Abstract
This study aims to investigate the usefulness of a deductive-cum-process writing approach to raise native Cantonese-speaking ESL students’ awareness of the inappropriate use of informal language in academic writing. Achieving tone formality by incorporating appropriate syntactic and semantic elements poses great difficulties to freshmen at the City University of Hong Kong. Furthermore, the effectiveness of using a deductive approach to teach word usage has been inconclusive despite numerous studies on this issue (e.g., Alzubi, 2015; Tammenga-Helmantel, 2014; Vogel et al., 2011). In the current study, seven types of informal language expressions and corresponding formal alternatives were first taught, followed by peer review and individual teacher-student consultations to reinforce the teaching.The experimental group consisted of 19 students taking an academic writing course in the summer semester 2017-2018. The end-of-course writing examination showed that the experimental group used significantly fewer informal expressions than did the control group in three measures—the total number of informal expressions and two component measures (p?0.05). Questionnaire findings confirmed the usefulness of the current teaching approach, as perceived by the majority of the participants. Qualitative analysis revealed several types of informal expressions that were most difficult for the participants to identify and to make correction.
Highlights
Achieving tone formality by incorporating appropriate syntactic and semantic elements constitutes a new challenge to university students in Hong Kong because the teaching of formal usage of words has www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eltlsEnglish Language Teaching and Linguistics StudiesVol 2, No 2, 2020 not been included in the syllabus of the subject “English Language” of the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education
To add to the body of literature, this study aims to investigate the usefulness of a deductive approach supported by a process-writing approach to raise ESL students’ awareness of the inappropriate use of informal language in academic writing
1) The total number of informal expressions; The total number of informal expressions used by the experimental group (M=0.21; SD=0.123) was significantly lower (t=4.013, df=36, 2-tailed p=0.000) than that used by the control group (M=2.42; SD=0.537) 2) Two component measures: a) The use of informal vocabulary
Summary
Achieving tone formality by incorporating appropriate syntactic and semantic elements constitutes a new challenge to university students in Hong Kong because the teaching of formal usage of words has www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eltlsEnglish Language Teaching and Linguistics StudiesVol 2, No 2, 2020 not been included in the syllabus of the subject “English Language” of the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education. It is not unusual to find a large number of informal vocabulary and grammatical structures in the argumentative essays written by Year 1 students at the City University of Hong Kong before and even after the teaching of tone formality in academic writing lessons. Pedagogical research into the teaching of formal and informal words would benefit teaching practitioners as well as learners who learn English as a second language. It is hoped that the research findings will shed light on the pedagogical implications of the deductive-cum-process writing approach used in this present study. The present study intends to address the following research questions: 1) Will the deductive-cum-process writing approach used in this present study help the participants who speak Cantonese as their first language learn tone formality more effectively than the inductive approach used for the control group?
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