Purpose: This study aims to explore computer-assisted language learning (CALL) activities to improve the English essay writing of Pakistani university students. It highlights the role of CALL in the language proficiency model cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP), which can enable second language learners to engage in more critical…

A multiple-probe design was used to investigate planning and persuasive paragraph writing by three secondary students with disabilities and writing difficulties. The intervention consisted of one-on-one explicit instruction in persuasive writing and the use of a technology-based graphic organizer (TBGO) with embedded strategies and supports.…

There are a number of functions paragraphs play in discourse studies. For example, it encourages a writer to give adequate focus to the various aspects of his or her message; and it facilitates the identification of one idea in an essay to another idea. Some classical second language writers (for example: Stern, 1976; Halliday & Hasan, 1976;…

This action research study was conducted to improve the skills of writing a thought paragraph in 7th grade students. The study was planned for a 14-week period and a total of 25 activities were implemented with students during the study. Interviews held with Turkish teachers, journals kept by the researcher and the students in relation to the…

Web-based writing tools, which allow multiple writers to share and edit the same document, have attracted significant attention as computer-assisted language learning tools in the past decade. However, how L2 writers contribute to the shared document as a social action for interacting with other cowriters remains underexplored in L2 research.…

The aim of this study is to investigate issues of Indonesian EFL students' writing skills, covering ability, problem and reason why they got problems in writing comparison and contrast essay. The convergent parallel of mixed methods was used to explore these issues by involving 52 EFL students of IAIN Samarinda who enrolled the academic essay…

In this study, we propose a link between L2 rhetorical concepts and ELF as a way of the analysis of the development of a single concept, of an EFL college student's rhetorical knowledge. Using Vygotskian sociocultural theory as analytical lenses, we examine whether L2 rhetoric can be mastered and internalized as a culturally neutral concept, i.e.,…

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 Report of Chinese Students' English Writing Ability (2014) focuses on the Chinese students' English writing in the automated essay-evaluation context. The data and samples are primarily from a national-wide writing project involving 300,814 English as a Foreign Language participants from 452 schools in China during a period of April 10 to May…

This study used a multiple probe design across behaviours to determine if four high school students with learning disabilities could plan post-school transition goals using a modified "GO 4 IT … NOW!" intervention while learning essential paragraph and essay writing skills. The results of this study indicate a functional relationship…

Recently-adopted standards call for more emphasis on writing in early elementary grades. Rubrics may assist students in attending to important characteristics of effective writing, but research data on their use in early childhood is lacking. This study explores the effects of rubric use on writing instruction of opinion paragraphs for 20 first…

In order to motivate ESL students and engage them in different tasks effectively, it is necessary to make the tasks novel to the students. As one possible way of introducing novelty in the course, films could be used advantageously. In this study, a writing course integrated with videos of movies and cultural festival of different regions of the…

This study aims to explore the effectiveness of a paradigm to teach native Cantonese-speaking university students the hierarchical structure of expository prose to improve paragraph coherence. Most of the diagnostic argumentative essays the participants in this study wrote in the course were incoherent, failing to meet readers' expectation of…

The current paper presents the results of a large-scale, national, reading and writing curriculum survey and evaluates the alignment of the survey results to the reading and writing skills measured by the new SAT®. It was hypothesized that the skills measured by the writing and critical reading sections of the new SAT would be aligned to the…

A technique to help English as a second language students master the basic elements of expository prose is considered in terms of course objectives and the types of assignments used to accomplish them. A characteristic of many highly verbal students entering a college program is their propensity to "talk on paper" in an informal, ungrammatical,…