Students’ Perceptions about and Effects of Student-Professor Writing Conference in General English Writing Classes

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate students’ general perceptions about a student-professor writing conference which had not been widely practiced in Korea and its impact on students’ writing performance. A professor and 5 university students including 2 male and 3 female students who took a general English writing class at A university were the participants of the study. To understand how students perceived a student-professor writing conference, semi-structured interviews were carried out and writing conferences and pretest and posttest were conducted to see the role of writing conferences in students’ process of learning writing and its influence on their writing performance. The results revealed that holding a writing conference was beneficial to students in that it could help students develop a sense of autonomy in their learning process and become aware of learning strategies employed in the writing process. Furthermore, writing conferences had a positive influence on students writing performance, especially on how to organize an effective paragraph. The following suggestions were made based on the results of the study. First, professors should implement writing conferences in their instruction. Second, more attention should be paid to how to successfully embed grammar, mechanics, and word choice in writing instruction. Third, professors should offer students a guideline which can show characteristics and purposes of writing conferences, and the respective roles of the participants in order to make them ready for and active during writing conferences. Lastly, the university should also make an effort to lessen a burden on professors and students by establishing an English writing center and providing teaching assistants.