English writing skills of students in upper secondary education: Results from an empirical study in Switzerland and Germany

Highlights

• First representative study of EFL writing in Switzerland and Germany at upper secondary level.

• About 70% of learners achieve CEFR level B2 (i.e., target standard) one year before graduation.

• Small but significant learning gains in both countries over one year.

• No influence of gender or language background on competence development.

Abstract

This study investigates English writing skills of learners two years and one year before their baccalaureate exam in upper secondary schools (academic track, Gymnasium) in Germany and Switzerland. It focuses on level and development of EFL writing as well as differences between groups (country, gender, language background). A sample of n = 2847 students worked in a repeated measurement study on two different writing tasks from the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL iBT). Results showed that in both countries over 70% of tested students achieved level B2 according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), thus mastering target standards one year before graduation. There were small effects for the development of writing skills over the school year, which were similar in size to studies on receptive skills. Swiss students outperformed German students while gender and language background did not have significant effects. These findings are discussed with regard to implications for English writing curricula and teacher education in an international context.

Introduction

Foreign language skills are vital for learners’ active participation in modern knowledge societies and integration in an international democratic system (Keller, 2013; Rychen & Salganik, 2003). The Council of Europe (CoE) recommended that every citizen of the European Union should be able to use three languages at the end of secondary school in order to equip them for the challenges of intensified international mobility and closer co-operation not only in education, culture and science but also in trade and industry (CoE, 2008).

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) was created to provide transparent level descriptors for language competences, which form the basis of educational standards in the European Union. These descriptors were originally scaled on a sample of about 2800 learners from Swiss lower and upper secondary, vocational, and adult education classrooms (CoE, 2001). Neither before nor after this work, however, has there a been representative study of learners’ writing competences in Switzerland or Germany beyond Year 9 (i.e., after the end of compulsory schooling). There is thus a significant research gap concerning English as a foreign language (EFL) writing competences at upper secondary level in these two countries.

In the absence of reliable data, universities in Switzerland raised concerns regarding students’ entry level English competences, particularly in writing (Brupbacher, Jucker, König, Roth, & Straumann, 2008). A report commissioned by a major Swiss university recommended that students should be trained in argumentative writing, in particular structuring paragraphs, formulating a thesis, weighing arguments and using appropriate rhetorical devices (Brupbacher et al., 2008).

The current study was designed to investigate these research gaps by focusing on the academic track of upper secondary education (i.e., general education grammar schools / Gymnasium). As this is the most selective type of school both in Germany and Switzerland, graduates typically choose demanding courses of study in tertiary education that require strong productive and receptive skills in English. The study focused on students in their penultimate year before graduation, where argumentative writing and source-based writing are two key genres which figure prominently in the relevant curricula (Fleckenstein, Keller, Krüger, Tannenbaum, & Köller, 2019).

By testing English writing in those two genres, the study investigated whether students achieved the overall target of upper secondary EFL writing (i.e., CEFR level B2). The study further sought to describe how students’ writing competences develop over the course of approximately one school year. Lastly, it evaluated the relationship between individual factors (i.e., gender, language background, general cognitive ability, and socioeconomic status) and systemic factors (i.e., differences in the school systems across countries) that might drive different educational trajectories.

We have divided this paper into four main sections as follows. In the first section, we summarize the relevant background, focusing on the educational systems in the two countries and learning gains typically found in EFL education at upper secondary level. As the source-based writing prompts used in the study require students to understand and integrate written and auditory input material, we also report key findings from studies on receptive competences, i.e., reading and listening (Hartig & Jude, 2008; van Ockenburg, van Weijen, & Rijlaarsdam, 2016; Schoonen, 2019).

In the second section, we detail the methods of data-gathering and measures of writing employed as well as presenting an overview of scaling techniques and reliability indicators. This includes a short discussion of automated essay evaluation (AEE), which was an important feature of analysis in this study. As these aspects have been described in detail in a previous publication (Rupp, Casabianca, Krüger, Keller, & Köller, 2019), we only provide a summary here. In the third section, we describe key results for our research questions using descriptive statistics and regression models with moderating variables. In the final section, we discuss the results in terms of their implications for the future of writing education in participating countries and a wider context.