scholarly journals Syntactic Complexity Measures as Indicators of Teaching L2 Academic English Writing

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (12) ◽  
pp. 23-33
Author(s):  
Xiaodong Yang
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Academic English ◽  
Assessment Practice ◽  
Complexity Measures ◽  
Quantitative Evidence ◽  
English Writing ◽  
English Writing Instruction ◽  
Language Growth

The purpose of this research is to examine the effectiveness of reforming academic English writing instruction via the perspective of the syntactic complexity of L2 learners' practice. The present study evaluates 14 measures of syntactic complexity as indicators of language growth in academic writing by 52 Chinese undergraduate students. The findings indicate that an intensive academic teaching design can be used to help students enhance their academic writing output ability. The findings of this study provide direct quantitative evidence for altering classroom instruction, textbook compilation, assessment practice, and curriculum development at the undergraduate level for academic English.

scholarly journals A Study of University Students in Japan: Learning and Application of Academic English Writing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
James Graham McKinley
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Social Constructivist ◽  
Academic English ◽  
Writing Classes ◽  
Writer Identity ◽  
Writing Courses ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Written Texts ◽  
The Rich

<p>This study investigated Japanese first and second year undergraduate students learning English academic writing in their compulsory English composition courses in a Japanese university. The thesis takes a social constructivist approach to investigate the aspects of critical argument and writer identity in these students’ classes and their writing.  The data for the study include classroom observations and teacher and student interviews, all conducted monthly throughout the academic year-long course. In total there were six courses, four teachers, and sixteen student participants. The observations were analyzed using an adapted version of Ivanič’s (2004) Discourses of Writing framework, which focused on aspects of identity construction in the writing classroom. The linguistic data included a selection of one major piece of writing from each student, analyzed using an adapted Appraisal framework within Systemic Functional Linguistics (Martin, 1997; 2000). In order to maintain a focus on writer identity in the analysis, Clark and Ivanič’s (1997) selves were identified through this analysis. In addition, the texts were analyzed for use of Casanave’s (2002) writing game strategies, in order to further establish the students’ approaches in writing their texts. The objective was not to generalize about how Japanese students learn to write academic English, but rather to provide, from a social constructivist, Western researcher’s perspective, an analysis of what happened in these students’ writing classes and how it affected their writing for those classes.  Teachers’ general practices in the observed courses mainly focused on two aspects of writing: 1) as a communicative act (writing for a reader), and 2) as an exercise in critical thinking (developing a thesis). These two aspects emerged from the observation and interview data collection. The four teachers used very different approaches in designing their courses, and the students in the same classes responded in different ways, mostly depending on their ability to understand their teachers’ intentions and to form appropriate academic identities in an attempt to meet their teachers’ expectations. The analysis of the students’ written texts revealed that students often did not meet the teachers’ expectations of writing objectively and using a genre-appropriate voice as students often resorted to the same authorial voice to push their thesis.  This investigation was designed to inform pedagogic practices for university teachers of academic English and curriculum designers in Japan to establish effective English writing courses. The rich description of classroom practices and resulting written texts and the focus on differences in cultural expectations between teachers and students provide significant contributions to this area of inquiry. The main pedagogical suggestions are standardizing course objectives and goals, assigning more reading as a part of writing, and teaching students how to write authoritatively.</p>

scholarly journals A Study of University Students in Japan: Learning and Application of Academic English Writing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
James Graham McKinley
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Social Constructivist ◽  
Academic English ◽  
Writing Classes ◽  
Writer Identity ◽  
Writing Courses ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Written Texts ◽  
The Rich

<p>This study investigated Japanese first and second year undergraduate students learning English academic writing in their compulsory English composition courses in a Japanese university. The thesis takes a social constructivist approach to investigate the aspects of critical argument and writer identity in these students’ classes and their writing.  The data for the study include classroom observations and teacher and student interviews, all conducted monthly throughout the academic year-long course. In total there were six courses, four teachers, and sixteen student participants. The observations were analyzed using an adapted version of Ivanič’s (2004) Discourses of Writing framework, which focused on aspects of identity construction in the writing classroom. The linguistic data included a selection of one major piece of writing from each student, analyzed using an adapted Appraisal framework within Systemic Functional Linguistics (Martin, 1997; 2000). In order to maintain a focus on writer identity in the analysis, Clark and Ivanič’s (1997) selves were identified through this analysis. In addition, the texts were analyzed for use of Casanave’s (2002) writing game strategies, in order to further establish the students’ approaches in writing their texts. The objective was not to generalize about how Japanese students learn to write academic English, but rather to provide, from a social constructivist, Western researcher’s perspective, an analysis of what happened in these students’ writing classes and how it affected their writing for those classes.  Teachers’ general practices in the observed courses mainly focused on two aspects of writing: 1) as a communicative act (writing for a reader), and 2) as an exercise in critical thinking (developing a thesis). These two aspects emerged from the observation and interview data collection. The four teachers used very different approaches in designing their courses, and the students in the same classes responded in different ways, mostly depending on their ability to understand their teachers’ intentions and to form appropriate academic identities in an attempt to meet their teachers’ expectations. The analysis of the students’ written texts revealed that students often did not meet the teachers’ expectations of writing objectively and using a genre-appropriate voice as students often resorted to the same authorial voice to push their thesis.  This investigation was designed to inform pedagogic practices for university teachers of academic English and curriculum designers in Japan to establish effective English writing courses. The rich description of classroom practices and resulting written texts and the focus on differences in cultural expectations between teachers and students provide significant contributions to this area of inquiry. The main pedagogical suggestions are standardizing course objectives and goals, assigning more reading as a part of writing, and teaching students how to write authoritatively.</p>

Instruction of Nominalization by Applying Enabling of POA

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 342-358
Author(s):  
Hao Chen
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Academic English ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Writing Course ◽  
Learning Journals ◽  
English Majors ◽  
Chinese English Learners ◽  
Oriented Approach

AbstractIt is noticeable that the academic papers written by Chinese English learners are lacking in academic features largely due to their poor ability to use nominalization. Therefore, the instruction of nominalization in an academic English writing course is badly needed. The author conducted one-semester-long instruction of nominalization to 90 non-English majors under the guidance of the production-oriented approach (POA). This research demonstrated how to apply POA, specifically, the enabling procedure to the teaching of nominalization. By triangulating the data of students’ interviews, learning journals and written output, and the data of 4 teachers’ class observations and interviews, this study found that the accurate application of the three criteria of effective enabling contributed to the improvement of the quantity and quality of nominalization in academic writing.

scholarly journals Syntactic complexity in translated and non-translated texts: A corpus-based study of simplification

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. e0253454
Author(s):  
Kanglong Liu ◽  
Muhammad Afzaal
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Pairwise Comparison ◽  
Important Variable ◽  
Sentence Length ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Complexity Measures ◽  
British English ◽  
Sentence Complexity ◽  
Comparable Corpora ◽  
Main Effect

This study approaches the investigation of the simplification hypotheses in corpus-based translation studies from a syntactic complexity perspective. The research is based on two comparable corpora, the English monolingual part of COCE (Corpus of Chinese-English) and the native English corpus of FLOB (Freiburg-LOB Corpus of British English). Using the 13 syntactic complexity measures falling into five subconstructs (i.e. length of production unit, amount of subordination, amount of coordination, phrasal complexity and overall sentence complexity), our results show that translation as a whole is less complex compared to non-translation, reflected most prominently in the amount of subordination and overall sentence complexity. Further pairwise comparison of the four subgenres of the corpora shows mixed results. Specifically, the translated news is homogenous to native news as evidenced by the complexity measures; the translated genres of general prose and academic writing are less complex compared to their native counterparts while translated fiction is more complex than non-translated fiction. It was found that mean sentence length always produced a significant effect on syntactic complexity, with higher syntactic complexity for longer sentence lengths in both corpora. ANOVA test shows a highly significant main effect of translation status, with higher syntactic complexity in the non-translated texts (FLOB) than the translated texts (COCE), which provides support for the simplification hypothesis in translation. It is also found that, apart from translation status, genre is an important variable in affecting the complexity level of translated texts. Our study offers new insights into the investigation of simplification hypothesis from the perspective of translation from English into Chinese.

The use of general and specialized corpora as reference sources for academic English writing: A case study

ReCALL ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji-Yeon Chang
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Discourse Community ◽  
Academic Experience ◽  
Academic English ◽  
Training Corpus ◽  
English Writing ◽  
English Speaking

AbstractCorpora have been suggested as valuable sources for teaching English for academic purposes (EAP). Since previous studies have mainly focused on corpus use in classroom settings, more research is needed to reveal how students react to using corpora on their own and what should be provided to help them become autonomous corpus users, considering that their ultimate goal is to be independent scholars and writers. In the present study, conducted in an engineering lab at a Korean university over 22 weeks, data on students’ experiences and evaluations of consulting general and specialized corpora for academic writing were collected and analyzed. The findings show that, while both corpora served the participants well as reference sources, the specialized corpus was particularly valued for its direct help in academic writing because, as non-native English-speaking graduate engineering students, the participants wanted to follow the writing conventions of their discourse community. The participants also showed disparate attitudes toward the time taken for corpus consultation due to differences in factors such as academic experience, search purposes, and writing tasks. The article concludes with several suggestions for better corpus use with EAP students regarding the compilation of a corpus, corpus training, corpus competence, and academic writing.

scholarly journals Mitigating Suburban English Writing Teachers’ Constrained Professional Development Through Distance Education: One Case Study

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaodong Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Distance Education ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Systemic Functional Linguistics ◽  
Multiple Constraints ◽  
Academic English ◽  
Writing Teachers ◽  
English Writing ◽  
English Literacy ◽  
Support Students

This study reports on how a Chinese suburban English writing teacher responded to systemic functional linguistics (SFL)-based distance education. The study draws on qualitative content analyses of the teacher’s reflections, interviews, and classroom interactions. The results show that through SFL-based distance education, the teacher, interacting with his agency, overcame multiple constraints and developed academically in terms of how to understand valued academic writing. Additionally, the teacher also harnessed this newfound knowledge to support students’ socialization into academic English discourse. The study concludes the effectiveness of SFL-based distance education for English writing teachers in similarly constrained contexts, which could be enhanced by teachers’ agency. Implications of the study include synergizing the SFL-based curriculum with distance teacher education so that language educators can better assist students in gaining the knowledge needed for navigating academic English literacy.

scholarly journals Pedagogical Implication of Clause Expansion Mastery through E-Learning Instruction to Improve Academic English Writing Skills

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Nurhamidah ◽  
S. Purwanto ◽  
C. Anwar ◽  
D. F Wulandari ◽  
A. Murtiningrum
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Academic English ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Systemic Functional Linguistic ◽  
Pedagogical Implication ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Learning Instruction ◽  
E Learning

The current study investigated the pedagogical implication of Clause Expansion (CE) mastery to improve academic English writing skills. Fifteen students  participated in the study. A two-cycle action research design was used to justify how the mastery of clause expansion contributed to the development of academic writing skills.  Prior to intervention, they were assigned to write academic texts based on IELTS writing test. Then, they were given a three-week task-based e-learning instruction on CE., based on Systemic Functional Linguistic Framework of Clause Expansion.In the process of Explicit Instruction (EI) of CE, they were exposed in academic writing exercises to apply their knowledge on CE in various grammatical contexts in which it is required as Input Flood (IF).  Another test was administered to see how it progressed from the pre-test. Then, another three-week task-based e-learning module, was given for their second online learning activities. A post-test was administered to see how it contributed to their overall writing skills. It turned out that CE mastery under e-learning special instruction did significantly improve their writing skills. They become more confident in writing academic texts. It is highly recommended that CE be taught as an integral part of a writing course.

scholarly journals Voices from EFL Thai learners towards English writing

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 1495-1507
Author(s):  
Chutamas Sundrarajun
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Language ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Educational Organizations ◽  
Business English ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Writing Course ◽  
Language Writing ◽  
Written Assignments

English language writing is seen as one of the most difficult skills for undergraduate students. When composing a piece of writing, students usually face various problems ranging from grammatical aspects to expressing ideas and opinions. To answer the research questions, this study employed a mixed method of both qualitative and quantitative approaches to identify the students’ perceptions towards Business Article Writing Course, as well as to pinpoint their challenges when working on the written assignments. The intensive data were collected from 20 fourth year students majoring in Business English via the use of questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. The findings give teachers, course designers, and educational organizations an insight into students’ problems in learning English language writing. It also highlights the need to integrate different genres of writing to enhance students’ writing skills so that they can use such techniques to overcome any struggles when composing a piece of writing.   Keywords:  Academic Writing, EFL, Writing Strategies, Peer Feedback

scholarly journals Advancing Academic Writing in a Mobile Skype-Based Blended Model

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 86
Author(s):  
Jafar Asgari Arani
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Writing Process ◽  
Past Experience ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Course Delivery ◽  
Academic English ◽  
English Writing ◽  
The Media ◽  
Supporting Tool

<p class="Default"><strong>Background</strong>: Web media like Skype, Twitter, WhatsApp, and SMS not only make it viable to deliver, receive and share educational information, but to simplify communication with other people in various skills such as writing, link sharing, and voice or video files. There are three areas addressed to direct the plan and implementation of this survey as main objectives:</p><p>the faculty members' feelings and impression on applying Skype site as a media to teaching and learning academic writing process, the weak and strong points of the Skype site application during the teaching and learning academic writing, and the faculty members' perceptions toward using Skype site as a supporting tool for course delivery based on selected variables: year of teaching, past experience with Skype, and their specialization.</p><p align="left"> </p><p><strong>Method &amp;Material:</strong> The sample consisted of 70 faculty members of Kashan University of Medical sciences, all having problems writing English well by using selective sampling. The study was a descriptive quantitative-qualitative research which a general survey model was used in. The survey questionnaires consist of 30 statements, which were devised in five categories based on Premise Base and Conducive Assumptions to clarify the Skype-based educational utilities and application. The interview item was also applied to explore if the participants affirmed the media-based approach augments their learning of academic English writing process or not.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Finding:</strong> Results related faculty members' perceptions toward using Skype site as a supporting tool for course delivery based on selected variables: their specialization, year of teaching, and past experience with Skype explored that there were no statistically significant differences at (α = 0.05) in the use of Skype units due to faculty members majors. There are statistically significant differences at (α = 0.05) in the use of Skype units due to the year of teaching variable, in favors of, the third and fourth year faculty members. The result also, revealed that there are statistically significant differences at (α = 0.05) in the use of Skype units due to the past experience with Skype variable, in favors of faculty members with no Skype use experience. Also, the calculated mean and Standard Deviations in six areas each having five statements arranged from the highest to the lowest ranking indicate the participants' impressions to Skype-based blended model in teaching academic writing.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Conclusion:</strong> Skype media as an educational media is a beneficial medium to be applied to deliver academic writing materials and support learning. Faculty members not having enough time to participate in classes feel comfortable with the use of the Skype-based methodology in academic writing. They participating in the course expressed their acceptance of this media in learning academic writing.  Skype-based teaching could become a very effective educational medium for learning academic English writing.</p>

scholarly journals Blended Learning Outcomes in Academic and Professional Writing

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 46-56
Author(s):  
Catherine Owens
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Blended Learning ◽  
Learning Outcomes ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Formative Evaluation ◽  
Career Preparation ◽  
Professional Writing ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
English Writing

Much has been written about the potential of online learning. Advantages discussed in the literature include practical considerations such as career preparation, convenience, and savings in time and money, the ethical benefit of open access and the environmental one of reduced paper and printing; learning benefits such as improved creativity and support for a more learner centered environment, learner autonomy, and the establishment of standards. This study documents the learning outcomes of 28 undergraduate students studying Professional and Academic Writing in a blended learning environment. Outcomes reflect gains in academic English writing skills, with specific reference to the use of the process approach to writing. Evidence from students’e-portfolios provides a rich source of learners' engagement in the planning, drafting, revising and presenting steps of paper completion. Further evidence shows how students develop information literacy through the use of the online learning materials. The instructional design features of particular tasks along with the e-portfolio used for formative evaluation are also analyzed for their contributions to the learning outcomes.

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