The impact of computer-aided concept mapping on EFL learners’ lexical diversity: A process writing experiment

ReCALL ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Mohammad Hassanzadeh ◽  
Elahe Saffari ◽  
Saeed Rezaei
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Concept Mapping ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Process Writing ◽  
Lexical Diversity ◽  
Computer Aided ◽  
Argumentative Essays ◽  
D Values ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Nowadays, many second/foreign language (L2) academic writing instruction programs place a high premium on pre-writing strategies. The current study examined the effect of software-supported concept mapping on lexical diversity (LD) of English learners’ argumentative essays within a process writing framework. Additionally, the relationship between the learners’ LD and their overall writing quality was investigated. To this end, 53 university English as a foreign language (EFL) undergraduates were assigned to a computer-aided concept mapping (CACM) and a traditional outlining condition over a span of seven weeks. The CACM group was instructed through the graphic organizer software Inspiration®, whereas the comparison group underwent outlining instruction for planning their writing tasks. Measure of textual lexical diversity (MTLD) was used to assess the so-called D values of the assignments. The results revealed that the CACM group outperformed the outlining group in terms of LD scores. Also, no relationship was found between LD and overall quality of the essays. The findings provide L2 researchers and teachers with insights into understanding the use of CACM strategy in process writing. Moreover, exploiting MTLD afforded our experiment the opportunity to counteract potential pitfalls associated with text size. Further implications for the L2 teacher are also discussed.

scholarly journals Linguistic Markers and Stylistic Attributes of Hedging in English Academic Papers Written by Native and Non-Native Speakers of English

MANUSYA ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Amara Prasithrathsint
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Linguistic Markers ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
English Academic Writing ◽  
The Impact

Hedging means mitigating words so as to lessen the impact of an utterance. It may cause uncertainty in language but is regarded as an important feature in English academic writing. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the style of academic writing in English with particular reference to the significant role of hedging and the linguistic features that mark it. The data was taken from academic articles in the humanities written by native speakers of English, Filipino speakers of English, and Thai speakers of English. It is hypothesized that speakers of English as a foreign language use fewer and different hedging devices than native speakers of English. The result of the analysis shows that the prominent linguistic markers of hedging are the auxiliaries may, might, could, the verbs suggest, appear, seem, and the adverbs perhaps and often. They are divided into three groups according to their stylistic attributes of hedging; namely, probability, indetermination, and approximation. The use of hedging found in the data confirms what Hyman (1994) says; i.e., that hedging allows writers to express their uncertainty about the truth of their statements. It is also found that English native speakers use hedges most frequently. The Filipino speakers of English are the second, and the Thai speakers of English use hedges the least frequency. This implies that hedging is likely to be related to the level of competence in English including knowledge of stylistic variation, and that it needs to be formally taught to those who speak English as a second or foreign language.

scholarly journals Exploring syntactic complexity and its relationship with writing quality in EFL argumentative essays

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-81
Author(s):  
Farzaneh Shadloo ◽  
Hesamoddin Shahriari Ahmadi ◽  
Behzad Ghonsooly
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Writing Quality ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Syntactic Features ◽  
Development Scheme ◽  
Language Writing ◽  
Argumentative Essays ◽  
Different Levels

Abstract To predict syntactic complexity in second/foreign language writing, some studies have advocated the use of T-unit and clausal subordination measures while others have argued for the use of phrase-based measures. This study seeks to identify syntactic features that can be regarded as discriminators among different levels of writing quality. For this purpose, a corpus of argumentative essays by EFL learners was compiled and then the essays were rated and placed into three groups of high-rated, mid-rated, and low-rated essays. The corpus was then coded and analysed for both phrasal and clausal features. The phrasal features were manually coded based on the development scheme hypothesized by Biber, Gray and Poonpon (2011) for academic writing, and the clausal features were analysed using the online L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer developed by Lu (2010). A separate ANOVA test was used to compare the three groups of essays for each of the phrasal and clausal features. The findings of the current study demonstrated that subordination and dependent clauses were not good indicators of different writing qualities in our corpus. Also, the pattern of noun phrase complexity predicted by Biber et al. (2011) was not observed across argumentative essays from three different levels of writing quality.

Lexical diversity and the use of academic and lower frequency words in the academic writing of EFL students

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-18
Author(s):  
Neda Akbari
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
University Education ◽  
Lexical Diversity ◽  
Language Differences ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
University Level ◽  
One Year

Abstract This study focuses on lexical diversity and the use of academic and lower frequency words in essays written by EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students enrolled in Years 1 and 2 at the undergraduate university level. The purpose of this study is to find out the extent to which EFL students become more proficient in their use of academic and lower frequency words and make more diverse choices in their writing after one year of undergraduate university education in English. The study also compares essays written by EFL students and NS (native speaker) students to determine inter-language differences. Essays written by 62 EFL students and 198 NS students at Years 1 and 2 were analyzed for this study. The findings showed no statistically significant difference between the essays written by EFL students in Year 1 and those written in Year 2, either in terms of lexical diversity or in terms of the use of academic and lower frequency words. EFL students in both year levels had a preference for highly frequent words (words in the 1k frequency band). This is in contrast to the NS students, whose use of academic and some lower frequency words improved in Year 2. The findings also showed a statistically significant difference between the essays written by the EFL and the NS students in both year levels. The EFL students made less diverse lexical choices and used fewer words in various frequency bands than the NS students. Findings are discussed and recommendations are offered to EFL students and their educators on how to focus on these aspects of academic writing.

scholarly journals Coherence: Implications for teaching writing

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-30
Author(s):  
Emilija Sarzhoska-Georgievska
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Language ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
First Language ◽  
Teaching Writing ◽  
Written Discourse ◽  
Argumentative Essays ◽  
L1 And L2

The paper presents the results of a study consisting of three text-based analyses of groups of student argumentative essays written on the same topic. The aim was to identify text-based features of coherence in L1 and L2. The analyses were carried out on essays written by first and third year undergraduates at the Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Philology "Blazhe Koneski" at the Ss. "Cyril and Methodius" University in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia who wrote in their first language Macedonian, L1, and in English as a foreign language, L2. The goal was to recognise the importance of discourse organisation in academic writing in L1, and to examine factors which may affect second language learners' competence in the organisation of written discourse in English as a foreign language, L2. The paper points out the differences in the rhetorical models in Macedonian and English written discourse and how these differences may have an impact on writing assessment and the teaching of writing at university level.

scholarly journals The Effect of the Process-Based Approach on the Writing Skills of Bilingual Elementary Students

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-98
Author(s):  
Luisa Fernanda Sánchez ◽  
Margarita Lopez-Pinzon
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Private School ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Third Grade ◽  
Writing Strategies ◽  
Self Assessment ◽  
Third Grade Students ◽  
Content Organization ◽  
The Impact

The objective of this action research study was to assess the impact of the Process-Based Approach (PBA) on the development of the writing skills of young students who are learning English as a Foreign Language. The participants included 12 third-grade students from a bilingual private school in Manizales, Caldas. Six workshops were implemented, guiding the students to write different texts in English by using the writing process stages and applying some writing strategies, such as planning, monitoring, and evaluating their own output. Instruments such as a teacher’s journal, a writing rubric, external observations, self-assessment protocols, and L2 writing pre- and post-tests were used to collect the data. The results suggest that the PBA was useful for enhancing the writing skills of young English learners. Additionally, the strategies applied during the process bettered third-grade students’ writing performance in aspects such as content, organization, conventions, vocabulary, and fluency. Finally, the data illustrated that the PBA and the writing strategies made students feel confident about writing, which, at the same time, contributed to the students’ self-efficacy in writing tasks.

scholarly journals ERROR ANALYSIS OF CONJUNCTION IN EXPOSITORY ESSAY WRITING BY JORDANIAN UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS STUDYING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE (EFL)

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (42) ◽  
pp. 482-491
Author(s):  
Khaled Salem Ahmad Amayreh ◽  
Ahmad Taufik Hidayah Abdullah
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Sampling Technique ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Cohesive Devices ◽  
Semantic Resources ◽  
Expository Essays

Academic writing is used a lot in the academic field and general writing as a distinct genre discourse in the linguistic and socio-cultural fields. Good writers generally use well-formed sentences; they often establish connections between sentences. Writing an essay is still a critical problem for most EFL undergraduate students since they are still not able to establish connections between sentences. The purpose of this study is to investigate the usage of conjunctions as cohesive devices in expository essays produced by EFL fourth-year undergraduate students majoring in the English language at the Department of English language and literature, Hashemite University in Jordan. A corpus of 30 expository essays was collected by using a simple purposive sampling technique to answer the questions of the study based on the theory of cohesion analysis by refining the grammatical cohesive related aspect based on Halliday and Hasan's (1976) taxonomy of conjunction. The results of this study confirm earlier studies showing English learners as a foreign language are having difficulty in using conjunctions in their writing. This study contributes to the written discourse and pedagogy within the field of teaching English for academic writing. The study recommends that grammatical cohesive devices and their function should be explained to the students through explicit teaching, not as separated grammatical items but as discourse semantic resources of text creation.

scholarly journals The academic writing of university english learners: a corpus-based study

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Annallena De Souza Guedes
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Learners ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Minas Gerais ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Appropriate Use ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Argumentative Essays

This article discusses and analyzes the frequency and use of high - frequency verbs in argumentative essays written by Brazilian English learners of Federal University of Minas Gerais. We used Corpus Linguistic (CL) tools to analyze the grammar patterns found on data of texts produced by the learners enrolled in English for Academic            Purposes subject (Inglês para Fins Acadêmicos- IFA). We listed the ten most frequent verbs and we decided to analyze the use of make and get and outline their fifteen most frequent collocates. The results showed that there are some difficulties on the appropriate use of these verbs, especially when it turns to collocations, as well as there is a tendency of patterns use interference of their native language.

scholarly journals THE IMPACT OF ANXIETY ON SPEAKING IN ADOLESCENT AND ADULT GROUPS OF ENGLISH LEARNERS

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-106
Author(s):  
Bogusława Gosiewska-Turek
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Adult Students ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Research Data ◽  
English Teacher ◽  
Weak Correlation ◽  
Research Results ◽  
Adolescent Students ◽  
The Impact

Aim: The aim of this article is to investigate the interdependence between adolescent and adult students’ anxiety and their foreign language speaking achievements. It has been proved that there is no correlation between adolescent learners’ anxiety and their speaking attainments in a foreign language as well as that there is a weak correlation between adult students’ anxiety and their speaking achievements. Method: The author of the study employed quantitative research. Data was collected from anxiety questionnaires completed by the students and from achievement sheets filled in by the English teacher based on five-minute speeches performed by adolescent and adult students. Conclusion: According to the research results, there is no interdependence between adolescent students’ anxiety and their speaking attainments and the correlation between adult students’ anxiety and their speaking achievements is weak. Nevertheless, a number of other studies revealed the interdependence between students’ anxiety and their speaking attainments. Therefore, limitations of the study should be born in mind, and the results of the following study can be applied only to the subjects participating in the study. Hence, it is relevant to repeat the study with larger samples of subjects.

The impact of cooperative learning on English as a foreign language tertiary learners' social skills

2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 557-567 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huiping Ning
Keyword(s):  
Social Skills ◽  
Cooperative Learning ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Control Group ◽  
College English ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
The North ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact

In this study, I focused on the impact of cooperative learning on the development of social skills in English as a foreign language (EFL) tertiary students. Participants were 2 randomly selected classes of students from a university in the north of China. A pretest-posttest control group quasiexperimental design was employed for the comparison of the impact of the cooperative learning approach with that of traditional whole-class instruction on 8 aspects of social skills: self-confidence, sense of cohesion, initiative in socialization, being positive, checking for understanding, equal participation and accountability, acceptance and empathy, and conflict management. These aspects form 8 subscales of the Social Skills Scale for Chinese College English Learners (SSS-CCEL; Ning, 2010), which the participants completed. Findings suggest substantial differences in favor of cooperative learning in the improvement of students' overall social skills, and in particular in the skills of equal participation and accountability.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document