Implementing Conferences in College English Writing Class: The Effects of the Negotiated Input

摘要

The current study is to examine the interactional effects of writing conferences focusing on negotiated patterns of revision in a college English writing class. Fifteen participants were required to write six persuasive essays to attend three separated one-on-one conference session with the teacher. The conference transcripts were analyzed to determine the level of students negotiated input in the conferences. Findings from the study indicated that the amount of negotiations and the analytic scores appeared to be correlated significantly in the subsequent drafts. The researcher also discovered that students needed explicit guidance and extensive training before participating in actual conference sessions, which would help cultivate independent thinking and writing instructions for the students.