One writer two languages: a case study of a 15-year-old student's writing process in Danish and English

Results from studies of the L2 writing process are often dismissed by teachers doing in‐service training because most such studies report on the writing process of university students. The focus of this descriptive study is a comparison of the writing processes of a 15‐year‐old girl (grade 9) writing essays in Danish (L1) and English (L2) in an uncontrolled setting. The two essays were homework assignments; as a result. the amount of time spent on the tasks was entirely up to the student. A think‐aloud procedure was used for data collection. The analysis of the protocols was based on four behaviours identified in both protocols: commenting, reading aloud, writing, and verbatim verbalizations of text prior to putting pen to paper. A sub‐categorization of the comments revealed certain differences between the protocols. The Danish protocol contained more explicit comments on planning and evaluation of content and organization, which was interpreted as arising mainly from differences between the two assignments. Reading aloud was a predominant strategy which served a number of purposes, and very similar reading patterns emerged in the two protocols. Overall the analysis revealed very similar methods of working in the two languages. The findings are related to the concept of knowledge transforming and to results of other comparative studies.