To determine the effectiveness of 20- to 30-min workshops on recognition of errors in American Psychological Association-style writing, 58 introductory psychology students attended one of the three workshops (on grammar, mechanics, or references) and completed error recognition tests (pretest, initial posttest, and three follow-up tests). As a…

Much of the recent discussion surrounding the second language acquisition of morphology has centered on the question of whether learners can acquire new formal features. Lardiere's (2008, 2009) Feature Reassembly approach offers a new direction for research in this area by emphasizing the challenges presented by crosslinguistic differences in the…

This study investigates whether distinct neurodevelopmental disorders show distinct patterns of impairments in particular grammatical abilities and the relation of those grammatical patterns to general language delays and intellectual disabilities. We studied two disorders (autism and Williams syndrome [WS]) and two distinct properties (Principle…

As a growing number of testing programs use integrated writing tasks, more validation research is needed to inform stakeholders about score use and interpretation. The current study investigates the relationship between writing proficiency and discourse features in an integrated reading-writing task. At a Middle Eastern university, 136…

Theoretical accounts of grammatical limitations in specific language impairment (SLI) have been polarized between those that postulate problems with domain-specific grammatical knowledge, and those that regard grammatical deficits as downstream consequences of perceptual or memory limitations. Here we consider an alternative view that grammatical…

Adopting a direct approach to contrive sufficient focus on form (accuracy) would facilitate interlanguage development without decreasing the naturalness of communication that communicative tasks can generate. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of a proposed task-based instruction programme within a cognitive approach in fostering…

In the study conducted using qualitative research methods, one of the purposeful samplings, typical case sampling was used. The date were collected from two sources. The students were asked to prepare any topic they wanted and then delivered it. The students were observed for one month in order to detect their mistakes as they speak, through…

This article reports a study that sought to determine whether non-native sentence comprehension can show sensitivity to two different types of Spanish case marking. Sensitivity to case violations was generally more robust with indirect objects in ditransitive constructions than with differential object marking of animate direct objects, even among…

Knowledge of lexical items is arguably the most essential aspect of being able to communicate in a foreign language (Richards, 2000). Many studies have examined effective strategies for retaining the meaning of foreign words, but studies investigating the effectiveness of different methods for the retention of essential grammatical features of…

This study examined introductory journalism writing courses and compared hybrid (part online/part classroom) versus online grammar instruction. The hybrid structure allowed for grammar topics to be taught online, with a pretest following, and then reviewing missed/difficult pretest concepts in class prior to a posttest. The quasi-experimental…

"Houghton Mifflin Reading"© is a reading program designed for grades K-6. The program provides step-by-step instruction in reading using Big Books (fiction and nonfiction literature), anthologies, Read Aloud books, and audio compact discs. The product is designed to be used as a full-year curriculum program with instruction on developing…

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) has updated its 2009 intervention report for SuccessMaker®, a set of computer-based courses designed to supplement regular K-8 reading instruction. The program is designed to improve skills in areas such as concepts of print, phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, grammar, and…

A key design issue for tutorial CALL is that controlled practice activities need to engage learners in meaningful L2 processing, so that any knowledge developed in such practice may transfer to meaningful L2 use in complex skills. Furthermore, activities for controlled practice ideally engender intrinsic motivation, so that learners are willing to…

Methods of teaching reading skill are not the same in different countries. It depends on the condition and situation of the learners. Observing the method of teaching in Malaysia was the purpose of this study and the result of the study shows that there are 5 methods that are applied in classroom activities namely Grammar Translation Method (GTM),…

Publication of research articles (RAs) in English seems a challenging task for native and non-native writers. The acquisition of rhetorical structure and function grammar can be very helpful for academicians to achieve the wanted goal which is, of course, the publication of their RAs. This study aims to investigate the current level of familiarity…