EFL Students’ Cognitive Performance during Argumentative Essay Writing: A log-file data analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 102546
Author(s):  
Forooq Zarrabi ◽  
Hossein Bozorgian
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-35
Author(s):  
Atik Umamah ◽  
Bambang Yudi Cahyono

This research is carried out to investigate Indonesian EFL students’ use of self-regulated writing (SRW) strategies and to identify the SRW strategies applied, particularly by proficient students in writing. The research involved 45 students who have passed an essay writing course focusing on expository essays. Data on the students’ use of SRW strategies came from a Self-Regulated Learning Strategy Questionnaire (SRLSQ) adopted from Abadikhah et al. (2018). The students’ use of SRW strategies were categorized into six dimensions: motive, method, time, performance, physical environment, and social environment. Out of the total number of respondents, four proficient students were involved in a semi-structured interview. The interview was aimed at knowing the students’ use of SRW strategies in the planning, execution, and evaluation (PLEE) cyclical model of process writing. The result of the questionnaire data analysis showed that the students use all of the six dimensions of SRW strategies, with the highest mean for the social environment dimension and the lowest mean for the motive dimension. The result of the interview data analysis revealed that the proficient students also use the six dimensions of SRW strategies. Still, they dominantly apply the method, performance, and social environment dimensions of SRW strategies.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akiko Nagao

This study examined the progress of English as a foreign language (EFL) writers using the instructional framework of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and the communities of practice (CoPs) model. The study participants comprised 11 first-year undergraduate students in Japan with intermediate-level English proficiency who were exposed to SFL in a single EFL classroom (CoP). The participants’ genre understanding and meaning-making decisions when writing discussion essays were studied over two semester-long courses. To do so, their developmental changes were analyzed using pre- and post-instructional writing tasks. In particular, their ability to convey interpersonal meaning, such as through the use of modal verbs, was examined and compared between the pre- and post-tasks. To triangulate the findings, participants’ genre awareness in relation to discussion essays was also examined using in-depth qualitative analysis of their self-reflective texts and peer assessments, based on a grounded theory approach. In the pre-writing task, it was apparent that the learners lacked understanding of the components of discussion essay writing. However, analysis of their post-instructional tasks revealed that most had begun to apply the language components required to convey interpersonal meaning in their discussion genre texts. These results suggest that the changes in learner’s genre awareness and knowledge affected the lexicogrammatical features they used when writing discussion essays. Thus, this study concludes that applying the SFL framework to writing instruction enhanced EFL learners’ awareness of textual meaning and their understanding of the function of discussion essay texts.


Author(s):  
Dewi Nopita

Collocation is a natural order of words in which one word should be attached to another in a particular context. For students who learn English as a foreign language (EFL students), using collocations has been recognized to become a problem. This article is going to describe EFL college students’ skill in using collocations in writing essays. 42 students from the same class were selected. They were the 4th semester students of English Education Study Program at Teacher Training and Education Faculty of UMRAH who took Essay Writing course in the academic year 2019/ 2020. The students were given a take-home assignment to write essays. Then, the essays were analyzed to find out the students’ skill in using collocations. It was found that in using collocation in writing essays, 5 students had excellent skill, 14 students had good skill, and 23 students had low skill. The incorrect use of collocations consisted of lexical and grammatical collocations. Finally, it is hoped that these findings could be a useful input for future Essay Writing course.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 83
Author(s):  
Fang Li ◽  
Yingqin Liu

This study explores the effects of teaching EFL students to use an outline in their English essays. The researchers maintain that using outlines can raise students’ awareness of different audience expectations embedded in the rhetoric of the target language (English) and culture and can improve their English academic writing. The study was based on a four-week long case study at a university in Xi’an, China, in which 24 Chinese EFL students at the College of Translation Studies participated. A discourse analysis was conducted by comparing the Chinese EFL students’ English essays produced at the beginning of the study with those produced at the end of the study after learning and practicing outlining for writing the English essays. Email inquiries were used for understanding the participants’ viewpoints on learning how to write English essay outlines. The findings reveal that teaching EFL students to use outlining in their English essays is an effective way to help them improve their essay writing. Not only can it enhance the students’ understanding about using the English thesis statements, but it can also help improve the use of related, logical, and specific detailed examples to support the main ideas in their essays. The email inquiries also revealed that the students believe that outline learning helped them to understand the differences between Chinese and English essay writing. The implications of the study for intercultural rhetoric are also discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. p32
Author(s):  
Moussa Tankari ◽  
Ayodele Adebayo Allagbé ◽  
Abdou Maiguéro

This paper aimed at measuring the impacts of using the process approach to teach second-year English major students at the English Department of Université de Zinder (henceforth, UZ) essay writing. Drawing on the pre-test-post-test repeated measures design, this study examined the written essays produced by the EFL students before and after the writing class. These pre and post tests were scored based on a criterial fair copy, and the scores were compared by means of an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to check whether there were any statistically significant differences between the mean scores. The findings revealed that the process approach had a positive impact on the participants’ essay writing skills. Also, employing Classroom Observation, the article attempted to qualitatively measure student engagement in the writing class. The findings further exuded that the EFL students observed were cognitively involved in the learning activities conducted in the class. Based on the foregoing findings, this study recommends that the process approach to (the teaching of) writing be adopted and used to teach writing in EFL classes across/in Niger.


2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tingting Jiang ◽  
Qian Guo ◽  
Shunchang Chen ◽  
Jiaqi Yang

Purpose The headlines of online news are created carefully to influence audience news selection today. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between news headline presentation and users’ clicking behavior. Design/methodology/approach Two types of unobtrusive data were collected and analyzed jointly for this purpose. A two-month server log file containing 39,990,200 clickstream records was obtained from an institutional news site. A clickstream data analysis was conducted at the footprint and movement levels, which extracted 98,016 clicks received by 7,120 headlines ever displayed on the homepage. Meanwhile, the presentation of these headlines was characterized from seven dimensions, i.e. position, format, text length, use of numbers, use of punctuation marks, recency and popularity, based on the layout and content crawled from the homepage. Findings This study identified a series of presentation characteristics that prompted users to click on the headlines, including placing them in the central T-shaped zones, using images, increasing text length properly for greater clarity, using visually distinctive punctuation marks, and providing recency and popularity indicators. Originality/value The findings have valuable implications for news providers in attracting clicks to their headlines. Also, the successful application of nonreactive methods has significant implications for future user studies in both information science and journalism.


2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 171
Author(s):  
Ali Soltani ◽  
Mohsen Ghafari

This study investigates the probable relationship between Iranian EFL learners' self-perception and assertiveness and their oral communication skills. A sample of 80 male and female Iranian EFL students participated in this study. The participants were initially required to complete Belbin's self-perception questionnaire, they were then asked to complete Oral Communication Strategies Inventory (OCSI). The results of the data analysis indicated that there was a strong positive correlation between the two variables and thus the higher the level of self-perception and assertiveness, the higher the level of communication will be. Keywords: Communication Strategies, Self-perception, Assertiveness.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-182
Author(s):  
Uyunnasirah Hambali ◽  
Ummi Khaerati Syam ◽  
Muhammad Reza

This research applied quantitative research. Quantitative is basically framed in term of using numbers, closed-end question. Quantitative research is characterized as an efficient examination of wonders by gathering quantifiable information and performing factual, scientific, or computational procedures. In collecting data, the researcher used pronunciation test as instrument in order to get the data. The items of pronunciation test consisted of a list of 120 words. Each sound consisted of 5 words. Pronunciation test was given to the respondents through asking them to pronounce the words clearly and correctly while the researcher was recorded. The result of the research data showed that the students made 1085 or 93.53% errors of substitution, 38 or 3.28% errors of omission, and 37 or 3.19% errors of addition from the total errors found. It indicated that most of the students made errors in substitution with high percentage than omission and errors of substitution had higher percentage than omission and addition. The result of the data analysis showed that there were 179 or 97.28% errors of substitution, 5 or 2.72% errors of omission, and there were no errors of addition found in pronouncing English approximant consonants. So, from all kinds of errors, most of the students made errors in substitution both fricative and approximant consonants.


Author(s):  
Anggi Citra Apriliana ◽  
Wina Hermawati

This research is motivated by the results of observations which show that the activities and writing skills of narrative essays by Grade IV students of Santaka Elementary School Cimanggung District, Sumedang Regency are still low. This is indicated by the low understanding of students in learning narrative essay writing skills and student activities that are classified as passive during learning. The purpose of this research is to improve the activities and writing skills of students' narrative essays by applying the Concept Sentence learning model. The research method used is PTK with Kemmis and Mc. Taggart. This research consisted of two cycles with 23 students. Based on the results of data analysis, it is known that the increase in student activity is seen from the average pre-cycle learning outcomes reaching 39%, then increasing in the first cycle after using the Concept Sentence model with an average of 70% and the second cycle reaching 83%. This shows an increase in student activity in learning to write narrative essays. The narrative essay writing skills in the initial conditions reached 26%, then increased in the first cycle with an average of 65% and in the second cycle reached 87%. This shows that the students' narrative essay writing skills have increased in each cycle with the application of the Concept Sentence model.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 168
Author(s):  
Bambang Yudi Cahyono ◽  
Ira Mutiaraningrum

<p><em>This research aimed at examining Indonesian EFL </em><em>students</em><em>’ proficiency in writing and ability in public speaking across</em><em> personality</em><em> learning styles</em><em>: extroversion and introversion</em><em>. It involved 7</em><em>4</em><em> undergraduate students who </em><em>took </em><em>an Essay Writing course in the English Department of </em><em>Universitas Negeri</em><em> Malang, one of the leading universities in Indonesia. The students were distributed into three classes</em><em>.</em><em> The</em><em>y </em><em>were taught how to write essays. Then, the students were made aware that they had to complete two tasks: writing </em><em>and presenting </em><em>a cause and effect essay on topics related to English language teaching. The students’ cause and effect essays were scored to know their proficiency in writing and their presentation was assessed to know their ability in speaking. Two scoring rubrics were used and two raters were involved in the scoring process for interrater reliability. The results of the research showed that the Indonesian EFL </em><em>student</em><em>s’ proficiency in writing is </em><em>strongly </em><em>related to their ability in speaking</em><em> for both groups of students</em><em>. In addition, </em><em>the Indonesian extrovert EFL students’ proficiency in writing is strongly related to their ability in speaking. The Indonesian introvert EFL students’ proficiency in writing is also strongly related to their ability in speaking. However, there is no significant difference of the proficiency in writing and ability speaking between the extrovert and introvert students.</em></p>


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