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Language, Culture and Curriculum

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Mediation strategies in L2 writing processes: a case study of two Korean language learners
Yon-Soo Kang & Danielle Ooyoung Pyun
a a a

Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures , The Ohio State University , Columbus , OH , USA Published online: 20 Feb 2013.

To cite this article: Yon-Soo Kang & Danielle Ooyoung Pyun (2013) Mediation strategies in L2 writing processes: a case study of two Korean language learners, Language, Culture and Curriculum, 26:1, 52-67, DOI: 10.1080/07908318.2012.762012 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07908318.2012.762012

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Language, Culture and Curriculum, 2013 Vol. 26, No. 1, 5267, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07908318.2012.762012

Mediation strategies in L2 writing processes: a case study of two Korean language learners
Yon-Soo Kang* and Danielle Ooyoung Pyun
Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA (Received 17 August 2011; final version received 4 October 2012)

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With the recent rise of sociocultural theory in second-language acquisition, attempts have been made to understand L2 learners uses of different resources in writing, based on their cultural, historical, and institutional contexts. In line with L2 writing research within the sociocultural paradigm, this study investigates the writing strategies deployed by L2 learners of Korean, focusing on the mediated actions involved in their writing processes. Two American learners of Korean in a college Korean programme participated in this study. Data were collected from three sources: interviews, thinkaloud protocol, and stimulated recall. Based on the analysis of data, emerging themes and trends in learner strategy use were identified for each participant. The findings are discussed case by case in relation to each individuals sociocultural context. The data reveal that a learner s socially situated context is closely related to the kinds of writing strategies and mediating tools he or she uses or prefers. Keywords: Korean; Korean as a foreign language; writing strategies; mediation actions; cultural content

Introduction With the increasingly important role of writing skills in academic contexts as well as in ones literacy practices, the subject of L2 (second/foreign language) writing strategies has attracted significant attention in the field of second-language acquisition (SLA). In the last few decades, a substantial amount of research on L2 writing strategies has been carried out in efforts to discover the actions and behaviours that L2 learners engage in while producing written texts. Some of the previous studies were cognitively oriented, concerning the mental operations L2 writers perform during composition, such as planning, analysing, synthesising, reasoning, and monitoring (Cumming, 1989; Cumming, Rebuffot, & Ledwell, 1989; Raimes, 1985; Zamel, 1983). Researchers in other studies turned their attention to the context in which L2 writing takes place, attempting to find out how L2 learners strategise their writing in response to the demands from their discourse communities (Cumming, Busch, & Zhou, 2002; Leki, 1995; Riazi, 1997; Spack, 1997; Wong, 2005; Yang, Baba, & Cumming, 2004). More recently, with the rise of sociocultural theory in SLA, efforts have been made to understand practices of L2 writing within an individual learner s social, cultural, and historical surroundings (Breen, 1985; Lantolf & Thorne, 2006; Prior, 2006). The sociocultural framework conceptualises individuals and their environment

*Corresponding author. Email: kang.289@osu.edu Both authors contributed equally to this article.
2013 Taylor & Francis

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as a holistic unit and thus helps researchers understand how an L2 writer s socially situated context relates to his/her composing behaviours and strategies. While studies on L2 writing strategies continue to expand, research informed by the sociocultural approach is still in its infancy. In addition, the majority of previous studies on writing strategies have dealt with learners of English as a second/foreign language (ESL/EFL) or European languages. Little research has been undertaken with learners of Korean, an L2 that is both linguistically and culturally distant from English. To fill this void, this study attempts to investigate L2 Korean learners writing strategies within a sociocultural paradigm. The present study specifically focuses on the mediated actions involved in the writing process, based on two cases of Korean language learners. The following section provides an overview of literature related to second language writing strategies and the sociocultural approach.
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Second language writing strategies In L2 writing studies, there has been a shift in focus from evaluating the finished written product to examining the process and evolution of writing. In the earlier years, particularly in the 1980s, studies on L2 writing strategies were mostly cognitive in orientation, attempting to understand the process of composition within a learner s mental spaces. Among those studies is Zamels (1983) case study, which analysed six advanced ESL learners composing processes. Her findings revealed that skilled L2 learners engaged in an extensive process of brainstorming, composing, revising, and editing, whereas unskilled L2 writers did less revision and spent less time writing. Another study by Raimes (1985) also identified mental actions that college ESL learners engaged in while composing, such as pre-writing (e.g. reading the topic, rehearsing, planning, trying out beginnings, and making notes), planning, reading, rehearsing, writing, revising, and editing. The major finding was similar to that of Zamels (1983) study in that unskilled writers did less revision and editing. In line with the view of writing as problem-solving mental behaviours, Cumming (1989) investigated the L2 writing processes of 23 French-speaking college students in relation to writing expertise and second language proficiency. In his study, writing expertise was found to have a positive effect on the qualities of discourse organisation and content. Since the mid-1990s, L2 writing research has started to place an emphasis on the social dimension of writing strategies, thereby shifting its focus from purely cognitive to more socio-cognitive aspects. A range of research motivated by socio-cognitive approaches recognises that an individuals mental processes cannot be comprehensively understood by separating them from or ignoring the discourse community in which the writer is situated. Leki (1995), for example, studied the writing experiences of five ESL students to investigate how they strategically coped with the writing expectation demanded by their regular academic courses. She found that learners employed diverse strategies in varying degrees, which she grouped into 10 categories: confirming and conceptualising writing tasks (i.e. clarifying strategies); giving attention to the writing task (i.e. focusing strategies); relying on past writing experiences; taking advantage of first language/culture; using current experience or feedback to adjust strategies; looking for models; using current or past ESL writing training; accommodating teachers demands; resisting teachers demands; and managing course/task demands (p. 240). Riazi (1997) investigated how four Iranian doctoral students of Education in their second year of residency acquired domain-specific literacy for their academic discipline. By employing a qualitative approach, he categorised writing strategies into four: cognitive strategies (e.g. notemaking, elaboration, L1 use/transfer, inferencing, revising, and editing); meta-cognitive

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strategies (e.g. assigning goals, planning, rationalising formats, monitoring, and clarification); social strategies (e.g. clarification, getting feedback from professors and peers); and search strategies (e.g. searching and using libraries) (p. 122). His study reveals that an individuals cognitive processes and social factors broadly interact in producing texts. A study by Wong (2005), which examined four advanced L2 writers composing strategies in an academic setting, discovered three domains of learner strategies: cognitive (drafting and revising), meta-cognitive (questioning, re-reading, and goal setting) and affective (self-assessments) strategies (p. 44). He pointed out that the intended audience and rhetorical purpose of writing have effects on the employment of composing strategies. In Cumming et al. (2002), the authors found that writing strategies were motivated and guided by individual learners goals and thus argued that writing strategies should be analysed within activity contexts. Taken together, cognitive and socio-cognitive perspectives focus on individual learners specific mental behaviours in writing and how such behaviours are negotiated in response to their rhetorical contexts. A sociocultural approach, on the other hand, focuses more on the process of social mediation from which learners develop their skills and advance their knowledge. The following section provides a more detailed account of sociocultural theory and previous research on L2 writing strategies from a sociocultural perspective. L2 writing strategies from a sociocultural perspective From a sociocultural perspective, L2 learner strategy can be defined as, a learner s socially mediated plan or action to meet a goal, which is related directly or indirectly to L2 learning (Oxford & Schramm, 2007, p. 48). This is the definition of learner strategy that the current study adopted. Sociocultural theory emphasises the interdependence of social and individual processes in human mental development. The main idea of this theory is that human activities take place in cultural contexts and are mediated by artefacts such as language and other symbolic systems (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006; Prior, 2006; Vygotsky, 1978). Mediation, which is the central notion of sociocultural theory, refers to the process through which humans deploy culturally constructed artefacts, concepts, and activities to regulate the material world or their own and each other s social and mental activity (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006, p. 79). In a sociocultural view, artefacts include both material and conceptual aspects of human goal-directed activity (p. 62) through which individuals receive, internalise, and transform the knowledge of the society. Fundamentally, human actions are all mediated. In some cases, the mediational means are external and visible (e.g. pencil, gesture) to an observer, and in other cases, they are internal and invisible (e.g. inner speech). Studies on L2 writing strategies within sociocultural theory are relatively scarce. A recent study conducted by Lei (2008) explored EFL learners writing strategy use based on Activity Theory (Engestrm, 1987, 1999). The author found four types of writing strategies from two learners mediated actions: artefact-mediated, rule-mediated, communitymediated, and role-mediated strategies. Drawing on her findings, Lei argues that L2 writing involves strategic mediation of various resources in the world, and the use of writing strategy is oriented towards a writer s goals in society. In his 1998 study, Prior offered a framework for exploring writing as functional systems of activity. This framework represents a process that connects activities within and between persons, artefacts (semiotic and material), institutions, practices, and communities (1998, p. 30). Within this framework, Prior argues that the development of L2 learners writing lies in the continuous interplay between private and public histories, classroom interactions, and

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disciplinary enculturation. Another example of research in this line is the study by Villamil and de Guerrero (1996), which investigated Spanish-speaking students peer revision in the L2 classroom, based on the notion of mediation. In their study, Villamil and de Guerrero observed five types of mediating strategies that were used in L2 learners revision process: employing symbols and external resources; using the first language (L1); providing scaffolding; resorting to interlanguage knowledge; and vocalising private speech (p. 61). Their results posit the importance of activating and enhancing cognitive processes via social interaction in the L2 writing classroom. Given the relevance of sociocultural theory in L2 writing strategies and the paucity of research in this area, the present study explores the writing strategies adopted by L2 Korean learners, with the following research questions in mind: (1) What kinds of mediating actions or tools do L2 learners employ while they are engaged in writing activities? And how do such mediated actions help L2 learners to process and produce their writings? (2) How is the selection of or preference for composing strategies in L2 learners related to their socially situated contexts?

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The study Participants Two college learners of Korean as a foreign language voluntarily participated in this study. After obtaining Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval, the two learners were recruited from an advanced-level Korean class (fourth-year level) at a mid-western university in the USA. The advanced-level class in this institute meets twice a week for two hours and focuses on advanced readings (e.g. articles from newspapers or excerpts from Korean literature texts) and formal writing. Compared to lower-level classes, advanced-level students are asked to read and write more in and out of the classroom. Advanced-level learners were chosen since they were regarded as having the proficiency to produce a sufficient amount of text and the ability to think aloud while simultaneously writing. The two participants, Robert and Jinwook (pseudonyms), were male students whose native language was English. Though the two were both from an advanced Korean class, they had fairly different individual backgrounds. Robert had taken beginning and advanced Korean in the USA, but had completed his intermediate-level Korean through a study-abroad programme in Korea. Jinwook was a student of Korean heritage whose parents were both native speakers of Korean. With these two participants, data were collected and triangulated through different types of methods: interviews, think aloud, and stimulated recall. Two meetings were arranged with each participant. One was for the interview, think aloud, and stimulated recall, and the other was for the stimulated recall after the text-revision was made. The initial interviews with participants were conducted by the two researchers of this study. The think-aloud and stimulated-recall sessions were administered by one of the researchers. In order to better understand the participants classroom L2 learning experience, a Korean language instructor who had taught the two participants was also interviewed.

Interviews Prior to working on their writing task, participants were first invited to join semi-structured individual interviews with the researchers. During the interviews, questions were asked

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regarding their backgrounds and L2 writing experiences, processes, and strategies. Interviews were conducted in English, in Korean or in a mix of English and Korean depending on each participants preference. An informal interview that was carried out with the Korean language instructor involved questions regarding the participants L2 proficiency, writing abilities, and their general classroom performance.

Think aloud The think-aloud protocol was used to identify the mediation process of each participant while performing tasks or solving any writing problems. In this protocol, participants are generally asked to give voice to the thoughts running through their heads as they compose a text on a particular topic (Rankin, 1988). Participants of this study were told to say whatever came through their minds, whether it was related to the task or not. Before conducting the think-aloud method, a training session was provided to individual participants to familiarise them with this protocol. During the formal think-aloud procedure, participants were asked to write a text for an hour as they thought aloud. The writing topic given to participants is as follows:
Describe the best part time job you have had in your life. Write about your duties, people you met, what you have learned from working, any difficulties, and memorable moments in the job. (around 200 words.)

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For the think-aloud session, participants were asked to bring the resources and instruments they usually use while composing, such as dictionaries, reference materials, and a computer. They were also encouraged to freely refer to their resources whenever needed during their composition. Two separate composing sessions took place in an internetaccessible room where one of the researchers sat next to the participant and observed individual strategic behaviours in writing. The researcher took field notes, marking their choices of mediated materials or actions.

Stimulated recall Think-aloud writing sessions were followed by periods of stimulated recall during which participants were asked to remember their thoughts and to comment on their mental progression while writing (for more details on the stimulated-recall method, refer to Gass & Mackey, 2000). This method was used to gain further insight into participants writing strategies by clarifying or confirming each participants think-aloud data based on the researcher s observational notes. For example, the researcher inquired about the pauses and certain actions each student took while composing their texts. After stimulated recall, participants were asked to revise their drafts at home and submit their final texts to the researcher a week later. Second meetings were arranged with individual students to discuss their finished written products. During the second meeting, the same stimulated-recall procedure was carried out, prompting each participants reflections and recollections of their respective revision processes. After the second meetings, the final drafts were evaluated based on the third-year class writing criteria consisting of content, flow, grammar, and vocabulary, with 10 points for each category. Points were deducted on content and flow based on the severity of disorganisation. Points were also deducted from vocabulary and grammar for each misused word, grammatical errors, and misspelling.

Language, Culture and Curriculum Data analysis All data were tape-recorded and then transcribed using the following conventions:
a noticeable pause [ ] English definitions for Korean words ( ) descriptions of physical actions or gestures

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The data analysis was a fluid and reiterative process. Participants personal accounts derived from interviews served as a guide for understanding their socially situated contexts. All transcribed data and observational accounts were carefully examined to identify categories of participants writing strategies. Initially, any writing behaviours observed or reported from each participant were listed case by case. By listening to audio-taped data several times and re-reading observational notes, analysis continued until recurring patterns or themes emerged. The initial list of strategies was then adjusted and refined with newly emerging categories, thereby organising learner strategies into main categories and subcategories. At the same time, attempts were made to find connections within and between those categories in order to better interpret each case of strategy use. The finalised coding scheme resulted in 15 items, grouped into 7 categories, which are presented in Appendix 1. Findings Findings obtained from the data are presented case by case. Some of the strategies share overlapping characteristics with each other, but they are discussed separately to highlight the focus of each writing strategy that the participants adopted. Case 1: Robert Robert was born to English-speaking parents. He had never been exposed to Korean until he entered the university. Robert originally majored in physics, but after taking a few courses in Korean language, he switched his major to Korean when he was a sophomore. After completing beginning-level Korean courses, Robert went to South Korea through an exchange programme offered by the university. His study-abroad experiences greatly helped him develop communicative ability and interpersonal skills in Korean. With a year of exposure to Korean language and culture, he was placed into an advanced-level Korean class when he returned to the USA. Robert was strongly motivated to learn Korean because he believed his foreign language proficiency would provide more opportunities related to his future career after graduation. He was particularly interested in EnglishKorean and KoreanEnglish translation skills. He tried to expose himself to the target language as much as possible by listening to Korean radio, watching Korean TV shows, and reading Korean books. Robert seemed to consider his meetings with the researchers as an opportunity to practise his Korean and thus made every effort to speak Korean exclusively. With high motivation and affection towards the Korean language, he set himself the goal of achieving a native or near-native speakers proficiency in Korean. His teacher also confirmed that Robert had high expectations for his Korean writing, often setting much higher standards than his current L2 proficiency. He was in the last quarter of his degree programme at the time of data collection and was preparing to return to Korea to work as an intern at a literature translation institute where he could acquire bilingual translation skills. He was planning to pursue a graduate degree in Korean language and literature upon the completion of the year-long translation internship. For Robert, interest in Korean was driven by a

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functional or pragmatic purpose for his future occupation. Robert showed four major mediated actions while writing: computer-mediated strategies (i.e. online dictionary, web corpus, and word processor), a community-mediated strategy (i.e. instant messenger), an L2-mediated strategy, and a self-mediated monitoring strategy. Computer-mediated strategies Online dictionary. One of the key strategies Robert employed to mediate his writing was the use of multiple dictionaries. The primary dictionary he used was the Naver online dictionary provided by Naver, a popular search portal in South Korea. He also used an electronic dictionary to find synonyms, antonyms, and sentence examples. Additionally, he used a dictionary that was built in a Korean word program called Hangeul. While composing, he used these dictionaries alternately to search for the most appropriate words or to understand the usages of words or phrases in contexts. Robert felt that each dictionary had its own strengths and weaknesses in its inventories of definitions and examples. He used the online bilingual dictionary to check the meaning and sound of the word that he wanted to use and then doublechecked it with his electronic dictionary or Hanguel dictionary to see if it offered other definitions or examples. He used the dictionaries in combination to look up the words he was unsure of, to explore new words, to check spellings, to evaluate and monitor the chosen words, and to learn other meanings of new words. Robert used dictionaries not just to deal with problems that arose in the given task, but to extend his overall knowledge of Korean. Web corpus. Robert explored the web as a corpus in order to resolve grammatical problems or difficulties he encountered. An excerpt from his think-aloud data explains this strategy. The following is the English translation of Roberts utterances originally made in Korean:
I put a phrase like chwueki toynta [it becomes memory] on the internet.1 If it doesnt show up, it is probably an incorrect or awkward expression. So, I sometimes use this strategy. chwueki toynta. Im searching it now. (Robert reviews the web corpus.) This expression shows up, so it makes sense.

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After searching the lexical phrase, chwueki toynta it becomes memory on the web, Robert became assured about its appropriateness, and thus applied it in his writing. Using the Google corpus, Robert examined various usages of queried words or phrases while considering the context where they occur. He used the Google corpus as a reference tool to discover or confirm collocation patterns or grammatical conjugations. During the interview, Robert also mentioned that, in addition to the use of a corpus, he refers to Google to search information related to the task topic in order to brainstorm his ideas and thoughts before writing. Word processor. For the revised draft, Robert typed his text using a Korean word processor for the purpose of checking spelling. In the interview, Robert said that he preferred typing his text to hand-writing it for various reasons. He could write faster and edit texts more efficiently by changing or moving sections of texts. Since he got much assistance from the internet, a word processor made it easier for him to export or import searched words as well as to copy or paste selected words from online dictionaries and thesauruses. Community-mediated strategy Instant messenger. An instant messenger was another type of tool that Robert strategically used to mediate his writing. Using NateOn, which is the most widely used online messenger

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in South Korea, Robert communicated with his friends in Korea, most of whom he became acquainted with during his study-abroad. South Korea is known for having the highest levels of broadband connectivity and internet-savvy residents. Taking advantage of such connectivity, Robert sent a message to one of his friends who was logged in and asked questions regarding troublesome grammatical structures.

L2-mediated strategy Our data demonstrate that Robert wrote directly in L2 Korean without resorting to his L1 or going through L1 to L2 translation. Even while formulating ideas or structuring his text, Robert used Korean only. The following excerpt, which was extracted from his thinkaloud data and translated into English, exemplifies Roberts thought process in the L2. The story is about a boy he counselled at a childrens Korean immersion programme:
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A boy, a boy, a little boy, he spoke Korean very well. That boy . What was it? What was his name? I cant remember. In the first week, . I could understand much of what he said and when he had a word that he didnt know, I gave him that English word in Korean accent. So, he thought I was born in Korea.

In the interview, Robert reported that he could not write well if he thought in English:
When I had a lower-level proficiency in Korean, I used to think in English first and then write in Korean. But, now, if I do like that, I know my Korean ends up sounding awkward. So, I just think in Korean from the very beginning and write in Korean.

Robert strongly believed in the beneficial effects of the L2 mediated strategy in producing linguistically and stylistically appropriate and congruous texts. Throughout the entire process of composing, Robert consciously tried to avoid using his native tongue except for the times of lexical search.

Self-mediated monitoring strategy Robert frequently went back over what he had written in order to examine the structure of the text and grammatical accuracy. He observed his text from a reader s perspective, continuously asking and answering his own questions. After re-reading a sentence or a paragraph, he often made such utterances as this sounds good, it looks okay now, or this doesnt sound quite right, displaying self-confirmation or (dis)satisfaction with the written text. He reported that he often self-addressed such questions inwardly in the writing process. In psycholinguistic research, such self-directed utterances are referred to as private speech (Diaz & Berk, 1992; Wertsch, 1985). According to Vygotsky (1987), private speech facilitates cognitive development and self-regulatory learning skills. The final version of his essay showed a remarkable improvement from his first draft, which reflected that Robert had gone through multiple revisions to clarify his ideas and refine his text.

Case 2: Jinwook Jinwook was born in Korea and his family immigrated to the USA when he was 2 years old. While he received all formal education in English at schools, he used both Korean and

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English at home. He demonstrated a high proficiency in verbal and aural skills but lacked literacy skills, especially the grammatical knowledge of a formal variety of language which requires sufficient training and instruction. Although he used Korean exclusively with his parents, his writing skills did not develop beyond the level of a kindergarten or elementary school student, which is not uncommon to many heritage learners across different languages (see for example, Campbell & Rosenthal, 2000; Kagan & Dillon, 2008; Kondo-Brown, 2003, Kondo-Brown & Brown, 2008). Jinwook reported that he felt more comfortable using English than Korean. However, he had a strong desire to maintain and advance his Korean to communicate better with his parents, whose English was not proficient enough to carry on in-depth conversations. As a biology major, Jinwook did not foresee any particular benefits of learning Korean in relation to his future career. His motivation was, instead, driven by the need to maintain his cultural identity and to stay connected with his family, relatives, and ethnic communities. Regarding Jinwooks L2 writing skills, his teacher commented that Jinwook had not gained much incremental growth in writing for the past years and had been unsuccessful in reducing the large gap between his verbal and literacy skills. Jinwook, according to his teacher, tends to repeat the same spelling errors, lacks explicit knowledge of grammar rules, and often overuses colloquial vocabulary in composing. Unlike Robert who exploited different types of dictionaries, Jinwook did not consult any dictionary at all during the writing session. When asked about the reason, he responded as follows:
I dont know. I have just never thought about keeping one. A lot of times, if other people say words like my parents, either words that I dont know well enough to use by myself or I know what it means because they used it so much because I hear it a lot, I know what it means from context clues or I dont know what exactly it means but I have an idea like I can kind of feel the word but not actually know exactly what it means.

As the excerpt above proves, based on his advanced comprehension skills, Jinwook often guessed word meanings through context clues. As a skilled listener, he could easily decode and make sense of a message that involved new or unfamiliar words. On the other hand, when producing messages or texts, he often faced lexical difficulties since his vocabulary range was limited to the domains of home and neighbourhood. Although Jinwooks writing skills lagged far behind his oral communicative skills in Korean, interestingly, Jinwook considered both English and Korean as his first languages:
Its kind of weird because I have been always much better at English but I have always spoken Korean at home anyway. So its kind of like I have two first languages its just like one is better than the other.

As Jinwook had been successfully interacting with people in Korean on a daily basis since his birth, Korean was perceived as his first language rather than a foreign language. He seemed to feel confident using Korean without the aid of any reference tools such as a dictionary or grammar books. Community-mediated strategy The primary strategy that Jinwook relied on to mediate his writing was seeking a capable mediator s help, such as asking his parents or teacher. His text generated during the thinkaloud session contained a number of errors, including non-standard forms of words (e.g.

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colloquial or contracted forms of words as opposed to standard forms), words written the way they sound, inaccurate verb/adjective conjugations, colloquial sentence endings, and the absence of honorific markers when they were required. In the final draft, those errors were mostly corrected. When asked about the way he revised his first draft, he reported that he made an appointment with his Korean teacher to have it reviewed. Even for minor errors that he could easily self-correct using a dictionary, he rather chose to consult his teacher, whom he considered a pure, exemplary, and role model native speaker.

L1-mediated strategy Jinwook used English as a compensatory strategy whenever he had problems with word search or grammar rules. During writing, he often code-switched between English and Korean, as illustrated in the following excerpt from his think-aloud data. His frequent insertion of English words while composing in Korean seemed to facilitate his thought process by helping him formulate his ideas in a full sentence or paragraph without blocking the threads of his thought:
One month. hantal [one month]. For one month. Hantalman ilhako quit [I worked for only one month and quit]. Hantalman ilhako il kumanhaysseyo [After working for only one month, I quit].

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Though Jinwook made use of both English and Korean to mediate his writing, he did not go through the process of EnglishKorean translation. He wrote directly in L2 Korean. During the recall interview, Jinwook indicated that his choice of language medium between English and Korean was largely influenced by the setting of the task topic (see the excerpt below). If the topic concerned a setting that involved English-speaking people, he said he could mediate writing in English better. For a home- or community-related setting in which his family or Korean-speaking people are involved, he reported that he would feel more comfortable with Korean mediation. This was mainly due to the degree of his familiarity with the range of vocabulary involved in a particular setting:
My thinking and everything is English. So and also that the subject was referring to my work experience at a restaurant. All English-speaking people, I was just thinking back to that.

Self-mediated monitoring strategy Although Jinwook did not refer to any reference materials to monitor his text, he read aloud his sentences to see if they all sounded natural. He relied on his oral communication skills to check his grammar and to avoid any awkward wording. For instance, as shown in the following example, after reading aloud a sentence as if he were speaking, he felt the objectnoun of the sentence would sound better if a particle was added. Following an intuitive sense from his oral skills, he inserted a particle to the noun. This strategy, however, sometimes yielded a negative outcome, as a result of choosing an inaccurate, colloquial form over a standard form (e.g. choosing himtulun over himtun tough, as shown in the following excerpt):
Siktang-eyse sayntuwichi mantul-ko, chengso hako, selkeci. Chengso-to hako? [At the restaurant, I made sandwiches, cleaned the place, and did dishes. Also clean the place?].

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Should I add the particle to for everything? Because I am listing? Siktang-eyse sayntuwichi-to mantul-ko, chengso-to hako, selkeci-to hako [At the restaurant, I also made sandwiches, also cleaned the place, and also did dishes]. Okay kati ilhanun saramtulto celul cehantey himtun. himtulun? himtun? (selecting himtulun) himtulun il sikhiko haysseyo [People who worked with me there also gave me tough jobs].

Discussion From the sociocultural perspective, learning takes place through a series of mediated actions. Learning may be mediated by certain kinds of material tools or through dialogues with a more advanced other. According to Lantolf (2000), mediation in second language learning can be segmented into three general categories: (1) mediation by others in social interaction; (2) mediation by self through private (or self-directed) speech; and (3) mediation by artefacts (e.g. tasks, portfolios, and technology) (p. 80). The findings of this study suggest that the two learners engaged themselves in varied forms of mediation while composing. Robert mediated his writing through material tools (e.g. dictionaries and internet) as well as non-material tools such as dialogues with native speakers of Korean. Jinwook, on the other hand, largely depended on dialogue with a capable mediator (e.g. teacher) to solve the problems in his writing. While mediation played a key role in acquiring and shaping the learners knowledge and skills in L2 writing, the extent to which a learner made use of mediating tools varied between the two cases in the present study. Robert, for instance, was an autonomous learner in taking control of his learning. He exerted much more effort than Jinwook in self-monitoring and self-assessing his writing. In tackling a lexical problem, Robert consulted different reference sources not only to find the searched word but also to understand its various, contextualised usages as well as its syntactic and collocation patterns. To Robert, his mediated activities were not simply a necessary step to complete the given task, but were valuable opportunities to advance his overall Korean proficiency close to the level of native speakers. In contrast, Jinwook revealed a low level of autonomy and self-regulation. He sought a teacher s help to correct spelling or verb conjugation errors, many of which could have been easily selffixed by using a word processor, a dictionary, or a Korean textbook. Closely related to the degrees of the learners self-regulation are the learners motivation and their envisioned goals of L2 learning. Motivation has been known as one of the important factors in language learning. Two motivational orientations introduced by Gardner and Lambert (1972) integrative (a desire to be associated with the target-language group) and instrumental (a desire to learn the L2 to achieve pragmatic goals such as career advancement) have been widely used as variables in the studies of language learning motivation. Studies showed that learners who have an integrative orientation generally have greater success in acquiring a foreign language than those with an instrumental orientation (e.g. Drnyei, 2001; Ellis, 1994; Gardner & Lambert, 1972; Hernndez, 2006; Shaaban & Ghaith, 2000; Zhou, 1999). However, some other studies claimed that instrumental orientation is equally or more influential in language learning (e.g. Au, 1988; Crookes & Schmidt, 1991; Drnyei, 1990; Ely, 1986). The results of the two cases in this study are more in line with the latter assertion. Jinwook showed mainly an integrative orientation, hoping to stay connected with his heritage group and culture. As for Robert, while he had a genuine interest in the people and culture of Korea (integrative motivation), he expressed an even stronger desire to pursue advanced-level reading and writing skills in Korean for a career end. The two cases of this study also add support for the previous research claim that learners with a career orientation employ a wider range of strategies as well as making

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more frequent use of strategies (Mochizuki, 1999; Oxford & Nyikos, 1989; Politzer, 1983; Politzer & McGroarty, 1985). As a Korean major, Robert used various artefacts such as the internet, dictionaries, and a word processor, whereas Jinwook, whose motivation was not tied to career prospects, made much less use of writing strategies. According to Haneda (2005), L2 learners with varied life histories and learning desires may, differentially invest their time and energy in mastering the target language in relation to the particular communities that are important in their envisioned futures (pp. 284285). For Robert, his writing proficiency in Korean was considered essential to join and be successful in the community of EnglishKorean bilingual literary translation, which led him to invest more time and efforts in the writing assignment. Another factor that seems to be associated with the choice of writing strategies is a learner s L2 writing proficiency. Robert, who was superior to Jinwook in L2 Korean composition, more extensively used L2 as a mediating tool. Similar results were reported in previous L2 composing studies with regard to target-language use. For instance, Wang and Wen (2002), who investigated learners L1 use in their L2 composing process, found that proficient L2 learners used less L1 than learners with lower proficiency. Lei (2008), in a similar vein, argues that with higher L2 proficiency, which is a more sophisticated and advanced psychological tool, writers are better equipped to mediate their writing (p. 230). In a Japanese EFL setting, Sasakis (2004) study found that a group of learners who spent some time in the target country relied significantly more on L2 in their writing than the other group with no study-abroad experience. It is not difficult to imagine that Robert, during his stay in Korea, became accustomed to the target-language medium in taking lectures or practising literacy, which probably helped him mediate his thought and writing process exclusively or substantially in L2. With regard to the use of L1, positive effects were observed in our data. While planning composing or searching for words, L1 was found to be useful and beneficial in terms of accessing meanings and brainstorming ideas. The L1 English also allowed Jinwook to formulate his thought in a full sentence or paragraph unit. This finding supports the previous studies in SLA that have discussed L1 as a mediating tool in the mental processing of L2 (Anton, 1999; Anton & DiCamilla, 1998; Brooks & Donato, 1994; Swain & Lapkin, 1998; Villamil & de Guerrero, 1996). The case of Jinwook in this study leads the researchers to speculate an interesting link between a learner s identity or belief and his/her choice of writing strategies. Although Jinwook possessed advanced fluency in oral communication, his writing skills were far below the advanced level. His vocabulary was limited to the words that were frequently used for daily conversations, and his text involved numerous linguistic and stylistic errors that were not acceptable in formal writing. As a result, Jinwook ended up producing a poor-quality essay compared to Roberts. Despite his apparent weakness and incompetence in writing, Jinwook considered and identified himself as a native speaker of Korean. As a self-claimed native speaker, Jinwook reported that he did not feel strongly about using a dictionary or reference materials. While Robert sought various resources to mediate his writing, Jinwook largely depended on his Korean language teacher, whom he seemed to regard as an editor or proof-reader of his text. In Jinwooks case, his belief and identity appeared to create a certain degree of unconscious resistance to the employment of various writing strategies. The findings of this study also suggest that the use of appropriate or inappropriate composing strategies is directly related to the quality of resulting written texts. Jinwooks dependence on his oral skills when writing, for instance, did not necessarily produce positive outcomes but often exerted a detrimental effect on his writing.

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Pedagogical implications and conclusion Although this study dealt with the case of L2 Korean learners, there are broad pedagogical implications that are applicable to other L2 settings. First, L2 teachers should be more aware of the writing problems learners experience and should share learning orientations and goals of learners. Elliss (1994) strategy framework indicates that, individual learner differences together with various social factors determine the learners choice of learning strategies (p. 529). In other words, L2 learners use the strategies differently according to their home language/culture, number of other foreign language studied, social network, personality, needs, teaching approach received, and life experience (Sung, 2009, p. 211). In this respect, L2 educators should understand individual students sociocultural background including their motivations to learn L2, and the purpose of learning and future goals in order to better understand L2 writers strategy use. Considering the inextricable link between appropriation of strategies and learning achievement, attention should be given to classroom-based strategy development and strategy instruction. L2 learners should be made more aware of the mediation of resources in their writing processes so as to broaden and enhance their writing strategies. This can be achieved by providing classroom instruction on available resources and mediation tools for L2 writing and exemplifying how to use them. L2 teachers should also encourage peer support and interpersonal communication through which learners scaffold others and are scaffolded by others regarding strategy use. For instance, a teacher may provide a collaborative writing assignment that would involve and foster peer interaction, thereby exposing new composing strategies to one another. Previous studies (Ching, 2002; Cummins, 2004; Huang, 2001) suggest that language learning strategies can be developed and influenced by teaching methods and the context of the L2 classroom. Huang (2001), for example, found that strategy training in the L2 classroom yielded a significant improvement in learners L2 proficiency. Strategy instructions are particularly important in that they increase learner autonomy in L2 learning (Cohen, 1998). It is, therefore, suggested that L2 educators develop the curriculum to include instruction on writing strategies and help learners to be actively engaged in trial activities to explore a variety of strategies. Implementation of classroom-based strategy training, however, has been significantly under-researched compared to the amount of research on language learning strategies. Additional research is warranted to explore effective ways to incorporate strategy instruction in L2 classrooms. Within a sociocultural approach, the present study explored how L2 learners mediated their writing using various resources available to them. The present study particularly highlighted the mediating tools or agents that learners relied on to express and develop their ideas in L2 writing. Our observations converge with Lantolf s (2000) illustration of mediation a learner s cognitive process is embedded in his/her social activities that are mediated by tools, self, and others. This study also demonstrates that individual learners writing outcomes vary widely depending on the kinds of mediation they practise. A learner s written product is a result of a dynamic and complex interplay between sociocultural factors including a learner s cultural/historical experience, L2 proficiency, motivation, learning goals, and the context or the community in which the learner is situated.

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Note
1. The Yale Romanization system was used to transcribe Korean words.

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Appendix 1. Coding scheme

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CM Computer HC Help from a Community SM Self-Monitor L1 Mediate in English L2 Mediate in Korean Edic Electronic Dictionary PBdic Paperback Dictionary Superscripts of CM CMOdic Online Dictionary CMHdic Hangeul Dictionary (built in Korean word program) CMcp Corpus CMwp Word Processor Superscripts of HC HCps Help from a Community in person HCmsg Help from a Community through Instant Messenger Superscripts of SM SMask Asking SMasw Answering SMrrd Re-reading SMsft Satisfaction SMdsft Dissatisfaction