Oral and written skills are increasingly considered to be essential tools in the job market for the success of any worker, and are thus called soft skills. Nevertheless, most graduates who enter the labor market experience difficulties in the apprehension of communication, not only with regard to writing, but also in oral communication. These…

This article describes a course design that offers an innovative approach to using client-based projects (CBPs) in technical and professional writing. It shows how teachers can incorporate CBPs in hybrid or fully virtual instruction, adapt it for a quarter or semester, and tailor it to meet students' needs. While there are standard writing…

The student-teacher conference has been established as a pedagogical tool in composition courses, and teachers and students typically view the student-teacher writing conference as an effective way of providing feedback. However, most previous research on conferencing has been carried out with first language (L1) writers or advanced multilingual…

Writing is a major language skill that should be the concern of teachers and students. Some first-year English language students seem less interested in writing correct sentences and paragraphs because of the lack of grammar and writing practice in the classroom. They mostly encounter grammar use difficulties, which impede their written…

The use of a computer as a means and/or a source of feedback provision has facilitated the process of teaching and learning writing. The integration of computers into writing classes enabled teachers to provide timely and reliable feedback. Taking into account these opportunities that computers bring to the classroom, the present study attempted…

This study draws on the theoretical frameworks of genre theory and writing expertise to explore how educators manage and excel in writing for professional recognition. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four educators from different disciplines in which participants discussed their experiences of preparing and writing for Senior…

My first year teaching physical science I (LB) had a young man whom we shall call John in class. He had been sitting silently, doing nothing most of the first quarter of school. I had seen little in the way of written work from him. John's daily grades were continually zero after zero and his assessment grades were equally abysmal. Calls to mom…

This article examines the impact of the sociodemographic profile (including age, gender, and educational track) of Flemish adolescents (aged 13-20) on lexical aspects of their informal online discourse. The focus on lexical and more "traditional," print-based aspects of literacy is meant to complement previous research on sociolinguistic…

Many Hispanics living in the United States have limited Spanish language abilities particularly in relation to literacy skills. This study investigated 25 Hispanic heritage language learners' (HLLs) perceptions of their Spanish language writing abilities. During interview sessions, participants described the aspects of writing that were the…

In this essay, we map out four major approaches to the study of writing experiences: (a) worlds apart, (b) literacy in the wild, (c) ecologies and networks, and (d) transfer. We examine how the primary metaphors used in each approach have contributed to our field's understanding of writing. In focusing on specific dimensions of writing, each…

The use of rubrics in assessing the writing performance is very popular. In general, educators in universities use rubrics for a more accurate assessment of students writing performance. The first aim of this study is to investigate how using rubrics in teaching writing skills can affect the writing performance of students. The second aim is to…

The study aims to compare the effectiveness of Guided Inquiry Learning (GIL) and Problem-Based Learning (PBL) model. A number of prior studies have implemented the GIL model for a limited area such as science. Similar to the PBL learning design, the previous studies that highlighted the application of GIL model was commonly targeted to find out…

This study uses a quasi-experimental design to assess how the incorporation of an embedded writing centre tutor in the experimental class affects student achievement in comparison with the control class which had limited involvement with The Writing Centre. Data were collected from 43 students enrolled in two classes who completed a total of 158…

The authors describe Monster, P.I., which is an app-based, gamified assessment that measures language skills (knowledge of morphology, vocabulary, and syntax) of students in grades 5-8 and provides teachers with interpretable score reports to drive instruction that improves vocabulary, reading, and writing ability. Specifically, the authors…

Spanish-English cognates (words from ancestrally related languages similar in appearance and meaning) are plentiful in students' reading materials, but few researchers have documented elementary-age bilingual (Spanish-English) students' actual use of cognates. The authors drew from two qualitative research studies to show how bilingual students…