Reading Comprehension and Second Language Development in a Comprehension-Based ESL Program

How do experienced ESL instructors plan and organize their teaching practices to make curriculum innovations? The present research sought answers to this question in three different educational contexts, attempting to document the curriculum concepts, pedagogical knowledge, and processes of instructional planning that eight teachers used to create novel courses for adult ESL learners. Findings describe (1) four modes of planning and twelve cycles of information-gathering in the ESL curriculum planning of one teacher, (2) verification of this framework among four additional teachers, as well as (3) an additional framework for documenting teachers' orientations to curriculum content in second language writing instruction, accounting for three teachers' processes of accommodating an instructional innovation into their usual teaching practices.

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Perception on second language writing: Comparing two ESL learners

English Language Teaching ◽

10.17936/pkelt.2014.26.2.002 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 26 (2) ◽

pp. 23-42 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

조영교

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Second Language Writing ◽

Language Writing ◽

Esl Learners

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Automatic analysis of syntactic complexity in second language writing

International Journal of Corpus Linguistics ◽

10.1075/ijcl.15.4.02lu ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 15 (4) ◽

pp. 474-496 ◽

Cited By ~ 174

Author(s):

Xiaofei Lu

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Language Proficiency ◽

Second Language Writing ◽

High Reliability ◽

Written Language ◽

Automatic Analysis ◽

Syntactic Complexity ◽

College Level ◽

Second Language Development ◽

Language Writing

We describe a computational system for automatic analysis of syntactic complexity in second language writing using fourteen different measures that have been explored or proposed in studies of second language development. The system takes a written language sample as input and produces fourteen indices of syntactic complexity of the sample based on these measures. The system is designed with advanced second language proficiency research in mind, and is therefore developed and evaluated using college-level second language writing data from the Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners (Wen et al. 2005). Experimental results show that the system achieves very high reliability on unseen test data from the corpus. We illustrate how the system is used in an example application to investigate whether and to what extent each of these measures significantly differentiate between different proficiency levels

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Anxiety and Writing Ability of Filipino ESL Learners

International Journal of Linguistics Literature & Translation ◽

10.32996/ijllt.2020.3.7.14 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 3 (7) ◽

pp. 126-132

Author(s):

Ryan P. Kabigting ◽

Allan S. Gumangan ◽

Dhonna P. Vital ◽

Ella Shiela V. Villanueva ◽

Evelyn S. Mosuela ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Second Language Writing ◽

English As Second Language ◽

Writing Anxiety ◽

Writing Ability ◽

Language Writing ◽

And Performance ◽

Written Test ◽

Relationship Of ◽

Esl Learners

The study aimed at describing how L2 anxiety of writing affected the Filipino English as Second Language (ESL) learners’ ability in writing. It also showed the anxiety rates, foremost type; then, the learners’ writing ability. Thirty-three grade 10 ESL learners participated in. The utilization of Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) which was proposed by Cheng, and a written test as one of the requirements of their subject was done for data collection. 82% of learners marked high anxiety in writing, 18% was moderate anxiety, and none was recorded low anxiety. The leading type of anxiety in writing was cognitive; then the somatic; lastly, the avoidance behavior. In the writing ability, learners were satisfactorily rated and male and female writing ability did not significantly differ. A negatively low correlated, inverse relationship of SLWAI and performance was found between anxiety in writing and Filipino ESL learners’ ability in writing using a second or foreign language. This implies that the greater the learners were anxious in writing, the lesser the achievement that a learner may have.

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11. English as a Foreign Language Writing Teacher Education and Development in Spain: The Relevance of a Focus on Second Language Writing as a Tool for Second Language Development

Second Language Writing Instruction in Global Contexts ◽

10.21832/9781788925877-015 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 222-249

Author(s):

Lourdes Cerezo ◽

Belén González-Cruz ◽

José Ángel Mercader

Keyword(s):

Teacher Education ◽

Second Language ◽

Language Development ◽

Foreign Language ◽

Second Language Writing ◽

Foreign Language Writing ◽

Writing Teacher ◽

Second Language Development ◽

Language Writing ◽

Education And Development

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Towards a More Effective Second Language Writing Pedagogy: Using Task-based Reading to Develop Writing Skills of ESL Learners

University of Chitral Journal of Linguistics and Literature ◽

10.33195/jll.v5ii.256 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 5 (I) ◽

pp. 330-350

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Second Language Writing ◽

Writing Skills ◽

Rank Test ◽

Sentence Structure ◽

Writing Proficiency ◽

Esl Writing ◽

Language Writing ◽

Esl Learners ◽

Reading Activities

The connection between reading and writing has been acknowledged since long and explored through comprehension-based learning activities but not investigated substantially through empirical research into task-based reading activities. This study was carried out to explore the link between task-based reading activities and improvement in ESL writing. The study was prompted by the need to inculcate the maximum level of writing proficiency in a limited time available for instruction in a 4 month semester. We experimented with introducing task-based critical reading to explore its impact on the ESL writing proficiency of Pakistani ESL learners at the undergraduate level with Computer Science as their major. Analyzing students’ pre-test and post-test scores using Wilcoxon signed-rank test and t-test revealed a significant improvement in the overall writing proficiency, content, organization, sentence structure (SS), grammar, punctuation, and spelling (GPS) of students. The findings have important pedagogical implications for improving the learners’ writing proficiency by integrating task-based reading activities in ESL teaching. The article also suggests some of the tasks that teachers can associate with reading in classrooms. It recommends making authentic reading material part of the ESL syllabus everywhere in the world in order to equip learners with better writing skills essential for success in all subjects, higher studies, and research. Keywords: Task-based language learning; proficiency; motivation; schemata; fluency; process-oriented approach; second language writing development

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Teachers' Practices and Students' Preferences for Feedback on Second Language Writing: A Case Study of Adult ESL Learners

TESL Canada Journal ◽

10.18806/tesl.v11i2.633 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 46 ◽

Cited By ~ 48

Author(s):

Hiroko Saito

Keyword(s):

Second Language Writing ◽

Teacher Feedback ◽

Esl Writing ◽

Writing Classes ◽

Intensive Courses ◽

Adult Esl ◽

Language Writing ◽

Teacher Students ◽

Engineering Writing ◽

Esl Learners

The first part of this study investigated the fit between teachers' practices and students' preferences for feedback and the students' strategies for handling feedback on their written work. The second part of this study focused on students' perception of "thinking prompts" for their writing, an innovative approach used in their ESL writing classes, following Bereiter and Scardamalia's idea of "procedural facilitation" (1987). Thirty-nine students in ESL intensive courses and an ESL Engineering writing class were asked to fill out a questionnaire concerning feedback and thinking prompts. In addition, three classes were observed to see how each teacher used feedback and thinking prompts in their classes and for responding to students' writings. The results show that students preferred teacher feedback (teacher correction, teacher correction with comments, error identification, commentary, teacher-students conferencing) to non-teacher feedback (peer correction and self correction), though the three teachers used non-teacher feedback frequently in their classes. These students' strategies for handling feedback varied depending on the type of feedback each teacher gave on the student's paper. Among the thinking prompts, students found the rule prompt most useful and the LUL2 comparison prompt least useful. The results suggest that the extent to which the thinking prompts are integrated in the class and students conceptualize them is reflected in their attitudes toward thinking prompts.

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Measures of variability in transitional phases in second language development

IRAL - International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching ◽

10.1515/iral-2021-0026 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 0 (0) ◽

Author(s):

Marjolijn Verspoor ◽

Kees de Bot

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Language Learning ◽

Second Language Writing ◽

English For Academic Purposes ◽

Writing Proficiency ◽

Second Language Development ◽

Chinese Learners ◽

Language Writing ◽

Tentative Evidence ◽

Do So

Abstract This paper investigates measures of change to help demonstrate the necessity of variability as a developmental mechanism for advancing different features of L2 learning (related here primarily to writing, but also to reading) with a particular focus on learners at different stages of development. To do so, the work draws on three studies to build a case for using variability as a meaningful marker of change. Lowie, Wander M. & Marjolijn Verspoor. 2019. Individual differences and the ergodicity problem. Language Learning 69. 184–206 found in a group of 22 Dutch learners of English that the Coefficient of Variation (CoV), rather than individual factors such as motivation and aptitude, showed a significant correlation with writing proficiency gains. A replication study by Huang, Ting, Rasmus Steinkrauss & Marjolijn Verspoor. 2020b. Variability as predictors for L2 writing proficiency. Journal of Second Language Writing, with 22 Chinese learners of English revealed that the CoV rather than motivation, aptitude or working memory was a significant predictor in writing proficiency gains. A study by Gui, Min, Xiaokan Chen & Marjolijn Verspoor. Submitted. The dynamics of reading development in English for Academic Purposes, on reading for academic purposes with 27 Chinese Chemistry majors showed that the Standard Deviation of differences (SDd) rather than proficiency in English or knowledge of Chemistry correlated with reading gains. Two further studies present tentative evidence that these changes take place especially at transitional phases while learning a new skill.

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