Integrating Machine Translation Into EFL Writing Instruction: Process, Product and Perception

Although there is a great demand for machine translation (MT) among language learners, its potentials as a computer-assisted language learning aid remain under-explored. Against this backdrop, this study adopted a mixed research method and conducted a semester-long empirical investigation into how EFL learners in mainland China used MT to assist their writing, whether MT helped improve their writing competence and how they perceived MT in EFL writing instruction. The major findings comprise: 1) By using MT students made more lexical and grammatical changes in essay revision; 2) MT helped improve the learners’ overall writing competence, and particularly had a greater effect on writing accuracy and lexical complexity than on other dimensions; 3) Students generally held a positive attitude towards incorporating MT into EFL writing instruction.

Models of Effective Writing Methods in Teacher Preparation

To shed some light on how writing methods are currently taught in a variety of programs across the United States and continue examining high-quality writing educators, the present chapter presents five distinct models for teacher preparation. These models are the result of meeting state-level standards; national standards through the International Literacy Association (ILA); and core competencies from research, theory, and practice. The course models represent the Pacific Northwest, Midwest, Southeast, and Northeast, showing diversity across the United States. Specifically in the present chapter, the researchers (1) present effective models of writing instruction; (2) provide examples of integrated approaches to research, theory, and practice for writing instruction; and (3) examine limitations and opportunities within each model. The goal of the present chapter is to outline these models in the hopes that other programs can modify and replicate the models that best fit their unique demographics, needs, and literacy standards.

Expressions of Modality Associate Degree Business Explanation Essay Conclusions: A Functional Linguistic Perspective

The rhetorically complex concluding components of academic written texts often challenge novice writers, having to summarise their arguments and stance, and offer prospective comments on future developments concerning the subject matter. With an aim to elucidate the lexicogrammatical expressions of such prospective comments in essay conclusions, the present study adopts the system of modality informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to examine the conclusions of explanatory essays written by non-native English speaking associate degree business students. The analysis compares the modality expressions deployed in high- and low-graded essay conclusions, including modality types, explicitness, subjectivity and value. The analysis also investigates how the modality resources are combined for providing more than one comment in the conclusion. The findings show that high-graded texts have a more balanced choice of modality, less overly assertive features and more prospective comments, while they still require improvements on a more consistent deployment of modality features. This paper concludes with a brief discussion on teaching implications of the present study, in that writing instruction can make explicit the functions of different modality expressions and equip students with the linguistic repertoires appropriate for more formal and technical academic written registers.  

Teacher-Implemented Self-Regulated Strategy Development Instruction for Story Writing with Year Two Students in New Zealand

<p>Writing is a complex skill and many students struggle to learn to write. Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) for writing is an intervention strategy that can increase students’ writing performance. However, there is limited research on the use of this intervention with younger primary-school students and most of the existing research has been implemented by researchers or research assistants, rather than by actual classrooms teachers, which therefore limits the ecological validity of the research. The two studies included in this thesis investigated teacher-implemented SRSD writing instruction. Study 1 evaluated a 5-week intervention programme consisting of 19 lessons. Study 2 evaluated a 17-week intervention with 61 lessons. Studies 1 and 2 both used a mixed-methods design to investigate the effectiveness and social validity of the teacher-implemented Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) program on the story-writing performance with Year 2 students (6- to -7-year-old children) in New Zealand. In the quantitative strand, I conducted a quasi-experiment in which students either received SRSD writing instruction or their regular writing instruction. I collected student writing samples before and after the intervention and teachers completed a questionnaire on the social validity of the intervention. A mixed-model ANOVA with SRSD instruction as the between-subjects variable and time as the within-subjects variable indicated that students in the treatment condition had larger improvements relative to students in the comparison condition on measures of holistic quality, number and quality of story elements, and length of composition. In the qualitative strand, I conducted interviews with the classroom teachers to ascertain their perceptions of intervention. Results suggested that the intervention was beneficial for the students. In addition, teachers perceived the intervention as appropriate and reported that they enjoyed implementing the intervention. These results suggest that teacher-implemented SRSD interventions can be effective at improving early primary students’ writing performance and is socially valid for use by teachers in Year 2 classroom settings.</p>

Teacher-Implemented Self-Regulated Strategy Development Instruction for Story Writing with Year Two Students in New Zealand

<p>Writing is a complex skill and many students struggle to learn to write. Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) for writing is an intervention strategy that can increase students’ writing performance. However, there is limited research on the use of this intervention with younger primary-school students and most of the existing research has been implemented by researchers or research assistants, rather than by actual classrooms teachers, which therefore limits the ecological validity of the research. The two studies included in this thesis investigated teacher-implemented SRSD writing instruction. Study 1 evaluated a 5-week intervention programme consisting of 19 lessons. Study 2 evaluated a 17-week intervention with 61 lessons. Studies 1 and 2 both used a mixed-methods design to investigate the effectiveness and social validity of the teacher-implemented Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) program on the story-writing performance with Year 2 students (6- to -7-year-old children) in New Zealand. In the quantitative strand, I conducted a quasi-experiment in which students either received SRSD writing instruction or their regular writing instruction. I collected student writing samples before and after the intervention and teachers completed a questionnaire on the social validity of the intervention. A mixed-model ANOVA with SRSD instruction as the between-subjects variable and time as the within-subjects variable indicated that students in the treatment condition had larger improvements relative to students in the comparison condition on measures of holistic quality, number and quality of story elements, and length of composition. In the qualitative strand, I conducted interviews with the classroom teachers to ascertain their perceptions of intervention. Results suggested that the intervention was beneficial for the students. In addition, teachers perceived the intervention as appropriate and reported that they enjoyed implementing the intervention. These results suggest that teacher-implemented SRSD interventions can be effective at improving early primary students’ writing performance and is socially valid for use by teachers in Year 2 classroom settings.</p>

Writing, History, and Power in the Classroom

Many students experience difficulty with the tensions and disjunctures between their vernacular ways of communication and standardized college English. The history of linguistic standardization in European imperialism, however, provides a pedagogically helpful critical heuristic for examining with students the power relations inherent in college writing instruction. By historicizing the entanglements of language and power, students are empowered to choose how and what they want to learn based on an awareness of their educational situatedness and with the support of a open and reflexive instructor.