The present study evaluated the effects of web-based training on Spanish pre-service and in-service teacher knowledge and implicit beliefs on learning to write. A sample of pre-service teachers and in-service teachers from Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Colombia, and Spain participated in the online course. Findings suggest that teachers may improve…

High self-efficacy beliefs and effective self-regulatory strategies are increasingly important in academic settings, and especially in developing academic writing skills. This article deals with how students develop academic writing skills in two different pedagogical settings (as autonomous learners and in a traditional learning environment), and…

Mother tongue rhetoric transfer is unavoidable in ESL writings, especially for Iranian ESL learners, since Persian and English language is quite different. The paper discusses the negative transfer of mother tongue rhetoric in Iranian undergraduate ESL learners' writings from the perspectives of choosing rhetorical structure in English and Persian…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between prospective teachers' belief systems and writing-to-learn. The participants comprised eight freshmen from the Department of Elementary Science Education at a public university in Turkey. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews.The results indicated that…

A plethora of research has found that teachers' beliefs directly influence their classroom practices and teaching outcomes. While numerous studies in second/foreign language writing have examined the effectiveness of different innovative approaches on students' learning to write, there is a paucity of research on writing teachers' beliefs about…

Reporting a case study of two high-achieving Chinese students studying at a university in Hong Kong, this paper presents evidence that poses an anti-thesis to the stereotypes of first year university students as holding naïve beliefs about learning and of "Chinese learners" as lacking in critical thinking. Many studies have examined…

Although translation in learning a foreign or second language is frowned upon by many language practitioners, it is nonetheless used by language learners as a viable strategy. To date, few studies have investigated the effect of translation on writing. This study explored the use of translation by Iranian university students, particularly with…

Written and oral communications and the processes of writing and reading are highly valued within the scientific community; scientists who communicate well are successful in gaining recognition and support from members of their own communities, the research funding agencies, and the wider society. Yet how do scientists achieve this proficiency?…