Contemporary theories and approaches to teaching greatly emphasize the importance of students in the teaching and learning process. While it is unquestionable that students should be at the heart of the teaching and learning process, this paper seeks to emphasize the importance of the overall quality of teacher proficiency with an emphasis on…

This study explores using transfer learning in machine learning for natural language processing (NLP) to create generic automated essay scoring (AES) models, providing instant online scoring for statewide writing assessments in K-12 education. The goal is to develop an instant online scorer that is generalizable to any prompt, addressing the…

This corpus-based study investigates lexical richness in English writing by Chinese senior high school students. Lexical uses in 303 compositions were compared across three grades in terms of lexical sophistication, variation, density and errors. Timed compositions were sampled from Writing Corpus of English Learners, and the sample sizes of three…

The study examined the types of language errors made by learners in the English narrative essays. It also assessed the feedback techniques employed by teachers of English in the handling of language errors in the English narrative essays. A descriptive research design was employed to examine errors of English narrative essays of 181 form two…

When judging subject-specific aspects of students' texts, teachers should assess various characteristics, e.g., spelling and content, independently of one another since these characteristics are indicators of different skills. Independent judgments enable teachers to adapt their classroom instruction according to students' skills. It is still…

This study aims to examine how Chinese learners develop in their use and misuse of English modal verbs from Grade 7 to 9. Specifically, it examines form-function connections and explores the factors behind learners' development. The main focus is on the modal verbs "can," "could," "will," "would,"…

Little research has been done on the effects of peer raters' quality characteristics on peer rating qualities. This study aims to address this gap and investigate the effects of key variables related to peer raters' qualities, including content knowledge, previous rating experience, training on rating tasks, and rating motivation. In an experiment…

Background: The Eastern Cape province in South Africa is a multilingual province where isiXhosa is the most widely spoken indigenous language. Learners seldom use English at home, and it remains, largely, the language of learning and teaching used at school. With the advent of dynamic technology, learners are widely exposed to social media, and…

This paper examines written language accuracy in a content and language integrated learning (CLIL) and a non-CLIL instruction context including grade and gender in the analysis. Essays written by 393 third and fourth year CLIL and non-CLIL secondary education students were evaluated by two measures of second language (L2) accuracy: error-free…

Jim Carroll noticed basic literacy errors in his Year 13s' writing, but on closer examination decided that these were not best addressed purely as literacy issues. Through an intervention based on clauses, Carroll managed to enable his students to write better, but he did this by teasing out principles of historical discourse that underpin…

This study examined and compared different written corrective feedback techniques used by English as a second language (ESL) teachers in three different educational contexts and levels (primary, secondary, and college) in Quebec, Canada. In particular, it examined whether there were any differences in the types of errors made, the kind and degree…

Scientific argumentation is one of the core practices for teachers to implement in science classrooms. We developed a computer-based formative assessment to support students' construction and revision of scientific arguments. The assessment is built upon automated scoring of students' arguments and provides feedback to students and teachers.…

The first objective of this study is to identify the types of errors made by students in their ESL writing. The second objective is to compare the types of errors (overall, spelling, mechanics, grammar, coherence, sentence structure and lexical) in descriptive writing, according to gender. The third objective is to explore an ESL teacher?s views…

The current study examined relationships between expert human judgments of text quality and grammar and mechanical errors in student writing. A corpus of essays (N = 100) written by high school students in the W-Pal system was collected, coded for grammar and mechanical errors, and scored by expert human raters. Results revealed weak relations…

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…