Broadly defined, academic language (AL) is a set of lexical-grammatical norms and registers commonly used in educational and academic discourse. Mastery of academic language in writing is an important aspect of writing instruction and assessment. The purpose of this study was to use Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools to examine the extent to…

In successful writing development, English as a foreign language (EFL) learners not only need to acquire grammatical complexity (GC) features but also know when and how to use them flexibly across communicative contexts, known as register flexibility. The present study, guided by the sociocultural theory of language learning, examines descriptive…

This empirical investigation rigorously evaluated the teaching potential of Data-Driven Learning (DDL) for enhancing the ability of learners to apply 30 near-synonymous change-of-state verbs in two EFL Freshman English courses in a college setting across two semesters. In the study, 32 participants in the experimental group and 22 in the control…

In recent years, there has been a growing trend of using informal styles in academic writing, including research articles. To examine the degree of formality in students' writing, this corpus-based study aimed to analyze the formal linguistic features in the academic writing assignments of English-major students at a Thai university. The learner…

As a key component of fluent linguistic production, multi-word sequences called lexical bundles are considered an important distinguishing feature of discourse in different registers, genres, and disciplines. They are also an important aspect of empirically correct and proficient language use in a corpus of natural language because they enable…

This short article reviews key corpus-based pedagogic initiatives in the spirit of the Swalesian tradition of genre analysis. Pedagogic genres covered include report writing, thesis writing, writing a grant proposal and legal essay writing. More recently, attention has been paid to the writing of research articles by postgraduate students for whom…

This study aims to investigate Vietnamese students' perceptions of portfolio assessment and how it affects their writing performance. Furthermore, the study explores problems encountered during the assessment process, which could offer professional support for teachers, particularly novice teachers, when applying this formative assessment to…

Grounded in the activity theory, we adopted a sequential explanatory mixed-methods approach to explore the impact of automated written corrective feedback (AWCF) on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' academic writing skills (i.e. task achievement, coherence and cohesion, lexicon, and grammatical range and accuracy). To this end, two…

An increasing number of international students pursue doctoral studies in China, a non-traditional learning destination compared with English-dominated Western countries. Despite considerable research on the challenges doctoral students face when writing theses in English in Western countries, relatively few studies have explored comparable issues…

The recent results of the Education First English Proficiency Index (EF EPI) showed that the country placed seven spots lower compared to the past ranking. The purpose of this study is to determine the level of competence of students in grammar and academic writing and to find out if a significant relationship existed between the variables. This…

Standards of academic writing are documented in style guides adopted by academic disciplines, style guides such as the "Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association and Scientific Style and Format." Some of the standards in these style guides are expressed as prescriptive or proscriptive rules that provide academic…

Errors, either in writing or speaking, are common in second language production. Researchers have long been investigating English as Second Language (ESL) learners' errors because they may produce different kinds of errors than native speakers. The purpose of this study was to identify errors made by adult ESL learners and to examine the L1…

This study examines the nature of metalinguistic awareness in first-year college writers enrolled in two-year degree programs, corequisite support courses, or both. Metalinguistic awareness is an ability to systematize knowledge about language and use that knowledge to monitor language as language. Participants in the study completed reading…

The purpose of this study was to assess how the Inquiry Based Learning approach supports the development of students' academic language proficiency in invertebrate systematic. The study was framed by Halliday's sociolinguistic approach to learning. A total of 50 classroom observation sessions at 10 schools were conducted: 10 before and 40 after…

It has been suggested that students experience more autonomy in the feedback process when they communicate feedback preferences to their teacher or peers. However, little is known about what kinds of feedback students request when given this autonomy. Furthermore, when student writers supply feedback requests, it is unknown to what extent readers…