Lexical items that are encountered more frequently and in varying contexts have important effects on second language (L2) development because frequent and contextually diverse words are learned faster and become more entrenched in a learner's lexicon (Ellis 2002a, b). Despite evidence that L2 learners are generally exposed to non-native input,…

This study has devoted itself to examining the effect of using cloud-based collaborative writing on EFL students' writing quantity and quality. Twenty-one EFL students studying at Jubail College of Education, IAU University participated in the study. They were pretested in writing quantity and quality before the treatment then they practiced…

This article studies students' use of sentence variety in an ESL writing course. The study includes three sentence features: (a) sentence types, (b) sentence combining, and (c) sentence patterns. Although sentence variety is part of the curriculum, the actual use of sentence structures has not been measured so far. By understanding students' use…

The purpose of this explanatory, mixed-methods research study was to investigate secondary cross-disciplinary teachers' metacognitive awareness of their teaching practice, their aptitude and attitudes regarding writing instruction, preservice and in-service training of writing instruction, and their confidence in student preparedness for college,…

This quasi-experimental intervention study examines the effect of genre-based instructional practices on 90 primary students' narrative writing achievements and is a result of six teachers' action to meet the educational goals of the Swedish national curriculum. Specifically, the authors examine the effects of Joint Construction, the phase in the…

Academic writing for scholars wanting to publish in English has gained considerable research attention in writing circles. This article reports the findings of a case study on the gains, challenges, and perceptions about writing in English that a group of scholars had while taking an academic writing course. Two questionnaires, an in-depth…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of strategy instruction with an emphasis on oral language and dramatization on the quality of first graders' procedural papers. Participants were 121 first grade students who attended a rural school and six teachers. Students and teachers were randomly assigned to condition. Instruction lasted…

While there have been various investigations into the impact of standardised testing in Australian schools over the decade since the introduction of NAPLAN testing, few of these have focused on the extended writing component in particular or on the experiences of secondary English teachers. These teachers are of interest because, despite…

This study reports on a quantitative assessment of enhancements to a Writing in the Disciplines course in Kinesiology. The assessment coded student writing produced in semesters before and after a Kinesiology course was enhanced with both iterated peer review groups and writing-process scaffolding. These enhancements were developed through a…

Employers have continually indicated that writing instruction is much needed in higher education across all majors. It has become more imperative now than before to better prepare our graduates for professional success in an age of increasing writing necessity, data analytics and reporting, and technical sophistication. Writing assessment in a…

This article reports consequences for student writing quality based on a long-term professional learning project. Project teachers, representing all school subjects in grades 3-7, were presented with a writing construct, 'Wheel of Writing', and norms of expectation for writing proficiency. Participating teachers used the writing construct and…

The purpose of this study was to implement and evaluate a motivational intervention that consisted of explicit timing, immediate feedback through self-scoring, and display of high scores with the goal of encouraging four students with learning disabilities to write longer stories. All participants were initially very unwilling to engage in text…

Most massive open online courses (MOOC) use simple schemes for aggregating peer grades, taking the mean or the median, or compute weights from information other than the instructor's opinion about the students' knowledge. To reduce the difference between the instructor and students' aggregated scores, some proposals compute specific weights to…

In this dissertation, I present findings from a qualitative research project designed to articulate practitioner-teachers' beliefs about writing and their role in providing feedback on student writing in online courses. To analyze the qualities of these beliefs, I interviewed eight full-time and part-time teachers from multiple disciplines…

Students at all grade levels in the United States are experiencing significant difficulties in the area of written expression (Salahu-Din, Persky, & Miller, 2008; U.S. Department of Education, 2012). Although performance feedback is an effective evidence-based intervention for improving the writing fluency of elementary-aged students,…