Writing has been assumed to be the most problematic language skill for ESL/EFL learners (Ting, 2003; Ong, 2011) and even for native speakers (Norrish, 1983). Apparently, Prommas and Sinwongsuwat (2011:77) stated that writing is more challenging than speaking since in written communication there is no extra means of help in terms of nonverbal…

Writing is considered as a daunting task in second language learning. It is argued by most scholars that this challenge is not only limited to second language speakers of English but even to those who speak English as their first language. Thus, the ability to communicate effectively in English by both native and non-native speakers requires…

The study identified the beliefs of high school students toward Written Corrective Feedback (WCF), based on the framework of Anderson (2010). It also investigated the most common errors that students commit in writing stories and the type of WCF students receive from teachers. Data in the form of stories which were checked by teachers were…

The study reports on challenges related to the use of the language of attribution in academic essay writing by Post-Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) students at Rhodes University, as a microcosm of similar challenges faced by university students elsewhere. The study content-analysed 150 essays written by 50 PGCE students taking the course…

The academic demands of classroom English require students to think about language structure in ways that they are not used to. Everybody "knows" much English grammar intuitively but the academic rules themselves can be difficult to articulate. This goes for punctuation, too: errors often reflect students' lack of explicit knowledge of grammatical…

A growing body of research suggests that the writing ability of international second language learners (IL2) and US-resident second language learners, also referred to as Generation 1.5 (G1.5), differs, despite a dearth of substantial empirical evidence supporting such claims. The present study provides much-needed empirical evidence concerning…

This paper aims to explore advanced ESL learners' ability to make improvements in grammatical accuracy by autonomously noticing and correcting their own grammatical errors. In the recent literature in SLA, it is suggested that classroom tasks can be used to foster autonomous language learning habits (cf. Dam 2001). Therefore, it is important to…

Two case studies of students learning to write academic discourse, particularly to maintain cohesion and relevance, are described. The two college students were part of a fourth-year biology class: one was a native English speaker, and the other spoke English as a second language. Both had a good command of spoken English grammar at the sentence…