Graduate Researcher Series: an Interview with Valentina

Chenyang Zhang

Guzman Polanco Valentina is a second-year PhD student in the School of Languages and Linguistics at the University of Melbourne. Her PhD project investigates second language writing development under the supervision of A/Prof Neomy Storch and Dr. Kellie Frost. Her research interests focus on second-language writing and planning.

Chenyang interviewed Valentina about her PhD research and journey.

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Nice to meet you, Valentina. First, can you introduce yourself a little bit to us?

Thank you for your time. I’m Valentina. I am from Chile and am currently in the second year of my PhD journey. I have a background in Teaching English as a Foreign Language and did my master’s in Applied Linguistics here at the University of Melbourne, but because of COVID, I had to study remotely.

Why would you like to embark on your PhD journey?

I had a professor in Chile, who had done his master’s at the University of Melbourne. He encouraged me to pursue my master’s and see if there were any possibilities for me to come study here. I went into the master’s with the idea of that being my last degree, doing a PhD had never crossed my mind, because I was happy being a teacher, and I hadn’t thought of going into research.

But while I was doing my master’s, I took a subject called Second Language Writing, and through this subject, I started to understand many of my students’ struggles with writing. I became interested in the field, so I decided to take a research subject during my master’s and ended up doing my minor thesis component of the master’s on the topic of the role of planning in second language writing performance. Although I worked on my minor thesis during COVID-19, I enjoyed the process of finding a gap in the literature on a topic that deeply interested me. During the process of writing up my minor thesis, I started to consider the idea of doing a PhD, so I talked to my supervisor Neomy and some of the professors from my master’s and that’s how I decided to embark on this journey.

Could you share more about your PhD project?

I’m specifically looking at the role of planning in second language learners’ writing process and performance. I am investigating how learners engage with the process of planning before the task as well as while they are writing. To date, when it comes to planning, most of the research is on speaking like what the effects of planning are on second language learners’ speaking performance. Also, most studies that have looked at planning in writing tasks have only focused on planning as a process that happens before writing (pre-task planning), however, they haven’t looked at how learners engage with their planning notes while writing. For my study, I decided to focus on three types of planning which are: individual pre-task planning (the learners plan individually before writing), collaborative pre-task planning (the learners plan with a partner before writing), and online planning (planning occurs while writing, no extra time is given to planning). I want to see what learners attend to under each planning condition, how these conditions impact learners’ writing process and how it may affect their writing performance.

For this research project, how did you collect data?

Data collection was very interesting and a huge learning process. I had to go back to Chile for five months to collect data from university students in Chile who were enrolled in the English Teaching program. My data collection process took around three to four months because it was a one-on-one task with each student. I recruited around 27 students and met with each of them three times. Each session was around 45 minutes. During these sessions, students were asked to write an argumentative essay under different planning conditions and take part in a concurrent verbal protocol and a short interview at the end of the task. Concurrent verbal protocols consist of the learner saying what they are doing and thinking while they are writing. Since it can be cognitively demanding on the learner, there were no time constraints on the task. Therefore, some participants took 30 minutes while others could take a bit longer.

Would you like to share the significance of your research?

Yes, my research is trying to kind of challenge the view of planning as only a process that happens before writing and understand it as a recursive process since learners do engage in planning while writing. Even though learners have time to plan prior, they will always engage in the planning process while writing. Also, finding ways of facilitating writing or making it a less stressful process has always been of interest but to do this we have to have a deep understanding of learners’ writing and what they do while writing. Hopefully, my study will have relevant teaching and learning implications by providing a better understanding for teachers to aid their students concerning how to approach writing and planning. Although most teaching guides recommend teachers implement planning in their classrooms, they include little advice on how to do it based on research.

As a second-year PhD student, what’s the biggest challenge for you so far?

Challenges, I would think that the PhD is always challenging. When you think it’s getting a little bit easier, you have a new challenge. But I think for the first year, it was very challenging to manage coursework, do your PhD, and work towards pre-confirmation and confirmation. It’s a heavy workload and that’s why I think it is so important to be well-organized.

I think my biggest challenge right now is doing my transcriptions. Transcribing verbal protocols is very time-consuming. In data collection, students took part in a concurrent verbal protocol. This means that they would be talking about what they were thinking and doing while they were writing. So, I needed to transcribe what they were saying out loud and what they were writing. Sometimes I have a 50-minute-long video and that would take me almost 5 hours or more to transcribe.

Besides this, what’s been your favourite memory from your PhD so far?

Although it was challenging in the coursework part, I enjoyed going to classes, seeing my classmates, and chatting a little bit. Especially in the first year, you might be lost in your project, and hearing other people who were also going through the same was pretty calming. Meanwhile, I had more opportunities to try to get some insights through sharing my challenges. Also, I think that confirmation was an exciting experience, in which I could see my friends and cohort present what they had been working hard on for the last year.

In addition to research, how do you enjoy your leisure time?

I like travelling. I try to travel as much as I can, like going to places near Melbourne or around Victoria as well. I also have started running. I found that it helps with managing my stress and sometimes it even helps with coming up with ideas for my research. I’m now training for a half marathon, so hopefully, I can do that.

At this moment, do you have any expectations or plans for the future PhD journey?

I think my expectation right now is to finish my transcription process, prepare for my second-year meeting, and hopefully start analysing next year. Also, I would love to be able to go to a conference at some point in my PhD journey. I see that as a goal in the future. It will be a good experience in the PhD journey. Yeah, I think those are my main plans and goals for now: second-year review preparation and going to an academic conference.

Thanks for sharing with us your exciting research journey, Valentina.

Thank you, Chenyang.