Pedagogical Strategies to Facilitate Academic English Writers in Korean University Writing Classes

This study explores native English speaking teachers (hereafter NESTs)’s pedagogical strategies in L2 writing in a Korean university context. Nine NESTs who teach intermediate sophomore writing classes participated. Their writing classes were observed for two consecutive semesters and were videotaped. The study identified four main strategies employed: error correction for sentence-level accuracy, explicit knowledge transmission, thinking aloud strategy with demonstration, and free writing. The most popular pedagogical strategies were providing oral feedback on students’ accurate grammar at the sentence-level, and explicitly articulating what students should consider when organizing paragraphs and writing a thesis statement. Further, NESTs used the structural approach even when there are other available pedagogical strategies. Lastly, the study revealed that the think-aloud technique and free writing technique contributed students to work on fluent writing skill.