Recount text is included within the curriculum of English subjects in the Indonesian context, where students are expected to be well-informed and be able to compose a good recount text to express themselves. The current study aimed at analyzing the recount text written by an advanced (C1 level of English) student based on the concept of Systemic…

This article studies students' use of sentence variety in an ESL writing course. The study includes three sentence features: (a) sentence types, (b) sentence combining, and (c) sentence patterns. Although sentence variety is part of the curriculum, the actual use of sentence structures has not been measured so far. By understanding students' use…

The present study attempts to identify difficulties that Japanese students encounter with metadiscursive nouns in writing second language (L2) argumentation essays. Metadiscursive nouns are abstract and unspecific nouns which can serve as cohesive markers by retrieving their meanings in the text where they occur. Using a selected number of nouns…

Linking adverbials are important for creating textual cohesion in both written and spoken English. While there are reference grammar books describing the usage patterns of linking adverbials and studies investigating learners' difficulties in using these cohesive devices, there is little discussion on how to effectively teach and learn them. By…

Previous research on reference tracking has revealed a tendency towards over-explicitness in second language (L2) learners. Only limited evidence exists that this trend extends to situations where the learner's first and second languages do not share a sensory-motor modality. Using a story-telling paradigm, this study examined how hearing novice…

The aim of this study is to identify cohesion in the research project abstracts of Thai EFL engineering undergraduate students and to determine the writing patterns of their abstracts. Thirty-nine abstracts (200-300 words in length) from the faculty of Engineering in three different disciplines of the International Program were compiled and…

Many studies have found EFL/ESL learners over/under/misuse linking adverbials. Because their use is specific to genre and register (Biber et al., 1999), and news writing is a compulsory course for EFL journalism majors at many Chinese universities, this study investigates their usage patterns in news and suggests teaching material design for the…

This study addresses the interrelation among coherence, substitution, and reference by non-English major Chinese students. The author collected data through student questionnaires. Participants included 30 non-English major Chinese undergraduate students. The findings of this study suggested that the similarities and differences were confirmed…

This paper analyzes the use of a special type of unspecific noun, called "shell nouns" [Hunston, S., & Francis, G. (1999). "Pattern grammar". Amsterdam: Benjamins; Schmid, H. (2000). "English abstract nouns as conceptual shells: From corpus to cognition". Berlin: Walter de Gruyter], which are frequently used as cohesive devices, in the written…

Defines concession and suggests eight criteria which may be used when producing materials designed to practice the use of connectives such as "although" to express concession in English. These criteria include materials, which reflect typically unexpected consequences and a culturally familiar world, and practice, which goes beyond the…

It is proposed that the target for teaching pronunciation in English as a Second Language must be the authentic, connected speech that is used by most native speakers, not an artificial and over-correct model too closely tied to the writing system, a different modality entirely. In English, this means learning the language's rhythmic patterns to…

This account of the intonation of English is part of ongoing research at the University of Birmingham, England. It attempts to take account of how intonation contributes to the communicative value of an act of speech. An introductory chapter provides a short discussion of some crucial terms: pitch, loudness, stress, rhythm, and tone unit. The…

This book analyzes an intercultural project undertaken by French and English 14-year-olds based on an exchange of materials created by the pupils and focused on the topic of law and order. The project was based on a view of learning as a dialogic process in a more meaningful way than is often the case in foreign language classrooms. Chapter 1…