Functional Adequacy in L2 Writing: Towards a New Rating Scale

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kuiken, Folkert; Vedder, Ineke

2017-01-01

The importance of functional adequacy as an essential component of L2 proficiency has been observed by several authors (Pallotti, 2009; De Jong, Steinel, Florijn, Schoonen, & Hulstijn, 2012a, b). The rationale underlying the present study is that the assessment of writing proficiency in L2 is not fully possible without taking into account the…

Using Prewriting Tasks in L2 Writing Classes: Insights from Three Experiments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McDonough, Kim; Neumann, Heike

2014-01-01

Even though collaborative prewriting tasks are frequently used in second language (L2) writing classes (Fernández Dobao, 2012; Storch, 2005), they have not been as widely researched as other tasks, such as collaborative writing and peer review. This article examines the effectiveness of collaborative prewriting tasks at encouraging English for…

Diction and Expression in Error Analysis Can Enhance Academic Writing of L2 University Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sajid, Muhammad

2016-01-01

Without proper linguistic competence in English language, academic writing is one of the most challenging tasks, especially, in various genre specific disciplines by L2 novice writers. This paper examines the role of diction and expression through error analysis in English language of L2 novice writers' academic writing in interdisciplinary texts…

Writer L1/L2 Status and Asynchronous Online Writing Center Feedback: Consultant Response Patterns

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weirick, Joshua; Davis, Tracy; Lawson, Daniel

2017-01-01

This case study examines the differences in comments offered by asynchronous online writing center consultants to L1 and L2 speakers and examines the potential disconnects in consultant perceptions of their practice. The researchers collected and coded sample papers and interviewed participants to contextualize data from the quantitative portion…

Main Ingredients for Success in L2 Academic Writing: Outlining, Drafting and Proofreading.

PubMed

Munoz-Luna, Rosa

2015-01-01

Spanish undergraduates of English Studies are required to submit their essays in academic English, a genre which most of them are not acquainted with. This paper aims to explore the extralinguistic side of second language (L2) academic writing, more specifically, the combination of metalinguistic items (e.g. transition and frame markers, among others) with students' writing strategies when composing an academic text in L2 English. The research sample conveys a group of 200 Spanish undergraduates of English Studies; they are in their fourth year, so they are expected to be proficient in English academic writing but their written production quality varies considerably. Results are analysed following a mixed methodology by which metalinguistic items are statistically measured, and then contrasted with semi-structured interview results; SPSS and NVivo provide quantitative and qualitative outcomes, respectively. The analyses reveal that undergraduate students who produce complex sentences and more coherent texts employ a wider range of writing strategies both prior and while writing, being able to (un)consciously structure and design their texts more successfully. These high-scoring students make more proficient use of complex transition markers for coherence and frame markers for textual cohesion; their commonly used (pre-)writing strategies are drafting, outlining, and proofreading.

Main Ingredients for Success in L2 Academic Writing: Outlining, Drafting and Proofreading

PubMed Central

Munoz-Luna, Rosa

2015-01-01

Spanish undergraduates of English Studies are required to submit their essays in academic English, a genre which most of them are not acquainted with. This paper aims to explore the extralinguistic side of second language (L2) academic writing, more specifically, the combination of metalinguistic items (e.g. transition and frame markers, among others) with students’ writing strategies when composing an academic text in L2 English. The research sample conveys a group of 200 Spanish undergraduates of English Studies; they are in their fourth year, so they are expected to be proficient in English academic writing but their written production quality varies considerably. Results are analysed following a mixed methodology by which metalinguistic items are statistically measured, and then contrasted with semi-structured interview results; SPSS and NVivo provide quantitative and qualitative outcomes, respectively. The analyses reveal that undergraduate students who produce complex sentences and more coherent texts employ a wider range of writing strategies both prior and while writing, being able to (un)consciously structure and design their texts more successfully. These high-scoring students make more proficient use of complex transition markers for coherence and frame markers for textual cohesion; their commonly used (pre-)writing strategies are drafting, outlining, and proofreading. PMID:26046836

L1 vs L2 Writing: ESL Graduate Students' Perceptions.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Silva, Tony

1992-01-01

A classroom-based study is reported that explored English-as-a-Second Language graduate students' perceptions about (1) differences between writing in their native language and writing in English, and (2) how these difference should be reflected in ESL writing teachers' practices. (19 references) (Author/LB)

A Comparative Study of Facebook vs. Paper-and-Pencil Writing to Improve L2 Writing Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dizon, Gilbert

2016-01-01

Facebook has best leveraged the rapid technological and societal changes over the past decade to grow into the world's largest social-networking site (SNS). However, research of Facebook has lagged behind other Web 2.0 technologies, particularly in regards to investigating its efficacy versus a control group to improve L2 writing. This study,…

Second Language Learners' Performance and Strategies When Writing Direct and Translated Essays

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ismail, Sadiq Abdulwahed Ahmed; Alsheikh, Negmeldin Omer

2012-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate ESL students' performance and strategies when writing direct and translated essays. The study also aimed at exploring students' strategies when writing in L2 (English) and L1 (Arabic). The study used a mixture of quantitative and qualitative procedures for data collection and analysis. Adapted strategy…

The Use of Paraphrase in Summary Writing: A Comparison of L1 and L2 Writers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Keck, Casey

2006-01-01

Paraphrasing is considered by many to be an important skill for academic writing, and some have argued that the teaching of paraphrasing might help students avoid copying from source texts. Few studies, however, have investigated the ways in which both L1 and L2 academic writers already use paraphrasing as a textual borrowing strategy when…

The Effect of Planning Sub-Processes on L2 Writing Fluency, Grammatical Complexity, and Lexical Complexity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, Mark D.; Mercado, Leonardo; Acevedo, Anthony

2012-01-01

This study contributes to L2 writing research which seeks to tie predictions of the Limited Attentional Capacity Model (Skehan, 1998; Skehan & Foster, 2001) and Cognition Hypothesis (Robinson, 2001, 2005, 2011a, 2011b) to models of working memory in L1 writing (Kellogg, 1996). The study uses a quasi-experimental research design to investigate…

A Case Study on the Effects of an L2 Writing Instructional Model for Blended Learning in Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

So, Lee; Lee, Chung Hyun

2013-01-01

This case study explores EFL (English as a foreign language) students' perceptions toward a prototype of an instructional model for second language (L2) writing in blended learning and the effects of the model on the development of L2 writing skills in higher education. This model is primarily founded on the process-oriented writing approach…

Effects of Interactive Chat versus Independent Writing on L2 Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tare, Medha; Golonka, Ewa M.; Vatz, Karen; Bonilla, Carrie L.; Crooks, Carolyn; Strong, Rachel

2014-01-01

This study examines the importance of interaction for second language (L2) acquisition by analyzing outcomes from two types of out-of-class activities. The study compared: (a) interactive homework, completed via text chat, and (b) individual homework, completed via independent writing. In a between-subjects design, participants in two…

The Effects of Utilizing Corpus Resources to Correct Collocation Errors in L2 Writing--Students' Performance, Corpus Use and Perceptions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wu, Yi-ju

2016-01-01

Data-Driven Learning (DDL), in which learners "confront [themselves] directly with the corpus data" (Johns, 2002, p. 108), has shown to be effective in collocation learning in L2 writing. Nevertheless, there have been only few research studies of this type examining the relationship between English proficiency and corpus consultation.…

Working Smarter, Not Working Harder: Revisiting Teacher Feedback in the L2 Writing Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Icy

2011-01-01

Although second language (L2) teachers spend a significant amount of time marking students' writing, many of them feel that their efforts do not pay off. While students want teachers to give them feedback on their writing and value teacher feedback, they might experience feelings of frustration and confusion once they receive it. What is amiss in…

Effects of Task Complexity on L2 Writing Behaviors and Linguistic Complexity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Révész, Andrea; Kourtali, Nektaria-Efstathia; Mazgutova, Diana

2017-01-01

This study investigated whether task complexity influences second language (L2) writers' fluency, pausing, and revision behaviors and the cognitive processes underlying these behaviors; whether task complexity affects linguistic complexity of written output; and whether relationships between writing behaviors and linguistic complexity are…

Assessing Syntactic Sophistication in L2 Writing: A Usage-Based Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kyle, Kristopher; Crossley, Scott

2017-01-01

Over the past 45 years, the construct of syntactic sophistication has been assessed in L2 writing using what Bulté and Housen (2012) refer to as absolute complexity (Lu, 2011; Ortega, 2003; Wolfe-Quintero, Inagaki, & Kim, 1998). However, it has been argued that making inferences about learners based on absolute complexity indices (e.g., mean…

The Effect of Concept Mapping on L2 Writing Performance: Examining Possible Effects of Trait-Level Writing Anxiety

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Machida, Naoko; Dalsky, David J.

2014-01-01

Research on anxiety in a foreign language-learning context is well-documented; however, few studies have directly focused on anxiety occurring within writing contexts despite the fact that writing anxiety is known to affect students' learning. The present study examined the effectiveness of concept mapping considering students' writing anxiety.…

Examining the Impact of L2 Proficiency and Keyboarding Skills on Scores on TOEFL-iBT Writing Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barkaoui, Khaled

2014-01-01

A major concern with computer-based (CB) tests of second-language (L2) writing is that performance on such tests may be influenced by test-taker keyboarding skills. Poor keyboarding skills may force test-takers to focus their attention and cognitive resources on motor activities (i.e., keyboarding) and, consequently, other processes and aspects of…

The role of research-article writing motivation and self-regulatory strategies in explaining research-article abstract writing ability.

PubMed

Lin, Ming-Chia; Cheng, Yuh-Show; Lin, Sieh-Hwa; Hsieh, Pei-Jung

2015-04-01

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of research-article writing motivation and use of self-regulatory writing strategies in explaining second language (L2) research-article abstract writing ability, alongside the L2 literacy effect. Four measures were administered: a L2 literacy test, a research abstract performance assessment, and inventories of writing motivation and strategy. Participants were L2 graduate students in Taiwan (N=185; M age=25.8 yr., SD=4.5, range=22-53). Results of structural equation modeling showed a direct effect of motivation on research-article writing ability, but no direct effect of strategy or indirect effect of motivation via strategy on research-article writing ability, with L2 literacy controlled. The findings suggest research-article writing instruction should address writing motivation, besides L2 literacy.

Modeling the Development of L1 and EFL Writing Proficiency of Secondary School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schoonen, Rob; van Gelderen, Amos; Stoel, Reinoud D.; Hulstijn, Jan; de Glopper, Kees

2011-01-01

This longitudinal study investigates the development of writing proficiency in English as a foreign language (EFL), in contrast to the development of first language (L1) writing proficiency in Dutch L1, in a sample of almost 400 secondary school students in the Netherlands. Students performed several writing tasks in both languages in three…

Transferring Generic Features and Recontextualizing Genre Awareness: Understanding Writing Performance in the ESP Genre-Based Literacy Framework

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cheng, An

2007-01-01

Despite the impact of the ESP genre-based framework of teaching discipline-specific writing to L2 learners, especially to L2 graduate students, the writing performance of learners in such a framework is still not fully explored. In this paper, I analyze three article introductions written by a Chinese-speaking graduate student in electrical…

Revisiting Fluctuations in L2 Article Choice in L1-Korean L2-English Learners.

PubMed

Sarker, Bijon K; Baek, Seunghyun

2017-04-01

The current study investigated the distinction of L2 (second language) English article choice sensitivity in fifty-three L1-Korean L2-English learners in semantic contexts. In the context of English as a foreign language, the participants were divided into two groups based on grammatical ability as determined by their performance on a cloze test. In addition, a forced-choice elicitation test and a writing production test were administered to assess, respectively, the participants' receptive and productive article choice abilities. Regardless of grammatical ability, the results disclosed the overuse of the indefinite a in the [[Formula: see text]definite, -specific] context and the definite the in the [-definite, [Formula: see text]specific] context on the forced-choice elicitation test. In the [[Formula: see text]definite, [Formula: see text]specific] and [-definite, -specific] contexts, however, the overuse of either the indefinite a or the definite the, respectively, was less likely. Furthermore, it was revealed on the writing test that the participants more accurately used the definite the than the indefinite a, and they were also found to unreasonably omit more articles than to add or substitute articles on the writing production test. The findings across the two tests indicate that L1-Korean L2-English learners are more likely to have intrinsic difficulties transferring their L1 noun phrase (NP) knowledge to L2 NP knowledge owing to structural discrepancies and complex interfaces between L1 NPs and L2 NPs with respect to syntactic, semantic and pragmatic/discourse language subsystems.

Reverse Transfer: Exploring the Effects of Foreign Language Rhetorical Patterns on L1 Writing Performance of Iranian EFL Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Babaii, Esmat; Ramazani, Kambiz

2017-01-01

The relationship between language learners' L1 and L2 writing productions has attracted the attention of researchers since Kaplan (1966). Along this research line, the present study aimed to explore the reverse transfer of rhetorical patterns from English (L2) to Persian (L1) in the argumentative essays of EFL students in Iran. Sixty MA university…

Connecting Reading and Writing Using Children's Literature in the University L2 Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leal, Priscila

2015-01-01

This article investigates the potential benefits of using children's literature in adult second language (L2) classrooms. A short-term, intensive university course for English reading and writing was designed incorporating children's literature into the curriculum. The author describes the course and discusses how children's literature can be used…

The Role of Reading Strategies in Integrated L2 Writing Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Plakans, Lia

2009-01-01

Integrated second-language writing tasks elicit writing performances that involve other abilities such as reading or listening. Thus, understanding the role of these other abilities is necessary for interpreting performance on such tasks. This study used an inductive analysis of think-aloud protocol data and interviews to uncover the reading…

Investigating Differences in the Writing Performance of International and Generation 1.5 Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

di Gennaro, Kristen

2009-01-01

Practitioners working closely with second language (L2) writers in the US recognize at least two types of L2 students: international (IL2) and Generation 1.5 (G1.5) students. Some argue that specific differences in each group's writing performance are evident (cf. Harklau, 2003; Reid, 2006); however, investigations into observable and measurable…

Written Corrective Feedback in L2 Writing: Connors & Lunsford (1988); Lunsford & Lunsford (2008); Lalande (1982) Dana Ferris

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ferris, Dana

2015-01-01

Written corrective feedback (CF) has been the most heavily researched topic in second language (L2) writing over the past 20 years. As a recent research timeline article in this journal (Ferris 2012; see also Bitchener & Ferris 2012) shows, studies of error correction in student writing have crossed disciplines (composition and rhetoric,…

The Development and Use of Cohesive Devices in L2 Writing and Their Relations to Judgments of Essay Quality

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crossley, Scott A.; Kyle, Kristopher; McNamara, Danielle S.

2016-01-01

An important topic in writing research has been the use of cohesive features. Much of this research has focused on local and text cohesion. The few studies that have studied global cohesion have been restricted to first language writing. This study investigates the development of local, global, and text cohesion in the writing of 57 language (L2)…

Measurements of Development in L2 Written Production: The Case of L2 Chinese

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jiang, Wenying

2013-01-01

This study investigates measures for second language (L2) writing development. A T-unit, which has been found the most satisfactory unit of analysis for measuring L2 development in English, is extended to measure L2 Chinese writing development through a cross-sectional design in this study. Data were collected from three L2 Chinese learner groups…

Outcome Measure of L2 Writing as a Mediator of the Effects of Corrective Feedback on Students' Ability to Write Accurately

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Riazantseva, Anastasia

2012-01-01

This study used longitudinal data and a pre-post test design to examine the effect of the outcome measure of L2 writing on the accuracy rates of thirty-two international graduate students enrolled in a semester-long content-based EAP course. As part of the coursework, the students completed weekly written assignments on which they received weekly…

Vocabulary Knowledge and Vocabulary Use in Second Language Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, Mark D.; Acevedo, Anthony; Mercado, Leonardo

2016-01-01

Research has consistently shown diversity of vocabulary to be an important indicator of second language (L2) writing development as well as L2 writing performance. These studies underscore the importance of vocabulary to L2 writing. However, they provide little to indicate what kind of vocabulary learners of English may need to know in order to…

The Impact of Blended e-Learning on Undergraduate Academic Essay Writing in English (L2)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ferriman, Nicholas

2013-01-01

This paper describes a quasi-experimental study into the impact of a blended e-learning environment on academic writing assignments in English (L2) at a Thai international college. An experimental group of 15 students used an on-line bulletin board, as well as face-to-face (F2F) communication in class, to share information for essay topics they…

Secondary Students' Writing Achievement Goals: Assessing the Mediating Effects of Mastery and Performance Goals on Writing Self-Efficacy, Affect, and Writing Achievement

PubMed Central

Yilmaz Soylu, Meryem; Zeleny, Mary G.; Zhao, Ruomeng; Bruning, Roger H.; Dempsey, Michael S.; Kauffman, Douglas F.

2017-01-01

The two studies reported here explored the factor structure of the newly constructed Writing Achievement Goal Scale (WAGS), and examined relationships among secondary students' writing achievement goals, writing self-efficacy, affect for writing, and writing achievement. In the first study, 697 middle school students completed the WAGS. A confirmatory factor analysis revealed a good fit for this data with a three-factor model that corresponds with mastery, performance approach, and performance avoidance goals. The results of Study 1 were an indication for the researchers to move forward with Study 2, which included 563 high school students. The secondary students completed the WAGS, as well as the Self-efficacy for Writing Scale, and the Liking Writing Scale. Students also self-reported grades for writing and for language arts courses. Approximately 6 weeks later, students completed a statewide writing assessment. We tested a theoretical model representing relationships among Study 2 variables using structural equation modeling including students' responses to the study scales and students' scores on the statewide assessment. Results from Study 2 revealed a good fit between a model depicting proposed relationships among the constructs and the data. Findings are discussed relative to achievement goal theory and writing. PMID:28878707

Analyzing Genre Exemplars in Preparation for Writing: The Case of an L2 Graduate Student in the ESP Genre-Based Instructional Framework of Academic Literacy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cheng, An

2008-01-01

Some researchers believe that the ESP genre-based framework of writing instruction is effective in teaching discipline-specific English EAP writing to L2 learners, especially to advanced L2 graduate students. However, studies examining students' genre-based learning in such a framework are still underrepresented in current ESP genre-based…

Collaborative Blended Learning Writing Environment: Effects on EFL Students' Writing Apprehension and Writing Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Challob, Ala'a Ismael; Bakar, Nadzrah Abu; Latif, Hafizah

2016-01-01

This study examined the effects of collaborative blended learning writing environment on students' writing apprehension and writing performance as perceived by a selected group of EFL students enrolled in one of the international schools in Malaysia. Qualitative case study method was employed using semi-structured interview, learning diaries and…

Articulating Breath: Writing Charcot's Hysteric with "Performance Writing"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Worden, Jessica

2014-01-01

The overlap between the visual and textual in practice research provides an opportunity to explore ways of presenting knowledge through "performance writin". The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how a performance writing practice can be incorporated into and shape research writing. This text uses descriptions of Jean-Martin…

Exploring L2 Writing Conferences: Discourse and Effects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ji, Soohyon

2017-01-01

One-to-one writing conferences, which allow maximized individualized interaction between student-writers and teacher-readers, are widely adopted teaching practices in composition classrooms. One of the most frequently mentioned benefits of writing conferences is that individual sessions between a teacher and student allows and promotes individual…

Hidden Voices: L2 Students' Compensatory Writing Strategies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stockall, Nancy; Villar Cole, Corinna

2016-01-01

This qualitative research study examines how 12 undergraduate second-language learners understood the concept of citations in academic writing. The following questions guided this study: What are the participants' beliefs about citing research? How do students conceive the role and function of citations in their writing assignments? How do they…

Facilitating L2 Writers' Interpretation of Source Texts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Doolan, Stephen M.; Fitzsimmons-Doolan, Shannon

2016-01-01

Student success in higher education often involves the effective integration of source texts into students' writing (Horowitz, 1986); therefore, advanced second language (L2) students are particularly well served by effective reading-to-write instruction. Teaching L2 students to write from sources is challenging because of several issues,…

Understanding and Evaluating L2 Personal Letter Writing: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Analysis of Student Texts in German

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crane, Cori

2016-01-01

Adopting a genre lens informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics (cf. Halliday & Matthiessen, [Halliday, M. A. K., 2004]; Martin & Rose, [Martin, J. R., 2008]), this paper explores the text-structural and lexico-grammatical choices that second language (L2) writers of German make in personal letter writing. Close analysis of two student…

Blog-Integrated Writing with Blog-Buddies: EAP Learners' Writing Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Asoodar, Maryam; Atai, Mahmood Reza; Vaezi, Shahin

2016-01-01

This article reports a mixed-method research probing the effect of utilizing a blog-buddy system on English for academic purposes learners' writing performance. Sixty Iranian undergraduate engineering students at Iran University of Science and Technology Virtual Campus participated in this study. Our analysis of the students' writings indicated…

Teaching Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tomas, Z.; Kostka, I.; Mott-Smith, J. A.

2013-01-01

The authors of "Teaching Writing" draw on their years of teaching and their knowledge of theory and research to present major concepts in teaching L2 writing. These concepts encompass how cultural differences affect the writing class, planning instruction, text-based writing, writing strategies, modeling, and responding to student…

The Multi-Feature Hypothesis: Connectionist Guidelines for L2 Task Design

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moonen, Machteld; de Graaff, Rick; Westhoff, Gerard; Brekelmans, Mieke

2014-01-01

This study focuses on the effects of task type on the retention and ease of activation of second language (L2) vocabulary, based on the multi-feature hypothesis (Moonen, De Graaff, & Westhoff, 2006). Two tasks were compared: a writing task and a list-learning task. It was hypothesized that performing the writing task would yield higher…

Negotiating Voice Construction between Writers and Readers in College Writing: A Case Study of an L2 Writer

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jwa, Soomin

2018-01-01

Voice is co-constructed, a result of the "text-mediated interaction between the writer and the reader." The present study, using the context of U.S. college writing, explores the complicated process by which an L2 novice writer--one who has a growing awareness of, yet peripheral access to, discourse practices--constructs a voice. Through…

Threshold to Transfer Writing Skills from L1 to L2

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ito, Fumihiko

2009-01-01

Background: It has been hypothesized that L2 (second language) readers are not able to draw on their L1 (first language) reading skills for the successful development of L2 reading skills until they develop a certain proficiency in L2 because a lack of proficiency blocks transfer of L1 reading skills to the reading of L2 texts. This minimum degree…

The "'Grammar Correction' Debate in L2 Writing": Where Are We, and Where Do We Go from Here?--(And What Do We Do in the Meantime ...?)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ferris, Dana R.

2004-01-01

The efficacy of teacher error/grammar correction in second language writing classes has been the subject of much controversy, including a published debate in an earlier volume of this journal [J. Second Language Writing 8 (1999) 1; J. Second Language Writing 8 (1999) 111]. In this paper, the state-of-the-art in error correction research in L2…

Bodies in Composition: Teaching Writing through Kinesthetic Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Butler, Janine

2017-01-01

This article calls on composition instructors to reflect consciously on how we can use our bodies kinesthetically to perform multimodal writing processes through gestural, visual, and spatial modes. Teaching writing through kinesthetic performance can show students that our bodies are being constructed via interaction with audiences, akin to the…

The Impact of Vocabulary Preparation on L2 Listening Comprehension, Confidence and Strategy Use

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chang, Anna Ching-Shyang

2007-01-01

Building on previous studies of the effects of planning on second language learners' (L2) oral narratives and writing, this research reports an investigation of the effects of vocabulary preparation prior to a listening comprehension test on L2 learners' vocabulary performance, listening comprehension, confidence levels and strategy use. The…

Students' Use of Evaluative Language in L2 English to Talk and Write about History in a Bilingual Education Programme

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Morton, Tom; Llinares, Ana

2018-01-01

This article reports on a four-year longitudinal study which investigates students' use of evaluative language in English as a second language (L2) to talk and write about history in a bilingual education programme. We focus on how four students use linguistic resources to adopt a stance to the content they are learning and develop an…

Understanding Preclerkship Medical Students' Poor Performance in Prescription Writing.

PubMed

James, Henry; Al Khaja, Khalid A J; Tayem, Yasin I; Veeramuthu, Sindhan; Sequeira, Reginald P

2016-05-01

This study aimed to explore reasons for poor performance in prescription writing stations of the objective structured practical examination (OSPE) and absenteeism in prescription writing sessions among preclerkship medical students at the Arabian Gulf University (AGU) in Manama, Bahrain. This descriptive study was carried out between September 2014 and June 2015 among 157 preclerkship medical students at AGU. Data were collected using focus group discussions and a questionnaire with closed- and open-ended items. All 157 students participated in the study (response rate: 100.0%). The most frequently cited reasons for poor performance in OSPE stations were an inability to select the correct drugs (79.6%), treatment duration (69.4%), drug quantity (69.4%) and drug formulation (68.2%). Additionally, students reported inadequate time for completing the stations (68.8%). During focus group discussions, students reported other reasons for poor performance, including examination stress and the difficulty of the stations. Absenteeism was attributed to the length of each session (55.4%), lack of interest (50.3%), reliance on peers for information (48.4%) and optional attendance policies (47.1%). Repetitive material, large group sessions, unmet student expectations and the proximity of the sessions to summative examinations were also indicated to contribute to absenteeism according to open-ended responses or focus group discussions. This study suggests that AGU medical students perform poorly in prescription writing OSPE stations because of inadequate clinical pharmacology knowledge. Participation in prescription writing sessions needs to be enhanced by addressing the concerns identified in this study. Strategies to improve attendance and performance should take into account the learner-teacher relationship.

Affordances of Web 2.0 Technologies for Collaborative Advanced Writing in a Foreign Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Strobl. Carola

2014-01-01

Can online collaboration yield a positive effect on academic writing in a foreign language? If so, what exactly is the added value, compared to individual writing, and (how) does it translate to better output? These are the central questions addressed in this paper. L2 writing research has long highlighted the benefits of collaboration in terms of…

Sources of L2 Writing Apprehension: A Study of Egyptian University Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abdel Latif, Muhammad M.

2015-01-01

High levels of apprehension cause students to have writing difficulties. This study attempted to identify the sources of Egyptian university students' English writing apprehension. The study made use of both quantitative and qualitative data. The scores of 57 students on a writing apprehension scale were compared to their scores on another scale…

Discourse Connectives in L1 and L2 Argumentative Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hu, Chunyu; Li, Yuanyuan

2015-01-01

Discourse connectives (DCs) are multi-functional devices used to connect discourse segments and fulfill interpersonal levels of discourse. This study investigates the use of selected 80 DCs within 11 categories in the argumentative essays produced by L1 and L2 university students. The analysis is based on the International Corpus Network of Asian…

Plagiarism in Second-Language Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pecorari, Diane; Petric, Bojana

2014-01-01

Plagiarism is a broad and multidisciplinary field of study, and within second-language (L2) writing, research on the topic goes back to the mid-1980s. In this review article we first discuss the received view of plagiarism as a transgressive act and alternative understandings which have been presented in the L1 and L2 writing literature. We then…

Is Handwriting Performance Affected by the Writing Surface? Comparing Preschoolers', Second Graders', and Adults' Writing Performance on a Tablet vs. Paper.

PubMed

Gerth, Sabrina; Klassert, Annegret; Dolk, Thomas; Fliesser, Michael; Fischer, Martin H; Nottbusch, Guido; Festman, Julia

2016-01-01

Due to their multifunctionality, tablets offer tremendous advantages for research on handwriting dynamics or for interactive use of learning apps in schools. Further, the widespread use of tablet computers has had a great impact on handwriting in the current generation. But, is it advisable to teach how to write and to assess handwriting in pre- and primary schoolchildren on tablets rather than on paper? Since handwriting is not automatized before the age of 10 years, children's handwriting movements require graphomotor and visual feedback as well as permanent control of movement execution during handwriting. Modifications in writing conditions, for instance the smoother writing surface of a tablet, might influence handwriting performance in general and in particular those of non-automatized beginning writers. In order to investigate how handwriting performance is affected by a difference in friction of the writing surface, we recruited three groups with varying levels of handwriting automaticity: 25 preschoolers, 27 second graders, and 25 adults. We administered three tasks measuring graphomotor abilities, visuomotor abilities, and handwriting performance (only second graders and adults). We evaluated two aspects of handwriting performance: the handwriting quality with a visual score and the handwriting dynamics using online handwriting measures [e.g., writing duration, writing velocity, strokes and number of inversions in velocity (NIV)]. In particular, NIVs which describe the number of velocity peaks during handwriting are directly related to the level of handwriting automaticity. In general, we found differences between writing on paper compared to the tablet. These differences were partly task-dependent. The comparison between tablet and paper revealed a faster writing velocity for all groups and all tasks on the tablet which indicates that all participants-even the experienced writers-were influenced by the lower friction of the tablet surface. Our results

Is Handwriting Performance Affected by the Writing Surface? Comparing Preschoolers', Second Graders', and Adults' Writing Performance on a Tablet vs. Paper

PubMed Central

Gerth, Sabrina; Klassert, Annegret; Dolk, Thomas; Fliesser, Michael; Fischer, Martin H.; Nottbusch, Guido; Festman, Julia

2016-01-01

Due to their multifunctionality, tablets offer tremendous advantages for research on handwriting dynamics or for interactive use of learning apps in schools. Further, the widespread use of tablet computers has had a great impact on handwriting in the current generation. But, is it advisable to teach how to write and to assess handwriting in pre- and primary schoolchildren on tablets rather than on paper? Since handwriting is not automatized before the age of 10 years, children's handwriting movements require graphomotor and visual feedback as well as permanent control of movement execution during handwriting. Modifications in writing conditions, for instance the smoother writing surface of a tablet, might influence handwriting performance in general and in particular those of non-automatized beginning writers. In order to investigate how handwriting performance is affected by a difference in friction of the writing surface, we recruited three groups with varying levels of handwriting automaticity: 25 preschoolers, 27 second graders, and 25 adults. We administered three tasks measuring graphomotor abilities, visuomotor abilities, and handwriting performance (only second graders and adults). We evaluated two aspects of handwriting performance: the handwriting quality with a visual score and the handwriting dynamics using online handwriting measures [e.g., writing duration, writing velocity, strokes and number of inversions in velocity (NIV)]. In particular, NIVs which describe the number of velocity peaks during handwriting are directly related to the level of handwriting automaticity. In general, we found differences between writing on paper compared to the tablet. These differences were partly task-dependent. The comparison between tablet and paper revealed a faster writing velocity for all groups and all tasks on the tablet which indicates that all participants—even the experienced writers—were influenced by the lower friction of the tablet surface. Our

Written Corrective Feedback in IELTS Writing Task 2: Teachers' Priorities, Practices, and Beliefs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pearson, William S.

2018-01-01

Teacher corrective feedback is widely recognised as integral in supporting developing L2 writers. The potentially high pressure IELTS test preparation classroom presents a context where feedback has not yet been extensively studied. Consequently, teachers' approaches to corrective feedback on Writing Task 2, the essay component of IELTS Writing,…

Effect of Instruction on ESL Students' Synthesis Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhang, Cui

2013-01-01

Synthesis writing has become the focus of much greater attention in the past 10 years in L2 EAP contexts. However, research on L2 synthesis writing has been limited, especially with respect to treatment studies that relate writing instruction to the development of synthesis writing abilities. To address this research gap, the present study…

Students' performance in phonological awareness, rapid naming, reading, and writing.

PubMed

Capellini, Simone Aparecida; Lanza, Simone Cristina

2010-01-01

phonological awareness, rapid naming, reading and writing in students with learning difficulties of a municipal public school. to characterize and compare the performance of students from public schools with and without learning difficulties in phonological awareness, rapid naming, reading and writing. participants were 60 students from the 2nd to the 4th grades of municipal public schools divided into 6 groups. Each group was composed by 10 students, being 3 groups of students without learning difficulties and 3 groups with students with learning difficulties. As testing procedure phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, oral reading and writing under dictation assessments were used. the results highlighted the better performance of students with no learning difficulties. Students with learning difficulties presented a higher ratios considering time/speed in rapid naming tasks and, consequently, lower production in activities of phonological awareness and reading and writing, when compared to students without learning difficulties. students with learning difficulties presented deficits when considering the relationship between naming and automatization skills, and among lexical access, visual discrimination, stimulus frequency use and competition in using less time for code naming, i.e. necessary for the phoneme-grapheme conversion process required in the reading and writing alphabetic system like the Portuguese language.

Reading-Writing Integrated Tasks, Comprehensive Corrective Feedback, and EFL Writing Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhang, Xiaoyan

2017-01-01

The study examines whether there is any difference between the effects of a reading-writing integrated task and comprehensive corrective feedback (CF) on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' writing development, and whether the input language in the integrated task makes a difference in L2 writing development over time and the language…

A Qualitative Study into L2 Writing Strategies of University Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Raoofi, Saeid; Chan, Swee Heng; Mukundan, Jayakaran; Rashid, Sabariah Md

2014-01-01

This study reports on an investigation into writing strategies of Malaysian university students learning English as a second language. Qualitative data were collected from 21 undergraduate university students aged 19 to 21. The students interviewed reported using a variety of writing strategies. It was also found that all of the participants…

Exploring the Role of Reformulations and a Model Text in EFL Students' Writing Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yang, Luxin; Zhang, Ling

2010-01-01

This study examined the effectiveness of reformulation and model text in a three-stage writing task (composing-comparison-revising) in an EFL writing class in a Beijing university. The study documented 10 university students' writing performance from the composing (Stage 1) and comparing (Stage 2, where students compare their own text to a…

Comparison of L1 and L2 Pre and Post Writing Samples of Bilingual Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reyes, Maria de la Luz

A sample of 15 eighth-grade Hispanic students in a bilingual classroom were used for a descriptive analysis of students' writing samples to compare their growth between pre- and post- writing samples in Spanish and English. This was accomplished by juxtaposing English and Spanish pre- and post-tests using the same holistic rubric developed by the…

Assessing and Improving L2 Graduate Students' Popular Science and Academic Writing in an Academic Writing Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rakedzon, Tzipora; Baram-Tsabari, Ayelet

2017-01-01

This paper reports a study using a quasi-experimental design to examine whether an academic writing course in English can improve graduate students' academic and popular science writing skills. To address this issue, we designed pre- and post-assessment tasks, an intervention assessment task and a scoring rubric. The pre- and post-assessment tasks…

Medical Writing Competency Model - Section 2: Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Behaviors.

PubMed

Clemow, David B; Wagner, Bertil; Marshallsay, Christopher; Benau, Dan; L'Heureux, Darryl; Brown, David H; Dasgupta, Devjani Ghosh; Girten, Eileen; Hubbard, Frank; Gawrylewski, Helle-Mai; Ebina, Hiroko; Stoltenborg, Janet; York, J P; Green, Kim; Wood, Linda Fossati; Toth, Lisa; Mihm, Michael; Katz, Nancy R; Vasconcelos, Nina-Maria; Sakiyama, Norihisa; Whitsell, Robin; Gopalakrishnan, Shobha; Bairnsfather, Susan; Wanderer, Tatyana; Schindler, Thomas M; Mikyas, Yeshi; Aoyama, Yumiko

2018-01-01

This article provides Section 2 of the 2017 Edition 2 Medical Writing Competency Model that describes the knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors that professional medical writers need in order to perform effectively within the life sciences industry. What a medical writer should know, what they should be able to do, and how they should use this knowledge and these skills to facilitate their primary work function is a focus. Regulatory, publication, and other scientific writing as well as management of writing activities are covered. The full Model also includes Section 1, which covers the core work functions and associated tasks and activities related to professional medical writing within the life sciences industry; Section 1 is included in a companion article. The Model was developed to aid medical writers and managers within the life sciences industry regarding medical writing hiring, training, expectation and goal setting, performance evaluation, career development, retention, and role value sharing to cross-functional partners.

Writing Essays: Does Self-Efficacy Matter? The Relationship between Self-Efficacy in Reading and in Writing and Undergraduate Students' Performance in Essay Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Prat-Sala, Merce; Redford, Paul

2012-01-01

Self-efficacy beliefs have been identified as associated with students' academic performance. The present research assessed the relationship between two new self-efficacy scales (self-efficacy in reading [SER] and self-efficacy in writing [SEW]) and students' writing performance on a piece of assessed written coursework. Using data from first and…

Write Strategy for Dual-Layer Digital Versatile Discs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tabata, Hiroshi; Tokui, Kenji; Higuchi, Shinji; Moriizumi, Hirokazu; Matsumoto, Ikuo

2006-02-01

A novel write strategy for rewritable dual-layer digital versatile discs (DVDs) was studied. This new strategy involves the erase top pulse which is included in the conventional write strategy for single-layer DVDs in present market. By thermal calculations, it was confirmed that this erase top pulse has an affect on the rapid heating of recording films. We observed that this new strategy enabled the improvement in data qualities on the layer near the laser incident (L0) effectively in 2 × and 4 ×-speed recordings even if L0 had a high optical transparency. Furthermore we also demonstrated a combination of what with the 2T-period strategy on the layer far from the laser incident (L1) realized a well-balanced signal performance for dual-layer DVD media.

Bringing Reading-to-Write and Writing-Only Assessment Tasks Together: A Generalizability Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gebril, Atta

2010-01-01

Integrated tasks are currently employed in a number of L2 exams since they are perceived as an addition to the writing-only task type. Given this trend, the current study investigates composite score generalizability of both reading-to-write and writing-only tasks. For this purpose, a multivariate generalizability analysis is used to investigate…

Using Automated Writing Evaluation to Reduce Grammar Errors in Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liao, Hui-Chuan

2016-01-01

Despite the recent development of automated writing evaluation (AWE) technology and the growing interest in applying this technology to language classrooms, few studies have looked at the effects of using AWE on reducing grammatical errors in L2 writing. This study identified the primary English grammatical error types made by 66 Taiwanese…

Writing-Reading Relationships: Effectiveness of Writing Activities as Pre-Reading Tasks to Enhance L2 Inferential Reading Comprehension

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wickramaarachchi, Thilina Indrajie

2014-01-01

The study examines the interaction between reading and writing processes in general and more specifically the impact of pre-reading tasks incorporating writing tasks (referred to as "prw tasks") in helping the development of inferential reading comprehension. A sample of 70 first year ESL students of the University of Kelaniya were…

Do L1 Reading Achievement and L1 Print Exposure Contribute to the Prediction of L2 Proficiency?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sparks, Richard L.; Patton, Jon; Ganschow, Leonore; Humbach, Nancy

2012-01-01

The study examined whether individual differences in high school first language (L1) reading achievement and print exposure would account for unique variance in second language (L2) written (word decoding, spelling, writing, reading comprehension) and oral (listening/speaking) proficiency after adjusting for the effects of early L1 literacy and…

Integrating K-W-L Prompts into Science Journal Writing: Can Simple Question Scaffolding Increase Student Content Knowledge?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wagner, Brandon Joel

Writing-to-learn strategies have been administered in the past to enrich student learning. The purpose of this study was to see if K-W-L prompts in science journal writing could benefit student content knowledge within biology. Two high school biology classes were provided with learning journals. The journals given to the students during the treatment unit were provided with K-W-L question prompts to guide student learning while during the comparison unit students were given an open ended writing assignment. Pre and posttests were administered to determine student-learning gains. Student motivations and opinions of the treatment were collected through student interviews. The combined results were used to determine to what extent could K-W-L prompts in science journal writing influence comprehension of content knowledge. This study found there to be no difference in student learning gains when utilizing the K-W-L literacy strategy versus another free-writing activity. When scored, student K-W-Ls total scores did correlate to student success on unit tests. This opens up the potential for K-W-Ls to serve as an adequate tool for formative assessment. Here the K-W-L could be expanded to enrich student question asking, potentially aid students learning English, and potentially be used by students without teacher scaffolding.

Using PELA to Predict International Business Students' English Writing Performance with Contextualised English Writing Workshops as Intervention Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wong, Caroline; Delante, Nimrod Lawsin; Wang, Pengji

2017-01-01

This study examines the effectiveness of Post-Entry English Language Assessment (PELA) as a predictor of international business students' English writing performance and academic performance. An intervention involving the implementation of contextualised English writing workshops was embedded in a specific business subject targeted at students who…

Digit ratio (2D:4D) and hand preference for writing in the BBC Internet Study.

PubMed

Manning, J T; Peters, M

2009-09-01

The ratio of the length of the second to the fourth digit (2D:4D) may be negatively correlated with prenatal testosterone. Hand preference has been linked with prenatal testosterone and 2D:4D. Here we show that 2D:4D is associated with hand preference for writing in a large internet sample (n>170,000) in which participants self-reported their finger lengths. We replicated a significant association between right 2D:4D and writing hand preference (low right 2D:4D associated with left hand preference) as well as a significant correlation between writing hand preference and the difference between left and right 2D:4D or Dr-l (low Dr-l associated with left hand preference). A new significant correlation between left 2D:4D and writing hand preference was also shown (high left 2D:4D associated with left hand preference). There was a clear interaction between writing hand preference and 2D:4D: The left 2D:4D was significantly larger than the right 2D:4D in male and female left-handed writers, and the right hand 2D:4D was significantly larger than the left hand 2D:4D in male and female right-handed writers.

Second Language Writing Online: An Update

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Godwin-Jones, Robert

2018-01-01

This article provides an update to the author's overview of developments in second language (L2) online writing that he wrote in 2008. There has been renewed interest in L2 writing through the wide use of social media, along with the rising popularity of computer-mediated communication (CMC) and telecollaboration (class-based online exchanges).…

Neural Signatures of the Reading-Writing Connection: Greater Involvement of Writing in Chinese Reading than English Reading.

PubMed

Cao, Fan; Perfetti, Charles A

2016-01-01

Research on cross-linguistic comparisons of the neural correlates of reading has consistently found that the left middle frontal gyrus (MFG) is more involved in Chinese than in English. However, there is a lack of consensus on the interpretation of the language difference. Because this region has been found to be involved in writing, we hypothesize that reading Chinese characters involves this writing region to a greater degree because Chinese speakers learn to read by repeatedly writing the characters. To test this hypothesis, we recruited English L1 learners of Chinese, who performed a reading task and a writing task in each language. The English L1 sample had learned some Chinese characters through character-writing and others through phonological learning, allowing a test of writing-on-reading effect. We found that the left MFG was more activated in Chinese than English regardless of task, and more activated in writing than in reading regardless of language. Furthermore, we found that this region was more activated for reading Chinese characters learned by character-writing than those learned by phonological learning. A major conclusion is that writing regions are also activated in reading, and that this reading-writing connection is modulated by the learning experience. We replicated the main findings in a group of native Chinese speakers, which excluded the possibility that the language differences observed in the English L1 participants were due to different language proficiency level.

Neural Signatures of the Reading-Writing Connection: Greater Involvement of Writing in Chinese Reading than English Reading

PubMed Central

Cao, Fan; Perfetti, Charles A.

2016-01-01

Research on cross-linguistic comparisons of the neural correlates of reading has consistently found that the left middle frontal gyrus (MFG) is more involved in Chinese than in English. However, there is a lack of consensus on the interpretation of the language difference. Because this region has been found to be involved in writing, we hypothesize that reading Chinese characters involves this writing region to a greater degree because Chinese speakers learn to read by repeatedly writing the characters. To test this hypothesis, we recruited English L1 learners of Chinese, who performed a reading task and a writing task in each language. The English L1 sample had learned some Chinese characters through character-writing and others through phonological learning, allowing a test of writing-on-reading effect. We found that the left MFG was more activated in Chinese than English regardless of task, and more activated in writing than in reading regardless of language. Furthermore, we found that this region was more activated for reading Chinese characters learned by character-writing than those learned by phonological learning. A major conclusion is that writing regions are also activated in reading, and that this reading-writing connection is modulated by the learning experience. We replicated the main findings in a group of native Chinese speakers, which excluded the possibility that the language differences observed in the English L1 participants were due to different language proficiency level. PMID:27992505

Handwriting or Typewriting? The Influence of Pen- or Keyboard-Based Writing Training on Reading and Writing Performance in Preschool Children.

PubMed

Kiefer, Markus; Schuler, Stefanie; Mayer, Carmen; Trumpp, Natalie M; Hille, Katrin; Sachse, Steffi

2015-01-01

Digital writing devices associated with the use of computers, tablet PCs, or mobile phones are increasingly replacing writing by hand. It is, however, controversially discussed how writing modes influence reading and writing performance in children at the start of literacy. On the one hand, the easiness of typing on digital devices may accelerate reading and writing in young children, who have less developed sensory-motor skills. On the other hand, the meaningful coupling between action and perception during handwriting, which establishes sensory-motor memory traces, could facilitate written language acquisition. In order to decide between these theoretical alternatives, for the present study, we developed an intense training program for preschool children attending the German kindergarten with 16 training sessions. Using closely matched letter learning games, eight letters of the German alphabet were trained either by handwriting with a pen on a sheet of paper or by typing on a computer keyboard. Letter recognition, naming, and writing performance as well as word reading and writing performance were assessed. Results did not indicate a superiority of typing training over handwriting training in any of these tasks. In contrast, handwriting training was superior to typing training in word writing, and, as a tendency, in word reading. The results of our study, therefore, support theories of action-perception coupling assuming a facilitatory influence of sensory-motor representations established during handwriting on reading and writing.

Anxiety as It Pertains to EFL Writing Ability and Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nodoushan, Mohammad Ali Salmani

2015-01-01

This paper reports the results of a study conducted to find (a) the impact of anxiety on EFL learners' writing performance, and (b) the relationship between anxiety and foreign language writing ability. 137 (N = 137) EFL learners took the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), the Oxford Placement Test (OPT), and a writing task on a…

Blog-Based Peer Response for L2 Writing Revision

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pham, Vu Phi Ho; Usaha, Siriluck

2016-01-01

Few studies have been conducted to see how blog-based peer response helps students to improve their writing revisions. The present study investigates peer comments made through blogs, the nature of the comments and their areas of focus, and the ratios of students incorporating suggestions made through blog-based comments into revisions of their…

Thesis Writing Challenges for Non-Native MA Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sadeghi, Karim; Shirzad Khajepasha, Arash

2015-01-01

Writing in a second (L2)/foreign language is generally a challenging activity, and writing an MA thesis, as an example of academic enterprise, can be daunting when done in a language in which the writer is not fully competent. The challenge such a genre of writing poses for L2 writers has not been properly addressed. To fill in the gap in this…

Elephants and Paradigms: Conversations about Teaching L2 Writing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Blanton, Linda Lonon

1995-01-01

This article lays out a general scheme for looking at current competing theoretical bases for English as a Second Language. By focusing on only one arena of teaching, that of writing, the article emphasizes the systemic nature of some differing views. Some classroom implications of the social theory that factors in the reader of a text are…

Programming generality into a performance feedback writing intervention: A randomized controlled trial.

PubMed

Hier, Bridget O; Eckert, Tanya L

2016-06-01

Substantial numbers of students in the United States are performing below grade-level expectations in core academic areas, and these deficits are most pronounced in the area of writing. Although performance feedback procedures have been shown to produce promising short-term improvements in elementary-aged students' writing skills, evidence of maintenance and generalization of these intervention effects is limited. The purpose of this study was to examine the immediate, generalized, and sustained effects of incorporating multiple exemplar training into the performance feedback procedures of a writing intervention using a randomized controlled trial (RCT). Results indicated that although the addition of multiple exemplar training did not improve students' writing performance on measures of stimulus and response generalization, it did result in greater maintenance of intervention effects in comparison to students who received performance feedback without generality programming and students who engaged in weekly writing practice alone. Copyright © 2016 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Handwriting or Typewriting? The Influence of Pen- or Keyboard-Based Writing Training on Reading and Writing Performance in Preschool Children

PubMed Central

Kiefer, Markus; Schuler, Stefanie; Mayer, Carmen; Trumpp, Natalie M.; Hille, Katrin; Sachse, Steffi

2015-01-01

Digital writing devices associated with the use of computers, tablet PCs, or mobile phones are increasingly replacing writing by hand. It is, however, controversially discussed how writing modes influence reading and writing performance in children at the start of literacy. On the one hand, the easiness of typing on digital devices may accelerate reading and writing in young children, who have less developed sensory-motor skills. On the other hand, the meaningful coupling between action and perception during handwriting, which establishes sensory-motor memory traces, could facilitate written language acquisition. In order to decide between these theoretical alternatives, for the present study, we developed an intense training program for preschool children attending the German kindergarten with 16 training sessions. Using closely matched letter learning games, eight letters of the German alphabet were trained either by handwriting with a pen on a sheet of paper or by typing on a computer keyboard. Letter recognition, naming, and writing performance as well as word reading and writing performance were assessed. Results did not indicate a superiority of typing training over handwriting training in any of these tasks. In contrast, handwriting training was superior to typing training in word writing, and, as a tendency, in word reading. The results of our study, therefore, support theories of action-perception coupling assuming a facilitatory influence of sensory-motor representations established during handwriting on reading and writing. PMID:26770286

Pairing Courses across the Disciplines: Effects on Writing Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Watts, Julie; Burnett, Rebecca E.

2012-01-01

Writing performance of a complex recommendation report produced by student teams for an actual client during a 15-week semester was compared in a writing-intensive Agronomy 356 course and in paired Agronomy 356/English 309 courses. The longitudinal study investigated differences that existed between reports produced for each learning environment…

The Relationship among Strategic Writing Behavior, Writing Motivation, and Writing Performance with Young, Developing Writers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Graham, Steve; Harris, Karen R.; Kiuhara, Sharlene A.; Fishman, Evan J.

2017-01-01

Our study tested whether learning is shaped by fundamental cognitive and motivational forces in the academic domain of writing. We examined whether strategic writing behavior and motivation (attitudes toward writing and self-efficacy) made a statistically significant and unique contribution to the prediction of writing quality and number of words…

Computer-Based Multimodal Composing Activities, Self-Revision, and L2 Acquisition through Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dzekoe, Richmond

2017-01-01

This study investigated how 22 advanced-low proficiency ESL students used computer-based multimodal composing activities (CBMCAs) to facilitate self-revision and learn English through academic writing in the USA. The CBMCAs involved a combination of writing, listening, visual analysis, and speaking activities. The research was framed within an…

An Exploratory Study of E-Mail Application on FL Writing Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shang, Hui-Fang

2007-01-01

This study focused on examining the overall effect of using email on the improvement of writing performance in aspects of syntactic complexity, grammatical accuracy and lexical density, as well as investigating the relation between the number of email exchanges and writing performance. Subjects in this study were 40 non-traditional EFL students…

Predicting writing development in dual language instructional contexts: exploring cross-linguistic relationships.

PubMed

Savage, Robert; Kozakewich, Meagan; Genesee, Fred; Erdos, Caroline; Haigh, Corinne

2017-01-01

This study examined whether decoding and linguistic comprehension abilities, broadly defined by the Simple View of Reading, in grade 1 each uniquely predicted the grade 6 writing performance of English-speaking children (n = 76) who were educated bilingually in both English their first language and French, a second language. Prediction was made from (1) English to English; (2) French to French; and (3) English to French. Results showed that both decoding and linguistic comprehension scores predicted writing accuracy but rarely predicted persuasive writing. Within the linguistic comprehension cluster of tests, Formulating Sentences was a strong consistent within- and between-language predictor of writing accuracy. In practical terms, the present results indicate that early screening for later writing ability using measures of sentence formulation early in students' schooling, in their L1 or L2, can provide greatest predictive power and allow teachers to differentiate instruction in the primary grades. Theoretically, the present results argue that there are correlations between reading-related abilities and writing abilities not only within the same language but also across languages, adding to the growing body of evidence for facilitative cross-linguistic relationships between bilinguals' developing languages. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Hedging, Inflating, and Persuading in L2 Academic Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hinkel, Eli

2005-01-01

This study analyzes the types and frequencies of hedges and intensifiers employed in NS and NNS academic essays included in a corpus of L1 and L2 student academic texts (745 essays/220,747 words). The overarching goal of this investigation is to focus on these lexical and syntactic features of written discourse because they effectively lend…

Peer Feedback in Second Language Writing (2005-2014)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yu, Shulin; Lee, Icy

2016-01-01

This article reviews research on peer feedback in second language (L2) writing published in the last decade (i.e. 2005-2014). We analyse first the theoretical underpinnings that have informed both peer feedback research and the pedagogical use of peer feedback in L2 writing instruction. We also provide a critical interpretation of existing peer…

Impact of Writing Proficiency and Writing Center Participation on Academic Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bielinska-Kwapisz, Agnieszka

2015-01-01

Purpose: Given that there exists in the literature relatively little research into the effectiveness of writing centers at universities, the purpose of this paper is to show the impact of university writing centers on first-year business seminar student writing. Design/methodology/approach: This quantitative study involved 315 first-year…

Using Turnitin to Provide Feedback on L2 Writers' Texts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kostka, Ilka; Maliborska, Veronika

2016-01-01

Second language (L2) writing instructors have varying tools at their disposal for providing feedback on students' writing, including ones that enable them to provide written and audio feedback in electronic form. One tool that has been underexplored is Turnitin, a widely used software program that matches electronic text to a wide range of…

Speaking, writing, and memory span in children: output modality affects cognitive performance.

PubMed

Grabowski, Joachim

2010-02-01

Low-level processes of children's written language production are cognitively more costly than those involved in speaking. This has been shown by French authors who compared oral and written memory span performance. The observed difficulties of children's, but not of adults' low-level processes in writing may stem from graphomotoric as well as from orthographic inadequacies. We report on five experiments designed to replicate and expand the original results. First, the French results were successfully replicated for German third-graders, and for university students. Then, the developmental changes of the cognitive costs of writing were examined during primary school, comparing the performance of second- and fourth-graders. Next, we show that unpractised writing modes, which were experimentally induced, also lead to a decrease of memory performance in adults, which supports the assumption that a lack of graphomotoric automation is responsible for the observed effects in children. However, unpractised handwriting yields clearer results than unpractised typing. Lastly, we try to separate the influences of graphomotoric as opposed to orthographic difficulties by having the words composed through pointing on a "spelling board". This attempt, however, has not been successful, probably because the pointing to letters introduced other low-level costs. In sum, throughout the four years of primary school, German children show worse memory span performance in writing compared to oral recall, with an overall increase in both modalities. Thus, writing had not fully caught up with speaking regarding the implied cognitive costs by the end of primary school. Therefore, conclusions relate to the question of how to assess properly any kind of knowledge and abilities through language production. Los procesos de bajo nivel en la producción de lenguaje escrito en niños son más costosos a nivel cognitivo que los que están implicados en el habla. Esto ha sido demostrado por autores

Language Learners' Writing Task Representation and Its Effect on Written Performance in an EFL Context.

PubMed

Zarei, Gholam Reza; Pourghasemian, Hossein; Jalali, Hassan

2017-06-01

The present study attempts to give an account of how students represent writing task in an EAP course. Further, the study is intended to discover if learners' mental representation of writing would contribute to their written performance. During a 16-week term, students were instructed to practice writing as a problem solving activity. At almost the end of the term, they were prompted to write on what they thought writing task was like and also an essay on an argumentative topic. The results revealed that students could conceptualize the instructed recursive model of writing as a process-based, multi-dimensional and integrated activity inducing self-direction and organization while holding in low regard the product view of writing. The findings also demonstrated that task representation was related to the students' writing performance, with process oriented students significantly outperforming the product-oriented ones. Also, it was found that task representation components (ideational, linguistic, textual, interpersonal) had a significant relationship with the written performance ([Formula: see text]; Sig.: 0.006). The study can have both theoretical and practical implications with regard to the factors involving the students' writing internal processes and their effects on written performance.

The Effects of Meaning-Focused Pre-Tasks on Beginning-Level L2 Writing in German: An Exploratory Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abrams, Zsuzsanna; Byrd, David R.

2017-01-01

Most studies on task-based language learning focus on the oral performance of advanced level learners of English as a second language (ESL), while little research examines the written performance of beginning language learners in non-ESL contexts. This exploratory study aims to address this gap, by examining the effect of pre-writing tasks on…

Collaborative Revision in L2 Writing: Learners' Reflections

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Memari Hanjani, Alireza

2016-01-01

L2 learning literature has reflected on the problems surrounding the application of teacher written feedback and peer feedback in EFL contexts. To address the disadvantages of these feedback forms, this exploratory case study examined EFL learners' reactions to a collaborative revision activity. Interview data were collected from eight native…

Group Dynamic Assessment of L2 Learners' Writing Abilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shabani, Karim

2018-01-01

The present study was designed to test a group-based format of dynamic assessment (G-DA) in the context of writing over a time span of twelve weeks of instruction. A cohort of 60 students took a homogeneity test and based on the results, 44 students were selected to participate forming the two groups of experimental (N = 22) and control (N = 22).…

Shared Features of L2 Writing: Intergroup Homogeneity and Text Classification

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crossley, Scott A.; McNamara, Danielle S.

2011-01-01

This study investigates intergroup homogeneity within high intermediate and advanced L2 writers of English from Czech, Finnish, German, and Spanish first language backgrounds. A variety of linguistic features related to lexical sophistication, syntactic complexity, and cohesion were used to compare texts written by L1 speakers of English to L2…

The Woven Body: Embodying Text in Performance Art and the Writing Center

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rifenburg, J. Michael; Allgood, Lindsey

2015-01-01

Drawing on Lindsey Allgood's scripts, journal entries, and images of a specific participatory performance piece she executed, we argue for seeing performance art as a form of embodied text. Such an assertion is particularly pertinent for postsecondary writing center praxis as it allows for the mindful intersections of the body and writing during…

A Comparison of the Effects of Reflective Learning Portfolios and Dialogue Journal Writing on Iranian EFL Learners' Accuracy in Writing Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hemmati, Fatemeh; Soltanpour, Fatemeh

2012-01-01

This study aimed at comparing the effects of reflective learning portfolio (RLP) and dialogue journal writing (DJW) on the Iranian EFL learners' grammatical accuracy in writing as well as their overall writing performance. 60 Iranian EFL learners between the ages of 17 to 30 who were studying at general English courses were selected based on their…

Speaking L2 in EFL Classes: Performance, Identity and Alterity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Forman, Ross

2014-01-01

When teachers and students use L2 in Expanding Circle, Asian EFL classes, what kind of interpersonal roles do they perform, and what does this mean for the development of L2-mediated identity? The notion of alterity, or otherness, is used here to analyse the extent to which identity work occurs in EFL classes located in a Thai university context.…

Working on the "Write" Path: Improving EFL Students' Argumentative-Writing Performance through L1-Mediated Structural Cognitive Modification

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Salmani Nodoushan, Mohammad Ali

2016-01-01

Based on their scores on a proficiency test, the 894 participants in this study were grouped into three experimental groups (EG) and three control groups (CG). They attempted an argumentative writing task and the Cornell Critical Thinking Test, Form Z (CCTT-Form Z) as the pre-test. While CG participants received no treatment or placebo, EG…

Collaborative Writing Tasks in the L2 Classroom: Comparing Group, Pair, and Individual Work

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dobao, Ana Fernandez

2012-01-01

This study investigates the benefits of collaborative writing tasks. Previous research from the perspective of the sociocultural theory of mind suggests that writing tasks completed in pairs offer learners an opportunity to collaborate in the solution of their language-related problems, co-construct new language knowledge, and produce…

Preparing Teachers to Respond to Student Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ferris, Dana

2007-01-01

Responding to student writing is one of the most challenging aspects of the writing instructor's job, and it is certainly the most time-consuming. Preparing future teachers to respond to L2 writing thus becomes an important aspect of any pre-service training course. In this paper, the author describes her own approach to training writing…

Effects of Collaborative Online Learning on EFL Learners' Writing Performance and Self-Efficacy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tai, Hung-Cheng

2016-01-01

This study explored the effects of collaborative writing instruction on undergraduate nursing students' writing performance and self-efficacy beliefs within an online learning system. A single-group experimental study utilized two instruments, the NCEEC (National College Entrance Examination Center) writing grading criteria (the SRCT) and a…

Predicting Students' Writing Performance on the NAEP from Student- and State-Level Variables

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mo, Ya; Troia, Gary A.

2017-01-01

This study examines the relationship between students' demographic background and their experiences with writing at school, the alignment between state and National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) direct writing assessments, and students' NAEP writing performance. The study utilizes primary data collection via content analysis of writing…

The Effectiveness of Writing Conferences and Peer Response Groups Strategies on the EFL Secondary Students' Writing Performance and Their Self Efficacy (A Comparative Study)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hussein, Mohamed Abdel Hadi; Al Ashri, Ismail Ibrahim El shirbini Abdel fattah

2013-01-01

The present study aimed at identifying the necessary writing performance skills for the first year secondary stage students. These skills are necessary for writing the compositions. In this study, the writing conferences and peer response groups strategies were used to develop the students' writing skills, improve their achievement and performance…

Examining Writing Performance and Self-Perception for Low Socioeconomic Young Adolescents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barone, Toni-Ann; Sinatra, Richard; Eschenauer, Robert; Brasco, Robert

2014-01-01

The present case study investigated the impact of a short-term summer literacy approach on writing performance and self-perception of writing for young adolescents of low-income families residing in urban housing projects. The approach offered intensive literacy engagement to offset summer achievement loss; assisted ethnic-minority, low…

Progress Feedback Effects on Students' Writing Mastery Goal, Self-Efficacy Beliefs, and Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Duijnhouwer, Hendrien; Prins, Frans J.; Stokking, Karel M.

2010-01-01

The effects of progress feedback on university students' writing mastery goal, self-efficacy beliefs, and writing performance were examined in this experiment. Students in the experimental condition (n = 42) received progress feedback on their writing assignment, whereas students in the control condition (n = 44) received feedback without progress…

The Effect of Audience Specification on Writing Anxiety, Performance, and Sensitivity to Audience.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hurd, Rhynette N.

One hundred seventy-nine students enrolled in a first-year college level composition course were subjects in a study of the effects of four levels of audience specification on writing anxiety, performance, and sensitivity to audience. Subjects completed the Writing Apprehension Test, which determined levels of writing apprehension, and then…

Cooperative Writing Response Groups: Revising Global Aspects of Second-Language Writing in a Constrained Educational Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Porto, Melina

2016-01-01

This article describes a cooperative writing response initiative designed to develop writing skills in foreign/second-language contexts (hereafter L2). The strategy originated from my desire to cater for my learners' need to become better writers in English within a constrained educational environment in Argentina. In this article I describe this…

Laser direct writing of carbon/Au composite electrodes for high-performance micro-supercapacitors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cai, Jinguang; Watanabe, Akira; Lv, Chao

2017-02-01

Micro-supercapacitors with small size, light weight, flexibility while maintaining high energy and power output are required for portable miniaturized electronics. The fabrication methods and materials should be cost-effective, scalable, and easily integrated to current electronic industry. Carbon materials have required properties for high-performance flexible supercapacitors, including high specific surface areas, electrochemical stability, and high electrical conductivity, as well as the high mechanical tolerance. Laser direct writing method is a non-contact, efficient, single-step fabrication technique without requirements of masks, post-processing, and complex clean room, which is a useful patterning technique, and can be easily integrated with current electronic product lines for commercial use. Previously we have reported micro-supercapacitors fabricated by laser direct writing on polyimide films in air or Ar, which showed highcapacitive performance. However, the conductivity of the carbon materials is still low for fast charge-discharge use. Here, we demonstrated the fabrication of flexible carbon/Au composite high-performance MSCs by first laser direct writing on commercial polyimide films followed by spin-coating Au nanoparticles ink and second in-situ laser direct writing using the low-cost semiconductor laser. As-prepared micro-supercapacitors show an improved conductivity and capacitance of 1.17 mF/cm2 at a high scanning rate of 10,000 mV/s, which is comparable to the reported capacitance of carbon-based micro-supercapacitors. In addition, the micro-supercapacitors have high bend tolerance and long-cycle stability.

Toward a Student-Centered Understanding of Intensive Writing and Writing-to-Learn in the Spanish Major: An Examination of Advanced L2 Spanish Students' Learning in the Writing-Intensive Spanish Content Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Strong, Robert Marvin

2009-01-01

The purpose of this study is to build upon our understanding of the place and value of writing in the advanced foreign language curriculum. Specifically, the study examines how students in writing-intensive Spanish-major courses are affected by the writing-intensive (WI) requirement at the University of Minnesota. Writing-Across-the-Curriculum…

The Impact of L1 Writing System on ESL Knowledge of Vowel and Consonant Spellings

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martin, Katherine I.

2017-01-01

Orthographic knowledge, the general ability to learn, store, and use information about the orthographic form of words (Stanovich & West, 1989), is a crucial skill for supporting literacy. Although the development of first language (L1) orthographic awareness is impacted by the characteristics of a learner's L1 writing system, relatively little…

A Program Based on English Digital Stories to Develop the Writing Performance and Reflective Thinking of Preparatory School Pupils

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hassan Seifeddin, Ahmed; Zakareya Ahmed, Samah; Yahia Mohammed Ebrahim, Eman

2015-01-01

This study aimed to investigate the effect of a program based on English digital stories on second-year preparatory pupils' writing performance and reflective thinking. Two writing performance tests (pretest and posttest) as well as a reflective thinking test were prepared by the researchers. Two 2nd-year intact classes from El Sadat Prep School…

The Effects of Corrective Feedback on Chinese Learners' Writing Accuracy: A Quantitative Analysis in an EFL Context

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Xin

2017-01-01

Scholars debate whether corrective feedback contributes to improving L2 learners' grammatical accuracy in writing performance. Some researchers take a stance on the ineffectiveness of corrective feedback based on the impracticality of providing detailed corrective feedback for all L2 learners and detached grammar instruction in language…

Filtering of Discrete-Time Switched Neural Networks Ensuring Exponential Dissipative and $l_{2}$ - $l_{\\infty }$ Performances.

PubMed

Choi, Hyun Duck; Ahn, Choon Ki; Karimi, Hamid Reza; Lim, Myo Taeg

2017-10-01

This paper studies delay-dependent exponential dissipative and l 2 - l ∞ filtering problems for discrete-time switched neural networks (DSNNs) including time-delayed states. By introducing a novel discrete-time inequality, which is a discrete-time version of the continuous-time Wirtinger-type inequality, we establish new sets of linear matrix inequality (LMI) criteria such that discrete-time filtering error systems are exponentially stable with guaranteed performances in the exponential dissipative and l 2 - l ∞ senses. The design of the desired exponential dissipative and l 2 - l ∞ filters for DSNNs can be achieved by solving the proposed sets of LMI conditions. Via numerical simulation results, we show the validity of the desired discrete-time filter design approach.

Really Writing! Ready-To-Use Writing Process Activities for the Elementary Grades. 2nd Edition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sunflower, Cherlyn

2005-01-01

The second edition of "Really Writing!" provides 40 real-life writing activities designed to capture the attention of young authors (grades 2 through 6) who are just learning the composing process. This book is also a resource for teaching advanced writers who are ready to experiment with a variety of writing and speaking genres. Each of the…

Sources of Individual Differences in L2 Narrative Production: The Contribution of Input, Processing, and Output Anxiety

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Trebits, Anna

2016-01-01

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of cognitive task complexity and individual differences in input, processing, and output anxiety (IPOA) on L2 narrative production. The participants were enrolled in a bilingual secondary educational program. They performed two narrative tasks in speech and writing. The participants' level of…

Guiding the Noticing: Using a Dramatic Performance Experience to Promote Tellability in Narrative Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clark, Shanetia

2012-01-01

In this article, the author describes her use of dramatic performance to promote tellability in narrative writing within a seventh and eighth grade English and language arts classroom. By experiencing dramatic performance, the students were able to actively and physically perform the writing process: brainstorming, drafting, revising, and editing.…

Teaching Google Search Techniques in an L2 Academic Writing Context

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Han, Sumi; Shin, Jeong-Ah

2017-01-01

This mixed-method study examines the effectiveness of teaching Google search techniques (GSTs) to Korean EFL college students in an intermediate-level academic English writing course. 18 students participated in a 4-day GST workshop consisting of an overview session of the web as corpus and Google as a concordancer, and three training sessions…

An L2 Reader's Word-Recognition Strategies: Transferred or Developed

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alco, Bonnie

2010-01-01

Transfer of reading strategies from the first language (L1) to the second language (L2) has long puzzled educators, but what happens if the L1 is an alphabet language and the second is not, or if there is a mismatch in the languages' grapheme-phoneme connection? Although some students readily adjust to reading and writing in their second language,…

Using Translation Exercises in the Communicative EFL Writing Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, Eun-Young

2011-01-01

Implementing process pedagogy in an L2 writing classroom has its own limits for students with low English proficiency. Although L1 writers commonly benefit from writing multiple drafts, most of the low English level Korean college students in my English composition class did not benefit from the revisions. This article introduces an innovative…

High School Boys' and Girls' Writing Conceptions and Writing Self-Efficacy Beliefs: What Is Their Role in Writing Performance?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Villalón, Ruth; Mateos, Mar; Cuevas, Isabel

2015-01-01

This study investigated the conceptions about writing and writing self-efficacy beliefs held by high school students in relation to the students' gender as well as their associations with writing achievement. The results show that female students have more sophisticated writing conceptions than their male counterparts but no gender differences…

L1 Explicit Instruction Can Improve L2 Online and Offline Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McManus, Kevin; Marsden, Emma

2017-01-01

This study investigated the effectiveness of providing L1 explicit information (EI) with practice for making more accurate and faster interpretations of L2 French "Imparfait" (IMP). Two treatments were investigated: (a) "L2-only," providing EI about the L2 with L2 interpretation practice, and (b) "L2+L1," providing…

Effects of attributional retraining on writing performance and perceived competence of Taiwanese university nursing students.

PubMed

Tai, Hung-Cheng; Pan, Mei-Yu; Lee, Bih-O

2016-09-01

Attributional retraining (AR) has been applied in various professional fields. The application of AR in nursing education is rarely seen. This study explores the effects of AR on university nursing students' writing performance, perceived competence, and the relationship between writing performance and perceived competence using a blended platform of online and face-to-face approaches. A single-group experimental study was used. A total of 187 students participated in this study. The setting was the two-year vocational nursing course in a university. The Scale for Rating Composition Tasks and the Perceived Competence Scale were used before and after the AR intervention. The students' writing performance showed significant improvement after the intervention. AR had effectively influenced the students' perceived competence. The perceived competence of the students interacted with the writing performance improvements after the AR intervention. The AR intervention suggests an alternative teaching approach that can help enhance students' English writing performance as well as perceived competence. The AR programme may be applied in English language teaching and professional courses. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Conceptual writing in college-level mathematics courses and its impact on performance and attitude

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Van Dyke, Frances; Malloy, Elizabeth J.; (Lyn) Stallings, Virginia

2015-02-01

This study looks at the impact of college students' writing on a regular basis about mathematical concepts. Specifically we examine the effect of this practice on performance and attitude while controlling for confounding factors. Two professors and a total of 97 students in four different classes participated in the study. Students in the writing groups were required to write a total of eight papers, each concentrating on an important concept in the course. All students were given a visual skills assessment at the beginning and end of the course. Students in the writing group were assessed to determine their attitude toward the writing assignments. Positive trends were associated with the writing group over the non-writing group in overall score and in all but one of six individual components. However, within the writing group, students' attitude toward writing in mathematics class was negative.

The Relationship between Teacher's Written Feedback and Student's' Writing Performance: Sociocultural Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bijami, Maryam; Pandian, Ambigapathy; Singh, Manjet Kaur Mehar

2016-01-01

Feedback plays a fundamental role in writing development. The present study seeks to investigate the impact of teacher's written feedback on the writing performance of Iranian undergraduates. The subjects were 400 students majoring in the fields of English language translation and English language literature in four universities, namely Shahaid…

Relationship between upper extremity kinesthetic sense and writing performance by students with low vision.

PubMed

Aki, Esra; Atasavun, Songül; Kayihan, Holya

2008-06-01

Kinesthetic sense plays an important role in writing. Children with low vision lack sensory input from the environment given their loss of vision. This study assessed the effect of upper extremity kinesthetic sense on writing function in two groups, one of students with low vision (9 girls and 11 boys, 9.4 +/- 1.9 yr. of age) and one of sighted students (10 girls and 10 boys, 10.1 +/- 1.3 yr. of age). All participants were given the Kinesthesia Test and Jebsen Hand Function Test-Writing subtest. Students with low vision scored lower on kinesthetic perception and writing performance than sighted peers. The correlation between scores for writing performance and upper extremity kinesthetic sense in the two groups was significant (r = -.34). The probability of deficiencies in kinesthetic information in students with low vision must be remembered.

The Effects of Extended Time on Writing Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goegan, Lauren D.; Harrison, Gina L.

2017-01-01

The effects of extended time on the writing performance of university students with learning disabilities (LD) was examined. Thirty-eight students (19 LD; 19 non-LD) completed a collection of cognitive, linguistic, and literacy measures, and wrote essays under regular and extended time conditions. Limited evidence was found to support the…

Scholarly Writing: The Myth of Gender and Performance.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baker, Margaret Ann; Goubil-Gambrell, Patricia

1991-01-01

Surveys faculty from 21 midwestern universities to determine whether gender influences academic performance and scholarly writing. Finds that, although women and men in this survey reported publishing similar amounts, women were less likely than men to be associate or full professors. Finds men more likely than women to perceive family…

Exploring Collaboratively Written L2 Texts among First-Year Learners of German in Google Docs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abrams, Zsuzsanna

2016-01-01

Grounded in research on collaborative writing and computer-mediated writing the present study examines the computer-mediated collaborative writing process among first-year learners of German as a second language (L2) at a US university. The data come from 28 first-year learners of German at a US university, who wrote hypothesized endings to a…

An Investigation of Three Chinese Students' English Writing Strategies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mu, Congjun; Carrington, Suzanne

2007-01-01

The purpose of this study is to investigate the writing processes of second language (L2) writers, specifically examining the writing strategies of three Chinese post-graduate students in an Australian higher education institution. The study was prompted by the paucity of second language writing strategies of Chinese students in an authentic…

Comparative analysis of performance in reading and writing of children exposed and not exposed to high sound pressure levels.

PubMed

Santos, Juliana Feitosa dos; Souza, Ana Paula Ramos de; Seligman, Lilian

2013-01-01

To analyze the possible relationships between high sound pressure levels in the classroom and performance in the use of lexical and phonological routes in reading and writing. This consisted on a quantitative and exploratory study. The following measures were carried out: acoustic measurement, using the dosimeter, visual inspection of the external auditory canal, tonal audiometry thresholds, speech recognition tests and acoustic immittance; instrument for evaluation of reading and writing of isolated words. The non-parametric χ² test and Fisher's exact test were used for data analysis. The results of acoustic measurements in 4 schools in Santa Maria divided the sample of 87 children of third and fourth years of primary school, aged 8 to 10 years, in 2 groups. The 1st group was exposed to sound levels higher than 80 dB(A) (Study group) and the 2nd group at levels lower than 80 dB(A) (Control group). Higher prevalence of correct answers in reading and writing of nonwords, reading irregular words and frequency effect were observed. Predominance of correct answers in the writing of irregular words was observed in the Control group. For the Study group, a higher number of type errors neologism in reading and writing were observed, especially regarding the writing of nonwords and the extension effect; fewer errors of lexicalization type and verbal paragraphy in writing were observed. In assessing the reading and writing skills, children in the Study group exposed to high noise levels had poorer performance in the use of lexical and phonological routes, both in reading and in writing.

Learning to Improve: Using Writing to Increase Critical Thinking Performance in General Education Biology

PubMed Central

Kurtz, Martha J.

2007-01-01

Increasingly, national stakeholders express concern that U.S. college graduates cannot adequately solve problems and think critically. As a set of cognitive abilities, critical thinking skills provide students with tangible academic, personal, and professional benefits that may ultimately address these concerns. As an instructional method, writing has long been perceived as a way to improve critical thinking. In the current study, the researchers compared critical thinking performance of students who experienced a laboratory writing treatment with those who experienced traditional quiz-based laboratory in a general education biology course. The effects of writing were determined within the context of multiple covariables. Results indicated that the writing group significantly improved critical thinking skills whereas the nonwriting group did not. Specifically, analysis and inference skills increased significantly in the writing group but not the nonwriting group. Writing students also showed greater gains in evaluation skills; however, these were not significant. In addition to writing, prior critical thinking skill and instructor significantly affected critical thinking performance, whereas other covariables such as gender, ethnicity, and age were not significant. With improved critical thinking skill, general education biology students will be better prepared to solve problems as engaged and productive citizens. PMID:17548876

Developing a Differentiated Model for the Teaching of Creative Writing to High Performing Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ngo, Thu Thi Bich

2016-01-01

Differentiating writing instruction has been a puzzling matter for English teachers when it comes to teaching creative writing to high potential and high performing (HPHP) students. The lack of differentiation in creative writing pedagogy for HPHP students in Australia is due to two major issues: (1) teachers' lack of high-level linguistic and…

Perceptions of L1 Glossed Feedback in Automated Writing Evaluation: A Case Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilken, Jayme Lynn

2018-01-01

Learner perceptions toward and utilization of L1 glossed feedback in an automated writing evaluation (AWE) program were investigated in an Intensive English Program (IEP) class. This small case study focused on two Chinese students who responded to weekly surveys, semi-structured interviews, and screen capture videos of their revisions over a…

Effects of Learning Strategy Training on the Writing Performance of College Students with Asperger's Syndrome.

PubMed

Jackson, Lynn G; Duffy, Mary Lou; Brady, Michael P; McCormick, Jazarae

2018-03-01

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are increasingly entering institutions of higher education. However, many are not prepared for the academic and social demands of postsecondary environments. Although studies have evaluated academic and social interventions for children and adolescents with ASD, little research exists on the college population. The current study utilized a multiple baseline across participants design to evaluate the effectiveness of a writing learning strategy on the writing performance of three college students with ASD. Results indicated that the quality of writing performance improved following strategy instruction. In addition, participants were able to generalize strategy use to content specific writing tasks.

Mobile-Assisted Grammar Exercises: Effects on Self-Editing in L2 Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Li, Zhi; Hegelheimer, Volker

2013-01-01

In this paper, we report on the development and implementation of a web-based mobile application, "Grammar Clinic," for an ESL writing class. Drawing on insights from the interactionist approach to Second Language Acquisition (SLA), the Noticing Hypothesis, and mobile-assisted language learning (MALL), "Grammar Clinic" was…

Extending Interactive Writing into Grades 2-5

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roth, Kate; Dabrowski, Joan

2014-01-01

Interactive writing is an instructional practice widely considered effective and most appropriate for emergent writers. This article asserts that it is a valuable method for more fluent writers in grades 2-5. It outlines the basic lesson sequence and proposes four key shifts to adapt interactive writing for older, more fluent writers: 1) The…

Cognitive Tools and Thinking Performance: The Case of Word Processors and Writing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kellogg, Ronald T.; Mueller, Suzanne

A study examined whether word processing amplifies writing performance and whether it restructures the process of writing. Sixteen college students wrote a short essay in a single session on either a word processor or in longhand. The quality of the essays was assessed by trained judges who rated their content and style. Text analysis methods were…

Narrating and Performing Identity: Literacy Specialists' Writing Identities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McKinney, Marilyn; Giorgis, Cyndi

2009-01-01

In this study, we explored ways that four literacy specialists who worked in three schools that were part of one state's Reading Excellence Act (REA) grant constructed their identities as writers and as teachers of writing. We also explored how they negotiated the performance of those identities in different contexts over a two-year period.…

Ease into Writing. Volume 2.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lott, Carolyn, Ed.; Stone, Janet, Ed.

Addressing the expressed needs of the writing community, this book presents writing lessons for intermediate, middle school, and secondary school students that incorporate the 5-step writing process into content areas as a natural part of the curriculum. The 30 lessons in this book involve students in large and small groups and in individual…

The Effect of Different Types of Corrective Feedback on ESL Student Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bitchener, John; Young, Stuart; Cameron, Denise

2005-01-01

Debate about the value of providing corrective feedback on L2 writing has been prominent in recent years as a result of Truscott's [Truscott, J. (1996). The case against grammar correction in L2 writing classes. Language Learning, 46, 327-369] claim that it is both ineffective and harmful and should therefore be abandoned. A growing body of…

Pain and Pleasure in Short Essay Writing: Factors Predicting University Students' Writing Anxiety and Writing Self-Efficacy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martinez, Christy Teranishi; Kock, Ned; Cass, Jeffrey

2011-01-01

Since the inception of the Writing Across the Curriculum movement more than 30 years ago, scholars have explored ways of enhancing students' writing performance. Faculty members across disciplines are often challenged by students' resistance to writing; resistance that may stem from anxiety, poor academic performance, and lack of recognition that…

Purple L1 Milestone Review Panel GPFS Functionality and Performance

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Loewe, W E

2006-12-01

The GPFS deliverable for the Purple system requires the functionality and performance necessary for ASC I/O needs. The functionality includes POSIX and MPIIO compatibility, and multi-TB file capability across the entire machine. The bandwidth performance required is 122.15 GB/s, as necessary for productive and defensive I/O requirements, and the metadata performance requirement is 5,000 file stats per second. To determine success for this deliverable, several tools are employed. For functionality testing of POSIX, 10TB-files, and high-node-count capability, the parallel file system bandwidth performance test IOR is used. IOR is an MPI-coordinated application that can write and then read to amore » single shared file or to an individual file per process and check the data integrity of the file(s). The MPIIO functionality is tested with the MPIIO test suite from the MPICH library. Bandwidth performance is tested using IOR for the required 122.15 GB/s sustained write. All IOR tests are performanced with data checking enabled. Metadata performance is tested after ''aging'' the file system with 80% data block usage and 20% inode usage. The fdtree metadata test is expected to create/remove a large directory/file structure in under 20 minutes time, akin to interactive metadata usage. Multiple (10) instances of ''ls -lR'', each performing over 100K stats, are run concurrently in different large directories to demonstrate 5,000 stats/sec.« less

The Interrelationship among Critical Thinking, Writing an Argumentative Essay in an L2 and Their Subskills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Soodmand Afshar, Hassan; Movassagh, Hossein; Radi Arbabi, Hassan

2017-01-01

This study investigated the relationship between critical thinking and the writing ability of Iranian EFL learners, and the interrelationship among the subskills of the two constructs. Furthermore, it aimed at finding which skills of critical thinking predicted the participants' writing ability. To this end, 104 students majoring in English…

Using Evidence in L2 Argumentative Writing: A Longitudinal Case Study across High School and University

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kibler, Amanda K.; Hardigree, Christine

2017-01-01

This 8-year longitudinal case study of Fabiola, a Spanish-English bilingual, investigated her argumentative writing development, focusing on her use of evidence to support and develop arguments over time from high school through university. Data sources included 36 writing samples. Texts across grade levels and course types were analyzed to…

Chinese L2 Literacy Practices: Material and Sociocultural Considerations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lo-Philip, Stephanie Wingyan

2014-01-01

Although there has been research on literacy as a sociocultural practice, L2 literacy researchers have yet to incorporate and consider how the material characteristics of a writing system interact with sociocultural factors in shaping literacy practices. Drawing on conceptions of literacy as a sociocultural practice, psycholinguistic and…

Language Learners' Writing Task Representation and Its Effect on Written Performance in an EFL Context

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zarei, Gholam Reza; Pourghasemian, Hossein; Jalali, Hassan

2017-01-01

The present study attempts to give an account of how students represent writing task in an EAP course. Further, the study is intended to discover if learners' mental representation of writing would contribute to their written performance. During a 16-week term, students were instructed to practice writing as a problem solving activity. At almost…

Effect of Alignment on L2 Written Production

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Chuming; Wang, Min

2015-01-01

This article aims to uncover how L2 writing is affected by alignment, a socio-cognitive process involving dynamic coordination and adaptation. For this, two studies were conducted. Study 1 required two groups of 24 learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) to continue in English two stories with their endings removed, both of which had a…

The Writing Performance of Elementary Students Receiving Strategic and Interactive Writing Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wolbers, Kimberly A.; Dostal, Hannah M.; Graham, Steve; Cihak, David; Kilpatrick, Jennifer R.; Saulsburry, Rachel

2015-01-01

Strategic and Interactive Writing Instruction (SIWI) has led to improved writing and language outcomes among deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) middle grades students. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of SIWI on the written expression of DHH elementary students across recount/personal narrative, information report, and persuasive…

Peer Feedback Practice in EFL Tertiary Writing Classes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nguyen, Ha Thi

2016-01-01

Peer feedback plays a pivotal role in stimulating students' participation in L2 writing, which has the potential to develop students' writing skills. The concept of metacognition has also been examined to facilitate learner writers in their learning process. As such, this study drawing upon the concept of metacognition explores the implementation…

Interdisciplinary Teaching in a Water Educational Training Science Program: Its Impact on Science Concept Knowledge, Writing Performance, and Interest in Science and Writing of Elementary Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moore-Hart, Margaret A.; Liggit, Peggy; Daisey, Peggy

This paper presents a study investigating the effects of the Water Education Training (WET) program on students' performance in science. The WET Program is an after school program using an interdisciplinary approach which has three main objectives: improving science concept knowledge, writing performance, and attitudes toward science and writing.…

Exploring EFL Students' Use of Writing Strategies and Their Attitudes towards Reading-To-Write and Writing-Only Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Soltani, Azimeh; Kheirzadeh, Shiela

2017-01-01

This study aimed to explore EFL students' use of writing strategies and their attitudes towards reading-to-write and writing-only tasks. The primary purpose of this study was to see whether there was any significant difference between the writing performance of reading-to-write and writing-only task groups of Iranian EFL learners. Also, this study…

The Effect of Writing Task and Task Conditions on Colombian EFL Learners' Language Use

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McDonough, Kim; Fuentes, César García

2015-01-01

This classroom study examines whether English L2 writers' language use differs depending on the writing task (operationalized as paragraph type), and task conditions (operationalized as individual or collaborative writing). The texts written by English L2 university students in Colombia (N = 26) in response to problem/solution and cause/effect…

The Impact of America's Choice on Writing Performance in Georgia: First-Year Results

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

May, Henry; Supovitz, Jonathan A.; Lesnick, Joy

2004-01-01

This study investigates the impact of America's Choice on student writing performance in Georgia. The analyses in this study focus on the change that occurred during the first year of implementation, the 2001-2002 school year. Two research questions guided these analyses: (1) What effect did Georgia's Choice have on the writing scores from the…

Effect of Assessment Task and Letter Writing Ability on Preschool Children's Spelling Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Puranik, Cynthia; Apel, Kenn

2010-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine whether spelling performance in preschool children varied as a function of the method of assessment and letter writing ability. The authors manipulated the motoric element and memory demands of the task by having children spell single words using letter tiles, orally, and by writing. The authors also…

Empowering L2 Tutoring: A Case Study of a Second Language Writer's Vocabulary Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Severino, Carol; Deifell, Elizabeth

2011-01-01

Writing center tutors play a key role in advancing L2 writers' language learning because the tutorial interaction involves the introduction of new language and vocabulary at the point of need or interest. This tutor-research case study presents a detailed, complex portrait of how a second language writer in a US writing center learned and used…

A Conversation Analysis of the Function of Silence in Writing Conferences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mirzaee, Milad; Yaqubi, Baqer

2016-01-01

One of the recent issues in English as a Second/Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) writing instruction has been the quest for a more effective way to give feedback to L2 learners' writing drafts. Although teacher-learner writing conferences have been increasingly used for providing ample opportunity for negotiating revisions, relatively little attention…

Student Performance across the Domain of School Writing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lamb, Hilary

Students in New Zealand and several other countries were tested in writing skills near the end of their formal (secondary) education, as part of the International Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) tests. Among the categories tested were functional letter writing and narrative, persuasive, and reflective essay writing. New Zealand student…

The Effects of Different Pre-Writing Strategies on Iranian EFL Writing Achievement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mahnam, Lily; Nejadansari, Dariush

2012-01-01

This study aimed at investigating whether applying pre-writing strategies would affect the quality of L2 learners' compositions. Twenty three adult EFL students from Jahad-e-Daneshgahi English centre in Iran participated in this study. They were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups, including 11 and 12 participants in each. They…

Corpus-Supported Academic Writing: How Can Technology Help?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chitez, Madalina; Rapp, Christian; Kruse, Otto

2015-01-01

Phraseology has long been used in L2 teaching of academic writing, and corpus linguistics has played a major role in the compilation and assessment of academic phrases. However, there are only a few interactive academic writing tools in which corpus methodology is implemented in a real-time design to support formulation processes. In this paper,…

The Impact of Canadian Social Discourses on L2 Writing Pedagogy in Ontario

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kalan, Amir

2013-01-01

This paper attempts to illustrate the impact of Canadian social, political, and academic discourses on second language writing pedagogy in Ontario schools. Building upon the views that regard teacher knowledge as teachers' sociocultural interactions and lived experiences, and not merely intellectual capabilities gained within teacher preparation,…

Bilingual Literacy or Substantive Bilingualism? L1 and L2 Reading and Writing Performance among Grade 7 Learners in Three Township Schools Gauteng Province, South Africa

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Manyike, T. V.

2013-01-01

Language diversity in South Africa continues to problematise educational provision and the realisation of equitable educational opportunities for all learners in various ways. This article presents the findings of ongoing research which explores the effect of language in education policy on the L1 and L2 proficiency of Grade 7 learners in township…

How Does L1 and L2 Exposure Impact L1 Performance in Bilingual Children? Evidence from Polish-English Migrants to the United Kingdom

PubMed Central

Haman, Ewa; Wodniecka, Zofia; Marecka, Marta; Szewczyk, Jakub; Białecka-Pikul, Marta; Otwinowska, Agnieszka; Mieszkowska, Karolina; Łuniewska, Magdalena; Kołak, Joanna; Miękisz, Aneta; Kacprzak, Agnieszka; Banasik, Natalia; Foryś-Nogala, Małgorzata

2017-01-01

Most studies on bilingual language development focus on children’s second language (L2). Here, we investigated first language (L1) development of Polish-English early migrant bilinguals in four domains: vocabulary, grammar, phonological processing, and discourse. We first compared Polish language skills between bilinguals and their Polish non-migrant monolingual peers, and then investigated the influence of the cumulative exposure to L1 and L2 on bilinguals’ performance. We then examined whether high exposure to L1 could possibly minimize the gap between monolinguals and bilinguals. We analyzed data from 233 typically developing children (88 bilingual and 145 monolingual) aged 4;0 to 7;5 (years;months) on six language measures in Polish: receptive vocabulary, productive vocabulary, receptive grammar, productive grammar (sentence repetition), phonological processing (non-word repetition), and discourse abilities (narration). Information about language exposure was obtained via parental questionnaires. For each language task, we analyzed the data from the subsample of bilinguals who had completed all the tasks in question and from monolinguals matched one-on-one to the bilingual group on age, SES (measured by years of mother’s education), gender, non-verbal IQ, and short-term memory. The bilingual children scored lower than monolinguals in all language domains, except discourse. The group differences were more pronounced on the productive tasks (vocabulary, grammar, and phonological processing) and moderate on the receptive tasks (vocabulary and grammar). L1 exposure correlated positively with the vocabulary size and phonological processing. Grammar scores were not related to the levels of L1 exposure, but were predicted by general cognitive abilities. L2 exposure negatively influenced productive grammar in L1, suggesting possible L2 transfer effects on L1 grammatical performance. Children’s narrative skills benefitted from exposure to two languages: both L1

Toward a Theory of Adaptive Transfer: Expanding Disciplinary Discussions of "Transfer" in Second-Language Writing and Composition Studies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

DePalma, Michael-John; Ringer, Jeffrey M.

2011-01-01

In this paper, we argue that discussions of transfer in L2 writing and composition studies have focused primarily on the reuse of past learning and thus have not adequately accounted for the adaptation of learned writing knowledge in unfamiliar situations. In an effort to expand disciplinary discussions of transfer in L2 writing and composition…

A Brief Overview of Key Issues in Second Language Writing Teaching and Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Javadi-Safa, Azim

2018-01-01

This paper briefly reviews the literature on writing skill in second language. It commences with a discussion on the importance of writing and its special characteristics. Then, it gives a brief account of the reasons for the weakness of students' writing skill as well as addressing some of the most important topics in L2 writing studies ranging…

Improving Accuracy Is Not the Only Reason for Writing, and Even If It Were...

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bruton, Anthony

2009-01-01

For research into language development in L2 writing to have any relevance, it has to be situated within a framework of decisions in writing pedagogy. Furthermore, a perspective on L2 language development cannot be limited only to accuracy levels. Even if this is the case, it is counter-intuitive that further input may be detrimental to language…

Second Language Writing Research and Written Corrective Feedback in SLA: Intersections and Practical Applications

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ferris, Dana R.

2010-01-01

For more than a decade now, a great deal of research has been done on the topic of written corrective feedback (CF) in SLA and second language (L2) writing. Nonetheless, what those research efforts really have shown as well as the possible implications for practice remain in dispute. Although L2 writing and SLA researchers often examine similar…

Reading Attitudes in L1 and L2, and Their Influence on L2 Extensive Reading

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yamashita, Junko

2004-01-01

This study examines the relationship between both first language (L1) and second language (L2) reading attitudes, and learners' performance in L2 extensive reading. Four reading attitude variables were identified (Comfort, Anxiety, Value, Self-perception), both in L1 and L2, according to learners' responses to a questionnaire. Results of analyses…

Mapping Disciplinary Values and Rhetorical Concerns through Language: Writing Instruction in the Performing and Visual Arts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cox, Anicca

2015-01-01

Via interview data focused on instructor practices and values, this study sought to describe some of what performing and visual arts instructors do at the university level to effectively teach disciplinary values through writing. The study's research goals explored how relationships to writing process in visual and performing arts support…

Investigating the Role of Identity in L2 Writing Using Electronic Bulletin Boards

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Spiliotopoulos, Valia; Carey, Steven

2005-01-01

Recent research has focused on the relationship between language and identity (Ivanic, 1998; Kanno & Norton, 2003). International students who come to Canada to learn English as a second language realize that to succeed in the academic community, they must be particularly adept at writing in English for academic purposes. This article…

Top 10 "Secret Writing Tips" to Boost Your Productivity: Part 2

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Berk, Ronald A.

2011-01-01

This is the sequel and companion piece to the first five tips published in this journal's winter 2010 issue. To recap, the first five tips are: (1) Write Everyday; (2) Write Everywhere; (3) Conquer Distractions and Interruptions; (4) Write for a Niche; and (5) Write with a Purpose. Now, in this article, the other five tips are discussed: (6) Write…

Prompt and Rater Effects in Second Language Writing Performance Assessment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lim, Gad S.

2009-01-01

Performance assessments have become the norm for evaluating language learners' writing abilities in international examinations of English proficiency. Two aspects of these assessments are usually systematically varied: test takers respond to different prompts, and their responses are read by different raters. This raises the possibility of undue…

Developmental Patterns of Metadiscourse in Second Language Writing*

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kobayashi, Yuichiro

2017-01-01

The present study aimed to profile the developmental patterns of discourse in second language (L2) writings among different first language (L1) groups. Applying the list of metadiscourse markers proposed by Ken Hyland to learner language, this study investigates variation of metadiscourse across proficiency levels, as well as across L1…

37 CFR 2.191 - Business to be transacted in writing.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... Trademark Cases § 2.191 Business to be transacted in writing. All business with the Office should be... 37 Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Business to be transacted in writing. 2.191 Section 2.191 Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE...

37 CFR 1.2 - Business to be transacted in writing.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... Correspondence § 1.2 Business to be transacted in writing. All business with the Patent and Trademark Office... 37 Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Business to be transacted in writing. 1.2 Section 1.2 Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE...

Rating Written Performance: What Do Raters Do and Why?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kuiken, Folkert; Vedder, Ineke

2014-01-01

This study investigates the relationship in L2 writing between raters' judgments of communicative adequacy and linguistic complexity by means of six-point Likert scales, and general measures of linguistic performance. The participants were 39 learners of Italian and 32 of Dutch, who wrote two short argumentative essays. The same writing tasks…

"Good" Academic Writing in Hebrew: The Perceptions of Pre-Service Teachers and Their Instructors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ezer, Hanna; Sivan, Tamar

2005-01-01

This study explores the perceptions of different groups of L1 and L2 Israeli pre-service teachers and their instructors regarding "good" academic writing. The study further investigates whether those perceptions accurately reflect their knowledge of academic writing. Eighty-one participants graded three different essays written by…

Microswitch and keyboard-emulator technology to facilitate the writing performance of persons with extensive motor disabilities.

PubMed

Lancioni, Giulio E; Singh, Nirbhay N; O'Reilly, Mark F; Sigafoos, Jeff; Green, Vanessa; Oliva, Doretta; Lang, Russell

2011-01-01

This study assessed the effectiveness of microswitches for simple responses (i.e., partial hand closure, vocalization, and hand stroking) and a keyboard emulator to facilitate the writing performance of three participants with extensive motor disabilities. The study was carried out according to an ABAB design. During the A phases, the participants (one child and two adults) were to write using the responses and technology available to them prior to this study. During the B phases, they used the new responses and technology. Data showed that two of the three participants had a faster writing performance during the B phases while the third participant had a slower writing performance. All three participants indicated a clear preference for the use of the new responses and technology, which were considered relatively easy and comfortable to manage and did not seem to cause any specific signs of tiredness. Implications of the findings are discussed. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Thinking Allowed: Integrating Process and Genre into the Second Language Writing Classroom: Research into Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Racelis, Juval V.; Matsuda, Paul Kei

2013-01-01

The field of second language (L2) writing has moved beyond the false dichotomies between process- and genre-based pedagogies perpetuated in the 1980s and 1990s, but there has still been little research on how the two are actually reconciled in the classroom. Consequently, L2 writing instructors are left with an incomplete picture, unsure how to…

Effect of Weblog-Based Process Approach on EFL Learners' Writing Performance and Autonomy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Azari, Mohammad Hosein

2017-01-01

This article investigated the effect of weblog use in a process-based writing course on the writing performance of students as well as on their level of learner autonomy. The participants were 43 English language learners who were doing their BA in the field of English Language Teaching. The control group (n = 19) went through in-class writing…

Syntactic Complexity as a Predictor of Second Language Writing Proficiency and Writing Quality

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Park, Ji-Hyun

2017-01-01

Syntactic (i.e., grammatical) complexity refers to the range and the degree of sophistication of the forms that appear in language production (Ortega, 2003). This concept has long been regarded as an important construct of language proficiency and has been actively investigated in the field of second language (L2) writing. Syntactic complexity is…

Measuring the Impact of Rater Negotiation in Writing Performance Assessment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Trace, Jonathan; Janssen, Gerriet; Meier, Valerie

2017-01-01

Previous research in second language writing has shown that when scoring performance assessments even trained raters can exhibit significant differences in severity. When raters disagree, using discussion to try to reach a consensus is one popular form of score resolution, particularly in contexts with limited resources, as it does not require…

Performance, Feedback, and Revision: Metacognitive Approaches to Undergraduate Essay Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Riddell, Jessica

2015-01-01

This paper explores ways in which frequent feedback and clear assessment criteria can improve students' essay writing performance in a first-year English literature course. Students (n = 68) completed a series of three scaffolded exercises over the course of a semester, where they evaluated undergraduate essays using a predetermined assessment…

Patterns of Question Selection and Writing Performance of ESL Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chiste, Katherine Beaty; O'Shea, Judith

1988-01-01

Reports on a study examining the pattern of question selection by English as a Second Language (ESL) students on a writing competence test and the relationship to performance. Results suggest that ESL students heavily favored first and second questions in each set of four questions, and shorter questions in sets. (CB)

From First Language Literacy to Second Language Proficiency to Second Language Literacy: The Act of Writing in a Foreign Language Context.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crerand, Mary E. Lavin

A study investigated how a second language (L2) learner's writing skills develop in a second-language context. The three research questions addressed the effect of: (1) first-language (L1) literacy skills, (2) L2 proficiency, and (3) the instructional context on L2 writing. Subjects were 70 university French students. Data were drawn from 300…

Automatic Detection of Preposition Errors in Learner Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

De Felice, Rachele; Pulman, Stephen

2009-01-01

In this article, we present an approach to the automatic correction of preposition errors in L2 English. Our system, based on a maximum entropy classifier, achieves average precision of 42% and recall of 35% on this task. The discussion of results obtained on correct and incorrect data aims to establish what characteristics of L2 writing prove…

Dynamic Assessment of Writing: The Impact of Implicit/Explicit Mediations on L2 Learners' Internalization of Writing Skills and Strategies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alavi, Sayyed Mohammad; Taghizadeh, Mahboubeh

2014-01-01

Dynamic assessment is a procedure in which development is simultaneously assessed and improved with regard to the individual's or group's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD; Lantolf & Poehner, 2004). This study aimed to follow dynamic assessment and investigate the impact of three types of implicit and explicit feedback on the essay writing of…

Drawing on Technical Writing Scholarship for the Teaching of Writing to Advanced ESL Students--A Writing Tutorial.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zielinska, Dorota

2003-01-01

Outlines the technical writing tutorial (TWT) that precedes an advanced English as a second language (ESL) writing course for students of English Philology at the Jagiellonian University, Poland. Finds a statistically significant increase in the performance of the students who had taken the TWT. Indicates that technical writing books and journals…

See It, Be It, Write It: Using Performing Arts to Improve Writing Skills and Test Scores

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Blecher-Sass, Hope Sara; Moffitt, Maryellen

2010-01-01

Improve students' writing skills and boost their assessment scores while adding arts education, creativity, and fun to your writing curriculum. With this vibrant resource, improving writing skills goes hand-in-hand with improving test scores. Students learn how to use acting and visualization as prewriting activities to help them connect writing…

A Doctoral Student of Physics Writing for Publication: A Sociopolitically-Oriented Case Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Li, Yongyan

2006-01-01

This is a sociopolitically-oriented qualitative case study [Casanave, C. P. (2003). Looking ahead to more sociopolitically-oriented case study research in L2 writing scholarship (But should it be called "post-process"?). "Journal of Second Language Writing," 12, 85-102.] of the writing-for-publication experience of an NNSE (nonnative speaker of…

Writing by Academics: A Transactional and Systems Approach to Academic Writing Behaviours

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kempenaar, Larissa Elisabeth; Murray, Rowena

2016-01-01

The literature on academic writing in higher education contains a wealth of research and theory on students' writing, but much less on academics' writing. In performative higher education cultures, discussions of academics' writing mainly concern outputs, rather than the process of producing them. This key component of academic work remains…

Roles of Position, Stress, and Proficiency in L2 Children's Spelling: A Developmental Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hong, Su Chin; Chen, Shu Hui

2011-01-01

This study investigated the roles of phoneme position, stress, and proficiency in L2 spelling development by Taiwanese students learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL), an alphabetic writing system typologically different from the learners' L1 logographic system. Structured nonword spelling tests were administered to EFL sixth-graders with…

The Influence of Drawing on Third Graders' Writing Performance.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Norris, Edith A.; Reichard, Carla; Mokhtari, Kouider

1997-01-01

Compares writing products of 60 third-grade students who drew before writing a story to writing products of 59 students who wrote without drawing. Finds that students who drew produced more words and overall wrote better than nondrawers. Notes that results were consistent for boys and girls regardless of group membership. (PA)

Grammar Correction in the Writing Centre: Expectations and Experiences of Monolingual and Multilingual Writers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eckstein, Grant

2016-01-01

Although most writing centres maintain policies against providing grammar correction during writing tutorials, it is undeniable that students expect some level of grammar intervention there. Just how much students expect and receive is a matter of speculation. This article examines the grammar-correction issue by reporting on a survey of L1, L2,…

Critical Thinking and EFL Learners' Performance on Different Writing Modes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Golpour, Farhad

2014-01-01

The essential function of critical thinking in education is obvious by many studies done in this field. The main purpose of this article is to find the relationship between critical thinking levels of Iranian EFL learners and their performance on different modes of writing. The sample of the study selected among those who studying English at the…

Revisiting Fluctuations in L2 Article Choice in L1-Korean L2-English Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sarker, Bijon K.; Baek, Seunghyun

2017-01-01

The current study investigated the distinction of L2 (second language) English article choice sensitivity in fifty-three L1-Korean L2-English learners in semantic contexts. In the context of English as a foreign language, the participants were divided into two groups based on grammatical ability as determined by their performance on a cloze test.…

Comprehension and Writing Strategy Training Improves Performance on Content-Specific Source-Based Writing Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weston-Sementelli, Jennifer L.; Allen, Laura K.; McNamara, Danielle S.

2016-01-01

Source-based essays are evaluated both on the quality of the writing and the content appropriate interpretation and use of source material. Hence, composing a high-quality source-based essay (an essay written based on source material) relies on skills related to both reading (the sources) and writing (the essay) skills. As such, source-based…

Comprehension and Writing Strategy Training Improves Performance on Content-Specific Source-Based Writing Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weston-Sementelli, Jennifer L.; Allen, Laura K.; McNamara, Danielle S.

2018-01-01

Source-based essays are evaluated both on the quality of the writing and the content appropriate interpretation and use of source material. Hence, composing a high-quality source-based essay (an essay written based on source material) relies on skills related to both reading (the sources) and writing (the essay) skills. As such, source-based…

Writing: The Nature, Development, and Teachinq of Written Communication. Volume 2, Writing: Process, Development and Communication.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Frederiksen, Carl H., Ed.; Dominic, Joseph F., Ed.

Intended for researchers, teachers, local and national policy makers, and others interested in writing, this volume explores the processes and development of writing, particularly in the context of writing instruction. Following a preface, the introduction discusses various perspectives on the activity of writing, such as writing as a cognitive…

EFL Teachers' Attempts at Feedback Innovation in the Writing Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Icy; Mak, Pauline; Burns, Anne

2016-01-01

To date, research on feedback in second language (L2) writing has primarily focused on feedback per se, with little attention paid to the teachers' professional development with regard to feedback in writing. This study aims to explore the ways in which two secondary teachers in Hong Kong attempted to implement feedback innovation in their writing…

The Influence of Process Approach on English as Second Language Students' Performances in Essay Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Akinwamide, Timothy Kolade

2012-01-01

This study examined the influence of Process Approach on English as second language Students' performances in essay writing. The purpose was to determine how far this current global approach could be of assistance to the writing skill development of these bilingual speakers of English language. The study employed the pre-test post-test control…

Second Language Writing Classification System Based on Word-Alignment Distribution

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kotani, Katsunori; Yoshimi, Takehiko

2010-01-01

The present paper introduces an automatic classification system for assisting second language (L2) writing evaluation. This system, which classifies sentences written by L2 learners as either native speaker-like or learner-like sentences, is constructed by machine learning algorithms using word-alignment distributions as classification features…

An effective write policy for software coherence schemes

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Chen, Yung-Chin; Veidenbaum, Alexander V.

1992-01-01

The authors study the write behavior and evaluate the performance of various write strategies and buffering techniques for a MIN-based multiprocessor system using the simple software coherence scheme. Hit ratios, memory latencies, total execution time, and total write traffic are used as the performance indices. The write-through write-allocate no-fetch cache using a write-back write buffer is shown to have a better performance than both write-through and write-back caches. This type of write buffer is effective in reducing the volume as well as bursts of write traffic. On average, the use of a write-back cache reduces by 60 percent the total write traffic generated by a write-through cache.

Attitudes towards Online Feedback on Writing: Why Students Mistrust the Learning Potential of Models

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Strobl, Carola

2015-01-01

This exploratory study sheds new light on students' perceptions of online feedback types for a complex writing task, summary writing from spoken input in a foreign language (L2), and investigates how these correlate with their actual learning to write. Students tend to favour clear-cut, instructivist rather than constructivist feedback, and guided…

Elementary Writing Assessment Platforms: A Quantitative Examination of Online versus Offline Writing Performance of Fifth-Grade Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Heath, Vickie L.

2013-01-01

This quantitative study explored if significant differences exist between how fifth-grade students produce a written response to a narrative prompt using online versus offline writing platforms. The cultural and social trend of instructional and assessment writing paradigms in education is shifting to online writing platforms (National Assessment…

Identifying Writing Difficulties in First Grade: An Investigation of Writing and Reading Measures

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ritchey, Kristen D.; Coker, David L., Jr.

2014-01-01

Early identification of students who are at risk for writing difficulties is an important first step in improving writing performance. First grade students (N = 150) were administered a set of early writing measures and reading measures in January. Sentence Writing Quality and Oral Reading Fluency demonstrated strong classification accuracy when a…

Turnitin and Peer Review in ESL Academic Writing Classrooms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Li, Jinrong; Li, Mimi

2018-01-01

Despite the benefits of peer review, there are still challenges that need to be addressed to make it more effective for L2 students. With the development of technology, computer-mediated peer review has captured increasing attention from L2 writing researchers and instructors. While Turnitin is known for its use in detecting plagiarism, its newly…

Can Higher-Proficiency L2 Learners Benefit from Working with Lower-Proficiency Partners in Peer Feedback?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yu, Shulin; Hu, Guangwei

2017-01-01

Informed by Vygotsky's conceptualization of the Zone of Proximal Development, this case study investigated the benefits of peer feedback on second language (L2) writing for students with high L2 proficiency and the factors that may influence their learning in peer feedback in the Chinese English-as-a-foreign-language context. Specifically, the…

Brief Daily Writing Activities and Performance on Major Multiple-Choice Exams

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Turner, Haley C.; Bliss, Stacy L.; Hautau, Briana; Carroll, Erin; Jaspers, Kathryn E.; Williams, Robert L.

2006-01-01

Although past research indicates that giving brief quizzes, administered either regularly or randomly, may lead to improvement in students' performance on major exams, negligible research has targeted daily writing activities that require the processing of course information at a deeper level than might result from simply reading course materials…

Investigating the Effects of Planning Time on the Complexity of L2 Argumentative Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tabari, Mahmoud Abdi

2017-01-01

Much research has investigated the role of planning time in second language writing; however, the results show that there are inconsistent findings about the effects of planning time conditions on the complexity of the EFL learners' textual output. The current study attempted to consider the differential effects of planning time conditions in…

The Effect of Online Translators on L2 Writing in French

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

O'Neill, Errol Marinus

2012-01-01

Online translation (OT) sites such as Free Translation and Babel Fish are freely available to the general public and purport to convert inputted text, from single words to entire paragraphs, instantly from one language to another. Discussion in the literature about OT for second-language (L2) acquisition has generally focused either on the…

Visual-perceptual-kinesthetic inputs on influencing writing performances in children with handwriting difficulties.

PubMed

Tse, Linda F L; Thanapalan, Kannan C; Chan, Chetwyn C H

2014-02-01

This study investigated the role of visual-perceptual input in writing Chinese characters among senior school-aged children who had handwriting difficulties (CHD). The participants were 27 CHD (9-11 years old) and 61 normally developed control. There were three writing conditions: copying, and dictations with or without visual feedback. The motor-free subtests of the Developmental Test of Visual Perception (DTVP-2) were conducted. The CHD group showed significantly slower mean speeds of character production and less legibility of produced characters than the control group in all writing conditions (ps<0.001). There were significant deteriorations in legibility from copying to dictation without visual feedback. Nevertheless, the Group by Condition interaction effect was not statistically significant. Only position in space of DTVP-2 was significantly correlated with the legibility among CHD (r=-0.62, p=0.001). Poor legibility seems to be related to the less-intact spatial representation of the characters in working memory, which can be rectified by viewing the characters during writing. Visual feedback regarding one's own actions in writing can also improve legibility of characters among these children. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

An Approach for Embedding Critical Thinking in Second Language Paragraph Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chason, Lisa; Loyet, Dianne; Sorenson, Luann; Stoops, Anastasia

2017-01-01

Writing textbooks for English language learners frequently teach a paragraph pattern that is limited to topic sentence, support, and concluding sentence. Although beginning second language (L2) writers benefit from having a structured way to organize their ideas, as they advance, this type of writing can sound trite and uncritical. To provide a…

Self-Regulated Strategy Development as a Tier 2 Writing Intervention

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, Evelyn S.; Hancock, Christine; Carter, Deborah R.; Pool, Juli L.

2013-01-01

In a response to intervention framework, the implication of limited writing instruction suggests an immediate need for Tier 2 interventions to support struggling writers while at the same time addressing instructional gaps in Tier 1. Many schools struggle with implementing writing intervention, partly because of the limited number of…

Writing to Learn and Learning to Perform: Lessons from a Writing Intensive Course in Experimental Theatre Studio

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Henry, Jim; Baker, Tammy Haili'opua

2015-01-01

This case study conducted by a writing specialist and a theatre specialist examines the ways in which writing to learn and learning to write took form in a course in which the ultimate goal was a staged production for a live audience. Using naturalistic methodology that deployed both ethnographic and autoethnographic approaches to analyze the…

Improving Students' Chinese Writing Abilities in Taiwan with the "Conditioned Writing System"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liu, Yuan-Chen; Lee, Wan-Chun; Huang, Tzu-Hua; Hsieh, Hsiao-Mei

2012-01-01

This research investigates students' performance while writing Chinese essays using an interactive online writing system. Participants include students from two seventh-grade classes of a junior high school in Taoyuan County, Taiwan. The experimental group uses the conditioned writing interactive online system, while the control group receives…

The Nature of Error in Adolescent Student Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilcox, Kristen Campbell; Yagelski, Robert; Yu, Fang

2014-01-01

This study examined the nature and frequency of error in high school native English speaker (L1) and English learner (L2) writing. Four main research questions were addressed: Are there significant differences in students' error rates in English language arts (ELA) and social studies? Do the most common errors made by students differ in ELA…

Major Difference: An Examination of Student Writing Performance by Major and Its Implications for Business Communication

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sigmar, Lucia S.; Hynes, Geraldine E.

2012-01-01

This study analyzes the writing performance levels of 352 students to determine the extent to which business students are achieving written communication competency and whether differences exist among the business majors. Although most students met or exceeded expectations in format and content on a common writing task, students were weakest in…

Investigating the Reading-to-Write Processes and Source Use of L2 Postgraduate Students in Real-Life Academic Tasks: An Exploratory Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCulloch, Sharon

2013-01-01

Existing studies of source use in academic student writing tend to i), focus more on the writing than the reading end of the reading-to-write continuum and ii), involve the use of insufficiently "naturalistic" writing tasks. Thus, in order to explore the potential of an alternative approach, this paper describes an exploratory case study…

Fostering Academic Vocabulary Use in Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brun-Mercer, Nicole; Zimmerman, Cheryl Boyd

2015-01-01

Though research has established a relationship between vocabulary knowledge and academic success and identified features to guide the L2 word learner through academic tasks (see Nation, 2013), less is known regarding student perceptions of academic vocabulary and the conscious decision-making process of these learners while they are writing. In…

Effects of Dicto-Comp and Dictation on the Writing Skill of Female Adult Iranian EFL Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Adel, Rahil; Hashemian, Mahmood

2015-01-01

This study was an attempt to clarify and remind L2 learners/teachers of 2 kinds of writing: dicto-comp and dictation. We explored the effect of controlled writing on the accuracy of the writing of adult Iranian EFL learners. Prior to the study, the homogeneity of 30 adult EFL learners was checked through an OPT test. Thirty participants were…

Jumpstarting Junior Faculty Motivation and Performance with Focused Writing Retreats

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Girardeau, Laura; Rud, A. G.; Trevisan, Michael S.

2014-01-01

Faculty members are critical assets to universities, and large losses to institutions occur if they are not successful. Although institutions value publications and grants in the tenure process, newer professors receive little guidance in writing for these endeavors. Faculty writing retreats help apprentice professors in the craft of writing;…

The Relationship between Writing Anxiety and Writing Disposition among Secondary School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cocuk, Halil Erdem; Yanpar Yelken, Tugba; Ozer, Omer

2016-01-01

Problem Statement: Writing is important in secondary schools because it underpins the performance of students in most examinations. Writing disposition, which specifically deals with the aspects of students' attitudes toward writing, has also been studied by some researchers. Purpose of the Study: This study reports on the result of a study on the…

Note-Taking Quality and Performance on an L2 Academic Listening Test

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Song, Min-Young

2012-01-01

This study investigated the relationships among the quality of L2 test takers' notes evaluated in terms of different levels of information and test takers' performance on open-ended listening tasks tapping into different comprehension subskills. In addition, this study examined the invariance of the structural relationships among the variables…

[Phonological awareness, working memory, reading and writing performances in familial dyslexia].

PubMed

Capellini, Simone Aparecida; Padula, Niura Aparecida de Mouro Ribeiro; Santos, Lara Cristina Antunes Dos; Lourenceti, Maria Dalva; Carrenho, Erika Hasse; Ribeiro, Lucilene Arilho

2007-01-01

familial dyslexia. to characterize and compare the phonological awareness, working memory, reading and writing abilities of individuals whose family members are also affected. in this study 10 familial nuclei of natural family relationship of individuals with dyslexia were analyzed. Families of natural individuals living in the west region of the state of São Paulo were selected. Inclusion criteria were: to be a native speaker of the Brazilian Portuguese language, to have 8 years of age or more, to present positive familial history for learning disabilities, that is, to present at least one relative with difficulties in learning. Exclusion criteria were: to present any neurological disorder genetically caused or not, in any of the family members, such as dystonia, extra pyramidal diseases, mental disorder, epilepsy, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHA); psychiatric symptoms or conditions; or any other pertinent conditions that could cause errors in the diagnosis. As for the diagnosis of developmental dyslexia, information about the familial history of the adolescents and children was gathered with the parents, so that a detailed pedigree could be delineated. Neurological, psychological, speech-language, and school performance evaluations were made with the individuals and their families. the results of this study suggest that the dyslexic individuals and their respective relatives, also with dyslexia, presented lower performances than the control group in terms of rapid automatic naming, reading, writing and phonological awareness. deficits in phonological awareness, working memory, reading and writing seem to have genetic susceptibility that possibly determine, when in interaction with the environment, the manifestation of dyslexia.

"I Write It in a Way that People Can Read It": How Teachers and Adolescent L2 Writers Describe Content Area Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kibler, Amanda

2011-01-01

Adolescent writers in second language settings often spend the majority of their school days in content area courses, such as math, science, and social studies, where they must negotiate challenging literacy tasks in their second languages with little explicit writing instruction. While genre scholars have built an extensive body of knowledge…

Merging a Metalinguistic Grammar Approach with L2 Academic Process Writing: ELLs in Community College

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Camhi, Paul J.; Ebsworth, Miriam Eisenstein

2008-01-01

This action research study evaluates a classroom approach incorporating a reflective, metacognitive component within a second language process-oriented writing environment. Inspired by the literature and developed by the first author, this approach seeks to provide English language learners (ELLs) with a command of metalinguistic principles…

The Influence of Reading and Writing Habits Associated with Education on the Neuropsychological Performance of Brazilian Adults

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pawlowski, Josiane; Remor, Eduardo; de Mattos Pimenta Parente, Maria Alice; de Salles, Jerusa Fumagalli; Fonseca, Rochele Paz; Bandeira, Denise Ruschel

2012-01-01

This study evaluated the influence of the frequency of reading and writing habits (RWH) associated with education on the performance of adults in brief neuropsychological tasks. A sample of 489 Brazilian subjects, composed of 71% women, aged 21-80 years, with 2-23 years of formal education, was evaluated by the Brazilian Brief Neuropsychological…

Spelling performance of 2nd to 5th grade students from public school.

PubMed

Capellini, Simone Aparecida; Amaral, Amanda Corrêa do; Oliveira, Andrea Batista; Sampaio, Maria Nobre; Fusco, Natália; Cervera-Mérida, José Francisco; Ygual-Fernández, Amparo

2011-09-01

To characterize, compare and classify the performance of 2nd to 5th grade students from public schools according to the semiology of spelling errors. Participants were 120 students from 2nd to 5th grades of a public school in Marília (SP), Brazil, 30 students from each grade, who were divided into four groups: GI (2nd grade), GII (3rd grade), GIII (4th grade), and GIV (5th grade). The tasks of the Pro-Ortografia test were applied: collective version (writing of alphabet letters, randomized dictation of letters, words dictation, nonwords dictation, dictation with pictures, thematic writing induced by picture) and individual version (dictation of sentences, purposeful error, spelled dictation, orthographic lexical memory). Significant difference was found in the between-group comparison indicating better performance of students in every subsequent grade in most of the individual and collective version tasks. With the increase of grade level, the groups decreased the average of writing errors. The profile of spelling acquisition of the Portuguese writing system found in these public school students indicates normal writing development in this population.

Three ESL Students Writing a Policy Paper Assignment: An Activity-Analytic Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Li, Yongyan

2013-01-01

How university students write from sources has been an issue of long-standing interest among researchers of advanced academic literacy. Previous research in this regard in the context of L2 writing has tended to focus on novices' textual borrowing; less attention has been given to exploring the potential light that theories from other intellectual…

Laser Direct Writing Process for Making Electrodes and High-k Sol-Gel ZrO2 for Boosting Performances of MoS2 Transistors.

PubMed

Kwon, Hyuk-Jun; Jang, Jaewon; Grigoropoulos, Costas P

2016-04-13

A series of two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), including molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), can be attractive materials for photonic and electronic applications due to their exceptional properties. Among these unique properties, high mobility of 2D TMDCs enables realization of high-performance nanoelectronics based on a thin film transistor (TFT) platform. In this contribution, we report highly enhanced field effect mobility (μ(eff) = 50.1 cm(2)/(V s), ∼2.5 times) of MoS2 TFTs through the sol-gel processed high-k ZrO2 (∼22.0) insulator, compared to those of typical MoS2/SiO2/Si structures (μ(eff) = 19.4 cm(2)/(V s)) because a high-k dielectric layer can suppress Coulomb electron scattering and reduce interface trap concentration. Additionally, in order to avoid costly conventional mask based photolithography and define the patterns, we employ a simple laser direct writing (LDW) process. This process allows precise and flexible control with reasonable resolution (up to ∼10 nm), depending on the system, and enables fabrication of arbitrarily patterned devices. Taking advantage of continuing developments in laser technology offers a substantial cost decrease, and LDW may emerge as a promising technology.

Learners' Uses of Two Types of Written Feedback on a L2 Writing Revision Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sachs, Rebecca; Polio, Charlene

2007-01-01

This study examines the effectiveness of written error corrections versus reformulations of second language learners' writing as two means of improving learners' grammatical accuracy on a three-stage composition-comparison-revision task. Concurrent verbal protocols were employed during the comparison stage in order to study the learners' reported…

Chinese children's early knowledge about writing.

PubMed

Zhang, Lan; Yin, Li; Treiman, Rebecca

2017-09-01

Much research on literacy development has focused on learners of alphabetic writing systems. Researchers have hypothesized that children learn about the formal characteristics of writing before they learn about the relations between units of writing and units of speech. We tested this hypothesis by examining young Chinese children's understanding of writing. Mandarin-speaking 2- to 5-year-olds completed a graphic task, which tapped their knowledge about the formal characteristics of writing, and a phonological task, which tapped their knowledge about the correspondence between Chinese characters and syllables. The 3- to 5-year-olds performed better on the graphic task than the phonological task, indicating that learning how writing appears visually begins earlier than learning that writing corresponds to linguistic units, even in a writing system in which written units correspond to syllables. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? Learning about writing's visual form, how it looks, is an important part of emergent literacy. Knowledge of how writing symbolizes linguistic units may emerge later. What does this study add? We test the hypothesis that Chinese children learn about writing's visual form earlier than its symbolic nature. Chinese 3- to 5- year-olds know more about visual features than character-syllable links. Results show learning of the visual appearance of a notation system is developmentally precocious. © 2016 The British Psychological Society.

Training L2 Writers to Reference Corpora as a Self-Correction Tool

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Quinn, Cynthia

2015-01-01

Corpora have the potential to support the L2 writing process at the discourse level in contrast to the isolated dictionary entries that many intermediate writers rely on. To take advantage of this resource, learners need to be trained, which involves practising corpus research and referencing skills as well as learning to make data-based…

Phase Transitions in Development of Writing Fluency from a Complex Dynamic Systems Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baba, Kyoko; Nitta, Ryo

2014-01-01

This study explored patterns in L2 writing development by focusing on one of the linguistic features of texts (fluency) from a complex dynamic systems perspective. It investigated whether two English-as-a-foreign-language university students would experience discontinuous change (phase transition) in their writing fluency through repetition of a…

Writing, self-reflection, and medical school performance: the Human Context of Health Care.

PubMed

Stephens, Mark B; Reamy, Brian V; Anderson, Denise; Olsen, Cara; Hemmer, Paul A; Durning, Steven J; Auster, Simon

2012-09-01

Finding ways to improve communication and self-reflection skills is an important element of medical education and continuing professional development. This study examines the relationship between self-reflection and educational outcomes. We correlate performance in a preclinical course that focuses on self-reflection as it relates to contextual elements of patient care (Human Context of Health Care), with educational measures such as overall grade point average, clinical clerkship scores, and Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores. Student performance in Human Context of Health Care correlated with MCAT-Verbal scores, MCAT-writing sample scores, clerkship grades, and overall medical school grade point average (R = 0.3; p < 0.001). Writing and self-reflection skills are often neglected in undergraduate medical curricula. Our findings suggest that these skills are important and correlate with recognized long-term educational outcomes.

"Why Are These Underlined?" Depth of Processing and Type of Written Corrective Feedback in L2 Spanish Compositions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Caras, Allison Marie

2017-01-01

There is an ongoing debate as to whether written corrective feedback (WCF) is effective for the improvement of adult second language (L2) writers' accuracy. Ever since Truscott (1996, 1999) began arguing against grammar correction in L2 writing courses, researchers have challenged his position (i.e. below). Although most of these studies show WCF…

Analyzing Pauses in Computer-Assisted EFL Writing--A Computer-Keystroke-Log Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Xu, Cuiqin; Qi, Yan

2017-01-01

Using computer keystroke logs, this study investigated how writing skill affected L2 writers' pausing patterns to gain insights into their management of the cognitive writing processes. The 59 participants, 29 in the more-skilled group and 30 in the less-skilled group, were recruited from a college English course at a key Chinese university. The…

Detecting Breakdowns in Local Coherence in the Writing of Chinese English Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Y.; Harrington, M.; White, P.

2012-01-01

This paper introduces "CTutor", an automated writing evaluation (AWE) tool for detecting breakdowns in local coherence and reports on a study that applies it to the writing of Chinese L2 English learners. The program is based on Centering theory (CT), a theory of local coherence and salience. The principles of CT are first introduced and…

Writing for professional publication. Part 2: Subject matter.

PubMed

Fowler, John

Motivation is the first step in writing for professional publication: the next question is, what should you write about? Whatever your area of practice or level of experience, your writing will be suitable for one of the wealth of journals covering all aspects of healthcare and nursing. In this second part of a series of articles, John Fowler, an experienced nursing lecturer and author, presents some tips and suggestions to inspire you as you take your first steps on the road to writing for professional publication.

Calibration of Comprehension and Performance in L2 Reading

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sarac, Seda; Tarhan, Betul

2009-01-01

Comprehension monitoring is crucial for successful reading. Although the researchers appreciate the importance of comprehension monitoring in L2 reading, there are only a few studies done on the comprehension monitoring ability of L2 readers. The main aim of this study was to investigate the comprehension monitoring abilities of university…

Variability and Variation of L2 Grammar: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of German Learners' Performance on Two Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abrams, Zsuzsanna; Rott, Susanne

2017-01-01

Research on second language (L2) grammar in task-based language learning has yielded inconsistent results regarding the effects of task-complexity, prompting calls for more nuanced analyses of L2 development and task performance. The present cross-sectional study contributes to this discussion by comparing the performance of 245 learners of German…

Writing on the Bus: Using Athletic Team Notebooks and Journals to Advance Learning and Performance in Sports

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kent, Richard

2012-01-01

"Writing on the Bus" showcases the what, how, and why of using athletic team notebooks and journals. The book guides coaches and athletes, from elementary school through college, in analyzing games while thinking deeply about motivation, goal setting, and communication in order to optimize performance. Filled with lesson plans, writing activities,…

Problem-based writing with peer review improves academic performance in physiology.

PubMed

Pelaez, Nancy J

2002-12-01

The aim of this study was to determine whether problem-based writing with peer review (PW-PR) improves undergraduate student performance on physiology exams. Didactic lectures were replaced with assignments to give students practice explaining their reasoning while solving qualitative problems, thus transferring the responsibility for abstraction and generalization to the students. Performance on exam items about concepts taught using PW-PR was compared with performance on concepts taught using didactic lectures followed by group work. Calibrated Peer Review, a Web-delivered program, was used to collect student essays and to manage anonymous peer review after students "passed" three calibration peer reviews. Results show that the students had difficulty relating concepts. Relationship errors were categorized as (1) problems recognizing levels of organization, (2) problems with cause/effect, and (3) overgeneralizations. For example, some described cells as molecules; others thought that vesicles transport materials through the extracellular fluid. With PW-PR, class discussion was used to confront and resolve such difficulties. Both multiple-choice and essay exam results were better with PW-PR instead of lecture.

Lexical Retrieval Processes and Strategies in Second Language Writing: A Synthesis of Empirical Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Manchon, Rosa M.; Murphy, Liz; Roca, Julio

2007-01-01

Lexical access and retrieval are essential processes in fluent and efficient second language (L2) oral and written productive uses of language. In the case of L2 writing, attention to vocabulary is of paramount importance, although the retrieval of relevant lexis while composing in an L2 frequently entails different degrees of problem-solving…

Cooling improves the writing performance of patients with writer's cramp.

PubMed

Pohl, Christoph; Happe, Jörg; Klockgether, Thomas

2002-11-01

Cooling of hand and forearm muscles by immersion in 15 degrees C cold water for 5 minutes improved the writing performance of patients with writer's cramp. Since abnormal processing of muscle spindle afferent discharges contributes to the pathology of writer's cramp, this effect might result from a reduction in muscle spindle activity by lowering muscle temperature. Cooling is a simple, cheap, and safe procedure, providing temporary relief for patients with writer's cramp. Copyright 2002 Movement Disorder Society

Word Prediction Programs with Phonetic Spelling Support: Performance Comparisons and Impact on Journal Writing for Students with Writing Difficulties

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Evmenova, Anna S.; Graff, Heidi J.; Jerome, Marci Kinas; Behrmann, Michael M.

2010-01-01

This investigation examined the effects of currently available word prediction software programs that support phonetic/inventive spelling on the quality of journal writing by six students with severe writing and/or spelling difficulties in grades three through six during a month-long summer writing program. A changing conditions single-subject…

A Mixed Methods Analysis of the Effect of Google Docs Environment on EFL Learners' Writing Performance and Causal Attributions for Success and Failure

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Seyyedrezaie, Zari Sadat; Ghonsooly, Behzad; Shahriari, Hesamoddin; Fatemi, Hazar Hosseini

2016-01-01

This study investigated the effect of writing process in Google Docs environment on Iranian EFL learners' writing performance. It also examined students' perceptions towards the effects of Google Docs and their perceived causes of success or failure in writing performance. In this regard, 48 EFL students were chosen based on their IELTs writing…

Process Writing and Communicative-Task-Based Instruction: Many Common Features, but More Common Limitations?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bruton, Anthony

2005-01-01

Process writing and communicative-task-based instruction both assume productive tasks that prompt self-expression to motivate students and as the principal engine for developing L2 proficiency in the language classroom. Besides this, process writing and communicative-task-based instruction have much else in common, despite some obvious…

Drawing on Technical Writing Scholarship for the Teaching of Writing to Advanced ESL Students--A Writing Tutorial

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zielinska, Dorota

2003-01-01

The article outlines the technical writing tutorial (TWT) that preceded an advanced ESL writing course for students of English Philology at the Jagiellonian University. Having assessed the English skills of those students at the end of the semester, we found a statistically significant increase in the performance of the students who had taken the…

Effects of Electronic Outlining on Students' Argumentative Writing Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

de Smet, M. J. R.; Broekkamp, H.; Brand-Gruwel, S.; Kirschner, P. A.

2011-01-01

This study examined the effect of electronic outlining on the quality of students' writing products and how outlining affects perceived mental effort during the writing task. Additionally, it was studied how students appropriate and appreciate an outline tool and whether they need explicit instruction in order to engage in planning. To answer…

A randomized controlled trial of expressive writing in breast cancer survivors with lymphedema.

PubMed

Sohl, Stephanie J; Dietrich, Mary S; Wallston, Kenneth A; Ridner, Sheila H

2017-07-01

Breast cancer survivors who develop lymphedema report poorer quality of life (QoL) than those without lymphedema. Expressive writing is a potential intervention to address QoL. Adult women (N = 107) with breast cancer and chronic Stage II lymphedema were randomised to writing about thoughts and feelings specific to lymphedema and its treatment (intervention) or about daily activities (control) for four, 20-min sessions. Outcome measures were several indicators of QoL assessed at baseline, one, three, and six months post-intervention (total scores and subscales of Upper Limb Lymphedema 27 and Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast). Hypothesised moderators of change in QoL were dispositional optimism, avoidant behaviours, and time since lymphedema diagnosis. There was no statistically significant intent-to-treat main effects of expressive writing on QoL. Statistically significant moderating effects on change in different indicators of QoL were observed for all three moderators. Expressive writing was more effective for improving QoL in women who were higher on optimism, lower on avoidance and had less time since a lymphedema diagnosis. These results provide further evidence that there are subsets of individuals for whom expressive writing is more effective. Future research may investigate targeting expressive writing based on identified moderators.

Comments on Jeong-Won Lee and Diane Lemonnier Schallert's "The Relative Contribution of L2 Language Proficiency and L1 Reading Ability to L2 Reading Performance: A Test of the Threshold Hypothesis in an EFL Context."

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bamford, Julian; Day, Richard R.; Schallert, Diane Lemonnier; Lee, Jeong-Won

1998-01-01

Provides reactions to an article, "The Relative Contribution of L2 Language Proficiency and L1 Reading Ability to L2 Reading Performance: A Test of the Threshold Hypothesis in an EFL Context" published in an earlier issue of this journal (v31 n4). The authors of the article respond to these reactions. (Author/VWL)

Effect of YouTube Videos and Pictures on EFL Students' Writing Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Styati, Erlik Widiyani

2016-01-01

This research aims at investigating the effect of YouTube videos and pictures as the authentic materials on Indonesian EFL students' writing performance. The experimental research is conducted by using quasi-experimental design. This research employed two groups: an experimental and control group. This is to see which group is effective to be used…

Writing in the Eskimo Classroom. Cahiers linguistiques d'Ottawa (Ottawa Linguistics Papers), Vol. 7, No. 3.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hofmann, T. R.

There are several practical reasons for preferring syllabic writing in teaching the Eskimo language to non-Eskimos: (1) the use of syllabic writing avoids the Roman letters t, l, n, s, g, and r, which stimulate the pronunciation habits of French or English; (2) syllabic writing is well-suited to Eskimo because of its small number of vowels; (3)…

Dynamic Development of Complexity and Accuracy: A Case Study in Second Language Academic Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rosmawati

2014-01-01

This paper reports on the development of complexity and accuracy in English as a Second Language (ESL) academic writing. Although research into complexity and accuracy development in second language (L2) writing has been well established, few studies have assumed the multidimensionality of these two constructs (Norris & Ortega, 2009) or…

Genre and Second-Language Academic Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Paltridge, Brian

2014-01-01

The term "genre" first came into the field of second-language (L2) writing and, in turn, the field of English for specific purposes (ESP) in the 1980s, with the research of John Swales, first carried out in the UK, into the introduction section of research articles. Other important figures in this area are Tony Dudley-Evans, Ann Johns…

Learner Characteristics and Writing Performance in a Community College English as a Second Language Course: Some Unexpected Findings

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lambert, Olga D.

2015-01-01

This study investigates the relationships between individual learner characteristics and gain in writing performance as measured by a standardized writing assessment in a sample of community college academic English as a Second Language (ESL) students in the United States. The ethnically and linguistically diverse convenience sample included 76…

Early differentiation between drawing and writing in Chinese children.

PubMed

Treiman, Rebecca; Yin, Li

2011-04-01

Children under 3½ years of age or so are often thought to produce the same types of scribbles for writing and drawing. We tested this idea by asking Chinese 2- to 6-year-olds to write and draw four targets. In Study 1, Chinese adults judged the status of the productions as writings or drawings. The adults performed significantly above the level expected by chance even with the productions of 2- to 2½-year-olds. In Study 2, we examined specific characteristics of the children's writings and drawings. Although the younger children's scribbles bore little resemblance to the correct characters, they tended to be smaller, sparser, and more angular than their artwork, with less filling in. Differences were also found in paper use and implement use. Children did not appear to distinguish writing from drawing for their own names before they did so for other targets. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

What Happens When I Write? Pupils' Writing about Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barbeiro, Luis Filipe

2011-01-01

This article presents pupils' awareness of writing as elicited through a metawriting task, in other words a task in which pupils from the third, fourth and sixth forms (grades) were required to write about writing. The analysis of the texts revealed the pupils' increasing ability to write texts focusing on writing and on the subject's relationship…

Universal Screening for Writing Risk in Kindergarten

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Coker, David L., Jr.; Ritchey, Kristen D.

2014-01-01

Early identification of students at risk for writing disabilities is an important step in improving writing performance. Kindergarten students (n = 84) were administered a set of researcher-developed writing tasks (letter writing, sound spelling, word spelling, and sentence writing) and school-administered reading tasks ("Dynamic Indicators…

Conducting Approaches and Recommendations for the Performance of Igor Stravinsky's "L'Histoire du Soldat"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Denti, Joseph R.

2013-01-01

This study examines "L'Histoire du Soldat" from the conductor's perspective. The review of literature examines texts on score study and conducting technique, analyzes writing on the interpretation of Stravinsky's conducting approach and his view on conductors, and provides works on the history and analysis of "L'Histoire du…

Tips on Teaching Writing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Today's Education, 1982

1982-01-01

Techniques for stirring students' interest in writing include: (1) exposing them to eloquent language use; (2) group poetry-writing (each student writes one line of a class poem); and (3) adapting why-and-because outlines intended for teaching college writing for use by younger students. Suggestions for obtaining writing quantity and quality are…

A Think-Aloud Protocols Investigation of Saudi English Major Students' Writing Revision Strategies in L1 (Arabic) and L2 (English)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alhaisoni, Eid

2012-01-01

This study investigates the writing revision strategies used by 16 Saudi English as foreign language (EFL) students. Two research methods were employed. First, think-aloud reporting was used to gain insight into the thought processes utilized by the students, and to study the revision strategies that Saudi male university students make use of…

Imagining Writing Futures: Photography, Writing, and Technology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McLean, Cheryl A.; Rowsell, Jennifer

2015-01-01

The article examines high school students' writing composition practices in multimodal instructional environments. We use Rosenblatt's transactional theory to look across the findings of 2 studies that blend traditional and digital modes of instruction in order to explore how modal switching can support students' reading and writing. We also…

Investigating L2 Performance in Text Chat

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sauro, Shannon; Smith, Bryan

2010-01-01

This study examines the linguistic complexity and lexical diversity of both overt and covert L2 output produced during synchronous written computer-mediated communication, also referred to as chat. Video enhanced chatscripts produced by university learners of German (N = 23) engaged in dyadic task-based chat interaction were coded and analyzed for…

The Use of Epistemic Markers as a Means of Hedging and Boosting in the Discourse of L1 and L2 Speakers of Modern Greek: A Corpus-Based Study in Informal Letter-Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Efstathiadi, Lia

2010-01-01

The paper investigates the semantic area of Epistemic Modality in Modern Greek, by means of a corpus-based research. A comparative, quantitative study was performed between written corpora (informal letter-writing) of non-native informants with various language backgrounds and Greek native speakers. A number of epistemic markers were selected for…

Reading and writing performances of children 7-8 years of age with developmental coordination disorder in Taiwan.

PubMed

Cheng, Hsiang-Chun; Chen, Jenn-Yeu; Tsai, Chia-Liang; Shen, Miau-Lin; Cherng, Rong-Ju

2011-01-01

Developmental coordination disorder (DCD) refers to a delay in motor development that does not have any known medical cause. Studies conducted in English speaking societies have found that children with DCD display a higher co-occurrence rate of learning difficulties (e.g., problems in reading and writing) than typically developing (TD) children. The present study examined the reading and writing performance of school-aged children with DCD and TD children in Taiwan to determine whether reading and writing difficulties also co-occur with DCD in a non-English speaking society. The Chinese Reading Achievement Test and the Basic Reading and Writing Test were administered to 37 children with DCD (7.8 ± 0.6 years) and 93 TD children (8.0 ± 0.7 years). Children with DCD had significantly lower writing composite scores than TD children on the Basic Reading and Writing Test (105.9 ± 20.0 vs. 114.4 ± 19.9). However, there were no significant differences between children with DCD and TD children in their scores on the Chinese Reading Achievement Test and in their reading composite scores on the Basic Reading and Writing Test. These results contrasted interestingly with those obtained from English-speaking children: English-speaking DCD children showed poorer reading and poorer writing than English-speaking TD children. The possibility that the logographic nature of the Chinese script might have protected the DCD children against additional reading difficulty is discussed. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Voice Blogging and L2 Speaking Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hsu, Hsiu-Chen

2016-01-01

This paper reports on an exploratory study that investigated the effect of extensive speaking practice on the development of L2 speaking complexity, accuracy, and fluency in voice blogging. The participants were 30 college EFL (English as a foreign language) learners in Taiwan. As a supplement to the insufficient speaking practice in class, each…

EqualWrites: Reducing Intra-set Write Variations for Enhancing Lifetime of Non-volatile Caches

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Mittal, Sparsh; Vetter, Jeffrey S.

Driven by the trends of increasing core-count and bandwidth-wall problem, the size of last level caches (LLCs) has greatly increased and hence, the researchers have explored non-volatile memories (NVMs) which provide high density and consume low-leakage power. Since NVMs have low write-endurance and the existing cache management policies are write variation-unaware, effective wear-leveling techniques are required for achieving reasonable cache lifetimes using NVMs. We present EqualWrites, a technique for mitigating intra-set write variation. In this paper, our technique works by recording the number of writes on a block and changing the cache-block location of a hot data-item to redirect themore » future writes to a cold block to achieve wear-leveling. Simulation experiments have been performed using an x86-64 simulator and benchmarks from SPEC06 and HPC (high-performance computing) field. The results show that for single, dual and quad-core system configurations, EqualWrites improves cache lifetime by 6.31X, 8.74X and 10.54X, respectively. In addition, its implementation overhead is very small and it provides larger improvement in lifetime than three other intra-set wear-leveling techniques and a cache replacement policy.« less

EqualWrites: Reducing Intra-set Write Variations for Enhancing Lifetime of Non-volatile Caches

DOE PAGES

Mittal, Sparsh; Vetter, Jeffrey S.

2015-01-29

Driven by the trends of increasing core-count and bandwidth-wall problem, the size of last level caches (LLCs) has greatly increased and hence, the researchers have explored non-volatile memories (NVMs) which provide high density and consume low-leakage power. Since NVMs have low write-endurance and the existing cache management policies are write variation-unaware, effective wear-leveling techniques are required for achieving reasonable cache lifetimes using NVMs. We present EqualWrites, a technique for mitigating intra-set write variation. In this paper, our technique works by recording the number of writes on a block and changing the cache-block location of a hot data-item to redirect themore » future writes to a cold block to achieve wear-leveling. Simulation experiments have been performed using an x86-64 simulator and benchmarks from SPEC06 and HPC (high-performance computing) field. The results show that for single, dual and quad-core system configurations, EqualWrites improves cache lifetime by 6.31X, 8.74X and 10.54X, respectively. In addition, its implementation overhead is very small and it provides larger improvement in lifetime than three other intra-set wear-leveling techniques and a cache replacement policy.« less

Exploring Discordance between Self-Efficacy and Writing Performance among Low-Literate Adult Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anastasiou, Dimitris; Michail, Domna

2013-01-01

The paper explores accordance or discordance between efficacy beliefs of adult students and their writing performance, using a mixed methods design. The participants are 33 students with learning disabilities (LD) and 35 low-achieving (LA) students, who were attending two Second-Chance Schools (SCSs), a specific type of adult education.…

The Los Altos Writing Project.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kraft, Richard F.

The intent of this guide is to encourage teachers to have students write, both formally and informally, on a systematic basis. Three types of writing are emphasized: (1) journal writing; (2) research paper writing; and (3) essay writing. The section on journal writing includes a handout for the class explaining the purpose for journal writing and…

Matching Vocabulary Learning Process with Learning Outcome in L2 Academic Writing: An Exploratory Case Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ma, Qing

2013-01-01

This exploratory case study of two undergraduates links vocabulary learning approaches with lexical quality measured in academic writing. Employing an array of qualitative data, it is shown that in a "semi-language-rich" learning context, Chinese learners may dispense with rote learning and engage in a more natural learning approach in which…

Innovative Writing Instruction: Writing Selves, Writing Stories

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kinloch, Valeria, Ed.

2009-01-01

In this third "Innovative Writing Instruction" column, the author invited a former high school teacher on the verge of preparing for doctoral candidacy exams, an instructor and doctoral student interested in writing research/practice, and a university supervisor for teacher education preservice students to share aspects of their writing selves,…

E-Portfolio as a Corrective Platform towards EFL Students' Overall/Componential Writing Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saeedi, Zari; Meihami, Hussein

2015-01-01

This paper aims at accentuating and exploring the effect of using electronic portfolio (EP) platform in providing corrective feedback (CF) on EFL students' overall and micro-componential writing performance. Moreover, by conducting a semi-structured interview, the study seeks to obtain students' attitudes towards the use of EP in three aspects,…

Aphasia and text writing.

PubMed

Behrns, Ingrid; Ahlsén, Elisabeth; Wengelin, Asa

2010-01-01

Good writing skills are needed in almost every aspect of life today, and there is a growing interest in research into acquired writing difficulties. Most of the findings reported so far, however, are based on words produced in isolation. The present study deals with the production of entire texts. The aim was to characterize written narratives produced by a group of participants with aphasia. Eight persons aged 28-63 years with aphasia took part in the study. They were compared with a reference group consisting of ten participants aged 21-30 years. All participants were asked to write a personal narrative titled 'I have never been so afraid' and to perform a picture-based story-generation task called the 'Frog Story'. The texts were written on a computer. The group could be divided into participants with low, moderate, and high general performance, respectively. The texts written by the participants in the group with moderate and high writing performance had comparatively good narrative structure despite indications of difficulties on other linguistic levels. Aphasia appeared to influence text writing on different linguistic levels. The impact on overall structure and coherence was in line with earlier findings from the analysis of spoken and written discourse and the implication of this is that the written modality should also be included in language rehabilitation. 2010 Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists.

Using Authentic Picture Books and Illustrated Books to Improve L2 Writing among 11-Year-Olds

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Birketveit, Anna; Rimmereide, Hege Emma

2017-01-01

The case study investigates what impact extensive reading of authentic picture books/illustrated books had on the learners' writing skills in a Norwegian EFL (English as a foreign language) classroom of 11-year-olds. Furthermore, the study also looks into the importance the pictures/illustrations had for the learners and what type of picture-text…

Mitigation of Disagreement in Peer Review among L2 Learners and Native Speakers in a College Writing Class (Mitigación del Impacto de las Opiniones de Desacuerdo en el Proceso de Revisión por Pares entre Estudiantes de una Segunda Lengua y Hablantes Nativos en una Clase de Escritura a Nivel Universitario)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Christoffersen, Katherine O'Donnell

2015-01-01

Peer review is now a commonplace practice in process-oriented writing instruction. A crucial aspect of peer review is assessing another classmate's work, which encompasses the act of disagreement. Given its prevalence in the classroom, it is necessary to analyze how L2 learners mitigate disagreement in the context of peer review with other L2…

Phonemic Awareness and Beginning Reading and Writing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kamii, Constance; Manning, Maryann

2002-01-01

Examined English-speaking preschoolers' level of writing and their performance on oral-segmentation tasks. Found a close relationship between children's levels of writing and their levels of oral segmentation on a writing task in which they were asked to write four pairs of words, for example, "ham" and "hamster." Concluded…

Assimilation of L2 vowels to L1 phonemes governs L2 learning in adulthood: a behavioral and ERP study

PubMed Central

Grimaldi, Mirko; Sisinni, Bianca; Gili Fivela, Barbara; Invitto, Sara; Resta, Donatella; Alku, Paavo; Brattico, Elvira

2014-01-01

According to the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM), articulatory similarity/dissimilarity between sounds of the second language (L2) and the native language (L1) governs L2 learnability in adulthood and predicts L2 sound perception by naïve listeners. We performed behavioral and neurophysiological experiments on two groups of university students at the first and fifth years of the English language curriculum and on a group of naïve listeners. Categorization and discrimination tests, as well as the mismatch negativity (MMN) brain response to L2 sound changes, showed that the discriminatory capabilities of the students did not significantly differ from those of the naïve subjects. In line with the PAM model, we extend the findings of previous behavioral studies showing that, at the neural level, classroom instruction in adulthood relies on assimilation of L2 vowels to L1 phoneme categories and does not trigger improvement in L2 phonetic discrimination. Implications for L2 classroom teaching practices are discussed. PMID:24860470

Engagement Portraits and (Socio)linguistic Performance: A Transversal and Longitudinal Study of Advanced L2 Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mougeon, Françoise; Rehner, Katherine

2015-01-01

This study considers, both transversally and longitudinally, advanced second language (L2) learners' profile portraits, how these correlate with their sociolinguistic and linguistic performance, and how changes in these portraits over time connect to changes in sociolinguistic performance. The results show a strong correlation between high degrees…

Writing interventions in older adults and former children of the World War II: impact on quality of life and depression.

PubMed

Schmidt, Silke; Hahm, Stefanie; Freitag, Simone

2017-06-05

The aim of the current study was to analyze whether biographical writing interventions have an impact on depression and QoL compared to daily diary writing. We also wanted to investigate differential effects between structured and unstructured interventions. In two Northern regions of Germany, 119 older adults aged 64-90 were randomly assigned to three different types of narrative writing interventions: written structured and unstructured biographical disclosure as well as daily diary writing. Depression (PHQ-9), QoL (SF-12, EUROHIS) and trauma-related symptoms (PCL-C) were obtained pre- and post-interventions as well as at three-month follow-up. Follow-up measures were obtained from 85 participants (29% loss to follow-up; mean age = 73.88; 68.2% female). Results of repeated measurement analysis demonstrated a significant effect on depression with the daily diary writing group showing lower depressive symptoms than structured biographical writing. We did not find a significant impact on QoL. Post-hoc analyses showed that posttraumatic symptoms lead to increases in depressive symptoms. In a non-clinical sample of community-dwelling older adults, biographical writing interventions were not favorable to daily diary writing concerning the outcomes of the study. This might be related to the association of traumtic reminiscences of former children of World War II and outcome measures.

Corrective Feedback in L2 Writing: Theoretical Perspectives, Empirical Insights, and Future Directions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Van Beuningen, Catherine

2010-01-01

The role of (written) corrective feedback (CF) in the process of acquiring a second language (L2) has been an issue of considerable controversy among theorists and researchers alike. Although CF is a widely applied pedagogical tool and its use finds support in SLA theory, practical and theoretical objections to its usefulness have been raised…

The role of expressive writing in math anxiety.

PubMed

Park, Daeun; Ramirez, Gerardo; Beilock, Sian L

2014-06-01

Math anxiety is a negative affective reaction to situations involving math. Previous work demonstrates that math anxiety can negatively impact math problem solving by creating performance-related worries that disrupt the working memory needed for the task at hand. By leveraging knowledge about the mechanism underlying the math anxiety-performance relationship, we tested the effectiveness of a short expressive writing intervention that has been shown to reduce intrusive thoughts and improve working memory availability. Students (N = 80) varying in math anxiety were asked to sit quietly (control group) prior to completing difficulty-matched math and word problems or to write about their thoughts and feelings regarding the exam they were about to take (expressive writing group). For the control group, high math-anxious individuals (HMAs) performed significantly worse on the math problems than low math-anxious students (LMAs). In the expressive writing group, however, this difference in math performance across HMAs and LMAs was significantly reduced. Among HMAs, the use of words related to anxiety, cause, and insight in their writing was positively related to math performance. Expressive writing boosts the performance of anxious students in math-testing situations. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Writing Performance of At-Risk Learners in Online Credit Recovery

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leiter, Michael P.

2012-01-01

Online credit recovery is becoming a popular choice for students needing to recover lost graduation credit due to course failure. The problem is that high school students who take online credit recovery classes in order to gain writing credit for graduation are failing the writing section on the state merit exam (MME). At-risk students and…

"One Task Fits All"? The Roles of Task Complexity, Modality, and Working Memory Capacity in L2 Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zalbidea, Janire

2017-01-01

The present study explores the independent and interactive effects of task complexity and task modality on linguistic dimensions of second language (L2) performance and investigates how these effects are modulated by individual differences in working memory capacity. Thirty-two intermediate learners of L2 Spanish completed less and more complex…

Medical Writing Competency Model - Section 1: Functions, Tasks, and Activities.

PubMed

Clemow, David B; Wagner, Bertil; Marshallsay, Christopher; Benau, Dan; L'Heureux, Darryl; Brown, David H; Dasgupta, Devjani Ghosh; Girten, Eileen; Hubbard, Frank; Gawrylewski, Helle-Mai; Ebina, Hiroko; Stoltenborg, Janet; York, J P; Green, Kim; Wood, Linda Fossati; Toth, Lisa; Mihm, Michael; Katz, Nancy R; Vasconcelos, Nina-Maria; Sakiyama, Norihisa; Whitsell, Robin; Gopalakrishnan, Shobha; Bairnsfather, Susan; Wanderer, Tatyana; Schindler, Thomas M; Mikyas, Yeshi; Aoyama, Yumiko

2018-01-01

This article provides Section 1 of the 2017 Edition 2 Medical Writing Competency Model that describes the core work functions and associated tasks and activities related to professional medical writing within the life sciences industry. The functions in the Model are scientific communication strategy; document preparation, development, and finalization; document project management; document template, standard, format, and style development and maintenance; outsourcing, alliance partner, and client management; knowledge, skill, ability, and behavior development and sharing; and process improvement. The full Model also includes Section 2, which covers the knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors needed for medical writers to be effective in their roles; Section 2 is presented in a companion article. Regulatory, publication, and other scientific writing as well as management of writing activities are covered. The Model was developed to aid medical writers and managers within the life sciences industry regarding medical writing hiring, training, expectation and goal setting, performance evaluation, career development, retention, and role value sharing to cross-functional partners.

On the Role of L1 Markedness and L2 Input Robustness in Determining Potentially Fossilizable Language Forms in Iranian EFL Learners' Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nushi, Musa

2016-01-01

Han's (2009, 2013) selective fossilization hypothesis (SFH) claims that L1 markedness and L2 input robustness determine the fossilizability (and learnability) of an L2 feature. To test the validity of the model, a pseudo-longitudinal study was designed in which the errors in the argumentative essays of 52 Iranian EFL learners were identified and…

Setting Writing Revision Goals after Assessment for Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huang, Shu-Chen

2015-01-01

This study examined the effects of goal setting for revision in an EFL writing classroom where principles of assessment "for" learning (AfL) were followed. Following draft writing, instruction, and assessment, college freshmen were put into control, goal, and goal+ groups. Before students started to revise their drafts, individuals in…

Improving Cohesion in L2 Writing: A Three-Strand Approach to Building Lexical Cohesion

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, Mark

2017-01-01

This article presents a three-strand approach to help L2 writers in English as a foreign language (EFL) and English as a second language (ESL) instructional contexts achieve greater cohesion in their written work. The approach focuses on (1) the analysis of authentic texts, (2) the development of productive vocabulary, and (3) information…

Kanji Recognition by Second Language Learners: Exploring Effects of First Language Writing Systems and Second Language Exposure

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Matsumoto, Kazumi

2013-01-01

This study investigated whether learners of Japanese with different first language (L1) writing systems use different recognition strategies and whether second language (L2) exposure affects L2 kanji recognition. The study used a computerized lexical judgment task with 3 types of kanji characters to investigate these questions: (a)…

Improving Students' Summary Writing Ability through Collaboration: A Comparison between Online Wiki Group and Conventional Face-To-Face Group

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wichadee, Saovapa

2013-01-01

Wikis, as one of the Web 2.0 social networking tools, have been increasingly integrated into second language (L2) instruction to promote collaborative writing. The current study examined and compared summary writing abilities between students learning by wiki-based collaboration and students learning by traditional face-to-face collaboration.…

Working Memory in L2 Reading: Does Capacity Predict Performance?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harrington, Michael; Sawyer, Mark

A study was conducted at the International University of Japan to see if second language (L2) working capacity correlates with L2 reading ability in advanced English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learners. The study consisted of a set of memory tests (Simple Digit, Simple Word, and Complex Span Test) and a set of measures of reading skills given to…

On the effects of L2 perception and of individual differences in L1 production on L2 pronunciation

PubMed Central

Kartushina, Natalia; Frauenfelder, Ulrich H.

2014-01-01

The speech of late second language (L2) learners is generally marked by an accent. The dominant theoretical perspective attributes accents to deficient L2 perception arising from a transfer of L1 phonology, which is thought to influence L2 perception and production. In this study we evaluate the explanatory role of L2 perception in L2 production and explore alternative explanations arising from the L1 phonological system, such as for example, the role of L1 production. Specifically we examine the role of an individual’s L1 productions in the production of L2 vowel contrasts. Fourteen Spanish adolescents studying French at school were assessed on their perception and production of the mid-close/mid-open contrasts, /ø-œ/ and /e-ε/, which are, respectively, acoustically distinct from Spanish sounds, or similar to them. The participants’ native productions were explored to assess (1) the variability in the production of native vowels (i.e., the compactness of vowel categories in F1/F2 acoustic space), and (2) the position of the vowels in the acoustic space. The results revealed that although poorly perceived contrasts were generally produced poorly, there was no correlation between individual performance in perception and production, and no effect of L2 perception on L2 production in mixed-effects regression analyses. This result is consistent with a growing body of psycholinguistic and neuroimaging research that suggest partial dissociations between L2 perception and production. In contrast, individual differences in the compactness and position of native vowels predicted L2 production accuracy. These results point to existence of surface transfer of individual L1 phonetic realizations to L2 space and demonstrate that pre-existing features of the native space in production partly determine how new sounds can be accommodated in that space. PMID:25414678

Grant Writing for Beginners: Part 2--Five More Tips on How to Write an Effective Grant Application

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brooks, Douglas

2008-01-01

In this article, Part 2, the author discusses five more steps on how to write an effective grant application. Suggestions include: (1) Start with the goals; (2) Create a project timeline from the goals; (3) Create an evaluation plan from the timeline; (4) Group edit using a large-screen projector and laser pointers; and (5) Create the application…

Using the Science Writing Heuristic in the General Chemistry Laboratory to Improve Students' Academic Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Poock, Jason R.; Burke, K. A.; Greenbowe, Thomas J.; Hand, Brian M.

2007-01-01

The analysis describes the effects of using the science writing heuristic (SWH) in the general chemistry laboratory on the students' academic performance. The technique has found to be extremely important factor in a student's learning process and achievement in science.

Syntactic Complexity, Lexical Variation and Accuracy as a Function of Task Complexity and Proficiency Level in L2 Writing and Speaking

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kuiken, Folkert; Vedder, Ineke

2012-01-01

The research project reported in this chapter consists of three studies in which syntactic complexity, lexical variation and fluency appear as dependent variables. The independent variables are task complexity and proficiency level, as the three studies investigate the effect of task complexity on the written and oral performance of L2 learners of…

The Effect of Electronic Dialogue Journaling on Jordanian Basic Stage EFL Students' Writing Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

El-Koumy, Abdel Salam Abdel Khalek; Mirjan, Zahra' Imad

2008-01-01

This study aimed at investigating the effect of electronic dialogue journaling on Jordanian upper basic stage EFL students' writing performance. The study utilized a pretest-posttest control group experimental design. The subjects of the study consisted of fifty students enrolled in the Islamic Educational School during the first semester of the…

Comparison of reading-writing patterns and performance of students with and without reading difficulties.

PubMed

Fidalgo, Raquel; Torrance, Mark; Arias-Gundín, Olga; Martínez-Cocó, Begoña

2014-01-01

This paper analyses performance and the process used in carrying out a common hybrid task, such as, summarizing a text, from a developmental point of view and comparing the differences between students with and without reading difficulties. 548 students typically developing and 54 students with learning difficulties for reading (grades 5 to 8, ages 11 to 14) read and summarized a text using the triple task technique and then they did a comprehension questionnaire. Attention was paid to the various activities undertaken during this task, their cognitive cost, and the organization of reading and writing activities throughout the exercise, together with performance through evaluation of the summary and the reading comprehension questionnaire. There were no significant differences in performance or strategies used for the task between students of primary and secondary education. A linear reading-writing process was mostly employed by both, with greater cost and time needed by primary students. Students with reading difficulties did not show any strategies compensating for the greater difficulty and cognitive cost that the task represents for them. The effective and strategic use of summarizing as a learning tool seems to demand a specific training for students with or without reading difficulties.

Phonological and Executive Working Memory in L2 Task-Based Speech Planning and Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wen, Zhisheng

2016-01-01

The present study sets out to explore the distinctive roles played by two working memory (WM) components in various aspects of L2 task-based speech planning and performance. A group of 40 post-intermediate proficiency level Chinese EFL learners took part in the empirical study. Following the tenets and basic principles of the…

Writing for Health: Rationale and Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial of Internet-Based Benefit-Finding Writing for Adults With Type 1 or Type 2 Diabetes

PubMed Central

Wilhelm, Kay; Robins, Lisa; Proudfoot, Judy

2017-01-01

Background Diabetes mellitus is Australia’s fastest growing chronic disease, and has high comorbidity with depression. Both subthreshold depression and diabetes distress are common amongst people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes, and are associated with poorer diabetes self-care. A need exists for low-intensity self-help interventions for large numbers of people with diabetes and diabetes distress or subthreshold depression, as part of a stepped-care approach to meeting the psychological needs of people with diabetes. Benefit-finding writing is a very brief intervention that involves writing about any positive thoughts and feelings about a stressful experience, such as an illness. Benefit-finding writing has been associated with increases in positive affect and positive growth, and has demonstrated promising results in trials amongst other clinical populations. However, benefit-finding writing has not yet been examined in people with diabetes. Objective The aim of this randomized controlled trial (RCT) is to evaluate the efficacy of an Internet-based benefit-finding writing (iBFW) intervention for adults with type 1 or type 2 diabetes (compared to a control writing condition) for reducing diabetes distress and increasing benefit-finding in diabetes, and also improving a range of secondary outcomes. Methods A two-arm RCT will be conducted, using the online program Writing for Health. Adults with type 1 or type 2 diabetes living in Australia will be recruited using diabetes-related publications and websites, and through advertisements in diabetes services and general practitioners’ offices. Potential participants will be referred to the study-specific website for participant information and screening. All data will be collected online. Participants will be randomized to either iBFW about diabetes, or a control writing condition of writing about use-of-time. Both conditions involve three daily sessions (once per day for three consecutive days) of 15-minute online

Write! Write! Write! Ready-to-Use Writing Process Activities for Grades 4-8.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Behrman, Carol H.

This handbook contains over 265 reproducible writing process activities that help make writing fun for students in grades 4-8. The handbook provides stimulating activities to give students the directed practice they need to learn to write clearly and competently. Designed for minimal teacher input, activities are complete with directions geared to…

English Language Learners' Nonword Repetition Performance: The Influence of Age, L2 Vocabulary Size, Length of L2 Exposure, and L1 Phonology.

PubMed

Duncan, Tamara Sorenson; Paradis, Johanne

2016-02-01

This study examined individual differences in English language learners' (ELLs) nonword repetition (NWR) accuracy, focusing on the effects of age, English vocabulary size, length of exposure to English, and first-language (L1) phonology. Participants were 75 typically developing ELLs (mean age 5;8 [years;months]) whose exposure to English began on average at age 4;4. Children spoke either a Chinese language or South Asian language as an L1 and were given English standardized tests for NWR and receptive vocabulary. Although the majority of ELLs scored within or above the monolingual normal range (71%), 29% scored below. Mixed logistic regression modeling revealed that a larger English vocabulary, longer English exposure, South Asian L1, and older age all had significant and positive effects on ELLs' NWR accuracy. Error analyses revealed the following L1 effect: onset consonants were produced more accurately than codas overall, but this effect was stronger for the Chinese group whose L1s have a more limited coda inventory compared with English. ELLs' NWR performance is influenced by a number of factors. Consideration of these factors is important in deciding whether monolingual norm referencing is appropriate for ELL children.

L1 and L2 Spoken Word Processing: Evidence from Divided Attention Paradigm.

PubMed

Shafiee Nahrkhalaji, Saeedeh; Lotfi, Ahmad Reza; Koosha, Mansour

2016-10-01

The present study aims to reveal some facts concerning first language (L 1 ) and second language (L 2 ) spoken-word processing in unbalanced proficient bilinguals using behavioral measures. The intention here is to examine the effects of auditory repetition word priming and semantic priming in first and second languages of these bilinguals. The other goal is to explore the effects of attention manipulation on implicit retrieval of perceptual and conceptual properties of spoken L 1 and L 2 words. In so doing, the participants performed auditory word priming and semantic priming as memory tests in their L 1 and L 2 . In a half of the trials of each experiment, they carried out the memory test while simultaneously performing a secondary task in visual modality. The results revealed that effects of auditory word priming and semantic priming were present when participants processed L 1 and L 2 words in full attention condition. Attention manipulation could reduce priming magnitude in both experiments in L 2 . Moreover, L 2 word retrieval increases the reaction times and reduces accuracy on the simultaneous secondary task to protect its own accuracy and speed.

Interpersonal Stance in L1 and L2 Students' Argumentative Writing in Economics: Implications for Faculty Development in WAC/WID Programs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lancaster, Zak

2011-01-01

This article offers a linguistic analysis of interpersonal stancetaking in four argumentative term papers written in an upper-level undergraduate course in economics. Two of the papers were written by English L2 writers who experienced particular difficulty with the assignment and two by English L1 writers who received the highest grades among the…

Rewriting and Paraphrasing Source Texts in Second Language Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shi, Ling

2012-01-01

The present study is based on interviews with 48 students and 27 instructors in a North American university and explores whether students and professors across faculties share the same views on the use of paraphrased, summarized, and translated texts in four examples of L2 student writing. Participants' comments centered on whether the paraphrases…

The Effects of Synchronous Text-Based Computer-Mediated Communication Tasks on the Development of L2 and Academic Literacy: A Mixed Methods Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Li, Jinrong

2012-01-01

The dissertation examines how synchronous text-based computer-mediated communication (SCMC) tasks may affect English as a Second Language (ESL) learners' development of second language (L2) and academic literacy. The study is motivated by two issues concerning the use of SCMC tasks in L2 writing classes. First, although some of the alleged…

A Comparative Study of the Writing/Spelling Performances of "Normal," Dyslexic, and Dysgraphic Children.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sovik, Nils; Arntzen, Oddvar

1986-01-01

General movement/feedback theory and a "two-routes" theoretical model were tested on 24 normal, 24 dyslexic, and 24 dysgraphic children. Familiarity of the test items and complexity and length of required movement pattern played an important role in the writing/spelling performance of the nine-year-old subjects defined as dyslexic or dysgraphic.…

Writing for understanding: The effect of using informational writing on student science achievement

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Parson, Atiya

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate whether or not informational writing in the science curriculum would impact fifth grade students' science achievement and conceptual understanding. The population of this study came from a metropolitan school district in the state of Georgia for school year 2012-2013. The quantitative data included students' pretest, posttest, and writing assessment scores. Examination approaches for this study included (a) examining theories and research on learning views for children, (b) determining how writing across the curriculum has worked, and (c) developing a research design for the present study that was based on findings from previous studies. The study was designed to find (a) whether there is a significant differences in science achievement between fifth-grade students who use informational writing weekly during science instruction and ones that do not, and (b) whether there is a significant differences in conceptual understanding of fifth-grade science content for students who use informational writing weekly and fifth-grade students who do not. To answer these questions, students pretest and posttest results were compared to determine if a statistical significance existed after informational writing was implemented in the experimental group for 10 weeks. The results indicate that there was no significant difference in test scores between students receiving the informational writing intervention and students without this intervention. However, this study found that students receiving informational writing intervention had better performance scores on conceptual writing assessment than the students without the intervention.

Intersectional Computer-Supported Collaboration in Business Writing: Learning through Challenged Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Remley, Dirk

2009-01-01

Carter (2007) identifies four meta-genres associated with writing activities that can help students learn discipline-specific writing skills relative to standards within a given field: these include problem solving, empirical approaches to analysis, selection of sources to use within research, and production of materials that meet accepted…

Enhancing Successful Outcomes of Wiki-Based Collaborative Writing: A State-of-the-Art Review of Facilitation Frameworks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stoddart, Andrew; Chan, Joe Yong-Yi; Liu, Gi-Zen

2016-01-01

This state-of-the-art review research undertook a survey of a variety of studies regarding wiki-based collaborative writing projects and from this body of work extracted the best practices tenets of facilitation. Wiki-based collaborative writing projects are becoming more common in second language (L2) pedagogy. Such projects have multiple aims.…

A review of primary writing tremor.

PubMed

Rana, Abdul Qayyum; Vaid, Haris M

2012-03-01

A task-specific tremor (TST) is a rare form of movement disorder that appears while performing or attempting to perform a particular task. Primary writing tremor (PWT) is the most common form of TST which only occurs during the act of writing and hinders it. (Bain PG, Findley LJ, Britton TC, Rothwell JC, Gresty MA, Thompson PD, Marsden CD. MRC Human Movement, and Balance Unit, Institute of Neurology, London, UK. Primary writing tremor. Brain. 1995;118(6):1461-72.) Primary writing tremor type B is present not only during the act of writing but also when the hand assumes a writing posture. (Bain PG, Findley LJ, Britton TC, Rothwell JC, Gresty MA, Thompson PD, Marsden CD. MRC Human Movement and Balance Unit, Institute of Neurology, London, UK. Primary writing tremor. Brain. 1995;118(6):1461-72.) We first of all describe a remarkable case study of a 50-year old, right-handed male who started experiencing a primary writing tremor in his right hand about a year ago. This case was found to be of particular interest because the patient had it relatively difficult when attempting to write numbers as opposed to writing letters. This review further discusses the clinical manifestations of PWT. In addition, three main hypotheses have been proposed for the causation of PWT, although the exact pathophysiology of PWT still remains unknown. It has been suggested that PWT is a separate entity, a variant of essential tremor and not a separate entity, or a type of dystonia. The various treatment options for PWT are discussed including botulinum toxin and oral pharmacotherapy.

Cognitive and Motivational Challenges in Writing: Studying the Relation with Writing Performance across Students' Gender and Achievement Level

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

De Smedt, Fien; Merchie, Emmelien; Barendse, Mariska; Rosseel, Yves; De Naeghel, Jessie; Van Keer, Hilde

2018-01-01

In the past, several assessment reports on writing repeatedly showed that elementary school students do not develop the essential writing skills to be successful in school. In this respect, prior research has pointed to the fact that cognitive and motivational challenges are at the root of the rather basic level of elementary students' writing…

How Does the Science Writing Heuristic Approach Affect Students' Performances of Different Academic Achievement Levels? A Case for High School Chemistry

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kingir, Sevgi; Geban, Omer; Gunel, Murat

2012-01-01

This study investigates the effects of the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH), known as an argumentation-based science inquiry approach, on Grade 9 students' performance on a post-test in relation to their academic achievement levels. Four intact classes taught by 2 chemistry teachers from a Turkish public high school were selected for the study; one…

Exploring Associations among Writing Self-Perceptions, Writing Abilities, and Native Language of English-Spanish Two-Way Immersion Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Neugebauer, Sabina R.; Howard, Elizabeth R.

2015-01-01

The current study, with 409 fourth graders in two-way immersion programs, explored the writing self-perceptions of native English and native Spanish speakers and the relationship between self-perceptions and writing performance. An adapted version of the Writer Self-Perception Scale (WSPS) was administered along with a writing task. Native English…

Hand preference and skilled hand performance among individuals with successful rightward conversions of the writing hand.

PubMed

Porac, Clare

2009-03-01

Searleman and Porac (2001) studied lateral preference patterns among successfully switched left-hand writers, left-hand writers with no switch pressure history, and left-hand writers who did not switch when pressured. They concluded that left-handers who successfully shift to right-hand writing are following an inherent right-sided lateralisation pattern that they already possess. Searleman and Porac suggested that the neural mechanisms that control lateralisation in the successfully switched individuals are systematically different from those of other groups of left-handers. I examined patterns of skilled and less-skilled hand preference and skilled hand performance in a sample of 394 adults (ages 18-94 years). The sample contained successfully switched left-hand writers, left-handers pressured to shift who remained left-hand writers, left-handers who did not experience shift pressures, and right-handers. Both skilled hand preference and skilled hand performance were shifted towards the right side in successfully switched left-hand writers. This group also displayed mixed patterns of hand preference and skilled hand performance in that they were not as right-sided as "natural" right-handers nor were they as left-sided as the two left-hand writing groups, which did not differ from each other. The experience of being pressured to switch to right-hand writing was not sufficient to shift lateralisation patterns; the pressures must be experienced in the context of an underlying neural control mechanism that is amenable to change as a result of these external influences.

Reading in the Writing Classroom.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fagan, Edward R.

Reading in the writing classroom can be defined as a cluster of arbitrary categories, each with its own effect on the reading/writing process. Given this definition, it can be said that (1) perceptions significantly affect both reading and writing, (2) attitudes are factors in reading and writing, (3) rhetorical triangles are useful in teaching…

How L2 Legal Writers Use Strategies for Scholarly Writing: A Mixed Methods Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bain Butler, Donna

2010-01-01

This dissertation research fills existing gaps regarding the practices and processes of teaching second language (L2) writers at higher ranges of proficiency in law school context. It is a mixed methods, longitudinal, descriptive, writer-centered study. The research purpose was to explore strategic competence as a catalyst for professional…

Using gamification to develop academic writing skills in dental undergraduate students.

PubMed

El Tantawi, Maha; Sadaf, Shazia; AlHumaid, Jehan

2018-02-01

To assess the satisfaction of first-year dental students with gamification and its effect on perceived and actual improvement of academic writing. Two first-year classes of dental undergraduate students were recruited for the study which extended over 4 months and ended in January 2015. A pre-intervention assessment of students' academic writing skills was performed using criteria to evaluate writing. The same criteria were used to evaluate the final writing assignment after the intervention. Students' satisfaction with game aspects was assessed. The per cent change in writing score was regressed on scores of satisfaction with game aspects controlling for gender. Perceived improvement in writing was also assessed. Data from 87 (94.6%) students were available for analysis. Students' overall satisfaction with the gamified experience was modest [mean (SD) = 5.9 (2.1)] and so was their overall perception of improvement in writing [mean (SD) = 6.0 (2.2)]. The per cent score of the first assignment was 35.6 which improved to 80 in the last assignment. Satisfaction with playing the game was significantly associated with higher percentage of improvement in actual writing skills [regression coefficient (95% confidence interval) = 21.1 (1.9, 40.2)]. Using gamification in an obligatory course for first-year dental students was associated with an improvement in academic writing skills although students' satisfaction with game aspects was modest and their willingness to use gamification in future courses was minimal. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Talking Grammatically: L1 Adolescent Metalinguistic Reflection on Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Watson, Annabel Mary; Newman, Ruth Malka Charlotte

2017-01-01

This study investigated the metalinguistic reflections of 12 students, aged 14-15 years, undertaking a unit of work focused on reading and writing non-fiction. The unit embedded contextualised grammar teaching into preparation for English Language examinations. Students were interviewed twice, with prompts to discuss a sample of argument text in…

Information and Communication Technologies and the Impact of Gender on the Writing Performance of Students with ADHD

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Andreou, Georgia; Riga, Asimina; Papayiannis, Nikolaos

2016-01-01

The present study investigates whether the use of ICTs improves the writing performance of students with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). It also examines whether gender affects performance. A number of ADHD students were selected and were assessed for their use of a combination of distinct educational tools. Divided into two…

Medial-Vowel Writing Difficulty in Korean Syllabic Writing: A Characteristic Sign of Alzheimer's Disease

PubMed Central

Yoon, Ji Hye; Jeong, Yong

2018-01-01

Background and Purpose Korean-speaking patients with a brain injury may show agraphia that differs from that of English-speaking patients due to the unique features of Hangul syllabic writing. Each grapheme in Hangul must be arranged from left to right and/or top to bottom within a square space to form a syllable, which requires greater visuospatial abilities than when writing the letters constituting an alphabetic writing system. Among the Hangul grapheme positions within a syllable, the position of a vowel is important because it determines the writing direction and the whole configuration in Korean syllabic writing. Due to the visuospatial characteristics of the Hangul vowel, individuals with early-onset Alzheimer's disease (EOAD) may experiences differences between the difficulties of writing Hangul vowels and consonants due to prominent visuospatial dysfunctions caused by parietal lesions. Methods Eighteen patients with EOAD and 18 age-and-education-matched healthy adults participated in this study. The participants were requested to listen to and write 30 monosyllabic characters that consisted of an initial consonant, medial vowel, and final consonant with a one-to-one phoneme-to-grapheme correspondence. We measured the writing time for each grapheme, the pause time between writing the initial consonant and the medial vowel (P1), and the pause time between writing the medial vowel and the final consonant (P2). Results All grapheme writing and pause times were significantly longer in the EOAD group than in the controls. P1 was also significantly longer than P2 in the EOAD group. Conclusions Patients with EOAD might require a higher judgment ability and longer processing time for determining the visuospatial grapheme position before writing medial vowels. This finding suggests that a longer pause time before writing medial vowels is an early marker of visuospatial dysfunction in patients with EOAD. PMID:29504296

Medial-Vowel Writing Difficulty in Korean Syllabic Writing: A Characteristic Sign of Alzheimer's Disease.

PubMed

Yoon, Ji Hye; Jeong, Yong; Na, Duk L

2018-04-01

Korean-speaking patients with a brain injury may show agraphia that differs from that of English-speaking patients due to the unique features of Hangul syllabic writing. Each grapheme in Hangul must be arranged from left to right and/or top to bottom within a square space to form a syllable, which requires greater visuospatial abilities than when writing the letters constituting an alphabetic writing system. Among the Hangul grapheme positions within a syllable, the position of a vowel is important because it determines the writing direction and the whole configuration in Korean syllabic writing. Due to the visuospatial characteristics of the Hangul vowel, individuals with early-onset Alzheimer's disease (EOAD) may experiences differences between the difficulties of writing Hangul vowels and consonants due to prominent visuospatial dysfunctions caused by parietal lesions. Eighteen patients with EOAD and 18 age-and-education-matched healthy adults participated in this study. The participants were requested to listen to and write 30 monosyllabic characters that consisted of an initial consonant, medial vowel, and final consonant with a one-to-one phoneme-to-grapheme correspondence. We measured the writing time for each grapheme, the pause time between writing the initial consonant and the medial vowel (P1), and the pause time between writing the medial vowel and the final consonant (P2). All grapheme writing and pause times were significantly longer in the EOAD group than in the controls. P1 was also significantly longer than P2 in the EOAD group. Patients with EOAD might require a higher judgment ability and longer processing time for determining the visuospatial grapheme position before writing medial vowels. This finding suggests that a longer pause time before writing medial vowels is an early marker of visuospatial dysfunction in patients with EOAD. Copyright © 2018 Korean Neurological Association.

Formative Assessment and Writing: A Meta-Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Graham, Steve; Hebert, Michael; Harris, Karen R.

2015-01-01

To determine whether formative writing assessments that are directly tied to everyday classroom teaching and learning enhance students' writing performance, we conducted a meta-analysis of true and quasi-experiments conducted with students in grades 1 to 8. We found that feedback to students about writing from adults, peers, self, and computers…

Peer-Formativity: A Framework for Academic Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Murray, Rowena; Thow, Morag

2014-01-01

The system currently deployed to assess research outputs in higher education can influence what, how and for whom academics write; for some it may determine whether or not they write at all. This article offers a framework for negotiating this performative context--the writing meeting. This framework uses the established theoretical underpinning…

How to write an original article.

PubMed

Mateu Arrom, L; Huguet, J; Errando, C; Breda, A; Palou, J

2018-05-17

A correctly drafted original article gives information on what was done, why it was done, how it was done, the result of what was done, and the significance of what was done. Many articles fail to report their results effectively. To describe the characteristics of an original article and to give practical recommendations to prevent the most common errors in our environment. We performed a systematic search of the terms "how to write a scientific article", "structure of the original article" and "publishing an article" in the databases PubMed and SCOPUS. We analysed the structure of an original article and the characteristics of its parts and prepared advice on the publication of an article. The journal's guidelines for authors should be read. It is usual for the original article to follow the IMRAD structure: Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion. The introduction states briefly why the study was performed. The methods' section should give a detailed explanation of how the study was performed. The results should be clearly presented, with the help of tables, without repeating information. The discussion explains the relevance of the results and contrasts them with those of other authors. Any limitations and a conclusion supported by the results must be included. Writing an original article correctly requires practice and it must be supported by a good research work in order to be published. Copyright © 2018 AEU. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Atomistic modeling of L10 FePt: path to HAMR 5Tb/in2

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Tianran; Benakli, Mourad; Rea, Chris

2015-03-01

Heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) is a promising approach for increasing the storage density of hard disk drives. To increase data density, information must be written in small grains, which requires materials with high anisotropy energy such as L10 FePt. On the other hand, high anisotropy implies high coercivity, making it difficult to write the data with existing recording heads. This issue can be overcome by the technique of HAMR, where a laser is used to heat the recording medium to reduce its coercivity while retaining good thermal stability at room temperature due to the large anisotropy energy. One of the keys to the success of HAMR is the precise control of writing process. In this talk, I will propose a Monte Carlo simulation, based on an atomistic model, that would allow us to study the magnetic properties of L10 FePt and dynamics of spin reversal for the writing process in HAMR.

Air Writing as a Technique for the Acquisition of Sino-japanese Characters by Second Language Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thomas, Margaret

2015-01-01

This article calls attention to a facet of the expertise of second language (L2) learners of Japanese at the intersection of language, memory, gesture, and the psycholinguistics of a logographic writing system. Previous research has shown that adult L2 learners of Japanese living in Japan (similarly to native speakers of Japanese) often…

Investigation of Writing Strategies, Writing Apprehension, and Writing Achievement among Saudi EFL-Major Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Al Asmari, AbdulRahman

2013-01-01

The tenet of this study is to investigate the use of writing strategies in reducing writing apprehension and uncovering its effect on EFL students' writing achievement. It also attempts to explore associations between foreign language apprehension, writing achievement and writing strategies. The primary aims of the study were to explore the…

An Application of Brief Experimental Analysis with Early Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Parker, David C.; Dickey, Bradley N.; Burns, Matthew K.; McMaster, Kristen L.

2012-01-01

Students' poor performance on national assessments of writing suggests that educators need effective approaches to assess and intervene with writing problems. Brief experimental analysis (BEA) has supporting evidence for identifying interventions in reading, but little research has investigated BEA with writing. Early writing is an especially…

Professional Writing in the English Classroom: Professional Collaborative Writing--Teaching, Writing, and Learning--Together.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bush, Jonathan; Zuidema, Leah

2013-01-01

In this article, the authors report the importance of teaching students about collaborative writing. When teachers are effective in helping students to learn processes for collaborative writing, everyone involved needs to speak, listen, write, and read about how to write well and what makes writing good. Students are forced to "go meta"…

Exploring Collaborative Writing in Wikis: A Genre-Based Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Coccetta, Francesca

2015-01-01

While CALL research into collaborative writing in the L2 using wikis has mainly focused on the texts written by learners in terms of their grammatical accuracy (e.g. Mak & Coniam, 2008; Lee, 2010), the purpose of the present study is to draw attention to these texts as instances of a given genre. It reports on a small-scale experiment…

The Role of Self-, Peer and Teacher Assessment in Promoting Iranian EFL Learners' Writing Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Birjandi, Parviz; Hadidi Tamjid, Nasrin

2012-01-01

In the last decade, with the increased attention to learner-centred curricula, the topic of self-assessment and peer assessment has become of particular interest in testing and evaluation. The present study explores the role of self-assessment, and peer assessment in promoting writing performance of language learners. To do this, 157 intermediate…

The Most Preferred and Effective Reviewer of L2 Writing among Automated Grading System, Peer Reviewer and Teacher

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tsai, Min-Hsiu

2017-01-01

Who is the most preferred and deemed the most helpful reviewer in improving student writing? This study exercised a blended teaching method which consists of three currently prevailing reviewers: the automated grading system (AGS, a web-based method), the peer review (a process-oriented approach), and the teacher grading technique (the…

Writing Plan Quality: Relevance to Writing Scores

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chai, Constance

2006-01-01

If writing matters, how can we improve it? This study investigated the nature of writing plan quality and its relationship to the ensuing writing scores. Data were drawn from the 1998 Provincial Learning Assessment Programme (PLAP) in Writing, which was administered to pupils in Grades 4, 7, and 10 across British Columbia, Canada. Common features…

Symbols and Scrolls: Teaching Elementary Students about Historic Writing. Pull-out 2.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Christensen, Lois M.

1999-01-01

Describes a unit for elementary students on the history and technology of writing from ancient to medieval times. Includes a contemporary writing and print exercise, an ancient and medieval writing exercise, a research activity on the evolution of writing, a biography study, a fine arts exercise, and a community survey. Addresses the unit…

Impact of Recasts on the Accuracy in EFL Learners' Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Degteva, Olga

2011-01-01

Since the famous Truscott's "The case against grammar correction in L2 writing class" (1996) there has been an ongoing debate in SLA research about the value of corrective feedback and its different forms. A growing number of empirical research is now investigating the question, and although more and more evidence is obtained against Truscott's…

Screen Capture Technology: A Digital Window into Students' Writing Processes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Seror, Jeremie

2013-01-01

Technological innovations and the prevalence of the computer as a means of producing and engaging with texts have dramatically transformed how literacy is defined and developed in modern society. This rise in digital writing practices has led to a growing number of tools and methods that can be used to explore second language (L2) writing…

"Thinking-for-Writing": A Prolegomenon on Writing Signed Languages.

PubMed

Rosen, Russell S; Hartman, Maria C; Wang, Ye

2017-01-01

In his article in this American Annals of the Deaf special issue that also includes the present article, Grushkin argues that the writing difficulties of many deaf and hard of hearing children result primarily from the orthographic nature of the writing system; he proposes a new system based on features found in signed languages. In response, the present authors review the literature on D/HH children's writing difficulties, outline the main percepts of and assumptions about writing signed languages, discuss "thinking-for-writing" as a process in developing writing skills, offer research designs to test the effectiveness of writing signed language systems, and provide strategies for adopting "thinking-for-writing" in education. They conclude that until empirical studies show that writing signed languages effectively reflects writers' "thinking-for-writing," the alphabetic orthographic system of English should still be used, and ways should be found to teach D/HH children to use English writing to express their thoughts.

The Impact of First and Second Languages on Azerbaijani EFL Learners' Writing Ability

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shabani, Mansour; Tahriri, Abdorreza; Ardebili, Samaneh Farzaneh

2016-01-01

There has always been a debate whether or not the learners' first language (L1) can facilitate the process of learning foreign language. Since foreign language writing (FL) is a complicated process, it seems that the role of the learners' L1 and its effect on FL writing is of great importance in this regard. The present study aimed at…

Bringing Together Reading and Writing: An Experimental Study of Writing Intensive Reading Comprehension in Low-Performing Urban Elementary Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Collins, James L.; Lee, Jaekyung; Fox, Jeffery D.; Madigan, Timothy P.

2017-01-01

This study examined the hypothesis that assisted writing during reading improves reading comprehension. The hypothesis was derived from sociocognitive and constructivist theory and research and implemented in the form of a curricular intervention called Writing Intensive Reading Comprehension after its main feature of bringing together reading…

Generating Cultures of Writing: Collaborations between the Stanford Writing Center and High School Writing Centers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tinker, John

2006-01-01

For several years, the author has been working with colleagues in the Northern California Writing Centers Association (NCWCA) and the Stanford Writing Center to build bridges between college and high school writing centers. The writing center at Stanford defines one of its central goals as "celebrating a culture of writing" for all…

Toward a New Process-Based Indicator for Measuring Writing Fluency: Evidence from L2 Writers' Think-Aloud Protocols

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abdel Latif, Muhammad M.

2009-01-01

This article reports on a study aimed at testing the hypothesis that, because of strategic and temporal variables, composing rate and text quantity may not be valid measures of writing fluency. A second objective was to validate the mean length of writers' translating episodes as a process-based indicator that mirrors their fluent written…

Using an e-Portfolio System to Improve the Academic Writing Performance of ESL Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alshahrani, Ali; Windeatt, Scott

2012-01-01

Many intensive English language programmes that English second language (ESL) students enrol in adopt a process approach to writing, interpreting writing as a cognitive process that is highly private or individualistic (Atkinson, 2003), where writers use specific cognitive phases, such as pre-writing, drafting, and revising, to generate their…

English Majors' Self-Regulatory Control Strategy Use in Academic Writing and Its Relation to L2 Motivation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Csizér, Kata; Tankó, Gyula

2017-01-01

Apart from L2 motivation, self-regulation is also increasingly seen as a key variable in L2 learning in many foreign language learning contexts because classroom-centered instructive language teaching might not be able to provide sufficient input for students. Therefore, taking responsibility and regulating the learning processes and positive…

The Influence of Students' L1 and Spoken English in English Writing: A Corpus-Based Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Prihantoro

2016-01-01

Academic writing requires both style and grammatical correctness; however, efforts in improving the quality of English academic writing by non-native students have been focused on grammar. Structures observed in this study were grammatically correct, but considered unnatural in academic writing genre. This research involves a group of non-native…

Functional Anatomy of Writing with the Dominant Hand

PubMed Central

Najee-ullah, Muslimah ‘Ali; Hallett, Mark

2013-01-01

While writing performed by any body part is similar in style, indicating a common program, writing with the dominant hand is particularly skilled. We hypothesized that this skill utilizes a special motor network supplementing the motor equivalence areas. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging in 13 normal subjects, we studied nine conditions: writing, zigzagging and tapping, each with the right hand, left hand and right foot. We identified brain regions activated with the right (dominant) hand writing task, exceeding the activation common to right-hand use and the writing program, both identified without right-hand writing itself. Right-hand writing significantly differed from the other tasks. First, we observed stronger activations in the left dorsal prefrontal cortex, left intraparietal sulcus and right cerebellum. Second, the left anterior putamen was required to initiate all the tested tasks, but only showed sustained activation during the right-hand writing condition. Lastly, an exploratory analysis showed clusters in the left ventral premotor cortex and inferior and superior parietal cortices were only significantly active for right-hand writing. The increased activation with right-hand writing cannot be ascribed to increased effort, since this is a well-practiced task much easier to perform than some of the other tasks studied. Because parietal-premotor connections code for particular skills, it would seem that the parietal and premotor regions, together with basal ganglia-sustained activation likely underlie the special skill of handwriting with the dominant hand. PMID:23844132

Functional anatomy of writing with the dominant hand.

PubMed

Horovitz, Silvina G; Gallea, Cecile; Najee-Ullah, Muslimah 'ali; Hallett, Mark

2013-01-01

While writing performed by any body part is similar in style, indicating a common program, writing with the dominant hand is particularly skilled. We hypothesized that this skill utilizes a special motor network supplementing the motor equivalence areas. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging in 13 normal subjects, we studied nine conditions: writing, zigzagging and tapping, each with the right hand, left hand and right foot. We identified brain regions activated with the right (dominant) hand writing task, exceeding the activation common to right-hand use and the writing program, both identified without right-hand writing itself. Right-hand writing significantly differed from the other tasks. First, we observed stronger activations in the left dorsal prefrontal cortex, left intraparietal sulcus and right cerebellum. Second, the left anterior putamen was required to initiate all the tested tasks, but only showed sustained activation during the right-hand writing condition. Lastly, an exploratory analysis showed clusters in the left ventral premotor cortex and inferior and superior parietal cortices were only significantly active for right-hand writing. The increased activation with right-hand writing cannot be ascribed to increased effort, since this is a well-practiced task much easier to perform than some of the other tasks studied. Because parietal-premotor connections code for particular skills, it would seem that the parietal and premotor regions, together with basal ganglia-sustained activation likely underlie the special skill of handwriting with the dominant hand.

Bodily Writing and Performative Inquiry: Inviting an Arts-Based Research Methodology into Collaborative Doctoral Research Vocabularies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Buono, Alexia; Gonzalez, Charles H.

2017-01-01

In this article, the authors (then two doctoral students) describe their methodology of engaging in an interdisciplinary, collaborative doctoral arts-based research (ABR) project. Education and the arts were integrated utilizing dance methods of bodily writing and performative inquiry to strengthen the analysis of dissertation findings in the…

Writing II for 2nd Year EFL Student Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abdallah, Mahmoud M. S.

2015-01-01

Writing is a very important skill that should be mastered properly by university students, especially pre-service language teachers (e.g. EFL student teachers). In order to present their ideas efficiently in the context of their academic study, they have to be trained well on how to write meaningful pieces (e.g. essays, academic reports,…

Written Language Bursts Mediate the Relationship between Transcription Skills and Writing Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Limpo, Teresa; Alves, Rui A.

2017-01-01

It is established that transcription skills (handwriting and spelling) constrain children's writing. Yet, little is known about the mechanism underlying this relationship. This study examined the mediating role of bursts and pauses on the link between transcription skills and writing fluency or text quality. For that, 174 second graders did the…

Writing Plays Using Creative Problem-Solving.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Raiser, Lynne; Hinson, Shirley

1995-01-01

This article describes a project which involved inner city elementary grade children with disabilities in writing and performing their own plays. A four-step playwriting process focuses on theme and character development, problem finding, and writing dialogue. The project has led to improved reading skills, attention, memory skills,…

Handing the pen to the patient: reflective writing for children and families affected by genetic conditions.

PubMed

Murali, Chaya; Fernbach, Susan D; Potocki, Lorraine

2014-12-01

Genetic diagnoses impact the Quality of Life (QoL) of patients and their families. While some patients and families report a positive impact on QoL, others are affected negatively by a genetic diagnosis. No matter the impact, it is clear that social support is needed for this population. Genetic healthcare providers should be aware of the need for psychosocial support and be equipped to provide or direct patients and families to the appropriate resources. Reflective writing offers a unique opportunity for families and health care providers to engage in self-reflection and expression, activities which have the potential to enhance QoL in a positive manner. The therapeutic potential of writing has been studied in many populations, from caregivers of elderly individuals with dementia, to cancer survivors, to survivors of traumatic experiences. Some of these interventions have shown promise for improving participants' QoL. However, reflective writing has never been studied in patients and families affected by genetic conditions. We propose that reflective writing therapy is a feasible, reproducible, and enjoyable approach to providing psychosocial support for our patients. Get it Write is a reflective writing workshop pilot project for those who have a personal or family history of a genetic diagnosis. Our hypothesis is that reflective writing will help engender acceptance and alleviate feelings of isolation. Get it Write does not focus on the stressful factors in the participants' lives, rather it serves to facilitate interactions with peers facing the same struggles, and with medical students in a non-medical context. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Examining the relationships between attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and developmental coordination disorder symptoms, and writing performance in Japanese second grade students.

PubMed

Noda, Wataru; Ito, Hiroyuki; Fujita, Chikako; Ohnishi, Masafumi; Takayanagi, Nobuya; Someki, Fumio; Nakajima, Syunji; Ohtake, Satoko; Mochizuki, Naoto; Tsujii, Masatsugu

2013-09-01

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and developmental coordination disorder symptoms and writing performance in Japanese second grade students from regular classrooms. The second grade students (N=873) in Japanese public elementary schools participated in this study. We examined a variety of writing tasks, such as tracing, copying, handwriting (Hiragana and Katakana), and spelling (Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji). We employed the Japanese version of the home form ADHD-rating scale (ADHD-RS) and the Japanese version of the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire (DCDQ-J) to assess the developmental characteristics of the participating children. Seven writing performance scores were submitted to a principal component analysis with a promax rotation, which yielded three composite scores (Spelling Accuracy, Tracing and Copying Accuracy, and Handwriting Fluency). A multiple regression analysis found that inattention predicted Spelling Accuracy and Handwriting Fluency and that hyperactive-impulsive predicted Handwriting Fluency. In addition, fine motor ability predicted Tracing and Copying Accuracy. The current study offered empirical evidence suggesting that developmental characteristics such as inattention and fine motor skill are related to writing difficulties in Japanese typical developing children. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Student, Teacher and Class-Level Correlates of Flemish Late Elementary School Children's Writing Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

De Smedt, Fien; Van Keer, Hilde; Merchie, Emmelien

2016-01-01

In Flanders, there are neither Flemish assessments nor teacher surveys to provide insights into the current practice and outcomes of writing instruction. In the present study, we provide a-state-of-the-art study of the practice of writing instruction in Flemish late elementary education by investigating: (a) how writing is taught, (b) how teachers…

Writing for Profit: A Catalog of Hints.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barnum, Carol M.

1981-01-01

Offers tips to business communication teachers on how to write for money. Tips include: (1) Begin by writing for free, (2) use business contacts, (3) vary approaches to writing, and (4) write about personal experiences. (FL)

T2L2/Jason-2, first year of processing activities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Exertier, P.

2009-11-01

The T2L2 (Time Transfer by Laser Link) project, developed by CNES and OCA will permit the synchronization of remote ultra stable clocks and the determination of their performances over intercontinental distances. The principle is derived from laser telemetry technology with a dedicated space equipment designed to record arrival time of laser pulses at the satellite. T2L2 was accepted in 2005 to be on board the Jason-2 altimetry satellite. It has been successfully launched from Vandenberg (CA, US) in June 2008. T2L2 acquired the first laser pulses a few days after the launch. First analysis permitted to validate some important characteristics of the instrument such as sensitivity, noise, dynamic, event timer precision and ground to space time stability.

The Effect of Using Cooperative and Individual Weblog to Enhance Writing Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Karsak, H. Gulhan Orhan; Fer, Seval; Orhan, Feza

2014-01-01

Academic writing, whether individual or cooperative, is an essential skill for today's graduates. However, motivating and helping students to learn to write effectively, either in cooperative or individual scenarios, poses many challenges, many of which can be overcome by technical means. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of using…

Young Learner Writing Performance in Swiss Elementary Schools--Which Teacher Variables Matter?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Loder Buechel, Laura

2015-01-01

Elementary school English language teachers in Swiss public schools often question the role of writing in early years language instruction because there is a significant disparity in messages they receive from Board of Education members, from fellow teachers and from teacher trainers. This study describes the issues concerning writing in the first…

The Art of Science Writing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Worsley, Dale; Mayer, Bernadette

Aimed at secondary school science and English teachers, this book presents practical advice for developing good student writing in science and mathematics. Five main sections cover: (1) an essay development workshop; (2) 47 specific writing assignments; (3) over 30 questions teachers ask about science writing, and the answers; (4) an anthology of…

Microswitch and Keyboard-Emulator Technology to Facilitate the Writing Performance of Persons with Extensive Motor Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lancioni, Giulio E.; Singh, Nirbhay N.; O'Reilly, Mark F.; Sigafoos, Jeff; Green, Vanessa; Oliva, Doretta; Lang, Russell

2011-01-01

This study assessed the effectiveness of microswitches for simple responses (i.e., partial hand closure, vocalization, and hand stroking) and a keyboard emulator to facilitate the writing performance of three participants with extensive motor disabilities. The study was carried out according to an ABAB design. During the A phases, the participants…

How We Write: Understanding Scholarly Writing through Metaphor

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boyd, Michelle

2012-01-01

This article introduces the "writing metaphor" and examines why political scientists should consider developing one to describe their own writing process. Drawing on the author's experience with writing accountability groups, it defines the components of the writing metaphor, provides an example, and discusses its advantages and disadvantages. The…

Examining Dimensions of Self-Efficacy for Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bruning, Roger; Dempsey, Michael; Kauffman, Douglas F.; McKim, Courtney; Zumbrunn, Sharon

2013-01-01

A multifactor perspective on writing self-efficacy was examined in 2 studies. Three factors were proposed--self-efficacy for writing ideation, writing conventions, and writing self-regulation--and a scale constructed to reflect these factors. In Study 1, middle school students (N = 697) completed the Self-Efficacy for Writing Scale (SEWS), along…

In Search of the "Write" Way.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Irwin, Glenn, Ed.

1981-01-01

The 17 articles in this journal issue focus on writing and writing instruction. The articles discuss the following: (1) the NorthEast Texas, Texas Hill Country, and University of Arizona writing projects; (2) the necessity of dealing with truth in the writing class, not as a concept to be defined, but as an act that creates and recreates…

Instability study for LOFT for L2-1, L2-2, and L2-3 pretest steady-state operating conditions

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Eide, S.A.

The results are presented of a thermal-hydrodynamic flow instability study of the LOFT reactor for the L2-1, L2-2, and L2-3 pretest steady-state operating conditions. Comparison is made between the LOFT reactor and a typical PWR, and the effects on stability of differences in operating parameters and geometry are discussed. Results indicate that the LOFT reactor will be thermal-hydrodynamically stable for nominal and worst case operating conditions. The study supports the LOFT Experimental Safety Analyses for the L2-1, L2-2, and L2-3 tests.

Writing by the Book, Writing beyond the Book

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, Kristine

2017-01-01

Writing has become more visible in academia through writing advice manuals and the faculty development activities they inspire. In this article, I examine writing advice manuals and argue they are epistemologically current traditional, which limits how well and how far they can support scholarly writers. Writing advice manuals and composition…

Multiple goals, writing strategies, and written outcomes for college students learning English as a second language.

PubMed

He, Tung-Hsien; Chang, Shan-Mao; Chen, Shu-Hui Eileen

2011-04-01

This study examined relations of achievement goals of writers who are speakers of English as a foreign language (EFL), the frequency of their writing strategy use, and the quality of their writing from a multiple goals perspective. The goal profiles of 57 EFL college students with similar writing proficiency were based on rating items of an unpublished scale; Group 1 had strong mastery and strong performance-approach goals, and two groups included students with only one strong mastery (Group 2) or performance (Group 3) goal. Think-aloud protocols indicated that the participants adopted 21 strategies in an argumentative writing task, classified into five categories. Group 1 was found to use writing strategies of monitoring or evaluating, revising, and compensating significantly more often than the other two groups, and produced better essays. Strong mastery and performance-approach goals might be beneficial for EFL college writers.

Nudging Students into Writing Creatively (Teaching Ideas).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Perreault, George; And Others

1996-01-01

Describes ideas for writing prompts and assignments proposed by three different teachers: (1) writing poems inspired by smells of herbs and spices; (2) writing about past perceptions and feelings after looking at a photograph; and (3) writing a "self-portrait." (TB)

The Relationship between the Amount of Extensive Reading and the Writing Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sakurai, Nobuko

2017-01-01

This paper explored the effects of the amount of extensive reading (ER) on writing ability. Participants were 157 first and second-year non-English majors at a private university in Japan who took a writing test in class. Some of them were reading extensively, while others had no experience in ER. The outcomes of Pearson's correlation indicated…

"The Writing Writes Itself": Deleuzian Desire and the Creative Writing MFA Degree

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Walker, Ginger Marie

2017-01-01

This post-qualitative inquiry project investigated subjectivity (sense of self) among graduates of creative writing Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programs. The project asked how subjectivity is involved in the creative writing process and how that process fuels further writing after a creative piece (such as the MFA thesis) is completed. A…

L-alanyl-L-glutamine ingestion maintains performance during a competitive basketball game.

PubMed

Hoffman, Jay R; Williams, David R; Emerson, Nadia S; Hoffman, Mattan W; Wells, Adam J; McVeigh, Daniele M; McCormack, William P; Mangine, Gerald T; Gonzalez, Adam M; Fragala, Maren S

2012-03-07

The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of L-alanyl-L-glutamine (AG) ingestion on basketball performance, including jump power, reaction time, shooting accuracy and fatigue. Ten women (21.2 ± 1.6 years; height: 177.8 ± 8.7 cm; body mass: 73.5 ± 8.0 kg), all scholarship NCAA Division I basketball players, volunteered for this study. Subjects participated in four trials, each consisting of a 40-min basketball game with controlled time-outs for rehydration. During the first trial (DHY) subjects were not allowed to rehydrate, and the total weight lost during the contest was used to determine fluid replenishment during the subsequent three trials. During one trial subjects consumed only water (W), while during the other two trials subjects consumed the AG supplement mixed in water using either a low dose (1 g per 500 ml) (AG1) or high dose (2 g per 500 ml) (AG2) concentration. All data assessed prior to and following each game were converted into a Δ score (Post results - Pre results). All performance data were then analyzed using a one-way repeated measures analysis of variance. During DHY subjects lost 1.72 ± 0.42 kg (2.3%) of their body mass. No differences in fluid intake (1.55 ± 0.43 L) were seen between rehydration trials. A 12.5% (p = 0.016) difference in basketball shooting performance was noted between DHY and AG1 and an 11.1% (p = 0.029) difference was seen between AG1 and W. Visual reaction time was significantly greater following AG1 (p = 0.014) compared to DHY. Differences (p = 0.045) in fatigue, as determined by player loads, were seen only between AG2 and DHY. No differences were seen in peak or mean vertical jump power during any trial. Rehydration with AG appears to maintain basketball skill performance and visual reaction time to a greater extent than water only.

Predicting Second Language Writing Proficiency: The Roles of Cohesion and Linguistic Sophistication

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crossley, Scott A.; McNamara, Danielle S.

2012-01-01

This study addresses research gaps in predicting second language (L2) writing proficiency using linguistic features. Key to this analysis is the inclusion of linguistic measures at the surface, textbase and situation model level that assess text cohesion and linguistic sophistication. The results of this study demonstrate that five variables…

Academic Writing in Korea: Its Dynamic Landscape and Implications for Intercultural Rhetoric

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, Eun-Young Julia

2017-01-01

Previous studies on intercultural rhetoric have frequently drawn from examples from Asian writers, especially those of Chinese and Japanese origin, but relatively little information has surfaced in scholarly literature regarding L2 writers from Korea. To fill this gap, this article provides an overview of how academic writing is conceived and…

Metalinguistic Knowledge in L2 Task Performance: A Verbal Protocol Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roehr, Karen

2006-01-01

This paper reports a study employing stimulated recall protocols to investigate how L1 English-speaking learners of L2 German use their metalinguistic knowledge during the resolution of selected form-focused tasks. Verbal report data from 10 university level learners were analysed to gain insight into explicit knowledge in action during controlled…

Feedback Providing Improvement Strategies and Reflection on Feedback Use: Effects on Students' Writing Motivation, Process, and Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Duijnhouwer, Hendrien; Prins, Frans J.; Stokking, Karel M.

2012-01-01

This study investigated the effects of feedback providing improvement strategies and a reflection assignment on students' writing motivation, process, and performance. Students in the experimental feedback condition (n = 41) received feedback including improvement strategies, whereas students in the control feedback condition (n = 41) received…

Practices and Challenges of Writing Instruction in K-2 Classrooms: A Case Study of Five Primary Grade Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Korth, Byran B.; Wimmer, Jennifer J.; Wilcox, Brad; Morrison, Timothy G.; Harward, Stan; Peterson, Nancy; Simmerman, Sue; Pierce, Linda

2017-01-01

Given the interrelated role of writing and the development of early literacy skills, recommendations have been made to increase instructional writing experiences in K-2 classrooms. In an effort to increase the amount of writing in the primary grades that leads to later literacy success, it is important that teachers engage in instructional…

The Impact of Digital Tools on Student Writing and How Writing Is Taught in Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Purcell, Kristen; Buchanan, Judy; Friedrich, Linda

2013-01-01

A survey of 2,462 Advanced Placement (AP) and National Writing Project (NWP) teachers finds that digital technologies are shaping student writing in myriad ways and have also become helpful tools for teaching writing to middle and high school students. These teachers see the internet and digital technologies such as social networking sites, cell…

Toward understanding writing to learn in physics: Investigating student writing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Demaree, Dedra

It is received wisdom that writing in a discipline helps students learn the discipline, and millions of dollars have been committed at many universities to supporting such writing. We show that evidence for effectiveness is anecdotal, and that little data-based material informs these prejudices. This thesis begins the process of scientific study of writing in the discipline, in specific, in physics, and creates means to judge whether such writing is effective. The studies culminating in this thesis are an aggressive start to addressing these complex questions. Writing is often promoted as an activity that, when put into classrooms in specific disciplines, not only helps students learn to write in the methods of that discipline but also helps students learn content knowledge. Students at the Ohio State University are being asked to write more in introductory courses, and the Engineering schools want their students to have more writing skills for the job market. Combined with the desire of many educators to have students be able to explain the course content knowledge clearly, it would seem that writing activities would be important and useful in physics courses. However, the question of whether writing helps learning or whether students learn writing within a non-English classroom helps learning in the discipline are open to debate, and data are needed before such claims can be made. This thesis presents several studies aimed at understanding the correlation of writing and content, and tracking and characterizing student writing behaviors to see how they are impacted by writing in physics courses. It consists of four parts: summer and autumn 2005 focus on writing in introductory physics labs with and without explicit instruction, while winter and spring 2006 focus on tracking and analyzing student writing and revising behavior in Physics by Inquiry (PbI). With these related projects, we establish three main results. First, there is a need for quantitative studies of

The Effects of Blog-Mediated Peer Feedback on Learners' Motivation, Collaboration, and Course Satisfaction in a Second Language Writing Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhang, Haisen; Song, Wei; Shen, Suping; Huang, Ronghuai

2014-01-01

This paper reported on a study of using blogs as out-of-class assignments for the development of learners' writing competence. There were 36 students of English majors from an intact second language (L2) writing class participating in this study. A mixed method design was employed to obtain both quantitative and qualitative data. The results…

Promoting Writing for Research: The "Writing Retreat" Model

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Singh, R. J.

2012-01-01

Research papers take a long time to write and in an academic environment where the "publish or perish" clause applies, writing retreats are a way of creating time and space to write academic articles in a concentrated period of time. This article examines ways in which academics can write more articles for publication. In particular it…

Cultural Intelligence and Writing Ability: Delving into Fluency, Accuracy and Complexity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ghonsooly, Behzad; Shalchy, Somayye

2013-01-01

Over the recent decades, cultural intelligence, now referred to as CQ has become a burgeoning area of research in the domain of business and management. Given the paucity of research on the effects of CQ on second or foreign language learning especially writing, this study intends to examine the effects of CQ on L2 learners' written performance…

The Effect of Focus on Form and Task Complexity on L2 Learners' Oral Task Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Salimi, Asghar

2015-01-01

Second Language learners' oral task performance has been one of interesting and research generating areas of investigations in the field of second language acquisition specially, task-based language teaching and learning. The main purpose of the present study is to investigate the effect of focus on form and task complexity on L2 learners' oral…

Collaborative Writing with Web 2.0 Technologies: Education Students' Perceptions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brodahl, Cornelia; Hadjerrouit, Said; Hansen, Nils Kristian

2011-01-01

Web 2.0 technologies are becoming popular in teaching and learning environments. Among them several online collaborative writing tools, like wikis and blogs, have been integrated into educational settings. Research has been carried out on a wide range of subjects related to wikis, while other, comparable tools like Google Docs and EtherPad remain…

The Effect of Syntactic Complexity on Fluency: Comparing Actives and Passives in L1 and L2 Speech

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sadri Mirdamadi, Farhad; De Jong, Nivja H.

2015-01-01

This study investigates how syntactic complexity affects speaking performance in first (L1) and second language (L2) in terms of speaking fluency. Participants (30 Dutch native speakers with an average to advanced level of English) performed two speaking experiments, one in Dutch (L1) and one in English (L2). Syntactic complexity was…

Technical writing versus technical writing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dillingham, J. W.

1981-01-01

Two terms, two job categories, 'technical writer' and 'technical author' are discussed in terms of industrial and business requirements and standards. A distinction between 'technical writing' and technical 'writing' is made. The term 'technical editor' is also considered. Problems inherent in the design of programs to prepare and train students for these jobs are discussed. A closer alliance between industry and academia is suggested as a means of preparing students with competent technical communication skills (especially writing and editing skills) and good technical skills.

Writing After College: A Stratified Survey of the Writing of College-Trained People. Technical Report Number 1.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Faigley, Lester; And Others

This report contains the results of a study of the writing of college-trained personnel that examined: (1) the importance of their writing abilities in the world of work and in situations other than work, (2) the types of writing done on and off the job and the composing processes used, (3) the media college-trained people use for writing, and (4)…

Cognitive Style and Reading Comprehension in L1 and L2.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vivaldo-Lima, Javier

This paper presents the results of a research study carried out with Mexican college students to analyze the relationship between readers' cognitive styles (field dependent/independent) and their performance at different levels of written discourse processing in Spanish (L1) and English (L2). The sample for the study included 452 undergraduate…

Writing Laboratory Exercises To Be Used with a Writing and Research Guide.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alicna, Elaine; And Others

Intended to facilitate a broader emphasis on creative writing in American high school English classes, this manual offers a number of writing laboratory exercises. The exercises are divided into five categories: (1) library skills, including reference book know how, and using the parts of books; (2) critical reading skills, including…

Writing Queer across the Borders of Geography and Desire

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Malagreca, Miguel A.

2009-01-01

In this article, the author merges biographical notes, autoethnography and experimental writing to situate his migrant self as a self that "performs through writing," i.e. planned, experimental writing that subverts the centrality of the monolingual heterosexual identity. He explores the intersections of time, desire, and power across…

Writing Instruction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Richgels, Donald J.

2003-01-01

Discusses four recent writing books: "Teaching to Write: Theory Into Practice" (Jane B. Hughey and Charlotte Slack); "The Writing Teacher's Handbook" (Jo Phenix); "Scaffolding Young Writers: A Writers' Workshop Approach" (Linda J. Dorn and Carla Soffos); and "Directing the Writing Workshop: An Elementary Teacher's Handbook" (Jean Wallace Gillet…

Learning to Write with Interactive Writing Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Williams, Cheri

2018-01-01

Interactive writing is a process-oriented instructional approach designed to make the composing and encoding processes of writing overt and explicit for young students who are learning to write. It is particularly suitable for students who struggle with literacy learning. This article describes one first-grade teacher's use of interactive writing…

L2 Working Memory Capacity and L2 Reading Skill.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harrington, Mike; Sawyer, Mark

1992-01-01

Examines the sensitivity of second-language (L2) working memory (ability to store and process information simultaneously) to differences in reading skills among advanced L2 learners. Subjects with larger L2 working memory capacities scored higher on measures of L2 reading skills, but no correlation was found between reading and passive short-term…

Thinking Aloud about L2 Decoding: An Exploration of the Strategies Used by Beginner Learners when Pronouncing Unfamiliar French Words

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Woore, Robert

2010-01-01

"Decoding"--converting the written symbols (or graphemes) of an alphabetical writing system into the sounds (or phonemes) they represent, using knowledge of the language's symbol/sound correspondences--has been argued to be an important but neglected skill in the teaching of second language (L2) French in English secondary schools.…

Understanding the cognitive processes involved in writing to learn.

PubMed

Arnold, Kathleen M; Umanath, Sharda; Thio, Kara; Reilly, Walter B; McDaniel, Mark A; Marsh, Elizabeth J

2017-06-01

Writing is often used as a tool for learning. However, empirical support for the benefits of writing-to-learn is mixed, likely because the literature conflates diverse activities (e.g., summaries, term papers) under the single umbrella of writing-to-learn. Following recent trends in the writing-to-learn literature, the authors focus on the underlying cognitive processes. They draw on the largely independent writing-to-learn and cognitive psychology learning literatures to identify important cognitive processes. The current experiment examines learning from 3 writing tasks (and 1 nonwriting control), with an emphasis on whether or not the tasks engaged retrieval. Tasks that engaged retrieval (essay writing and free recall) led to better final test performance than those that did not (note taking and highlighting). Individual differences in structure building (the ability to construct mental representations of narratives; Gernsbacher, Varner, & Faust, 1990) modified this effect; skilled structure builders benefited more from essay writing and free recall than did less skilled structure builders. Further, more essay-like responses led to better performance, implicating the importance of additional cognitive processes such as reorganization and elaboration. The results highlight how both task instructions and individual differences affect the cognitive processes involved when writing-to-learn, with consequences for the effectiveness of the learning strategy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Scalable High-Performance Ultraminiature Graphene Micro-Supercapacitors by a Hybrid Technique Combining Direct Writing and Controllable Microdroplet Transfer.

PubMed

Shen, Daozhi; Zou, Guisheng; Liu, Lei; Zhao, Wenzheng; Wu, Aiping; Duley, Walter W; Zhou, Y Norman

2018-02-14

Miniaturization of energy storage devices can significantly decrease the overall size of electronic systems. However, this miniaturization is limited by the reduction of electrode dimensions and the reproducible transfer of small electrolyte drops. This paper reports first a simple scalable direct writing method for the production of ultraminiature microsupercapacitor (MSC) electrodes, based on femtosecond laser reduced graphene oxide (fsrGO) interlaced pads. These pads, separated by 2 μm spacing, are 100 μm long and 8 μm wide. A second stage involves the accurate transfer of an electrolyte microdroplet on top of each individual electrode, which can avoid any interference of the electrolyte with other electronic components. Abundant in-plane mesopores in fsrGO induced by a fs laser together with ultrashort interelectrode spacing enables MSCs to exhibit a high specific capacitance (6.3 mF cm -2 and 105 F cm -3 ) and ∼100% retention after 1000 cycles. An all graphene resistor-capacitor (RC) filter is also constructed by combining the MSC and a fsrGO resistor, which is confirmed to exhibit highly enhanced performance characteristics. This new hybrid technique combining fs laser direct writing and precise microdroplet transfer easily enables scalable production of ultraminiature MSCs, which is believed to be significant for practical application of micro-supercapacitor microelectronic systems.

THE EFFECTS OF EXPRESSIVE WRITING ON POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION AND POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS SYMPTOMS.

PubMed

Blasio, Paola Di; Camisasca, Elena; Caravita, Simona Carla Silvia; Ionio, Chiara; Milani, Luca; Valtolina, Giovanni Giulio

2015-12-01

This study investigated whether an Expressive Writing intervention decreased depression and posttraumatic stress symptoms after childbirth. 113 women (M age = 31.26 yr., SD = 4.42) were assessed at Time 1 for depression (Beck Depression Inventory) and PTS (Perinatal PTSD Questionnaire) in the first days after childbirth, then randomized to either expressive writing or neutral writing conditions and reassessed at Time 2, 3 months later. The results (ANCOVAs, regression models) show that at 3 mo. depressive and posttraumatic symptoms were lower in women who performed the expressive writing task than in the neutral writing group. Moreover, the intervention condition was associated significantly with decreased depression at the high and at the mean levels of baseline depression at Time 1. Regarding PTSD, the results showed that the intervention condition was linked significantly to reductions of the symptoms at all levels of baseline PTSD. Mainly, these outcomes suggest that Expressive Writing can be a helpful early and low-cost universal intervention to prevent postpartum distress for women.

Shrinkage Degree in $L_{2}$ -Rescale Boosting for Regression.

PubMed

Xu, Lin; Lin, Shaobo; Wang, Yao; Xu, Zongben

2017-08-01

L 2 -rescale boosting ( L 2 -RBoosting) is a variant of L 2 -Boosting, which can essentially improve the generalization performance of L 2 -Boosting. The key feature of L 2 -RBoosting lies in introducing a shrinkage degree to rescale the ensemble estimate in each iteration. Thus, the shrinkage degree determines the performance of L 2 -RBoosting. The aim of this paper is to develop a concrete analysis concerning how to determine the shrinkage degree in L 2 -RBoosting. We propose two feasible ways to select the shrinkage degree. The first one is to parameterize the shrinkage degree and the other one is to develop a data-driven approach. After rigorously analyzing the importance of the shrinkage degree in L 2 -RBoosting, we compare the pros and cons of the proposed methods. We find that although these approaches can reach the same learning rates, the structure of the final estimator of the parameterized approach is better, which sometimes yields a better generalization capability when the number of sample is finite. With this, we recommend to parameterize the shrinkage degree of L 2 -RBoosting. We also present an adaptive parameter-selection strategy for shrinkage degree and verify its feasibility through both theoretical analysis and numerical verification. The obtained results enhance the understanding of L 2 -RBoosting and give guidance on how to use it for regression tasks.

Children's Writing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

MacPhee, Angus

1971-01-01

The proper approach to children's writing from an educational point of view is discussed. The point is made that there is something fundamentally wrong with the current approach in children's writing. Current books on children's writing deal only with children's writing. It is recommended that any program which aims to be efficient in the teaching…

Write operation study of Co/BTO/LSMO ferroelectric tunnel junction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Z. H.; Zhao, W. S.; Kang, W.; Bouchenak-Khelladi, A.; Zhang, Y.; Klein, J.-O.; Ravelosona, D.; Chappert, C.

2013-07-01

Recently, a Co/BaTiO3/La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 (Co/BTO/LSMO) ferroelectric tunnel junction (FTJ) has shown the great potential towards non-volatile memory and logic applications due to its excellent performance. Especially, the giant OFF/ON tunnel resistance ratio (e.g., ˜100) assures that FTJ-based random access memory (FTRAM) can achieve lower reading error rate than emerging magnetic RAM. Nevertheless, in this paper, our investigation demonstrated that this FTJ suffered from difficulties in write operation when integrating with current CMOS technology into a FTRAM. Specifically, the write performances of Co/BTO/LSMO 1T1R FTRAM such as cell area, speed, energy dissipation, and thermal fluctuation effect were simulated and evaluated with a compact model and CMOS 40 nm design kit. Simulation results indicate the drawbacks of this FTRAM including significant performance asymmetry between two write orientations, high write voltage, large cell area, and severe thermal fluctuation disturbance. Simultaneously, this research provides several methods of improving write performance of FTRAM from the perspective of device size and process parameters.

Effectiveness of Systemic Text Analysis in EFL Writing Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Velasco Tovar, Ender

2016-01-01

This action research study investigates the effectiveness of a model based on the theory of systemic text analysis for the teaching of EFL writing. Employing students' pieces of writing and a teachers' survey as data collection instruments, the writing performance of a group of monolingual intermediate level adult students enrolled on a private…

A FACETS Analysis of Rater Bias in Measuring Japanese Second Language Writing Performance.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kondo-Brown, Kimi

2002-01-01

Using FACETS, investigates how judgments of trained teacher raters are biased toward certain types of candidates and certain criteria in assessing Japanese second language writing. Explores the potential for using a modified version of a rating scale for norm-referenced decisions about Japanese second language writing ability. (Author/VWL)

The Effects of Participation, Performance, and Interest in a Game-Based Writing Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liao, Calvin C. Y.; Chang, Wan-Chen; Chan, Tak-Wai

2018-01-01

We have observed that many computer-supported writing environments based on pedagogical strategies have only been designed to incorporate the cognitive aspects, but motivational aspects should also be included. Hence, we theorize that integrating game-based learning into the writing environment may be a practical approach that can facilitate…

Writing Inspired

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tischhauser, Karen

2015-01-01

Students need inspiration to write. Assigning is not teaching. In order to inspire students to write fiction worth reading, teachers must take them through the process of writing. Physical objects inspire good writing with depth. In this article, the reader will be taken through the process of inspiring young writers through the use of boxes.…

Sports Writing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grubaugh, Karl

2003-01-01

Lists the following 10 tips for improved sports writing in high school publications: reporting comes before writing; do not try to do too much; show, do not tell; do not do game stories; avoid cliches; avoid "jock-talk"; use the drama of sports; do not write the obvious story; sports is also news; and read great sports writing. (PM)

Are Attitudes Toward Writing and Reading Separable Constructs? A Study With Primary Grade Children

PubMed Central

Graham, Steve; Berninger, Virginia; Abbott, Robert

2012-01-01

This study examined whether or not attitude towards writing is a unique and separable construct from attitude towards reading for young, beginning writers. Participants were 128 first-grade children (70 girls and 58 boys) and 113 third-grade students (57 girls and 56 boys). Each child was individually administered a 24 item attitude measure, which contained 12 items assessing attitude towards writing and 12 parallel items for reading. Students also wrote a narrative about a personal event in their life. A factor analysis of the 24 item attitude measure provided evidence that generally support the contention that writing and reading attitudes are separable constructs for young beginning writers, as it yielded three factors: a writing attitude factor with 9 items, a reading attitude factor with 9 parallel items, and an attitude about literacy interactions with others factor containing 4 items (2 items in writing and 2 parallel items in reading). Further validation that attitude towards writing is a separable construct from attitude towards reading was obtained at the third-grade level, where writing attitude made a unique and significant contribution, beyond the other two attitude measures, to the prediction of three measures of writing: quality, length, and longest correct word sequence. At the first-grade level, none of the 3 attitude measures predicted students’ writing performance. Finally, girls had more positive attitudes concerning reading and writing than boys. PMID:22736933