This paper examines the English grammatical errors and their patterns in the written assignments of a General Education course at City University of Hong Kong. Subjects are 60 local and non-local (exchange) undergraduate students who are all L2 learners with diversified education and disciplinary background (i. e. their major of study) which are…

Traditional grammar pedagogy conceptualizing grammar as rules of thumb fails to provide learners with comprehensive, accurate, or systematic knowledge on the system. The present classroom-based study aims at investigating application of an alternative pedagogical grammar method integrating the pedagogical framework of systemic theoretical…

In the first phase of this study, how English simple past is being taught in the classroom was examined through a questionnaire. The findings report how primary and secondary teachers perceived the difficulties faced by Cantonese English as a second language learners when acquiring English simple past, and the dominant teaching approaches or…

This article aims to show how the findings from written corrective feedback (WCF) research can be applied in practice. One particular kind of WCF--focused WCF--is brought into the spotlight. The article first summarizes major findings from focused WCF research to reveal the potential advantages of correcting a few preselected language items…

Through examining all instances of the nontarget "be" before verbs in the written interlanguage of Chinese learners at different proficiency levels, the present study reveals that nontarget "be" performs different functions, and there is a function shift from low to high proficiency levels. At the lowest levels, "be"…