This article reports on how pen pals can be incorporated into the literacy classroom for engagement and motivational interest. The authors describe a study in which focused, interactive pen pals were implemented in a third-grade classroom, and the influence this practice had on students' writing. Incorporating pen pals during writing instruction…

Writing in English with confidence is a matter of great concern for non-native speakers. Since writing fluently requires a multidimensional mastery of language skills, students always regard it as an open question. This paper investigates writing skills which seem to be the least favored and most problematic skills to acquire in a foreign language…

Although keeping writing portfolios has proved to be a successful strategy in developing writing skills in English as a foreign language, few studies have focused on pre-service teachers at the pre-intermediate level. This study aims to describe pre-service teachers' perceptions towards portfolio keeping. The sample consisted of 51 first-year…

A recent study by Debra McKeown and colleagues is described by author Eliabeth Foster as important not only because it highlights professional learning about a model of writing instruction of interest to many educators, but also because it examines teachers' reflections about their experiences in professional learning. Building on a larger…

University educators everywhere are trying to assist students in improving their ability to write clear and correct business English. Business communication texts, in general, use several decades of research that have established a three-stage process: prewriting, writing, and rewriting (Collins & Parkhurst, 1996). Identifying and correcting…

Peer assessment training has appeared as potential new tools for enhancing Arab English as foreign language (EFL) high school students on writing performance. The purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of using peer assessment training on writing performance among Arab EFL high school students. One hundred and twenty students aged…

This study investigated students' perceptions of collaborative writing in a teacher-centred class and their change in beliefs about English writing through collaborative writing experiences. The analysis of multiple data sources (i.e., video recordings of collaborative writing activities, two in-depth, semi-structured interviews, one stimulated…

Students with disabilities continue to perform below peers without disabilities in writing. To address the need for improving written expression for students with learning differences, schools are implementing instructional strategies. This study investigated teacher perceptions of a four-year, schoolwide, K-12 implementation of strategic…

This paper aims to review literature on the impact of using web-based technology such as blogs and social networks to facilitate and promote peer feedback in ESL writing classrooms. It also investigates how giving and receiving comments from peer students can improve students' performance in writing as well as their critical thinking skills. A…

Studies have found that morphology awareness could assist writers to increase productive vocabulary (e.g. Green et al., 2003; McCutchen & Stull, 2015), reduce vocabulary errors (e.g. Karakas, 2012; Ririn, 2010), and produce complex sentence structures using various forms of words. Postgraduate students as second language users of English (L2)…

This study investigated the efficacy of explicit lexical collocation instruction via the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). To improve competence in lexical collocation and writing performance and to examine whether collocational competence and writing performance have a linear interrelation, 16 international English for Academic…

A process writing project in a third-grade classroom explored the idea of using nonfiction mentor texts to assist students in writing their own creative informational texts about animals. By looking at author craft and structure during close reading activities with nonfiction Twin Texts, students were taught how to emulate these techniques in…

This research investigates the changes in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' psychological attributes in relation to awareness of the lexicogrammatical features and generic structures of a discussion genre essay. This was achieved by implementing a genre-based approach to text-based writing lessons during a 15-week course. The following…

The current study investigated the quality of feedback produced via anonymous online peer feedback activity in a Thai EFL writing classroom. It also explored how the students perceived the anonymous online peer feedback activity. Peer feedback tasks, questionnaires, and an interview were used to collect the information. The results from the peer…

Writing textbooks for English language learners frequently teach a paragraph pattern that is limited to topic sentence, support, and concluding sentence. Although beginning second language (L2) writers benefit from having a structured way to organize their ideas, as they advance, this type of writing can sound trite and uncritical. To provide a…