scholarly journals Innovating Selection and Use of Online Writing Resources for EFL Students: A Systemic Functional Linguistic Perspective

Author(s):  
Xiaodong Zhang

This study reports on how teachers’ systemic functional linguistics (SFL)-based selection and use of on-line writing resources impacted students’ perceptions of on-line resources and their writing performance. Through a case study of students from one academic writing course in an urban university in China and primarily qualitative analysis of interviews with students, written artifacts, and students’ reflections, it was found that the selection and use of on-line learning resources, guided by the teacher’s SFL perspective on writing as a meaning-making process, facilitated students’ transition. That is, students gained a principled perspective on the use of on-line resources and were able to use pertinent knowledge in producing effective academic writing. The study concludes that the pedagogical use of on-line resources, when supported by SFL, could transform students’ perception of the value of on-line materials and improve their self-efficacy as academic writers.

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.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 80
Author(s):  
Wisam Chaleila ◽  
Basem Khalaila

While recent literature has focused extensively on the widely embraced approach of explicit instruction, there is a considerable paucity of research concerning plausible practical frameworks that can demonstrate how such particular approach is implementable in EFL classes. To address the specific writing deficiencies of EFL students, the current study proposes an innovative, comprehensive, practical framework that derives from Fisher & Frey’s explicit instruction approach. As such, an experimental three-stage of pretest-posttest design research took stock of the impact of a modified approach on EFL students’ academic writing performance. The research targeted 44 tertiary Arab-Israeli students enrolled in a two-semester academic writing course. The results of the study revealed that the writing performance of the students improved considerably after being exposed to the modified comprehensive explicit instruction program.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Lorenzi ◽  
Boris Gutman ◽  
Paul M. Thompson ◽  
Daniel C. Alexander ◽  
Sebastien Ourselin ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 198-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Giraldo

Academic writing for scholars wanting to publish in English has gained considerable research attention in academic writing circles. This article reports the findings of a case study on the gains, challenges, and perceptions about writing in English that a group of scholars had while taking an academic writing course. Two questionnaires, an in-depth interview, and a teacher-researcher’s journal were used for data collection. The findings emphasize gains emerging from genre-based pedagogy as a holistic approach to academic writing and usefulness of teaching strategies for writing. The study reports time, discipline, and language proficiency as challenges to overcome. Finally, the participants report differing views towards peer feedback and a predominantly positive perception of English as the language for scientific writing.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elif Tokdemir Demirel

The present study aims to explore Turkish EFL students’ major writing difficulties by analyzing the frequent writing errors in academic essays. Accordingly, the study examined errors in a corpus of 150 academic essays written by Turkish EFL students studying at the Department of English Language and Literature at a public university in Turkey. The essays were written on assigned topics as take home exam papers or assignments in the context of a first year academic writing course. The corpus consisted of essays of various lengths ranging from 500 word essays to 1500 word essays. The essays were compiled into a corpus and analyzed by using a concordance program. The essays were also checked for plagiarism using the online plagiarism detection software and plagiarized essays were excluded from the analysis. Errors were classified by using an error classification system which was organized according to lexico-grammatical categories. The resulting categories consisted of mostly syntactic and lexical categories of error but academic style errors were considered as well. As a result of the analysis, in terms of error categories, the most frequent errors were observed in the verb related error categories. When considered individually, the most frequent errors were observed in noun modification and were mostly interference related.


Author(s):  
Donna Morrow ◽  
Richard G. Bagnall

One approach to hybrid learning is to hybridize online learning through recognizing and including external interactivity. This chapter examines that possibility. After reviewing the nature of interactivity and individual learner experience in online learning communities, it presents a recent study of interactivity in online professional development learning by practising teachers. From that study emerges the importance and scope of external interactivity between the learner and his or her local community of colleagues, friends, and family in a learning community beyond the traditional online class. Building on that case study, and indications from the literature that its implications may be generalizable, the chapter suggests ways in which external interactivity can be recognized and included in the online learning environment – as a way of hybridizing on-line learning through its inclusion of learners’ interactive engagements in the external learning communities that they bring to their studies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Suhaimah Bulqiyah ◽  
Moh. Arif Mahbub ◽  
Dyah Ayu Nugraheni

This study is primarily designed for investigating the tertiary students’ perspectives on the writing difficulties of essays. This study was conducted in explanatory research in which quantitative and qualitative data were obtained from the web-based questionnaire and semi-structured interview, then analyzed separately. 21 undergraduate students have enrolled in the survey and 6 of them were invited to the interview section. This research reveals tertiary students' problems in essay writing course are categorized into: affective problems which raise from students’ and lecturers’ attitude while teaching and learning Essay Writing Course, cognitive problems that considered as the difficulties in the areas of writing viewpoint, transferring language, and the process of writing, and linguistic problems in the area of lexico-grammar, vocabulary, and the structure of the essay. Due to the findings, those aspects of academic writing should be serious attention for both EFL students and teachers to overcome the problems. The findings of this study have implications for EFL writing course designers as basic data of material improvement and for researchers particularly in the realms of language and education.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ratnawati ◽  
Didih Faridah ◽  
Syafiul Anam ◽  
Pratiwi Retnaningdyah

Academic writing is noteworthy competence to be accomplished for English as a foreign language (EFL) students to fulfill their academic needs at the university. To do so, Indonesian tertiary universities accommodate and foster this competence using academic writing course. The study, therefore, sought to look into: 1. what undergraduate EFL students’ perceptions of the importance of academic writing to their current study and future career, 2. what the students’ perceptions of the difficulties of academic writing, 3. what the students’ attitudes towards their previous and future academic writing courses. The present study investigates students’ needs emerging in academic writing during classroom practices to gain insightful and profound perspectives for forthcoming needs of the course. Data were collected through a five scaled questionnaire of need analysis distributed to thirty-four EFL students from a private university, and a focus group interview involving nine participants. Results indicate 61% (Mdifficulties=3.05) of students faced difficulties in both general skills and language problems of academic writing and a new course was expected to provide moves/steps for writing the sections in a research article. The present study then suggests that e-database resources are needed for academic papers models and references hence its efficiency and flexibility in prospective academic writing.


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