Earticle

Elbow’s freewriting (1989, 1998, 2011) is an exercise where a participant writes for a set period of time without stopping or editing. Data obtained from 102 Korean university EFL students were analyzed to explore the use of freewriting to enhance adult learners’ overall English proficiency. Participants were divided into freewriting and non-freewriting groups. Results show that the students in the freewriting group made significantly greater improvement than their counterparts in English speaking, writing, listening, and reading. Further evidence is found that qualitative improvement in the students’ freewriting implied a parallel increase in their overall English proficiency. This study suggests that freewriting could provide a safe outlet for Korean EFL learners to practice English, and enhance their capacity to think in the target language. The study supports the use of freewriting exercises as a contextsensitive pedagogical strategy to promote adult EFL learners’ linguistic development of English.

This study explores the effects of freewriting on writing performance and anxiety in L2 writing instruction. A total of thirteen Korean college students majoring in English education participated in the study. Three instruments were used: the pre- and post-writing tests, the pre- and post-Writing Anxiety Scales, and the questionnaire of learners’ perceptions and attitudes towards English writing activities. Learners performed freewriting tasks in writing instruction and then completed the writing tests and questionnaires. The results of the study indicate that freewriting significantly influenced learners’ writing abilities and lessened their writing anxiety. In terms of learners’ perceptions and attitudes towards English writing activities, learners considered freewriting and the individual workshop as the most interesting and helpful parts. In addition, learners reported that freewriting was effective in reducing their negative emotions and increasing their self-confidence in English writing. Based on the findings of the study, pedagogical implications and suggestions are provided for L2 writing instruction.

본 연구는 대학 교양 과목 ‘콘텐츠 창작 글쓰기’에 자유글쓰기를 체계적으로 접목해, 학습자의 자기표현, 자기효능감, 창작의지를 어떻게 확 장할 수 있는지 탐색하였다. 원소스 멀티유스 관점을 토대로 웹툰, 애니 메이션, 소설, 영화, 대중음악 등 원천소스를 분석하고, 프리라이팅을 11 주 동안 진행하였다. 초기 4주는 개입을 최소화해 “멈추지 않고 쓰기”의 리듬을 체득하게 하였고, 이후에는 주제를 연계한 자유글쓰기를 통해 개 인 경험과 외부 콘텐츠를 접목시키도록 설계했다. 자료는 재학생 69명의 사전․사후 설문과 자유글쓰기 본문 및산출물의 질적 사례를 혼합하여 수집 분석하였다. 결과적으로 학생들은 프리라이팅을 통해 자기 서사를 스스로 조직하 기 시작했고, 하나의 경험을 동화, 에세이, 시, 웹툰 등으로 전이시키는 장르 감수성이 강화되었다. 수업 만족도와 자기표현, 자신감은 전반적으 로 높게 나타났으며, 자유글쓰기는 정서 조절의 매개이자 서사 기획의 발화점으로 기능했다. 다만 글쓰기를 일상으로 지속하려는 의지는 상대 적으로 낮아, 수업 외부에서 유지될 수 있는 커뮤니티 형성과 출간 목표 등 구조적 장치가 필요함이 드러났다. 이러한 성과는 콘텐츠 기반 글쓰기가 단순한 문장 훈련을 넘어, 학습자 가 자신의 언어로 세계를 재구성하도록 돕는 인문적 실천임을 시사한다. 자유글쓰기는 원천소스를 ‘나의 서사’로 재인식함과 동시에 동기를 내면 화하고, 격려 중심의 피드백과 동료 평가가 더해질 때 표현의 지속가능성 이 커진다. 결론적으로 본 모델은 대학 글쓰기 교육에서 창의성, 자기표 현, 공동체적 소통 역량을 통합적으로 신장시키는 현실적 대안이며, 자유 는 규범의 부재가 아니라 쓰기를 통해 자신과 타자를 새롭게 연결하는 능동적 실천임을 확인하였다.

This study explores how systematically incorporating freewriting into the liberal arts course Content-Based Creative Writing can expand students’ self-expression, self-efficacy, and creative motivation. Based on a onesource multi-use perspective, the course analyzed various source contents such as webtoons, animation, novels, films, and popular music, and implemented freewriting over a period of 11 weeks. During the first four weeks, instructor intervention was minimized so that students could internalize the rhythm of “writing without stopping.” In the subsequent sessions, students engaged in topic-linked freewriting designed to connect personal experience with external content. Data were collected and analyzed through pre- and post-course surveys of 69 students, along with qualitative examples from their freewriting texts and creative outcomes. The findings indicate that students began to organize their own narratives through freewriting and developed greater sensitivity to genre transformation, transferring a single experience into multiple forms such as children’s stories, essays, poetry, and webtoons. Levels of satisfaction, self-expression, and confidence improved overall, while freewriting functioned both as a medium of emotional regulation and as a trigger for narrative planning. However, the willingness to sustain writing in daily life remained relatively low, revealing the need for structural supports such as community building and concrete output goals beyond the classroom. These observations suggest that content-based writing goes beyond sentence training, serving instead as a humanistic practice that enables learners to reconstruct the world in their own language. Freewriting helps students reframe source content as “their own narratives,” internalize motivation, and achieve greater sustainability of expression when coupled with encouragement-oriented feedback and peer evaluation. Ultimately, this model offers a practical alternative for university writing education by integrally fostering creativity, self-expression, and communicative competence within a community. It reaffirms that freedom is not merely the absence of rules but an active practice of connecting oneself with others through writing.

이 연구는 대학 글쓰기 교육에서 자유 글쓰기를 도입하여 수업한 사례를 제시하는 데 목적이 있다. 자유 글쓰기는 10분 동안 펜을 멈추지 않고 글을 쓰는 것이다. 내용이나 형식에 구애받지 않고 떠오르는 생각에 집중하여 쓰는것이 자유 글쓰기의 특징이다. 이 연구에서는 2022년 2학기부터 2025년 1학기까지 수업 시간에 실시한자유 글쓰기를 분석하고, 이를 바탕으로 대학 <글쓰기> 수업에 활용할 수 있는 초점화된 자유 글쓰기 방법을 제시한다. 매 학기 말 학생들에게 설문조사를 실시하여 자유 글쓰기 훈련의 만족도를 조사하였는데, 학생들은 주제 영역을 한정하는 초점화된 자유 글쓰기를 선호하였으며, 자유 글쓰기를 통해서‘사고력’과 ‘표현력’이 향상되었다는 답을 가장 많이 하였다. 이 연구의 결과는 글쓰기 교육에서 초점화된 글쓰기를 적용하는 데 기초 자료로 활용될 수 있으며, 대학생들의 글쓰기 능력을 기르는 데 도움이 될 것이다.

The purpose of this study is to present a case in which the freewriting was introduced in the university writing education. Freewriting is to write without stopping the pen for 10 minutes. It is a characteristic of free writing to focus on the thoughts that come to mind regardless of content or form. This study analyzes the free writing training conducted in the class from the second semester of 2022 to the first semester of 2025, and based on this, we present a focused free writing method that can be used in the university “writing” class. At the end of each semester, a survey was conducted on students to survey their satisfaction with freewriting training, with most respondents saying that they preferred focused freewriting that limited the subject area, and that 'thinking skills' and 'expressiveness' improved through freewriting. In this study, freewriting was utilized as a bridge between the pre-class and in-class stages of flipped learning. Each week, students were tasked with freely writing about the content covered in video lessons. At the end of the semester, a survey was conducted to gather students' perceptions of flipped learning. The results of this study can be used to apply focused freewriting in writing education and will help college students improve their writing skills.

The purpose of this study was to examine L2 learners’ perceived writing anxiety and the usefulness of freewriting in improving L2 writing fluency. Seventeen L1-Korean preservice English teachers enrolled in a teacher education program at a university participated. An L2 writing anxiety survey, 170 freewritings, and 17 reflective writings were analyzed. The participants showed a moderate level of L2 writing anxiety, mostly due to a lack of confidence. Across 10 freewriting practice sessions, participants’ words per minute gradually increased, with high and low fluency groups showing a similar upward trend. Participants’ written reflections revealed that they perceived the freewriting practice useful in boosting confidence and improving skills. Expressing ideas freely without concern for accuracy alleviated their L2 writing anxiety most. Participants reported they had difficulty writing in English continuously for several minutes, and disliked absence of teacher feedback.