This paper reports on the effects of using wiki-based process writing in Singapore's Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) scenarios. A group of 32 Secondary 1 (Seventh Grade) students ("Students") received various forms of online scaffolding at different steps of the writing process over two years. A whole set of teaching materials on 45…

The factors determining foreign language abilities have received copious attention from foreign language studies, and these research findings provided highly converging pedagogical implications for language teachers. However, not many studies have focused on non-academic learners especially with respect to their literacy skills. To fill this gap,…

This correlational study, conducted in intermediate English as a second language (ESL) high school classes in Quebec, investigated the relationship between instructor feedback and student anxiety. The participants were 53 ESL students in their last year of secondary school who were required to take an integrative-writing exam as part of their…

This study investigated the effects of immigration and home language on academic achievement over time. Using data from Ontario's Assessments of Reading, Writing and Mathematics administered to the same students in Grades 3 and 6, logistic regression was used to predict if students achieved proficiency in Grade 6 if they were not proficient in…

When writing an argumentative essay, writers develop and evaluate arguments to embody, initiate, or simulate various kinds of interpersonal and textual interaction for reader consideration (Wu & Allison, 2003). This is quite challenging for English as a second language (ESL) learners. To improve the quality of their writing, students need to…

Commercial publishers have shaped reading and writing instruction in American schools through their interpretations of state-developed reading and writing standards and standards-aligned materials, which teachers then implement in English classes, including those serving multilingual learners. This paper uses microethnographic discourse analysis…

Most previous studies on disciplinary academic writing focused on the structures in research articles or linguistic realizations of each move (Lau, 2004; Hyland, 2000). Few have been conducted to address the interpersonal aspect of disciplinary discourse texts. The purpose of this study was to measure the effect of lexical bundles' (LBs) awareness…

This research investigated the relation between rater cognition and rater behavior, focusing on differential severity/leniency regarding criteria. Participants comprised a sample of 18 raters examined in a previous rater cognition study (Eckes, 2008b). These raters, who were known to differ widely in their perceptions of criterion importance,…

SAT participation and performance are milestones on the path to college and career readiness. This report provides the results for SAT participation and performance in Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools (MCPS) for the class of 2014. Analysis of postsecondary outcomes for MCPS graduates indicates that graduates who took the SAT were more…

This article reports the results of an experimental study on the effectiveness of mobile technology (WhatsApp) in improving the critique writing skills of English as a Foreign Language learners and increasing their motivation for learning. The participants (n = 52) are Average-English proficient learners enrolled in two writing courses given at…

This report presents work on the development of a new corpus of non-native English writing. It will be useful for the task of native language identification, as well as grammatical error detection and correction, and automatic essay scoring. In this report, the corpus is described in detail.

This study investigates the effects of topical knowledge on ESL (English as a Second Language) writing performance in the English Language Proficiency Index (LPI), a standardized English proficiency test used by many post-secondary institutions in western Canada. The participants were 50 students with different levels of English proficiency…

This study investigates the effects of cross-linguistic consciousness-raising through comparing and contrasting learners' L1 (Persian) and L2 (English) on their L2 written performance. To do this, sixty intermediate language learners, both male and female, learning English at two private institutes in Yasuj, Iran, were chosen as the participants…

This article reports on an 8-week study that investigated the differential effects of two written corrective feedback (CF) options on 92 low-intermediate EFL students' explicit and implicit knowledge of English articles and the extent to which language analytic ability might influence the effect of written CF. The study used a…

The study investigated how transactional strategies could improve undergraduate students' reading and writing abilities. A quasi-experimental study was performed with two groups of students. Students in the control group were taught by the traditional method, while students in the experimental group were taught by transactional strategies. The…