| This qualitative discourse study examines the situated writing processes as realized through instructional procedures in three English-as-a-second-language (ESL) writing courses and through teacher-student interaction during these instructional procedures. The writing process is a recursive, dynamic, and exploratory process in which writers search for their ideas, evaluate them, and develop their arguments. This writing process in a classroom context can be interpreted as a teacher's approach that supports students in generating ideas, comprehending the rhetorical context, developing content, and finally producing a quality piece of writing. To examine this writing process, the primary database of this study consists of observation notes and transcripts of classroom interactions that disclose the teaching and learning details for three-week or four-week instructional periods in three ESL writing courses. The other data from interviews, teaching materials, and the writing program's website supplement the primary data for triangulation.;The findings of this study reveal several meaningful factors. First, not only does the institution influence teachers' instruction in relation to instructional goals, pedagogical procedures, teaching materials, and course managerial principles, but teachers' pedagogical beliefs and understanding of ESL composition also make a visible impact on the instructional reality of the classroom. Second, it is evident that each teacher demonstrates process-oriented approaches that include prewriting, writing, and revising procedures. However, the details of process-oriented approaches vary from course to course, according to each teacher's pedagogical beliefs about ESL writing instruction and the teacher's interpretation of contextual factors like program goals. Finally, interactions between teachers and their students highlight topics and patterns of classroom discussion, with the sequences of classroom talk referring to the goal or pedagogical foci in a systematic manner. The classroom talk also reveals that each teacher engineers the interaction in a different way. These findings have implications for theories related to ESL writing instruction, as well as for researchers and practitioners working with ESL writing courses in post-secondary contexts. |
