In this article, we focus on the design of a second language (L2) formative feedback system that provides linguistic complexity graph reports on the writings of English for special purposes students at the university level. The system is evaluated in light of formative instruction features pointed out in the literature. The significance of…

We surveyed researchers in the health and exercise sciences to explore different areas and magnitudes of bias in researchers' decision making. Participants were presented with scenarios (testing a central hypothesis with p = 0.06 or p = 0.04) in a random order and surveyed about what they would do in each scenario. Participants showed significant…

Information and Communication Technology is playing an important role in assisting teachers in their activities. They became a) more efficient, b) more precise and c) more comprehensive. The "Audio" ad is a clear illustration for this trend. Students' acceptance of the "Audio" tool has been analysed and compared with the…

Large corpora such as the British National Corpus and the COBUILD Corpus and Collocations Sampler are now accessible, free of charge, online and can be usefully incorporated into a process writing approach to help develop students' writing skills. This article aims to familiarize readers with these resources and to show how they can be usefully…

This article presents practical suggestions and tasks to make it easier to teach second language academic writing at the college level. It discusses the necessity of a warm-up period in which learners produce first drafts in pairs or small groups and do peer error correction. The article offers tasks such as reacting to an academic review,…

Compares the performance of novice computer users and users with significant proofreading experience in proofreading from screen and paper. Results showed that the users with previous experience did better in the screen mode, but no difference between the groups was evident in the paper mode. (Contains 22 references.) (JLB)

A study investigated differences in native and non-native French speaking teachers' patterns of error correction of second-year students' compositions. Subjects were eight university teaching assistants (TAs), four native speakers of French and four non-native speakers. Data were drawn from photocopies of all students' corrected compositions…

This study investigated what forms of feedback, if any, helped students of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learn grammar. Subjects, 100 Japanese college students of EFL, were given two types of tests on English dative ("to/for") alternation, then divided into five groups, according to the type of feedback they received: (1) group A was given…

Investigates the effectiveness of two types of computer feedback: one is traditional computer feedback that indicates only missing or unexpected words in the learner's response, and the other is intelligent computer feedback that provides further information about the nature of the errors in the form of metalinguistic rules. (17 references)…

This study replicating two earlier studies investigated the relative effectiveness of two techniques for teaching English grammar. In the "garden path" method, learners are induced to produce errors, which are then corrected. The error avoidance method prevents error production by means of grammatical explanations. Subjects were 56…

An experimental study compared the effects of controlled and free writing exercises and of evaluative vs. communicative feedback on the writing quality and apprehension of Korean college students of English as a foreign language (EFL). Students in two sections of a freshman reading course wrote dialogue journals as practice in free writing, and…

Some university English as a foreign language (EFL) composition teachers in Taiwan have experimented with audiotaping their commentary on students' writing to help students revise. However, there has been little research on how effective this is for Chinese students. Therefore, a study was designed to shed light on this issue by comparing…

Four papers on second language learning are include. "Comparing Native and Nonnative Speakers' Error Correction in Foreign Language Writing" (Catherine A. Jolivet) examines differences between native and nonnative French speaking teachers in their error correction on students' compositions. "ESL Students' Opinions About Instruction in…