Mark Christiansen, Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA

Elena: Where are you from, and what are you studying?

Mark: I grew up in Oregon and Virginia for the most part, and have recently been in Utah. I have lived in Paraguay and Germany. I also worked in Japan for a year where I taught English to children and business people. In 1990 I earned a B.A. in Comparative Literature with an English minor. As an undergraduate, I was editor for a student newspaper, and also assistant editor for two literary journals: Saul Bellow Journal and Scandinavian Journal. After finishing my degree, I worked in the computer software industry for 22 years. A few years ago, I decided to change careers to become a teacher. I earned an associate's degree in Teaching ESL, and now I'm working on an MS degree in Education with a focus on teaching ESL and writing. This degree has enabled me to learn broadly within the field of education, while also giving me deeper learning in teaching ESL. I have been doing a lot of background reading for my thesis, and have also been learning about general teaching practices in my classes.

Elena: What topics in second language writing research excite you right now?

Mark: I am writing my thesis in the area of using the Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) approach to teach writing to college-age English Learners. I enjoy writing myself, and I enjoy engaging with ideas through writing. I want to help students to love writing as I do. As far as TBLT, I have learned in my graduate classes that meaningful communicative tasks lead to language acquisition. This has made me want to learn more about task-based teaching. For my thesis, I thought I would combine my interests in writing and in task-based teaching to see how they can complement each other in the classroom. Of course, I am learning about numerous other valuable and fascinating topics in my graduate study. One is how reading and writing can and should complement each other in the classroom. Another topic I hope to study is collaborative learning and the ways it can apply to teaching writing.

Elena: Could you share one way that research informs your teaching and/or vice versa?

Mark: I chose my thesis with pedagogy very much in mind. I want to learn classroom skills that will help me be a better language teacher. I believe that what I do in my classroom should be based on research, as much as possible.

Elena: What have you learned in your graduate courses that, in your opinion, will lead you to accomplishing your professional goals?

Mark: Before I started graduate study in education, I did not have an undergraduate degree in the same field, although I did have some good training and experience. I have been glad to fill in some gaps in my knowledge through my graduate studies. I have been interested to learn about the close connection between reading and writing, and how they can and should reinforce each other in the classroom (Hirvela, 2016; Williams, 2005), and that student academic writing problems can often be traced back to reading problems (Weigle, 2013). From my studies about task-based teaching, I have learned that corrective feedback during and after tasks can be effective (Ellis et al., 2020). I think this is similar in many ways to the kind of feedback you give when teaching writing (Ferris & Hedgcock, 2013).

References

Ellis, R., Skehan, P., Li, S., Shintani, N., & Lambert, C. (2020). Task-Based Language Teaching: Theory and practice. Cambridge Core: Cambridge University Press.

Ferris, D., & Hedgcock, J. (2013). Teaching L2 composition (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Hirvela, A. (2016). Connecting reading and writing in second language writing instruction. (2nd ed.). University of Michigan Press.

Weigle, S. C. (2014). Considerations for Teaching Second Language Writing. In M. Celce-Murcia, D. M. Brinton, & M. A. Snow (Eds.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (4th ed.), pp. 222-237. Cengage Learning.

Williams, J. (2005). Teaching writing in second and foreign language classrooms. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.