Complex noun phrases (CNP) are a major vehicle of academic written discourse (Halliday, 1988/2004). However, despite the view that they pose significant challenges to English language learners, they are rarely taught in college-based English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programs, especially for the purposes of improving reading comprehension. This…

This study examined the differences and similarities among the writing of three types of developmental English and advanced ESL United States community college students, comparing the writing of resident English learners (RL2), whose home language was not English but who attended United States public schools for five years or more, to that of…

This study analyzed and observed the oral discourse of Local Community College students. A descriptive analysis was conducted to find out the communicative competence level among the one hundred fifty randomly chosen respondents. A triangulation method was initiated to ensure the legitimacy of the gathered data. "Focus Group Discussion,"…

An English reading class of 10th graders (N = 50) was asked to self-construct English word cards for unknown vocabulary incidentally encountered when completing textbook readings. The students were assigned this task to determine what linguistic and nonlinguistic elements they would self-select to include on the cards and whether the appearance of…

The use of appropriate of words in writing, particularly frequently occurring four words combinations in academic register, is very important because it is an effective building block of academic text used by expert writers for effective communication. Yet teaching of four-word lexical bundles is rarely discussed in ESL writing textbooks. Recent…

The plagiarism detection programs SafeAssign and Turnitin are commonly used at the collegiate level to detect improper use of outside sources. In order to determine whether either program is superior, this study evaluated the programs using four standards: (1) the ability to detect legitimate plagiarism, (2) the ability to avoid false positives,…

In this article, the author offers a new strategy for working with sentences in college composition that prompts students to access and apply their native grammatical abilities. The chunking strategy that she advocates is based on meaning and rests at a level of analysis that transcends varieties. It builds on the grammatical competence that…

A major challenge for the increasing multicultural and multilingual community college student population has been the difficulty in accessing the register features which define academic writing. In this study, an analysis of clause structures using writing samples collected from 45 community-college students, 15 from African-American, Haitian and…