This paper examines the role of metacognitive awareness in academic writing in a mixed-method study. In addition to validating an instrument assessing metacognitive knowledge and strategies in the context of academic writing, the study uncovered how Chinese multilingual students' metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive strategies, and metacognitive…

Designed to gauge the actions, skills, and strategies that students use to identify, extract, and synthesize information from multiple source materials, integrated writing tasks are particularly challenging for ESL writers. Previous research tended to focus on a limited number of integrated tasks, mostly summaries of one or two sources, thus…

Integrated writing is increasingly used in language assessment programmes. As a hybrid task, it requires students to coordinate different language skills, i.e. listening, reading and writing, to retrieve information from multiple sources, and compose an essay for a specific purpose. Tapping into the varied skills that contribute to successful…

This study investigated the effects of using IELTS model essays in conjunction with noticing as a feedback instrument on Vietnamese undergraduates' IELTS Task 2 writing performance. To investigate this, a quasi-experimental design was undertaken. The control group used the course textbook and received traditional writing feedback (i.e. direct,…

Many English language proficiency (ELP) tests used for university admissions and placement now include integrated writing tasks that require examinees to use external sources when writing. Integrated writing tasks improve test authenticity and impact, but they raise several validity questions, such as what academic language skills they engage and…

The pressure to publish in scholarly journals has been increasingly pervading doctoral education worldwide and has become a high-stakes activity for any novice writer who wishes to pursue an academic career. In this manuscript, we explore how doctoral students of management from Eastern Europe identify and evaluate authorial voice and compare…

This study investigated the effects of strategic planning and task structure (personal, narrative, and decision-making tasks) on L2 writing outcomes. One hundred and twenty intermediate English as a foreign language learners were randomly divided into strategic-planning and no-planning-time groups. The strategic-planning group performed the three…

Of all English Language skills, writing poses the greatest challenge for students due to the demands of style, structure and vocabulary. Even if second language learners (L2 learners) can speak the language well enough for everyday activities--shopping, traveling, and so on, producing an academic write-up that is precise, accurate, objective and…

The Theme is a major aspect of how speakers construct their messages in a way which makes them fit smoothly into the unfolding language event. Thematic choice provides clues as to how English learners organize information and shape their texts. Previous studies reveal that English learners deviated from English native speakers in their thematic…

This study explores the construct of a summarization test task by means of single-group and multigroup structural equation modeling (SEM). It examines the interrelationships between strategy use and performance, drawing on data from 298 Taiwanese undergraduates' summary essays and their self-reported strategy use. Single-group SEM analyses…

The present study sought to investigate the effect of portfolio assessment on idiom competence of Iranian EFL learners. For the purpose of this study, 30 students from upper-intermediate level of English proficiency took part in this study. They were chosen through convenience sampling from a language institute in Rasht, Iran. They were randomly…

In the study reported here, we explored writing processes employed by 70 undergraduate learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) through questionnaires and think-aloud protocols. Then we looked for possible differences in the writing processes employed by high- and low-aptitude learners. We observed that learners with higher aptitude scores…

Studies on out-of-class language learning strategies (OCLLSs) are usually divorced from the activities in class. Thus, this study addresses the connection of the two entities. The participants in this study were nine international postgraduate students who were undergoing their English language proficiency course in an institution in Malaysia.…

With the increasing use of integrated tasks in assessing writing, more and more research studies have been conducted to examine the construct validity of such tasks. Previous studies have largely focused on reading-writing tasks, while relatively little is known about graph-writing tasks. This study examines second language (L2) writers'…

Integrated writing tasks that involve different language modalities such as reading and listening have increasingly been used as means to assess academic writing. Thus, there is a need for understanding how test-takers coordinate different skills to complete these tasks. This study explored second language writers' strategy use and its…