DR GRAEME PORTE

Abstracts from selected published papers (International)

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"Poor language learners and their strategies for learning new vocabulary", English Language Teaching Journal, 42 (3), 167-173.

Oxford: Oxford University Press  ISSN 0307-8337.

Article reproduced on CD “Selection: ELT Journal 1985-1995”: Oxford: Niche Publications/Oxford University Press (1999),

"Building up the picture",Modern English Teacher, 15 (4), 33-35.

London: Edward Arnold (Currently Pearson Publications)    ISSN: 0308-0587

"Mistakes, errors, and blank checks",English Teaching Forum, 31 (1), 42-44

"Writing wrongs: Copying as a strategy for underachieving EFL writers", English Language Teaching Journal, 49 (2), 144-151.

Oxford: Oxford University Press  ISSN 0307-8337.

Article reproduced on CD “Selection: ELT Journal 1985-1995”: Oxford: Niche Publications/Oxford University Press (1999),

"When writing fails: how academic context and past learning experiences shape revision", System, 24 (1), 107-116.

"The etiology of poor second language writing: the influence of perceived teacher   preferences on second language revision strategies", Journal of Second Language Writing, 6 (1), 61-78.

"English as a forgotten language: the perceived effects of language attrition", English Language Teaching Journal, 53 (1), 28-35.

Oxford: Oxford University Press  ISSN 0951-0893.

"Where to draw the red line: error toleration of native and non-native faculty", Foreign Language Annals, 32 (4), 426-434.               

New York: American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages

"Losing sight of errors; the effect of typographical conditions on L2 proofreading", System, 29 (1), 1-12.

"English from a distance: code-mixing and blending in the L1 output of long-term resident overseas EFL teachers", chapter in Cook, V. (ed.) The effects of L2 on L1.

Multilingual Matters

"Review of selected recent research in applied linguistics in Spain 1999-2002", Language Teaching, Cambridge University Press.  April 2003, pp. 110-119.

Abstracts from selected published papers (National)

(1994)

Testing your test,

GRETA Journal, 5, 16-19

Granada: GRETA-Heinemann   ISSN: 1133-1909

Test-writing does not really finish once you have written the test. Naturally, our main aim is for our test to measure some aspect of our students' performance in language. However, the test can also provide us with other useful information apart from each student's grade. At the very least, after so much hard work writing it, we would like to have produced something which tests what it set out to do and that might be re-cycled, in some form or other, in the future. Yet, if our test is to prove both reliable and of value as an assessment instrument in the future, and if we wish to go further and make, even basic, claims about our students' abilities, hypothesise about the success or failure of our textbooks or even our courses, then the test itself will need to be made the object of a post-performance investigation and some basic, statistical analysis. To this end, the teacher ideally needs to have the following basic information available as a result of the test.

(1996)

The forgotten function of the pen: second language writing as an awareness-raising activity 

GRETA Journal, 12, 44-50  

Granada: GRETA-Heinemann   ISSN: 1133-1909

I wish to suggest that this ubiquitous emphasis on what I claim is a narrow definition of "communication" in our methodology has led to EFL writing being seen as of intrinsically less importance to our learners. As such it is being given a lesser priority both in teaching methodology and recent textbooks. The result is a student who is acquainted with EFL writing mainly as an accessory of speaking, who sees in this skill scant application beyond the classroom and who recognises little use in writing for the practice of that language. I argue here for the essential utility of writing - not merely as a means to a communicative end, but also as a way of familiarising oneself with the target language by means of various forms of manipulation and analysis - in short, of appreciating the power of the pen both as a tool for language practice and creation. Highlighting this function will also mean the student understanding how communication involves both a heightened awareness of the language on the part of the person communicating and a consciousness-raising so that he or she appreciates the way language must be constantly worked in order for the correct message to be sent. Firstly, by means of a critical appraisal of current attitudes to first-language writing, I will attempt to form a more practical two-stage definition of foreign language writing which argues the need for an acquisition of knowledge by the student about writing prior to the use of that knowledge in productive activities. Then, using this methodological basis, I will present suggestions for awareness-raising in writing and writing practice.

(1997)

In defence of the practice of writing 

The Grove (Francisco Manzaneda - In memoriam, 12, 199-211

Jaén: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Jaén,    ISSN: 1137-00SX

I defend the importance of exploiting a different need for writing in specific foreign-language learning contexts. Rather than the perceived "requirement" of achieving a communicative aim, however, this need is one which assigns to writing a much more motivating and, at the same time, more practical application as a language-learning tool. Our starting-point is to recognise a quality of foreign-language writing which distinguishes it from the use to which it is often currently put by text-book writers and to allocate it a much more productive role, in strictly language-learning terms, than the mainly instrumental character which the skill seems to have acquired in many communicatively-based courses. 

(aceptado para la publicación, 2001)

Seeing things differently: visual perception and new research directions for the L2 proofreading process.

Cuadernos de Filología Inglesa, Manchón R. (Ed.)

Murcia: Universidad de Murcia  ISSN: 0213-5485  

Much previous study of L2 proofreading has tended to concentrate on the appropriateness of the product. The author argues that there is much to be studied in the proofreading process itself. While we can make interesting hypotheses about what might be happening in the mind and in the writing process itself, what we could more profitably consider is the visual evidence of how this connection between eye and pen does or does not work and how we might improve the relationship between the two. Success or failure in the proofreading process may have very little to do with a student’s ability in the target language, nor with the reading or writing process as such, but more with the way the eye has learnt, or been trained, to look at things. Findings from several studies are compared, the implications of which are that a number of perceptual and experiential variables affect success in proof-reading. A research agenda is suggested which addresses the effects of these perceptual preferences and the way both combine to strengthen or weaken the way we go about recognising deviance in L2 writing.

CONGRESS PAPERS 

(1988)

Dealing with errors  

Actas de las IV Jornadas Pedagógicas para la Enseñanza del Inglés,

junio 1988, 183-190  

Granada: GRETA 

(1993)

Cognitive re-writing  strategies for EFL undergraduates

Actas de las Jornadas Internacionales de Lingüística Aplicada,

enero 1993, 557-565            

Granada: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Granada

ISBN: 84-86848-55-5

Research into methods of revising L2 written work has tended to concentrate on teacher-initiated approaches and seems to indicate grammatical correctness as the sole measure of accuracy for many students. A student-initiated technique is proposed which promotes the idea of shifting attention to the effect of what is being written, encouraging students to investigate the extent of their lexical, grammatical and syntactic knowledge and do justice to their real level of fluency.   

(1994)

“What can the poor language learner teach us that the good

language learner can’t?” 

Simposio Internacional sobre Estategias de Aprendizaje y Uso de la Lengua, University of Seville.

I want to consider what we mean by a "poor language learner" and then ask where many of his or her learning strategies might come from. My aim is to question whether unsuccessful language learners are so, simply because they just do not have suitable learning strategies. Or whether these students do indeed use strategies, but aspects of their individual learning contexts are encouraging them to develop and select learning strategies which are pragmatically suited to that immediate learning context but which are less efficient in a wider context. To illustrate these ideas I will be using data from recent experiments at the University of Granada into the way poor learners copy, and the way they revise their written work.

(1997)

“Should you trust a native speaker?”, I Congreso Internacional de Estudios Ingleses,

(1997)

On the dangers of cloning: are strategies  transferable?    

Actas de las XIII Jornadas Pedagógicas para la Enseñanza del Inglés,

septiembre 1997, 119-134

(1998)

“Redefining fluency practice”, XIV Jornadas Pedagógicas para la Enseñanza del 

The more immediate gains that are seen to be associated with acquiring an acceptable level of speaking should not simultaneously blind us to the advantages which writing can bring to the foreign language learner. Indeed, one of the more worrying consequences of comparisons that aim to judge the value of giving precedence to one or other skill in foreign language learning, seems to be the implicit assumption that writing is the poorer companion of the two productive skills: that is to say, writing and speaking both serve, theoretically, the same productive ends in EFL but, in practice, with unequal benefit for the student. Such a supposition, if reflected in course structure and course books, as well as teaching methodology, may go some way to explaining the custom of allocating writing practice a secondary role in the more extreme interpretations of notional/functional syllabi.