social and affective engagement. Data were gathered from four pairs of Japanese university students in an intact English speaking and listening course who performed three TRTs over the course of 15 weeks (one semester). Learners’ pair dialogues during transcript revision, their revised transcripts, and end of semester interview protocols were analysed to establish degree of EWL. Subsequent repeated individual performances of oral production tasks after each TRT were analysed for evidence of retention of revision. In-line with prior studies of learner metatalk, this study found more extensive discussion of linguistic choices to be more facilitative of retention than discussions which were perfunctory. This study found that the learners’ degree of cognitive engagement (attention to and discussion of language form) correlated with their degree of social engagement (supportive/collaborative interaction) and affective engagement (positive evaluation of TRTs or task partners), and that lack of social and affective engagement deterred cognitive engagement with language forms. Learner retention of revisions was found to be related to the degree of cognitive EWL. This study concludes with discussion how the TRTs could be better designed and implemented to generate learner engagement with language.