Taking a cognitive approach to genre-specific language, this corpus-based study investigated the disciplinary and paradigmatic effect on the use of a specific type of attitude markers--surprise markers--with an analytical framework informed by frame semantics. A Surprise frame was generated and then used to analyze the use of surprise markers in a…

While there has been much research detailing how English as a foreign language (EFL) students attending English for academic purposes (EAP) courses struggle with a wide array of challenges when adjusting to university English-medium instruction, how these students use feedback to self-regulate their academic English learning and what contributes…

This article reports on an experimental study that set out to investigate and compare the effectiveness of a direct and an indirect approach to data-driven learning (DDL) in facilitating Chinese learners' mastery of a challenging type of lexico-grammatical resource (i.e. hedges) in an undergraduate English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) writing…

Academic writing competence comprises attitudes, knowledge, skills, and strategies that enable one to produce writing in accordance with the expectations of the academic discourse community. This paper introduces an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing course developed to help students from China acquire an adequate level of academic…

Peer review has a prominent place in process-oriented writing instruction. In this paper, I share my developing use of peer review in an academic writing course for Chinese ESL learners. After reviewing the relevant literature, I describe the context in which I implemented peer review and conducted practitioner research into its productive use.…