A psycholinguistic study of L1Turkish and L2 English writing: The role of working memory

The purpose of this study is to develop a production span test to be used in L1 Turkish and L2 English and to see the role of working memory in the L1 and L2 writing process and quality. In addition to the role of working memory in writing, the study examines if working memory training leads to any increase in working memory capacity and subsequently leads to any change in the writing process and quality due to the improvement in working memory capacity. Twenty-eight freshman students from Department of English Language Teaching (ELT) who are native speakers of Turkish participated in the study. The study consisted of two parts: a) developing a production span test in L1 Turkish and L2 English and b) examining the relationship between working memory and writing process and quality in L1 and L2, as well as the impact of working memory training on working memory capacity and the writing process in addition to writing quality in L1 and L2. Data comes from reading span test, production span tests which were used for the working memory capacity, and also Inputlog. The writing process was quantified through Inputlog and online working memory training was given to the experimental group for eight weeks through Lumosity. Statistical analyses of factor analyses of Varimax rotation, Spearman's rank order correlation and Mann-Whitney U test were used. Argumentative essays in in L1 Turkish and L2 English were used for the writing quality and the writing process components. The findings of the study revealed implications with respect to the working memory and writing relationship and the impact of the working memory training on the working memory capacity. Key Words: working memory, production span test, writing skill, working memory training.