The present study investigated the influence of word processing on the writing of students of English as a second language (ESL) and on writing assessment as well. Twenty-one adult Mandarin-Chinese speakers with advanced English proficiency living in Toronto participated in the study. Each participant wrote two comparable writing tasks under…

Metacognitive activities were studied through the verbalizations of students during a learning process, to study the differences in the performance of good and poor students. The moment of verbalization, either at prompting marks or without prompts, and the instruction in verbalization, either directed or non-directed, were variables. Thirty-two…

A study compared the writing strategies used by an adolescent in two essays, one in Danish (native language) and one in English (second language), assigned as homework. Analysis of think-aloud protocols focused on four behaviors: commenting; reading aloud; writing; and verbatim verbalizations of text before writing. Analysis found very similar…

The purpose of this study was to investigate ESL instructors' feedback techniques and the rationales behind these techniques, to explore ESL students' beliefs about the relative effectiveness of various types of feedback, and to compare students' beliefs with those of their instructors. A university-level ESL instructor and two of her students…

In order to probe the relationship between reading strategies and comprehension monitoring strategies and how they function to help readers in comprehension process, the present study utilizes think-aloud and retrospective verbal reports to examine 20 EFL readers' performances in reading texts. The results reveal that the engagement of reading…

A series of partial studies aimed at understanding how much progress students can make in 1 year of second language study are described. The first concerns Swedish university students in their first year studying Spanish as a third language in higher education. Students were tested and interviewed for their perceptions of their language ability…

A 3-year, three-part study investigated the learning strategies (LS) of children in grades 1-4 learning a foreign language (French, Spanish, Japanese) in an immersion setting and assisted immersion teachers in using LS for instruction. A sample of 72 high-rated and low-rated students were followed for 2 to 3 years. Professional development…

A study investigated the studying and reading processes of limited-English-speaking Hmong university students, using think-aloud protocols, reading journals, and study skills portfolios. Think-alouds were conducted in four areas: reading a content-area textbook chapter; taking lecture notes; test studying strategies; and test-taking strategies.…