This study explores the efficacy of ChatGPT-3.5, an AI chatbot, used as an Automatic Essay Scoring (AES) system and feedback provider for IELTS essay preparation. It investigates the alignment between scores given by ChatGPT-3.5 and those assigned by official IELTS examiners to establish its reliability as an AES. It also identifies the strategies…

This study employed a mixed-methods approach to examine how rater performance develops during a semester-long rater certification program for an English as a Second Language (ESL) writing placement test at a large US university. From 2016 to 2018, we tracked three groups of novice raters (n = 30) across four rounds in the certification program.…

This qualitative research seeks to understand L2 student writers' perceptions of writing anxiety when drama-based pedagogy and linguistic guidance are provided. This study draws on a qualitative analysis of 22 English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) students' episodes of dramatic presentations, reflections, interviews, and English essays collected…

The purpose of the current study is to explore the potential impact of a goal-based writing program on EFL students' writing competence and their attitudes toward goal-setting activities. The goal-based writing program was developed within goal-setting theory and launched in a writing class of 39 EFL Vietnamese university students over ten weeks.…

Our study examines written corrective feedback generated by two online grammar checkers (GCs), Grammarly and Virtual Writing Tutor, and by the grammar checking function of Microsoft Word. We tested the technology on a wide range of grammatical error types from two sources: a set of authentic ESL compositions and a series of simple sentences we…

The study is a qualitative case study that investigated the patterns of interactions among ESL students during their online interactions to complete their narrative essays. The study found that students were engaged in interactions related to language related assistance, using partner as a resource and providing encouragement as suggested by…

Thanks to natural language processing technologies, computer programs are actively being used not only for holistic scoring, but also for formative evaluation of writing. CyWrite is one such program that is under development. The program is built upon Second Language Acquisition theories and aims to assist ESL learners in higher education by…

One of the main purposes of foreign language teaching is currently identified by many researchers as developing intercultural communicative competence (ICC) of foreign language learners. Facebook is one of the easiest and quickest ways to communicate with other people, therefore it may potentially be used to promote intercultural communicative…

Second language writers need to develop the ability to revise their writing independently of third party advice; thus, it is important that teachers devise methods by which to promote habits of self-directed revision. This quasi-experimental study investigates three classroom activities designed to encourage students to independently revise essays…

This study reports on the effects of the Pathway Project, a professional development intervention aimed at supporting the academic language development of English Learners (ELs). Using a subset of data collected during a multi-site cluster randomized controlled trial involving nine middle and six high schools in an urban, low-income school…

This study investigated the impact of the interactive whiteboard on Egyptian medical students' achievement in essay writing in English as a second language (ESL). First, the writing micro-skills judged essential to help these students improve their essay writing were identified, using a questionnaire which investigated experts' views. This gave…

This study contributes to L2 writing research which seeks to tie predictions of the Limited Attentional Capacity Model (Skehan, 1998; Skehan & Foster, 2001) and Cognition Hypothesis (Robinson, 2001, 2005, 2011a, 2011b) to models of working memory in L1 writing (Kellogg, 1996). The study uses a quasi-experimental research design to investigate…

The present study employed multi-faceted Rasch measurement (MFRM) to explore the rater bias patterns of native English-speaker (NES) raters when they rate EFL essays. Forty NES raters rated 40 essays written by female Japanese university students on a single topic adapted from the TOEFL Test of Written English (TWE). The essays were assessed using…

The 12th iteration of the International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2019) is organized under the auspices of the International Educational Data Mining Society in Montreal, Canada. The theme of this year's conference is EDM in Open-Ended Domains. As EDM has matured it has increasingly been applied to open-ended and ill-defined tasks…

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of the holistic approach, as compared to the segregated-skill approach, on the quantity and quality of EFL students' academic writing. The subjects for the study were 64 graduates enrolled in the Special Diploma in Education at the School of Education in Suez during the second semester…