Genre learning through oral interactions: A case study of students’ thesis writing in group writing conferences from sociocultural perspectives

The globalization and commodification of higher education have brought contextual changes to Australian universities such as a substantial growth in international student numbers and increased publication pressure on doctoral scholars and academics. Experiencing these changes, in the Australian Higher Degree Research (HDR) context, increasing attention is being paid to support for students’ scholarly writing such as writing groups or group writing conferences. Despite the growing demand for this type of support, little is known about how the group activity enhances students’ genre knowledge development. Drawing on sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 2012), the study investigates HDR students’ genre learning - namely their thesis writing - through the exchange of oral feedback in group writing conferences at an Australian university. The study takes an ethnographic case study approach and investigates twelve students’ participation in three writing groups over a ten-week period. In these groups, students and a facilitator from the university’s learning centre meet fortnightly for two hours to discuss each other’s writing. Data were collected through observation and audiorecordings of meetings, written drafts, and interviews with the students and facilitators. The study focuses on underexplored areas in the previous studies on oral peer feedback in L2 writing classrooms: group oral interactions as tools for learning and the influences of social contexts inside and outside the classroom settings. Using the sociocultural concepts of mediation (Vygotsky, 1978), activity systems (Engeström, 2001) and Vygotsky’s concept of perezhivanie (lived experience) as analytical lenses, I examined participants’ motives and perspectives, and the groups’ emerging rules and divisions of labour. The findings include (1) the beneficial discursive features of oral interactions (e.g. giving and responding to feedback) and their relationships with oth