This study investigates the impact on extemporaneous English-language first drafts by using Google Translate (GT) in three different tasks assigned to Chinese sophomore, junior, and senior students of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) majoring in English. Students wrote first in Chinese (Step 1), then drafted corresponding texts in English (Step…

The writing process has traditionally been seen "as a lonely journey" to typify the lack of support that students experience for writing outside the classroom. This paper examines an attempt of The Writing Portal (TWP), a supplementary online writing platform, to support students' writing needs throughout the five stages of the writing…

This study reports on how students construct new language knowledge by indirect feedback in web-based collaborative writing. Indirect feedback (text organization, reader-based perspectives, and clarity of purpose) encourages students to negotiate meaning instead of merely copying peers' direct feedback on grammatical corrections. According to the…

Although the effectiveness of computer-mediated collaborative writing (CMCW) is confirmed by many recent studies, only a few have investigated whether linguistic knowledge and writing skills learned through collaboration can be internalized and transferred to individual writing. This study uses a pre-and post-test design to investigate the impact…

This case study investigated the characteristics of computer-mediated synchronous corrective feedback (SCF, provided while students wrote) and asynchronous corrective feedback (ACF, provided after students had finished writing) in an EFL writing task. The task, designed to elicit the use of the hypothetical conditional, was completed by two…

Few studies have investigated how metacognitive processes foster the application of genre knowledge to students' academic writing. This is largely due to its internal and unobservable characteristics. To bridge this gap, an online writing system based on metacognition, involving the stages of planning, monitoring, evaluating, and revising, was…

A number of studies have suggested the possible benefits of using concordancers in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing. To date, however, there is still limited understanding of how EFL writers may make use of such tools along with dictionaries when engaging in a writing task. To better understand the question, this study investigated a…

Recognizing that graduate students seldom have the opportunity to participate collaboratively, either in providing or receiving feedback to improve their academic writing skills, this study reports on the design of a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) system used to investigate how graduate students transform and construct their…

Blog use may offer instructors a helpful tool for teaching writing at the tertiary level in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) classrooms. This article reports on a quasi-experimental study regarding the effect of blog-centered writing instruction on students' writing performance. Fifty intermediate English students at a Turkish…

This paper reports on a year-long project in which students participated as both readers and writers of blogs. Specifically, this study examines the steps students progress through while reading and writing blogs, students' reactions to blogging, and how self-expression is characterised in the blogosphere. Data from student blogs, reports, and…

Discusses selected theories of second-language acquisition and their implications for developing a computer-assisted language-learning tool for learners of German,"Textana." Textana was planned as a generic text production tool to provide help to learners in outlining, editing, and postediting texts in German as a foreign language. (Author/VWL)

Online templates have the potential to scaffold complex writing processes and to provide information and language prompts for writers. The purpose of this study is threefold. First, for assisting students in their scholarly writing, an online Scholarly Writing Template (SWT) was designed and developed. SWT includes two major features: (1) an…

Describes principles underlying ILLICO, a generic natural-language software tool for building larger applications for performing specific linguistic tasks such as analysis, synthesis, and guided composition. Shows to what extent this approach is relevant to the development of computer-assisted language-learning systems. (Author/VWL)

Explains how the writing process approach utilizing hypermedia software can help non-native speakers develop an awareness of English-language composition structures. Discusses the pedagogical basis for the writing process, as well as the benefits computers and specialized software can bring to the language classroom. (Author/VWL)

Describes an on-line mark-up-based composition learning environment system called CoCoA (Communicative Collection Assisting System). This system allows students and teachers to engage in marked-up documents via the Internet, and its environment is very similar to a real-world one in which people use pen and paper. CCML also facilitates teachers to…