Graduation thesis is an indispensible procedure for each undergraduate, which is crucial for successful graduation, employment, further study and even further development. However, due to most undergraduates' ignorance of academic writing and the deficiency of current thesis writing course, thesis writing ability can hardly be enhanced and…

This study explored how the GRE Analytical Writing Section Discussion Forum, an informal online language learning community in China, functioned to support its members to improve their English writing proficiency. The Community of Inquiry (CoI) model was used as the theoretical framework to explore the existence of teaching presence, cognitive…

This article investigates the role of direct corpus use in learners' collocational competence in academic writing. An experiment was conducted between two groups of Chinese postgraduates who had no previous knowledge of corpora. It was embedded in a regular 4-month linguistics course in the students' programmes, where a corpus-assisted method was…

Although the effectiveness of computer-mediated collaborative writing (CMCW) is confirmed by many recent studies, only a few have investigated whether linguistic knowledge and writing skills learned through collaboration can be internalized and transferred to individual writing. This study uses a pre-and post-test design to investigate the impact…

This paper aims to investigate the effects of the alignment entailed in the continuation task on syntactic complexity in L2 written production. A total number of 48 sophomores majoring in English at a university in China were randomly assigned to two groups, one is the continuation group and the other is the topic writing group. The current study…

This study investigated the effect of cooperative learning on writing anxiety alleviation through a pre-test/post-test assessment. 120 EFL learners from a Chinese polytechnic institute were assigned into two groups: one experimental (cooperative writing) and the other comparison (solitary writing). Results revealed that cooperative learning…

Automated writing evaluation (AWE) systems can provide immediate computer-generated quantitative assessments and qualitative diagnostic feedback on an enormous number of submitted essays. However, limited research attention has been paid to locally designed AWE systems used in English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom contexts. This study…

Writing is one of the most challenging skills for many EFL learners to master. It is also considered to be the most difficult to teach. To motivate students to write more without burdening teachers with additional rating work, college English teachers at a university in China introduced a journal project. Peer learners were paired anonymously and…

Wikis provide users with opportunities to post and edit messages to collaborate in the language learning process. Many studies have offered findings to show positive impact of Wiki-based language learning for learners. This paper explores the effect of collaborative task in error correction for English as a Foreign Language learning in an online…

Under task-based learning (TBL) framework, language learners engage in purposeful, problem-oriented, and outcome-driven tasks that are comparable to traditional teaching methods which focus only on the correctness of grammar. In this study, the author employs Jane Willis' TBL framework and examines its effects on the improvement of EFL learners'…

The effective design and use of Automated Writing Evaluation (AWE) tools in developing English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' writing skill and learner autonomy have remained great challenges for system designers, developers, and EFL instructors compared with that of the pencil-paper writing in the context of regular teacher-fronted…

Writing an essay is a very important skill for students to master, but a difficult task for them to overcome. It is particularly true for English as Second Language (ESL) students in China. It would be very useful if students could receive timely and effective feedback about their writing. Automatic essay feedback generation is a challenging task,…

The paper takes 414 graduates from ZJU in 2011 and 2012, NIT as a case, analyzing the status of their writing of graduation thesis. It is found that a considerable number of students have problems in selection and report of topics, writing of each part and debating in the whole process of graduation thesis. In view of the situation, based on the…

According to the constructivism learning theory, blog may act as a useful tool for improving writing capability. For this purpose, the present article attempts to explore the potential of blog for improving English writing in the Chinese tertiary EFL classrooms. A quasi-experimental study was conducted in a Chinese university to compare the…

This study investigates the effects of using an online Automated Essay Assessing (AEA) system on EFL graduate students' writing. Eighty four EFL graduate students divided into the treatment group and the control group participated in this study. The treatment group was asked to use an AEA system to assist their essay writing. Both groups were…