English As A Second Language Writing Research Articles

Structure and Engagement in Teacher–Student Chats in ESL Writing

Teacher-moderated online chats are a common option for conducting writing conferences with students. The efficacy of chat sessions is impacted by the expectations for and structure of these sessions. This corpus-based study used a move analysis to determine the purposes and organization of 129 chats between 3 experienced teachers and 106 students of primarily Chinese and Arabic origin in 9 freshman English as a second language (ESL) writing courses. Chats occurred after a draft of an essay assignment had been returned with written teacher feedback, in order to provide opportunities for students to receive individualized input. Findings show that chats are structured to serve three functions: opening and closing social moves (greetings, conversational pleasantries) meant to establish rapport; management moves that serve to structure and orient the chat; and instructional moves in which the teachers and students confer and additional feedback is provided. However, chats were not as effective at engaging participants as they could be due to a lack of intentionality and reciprocity. With prior research showing chats are a useful addition to other forms of teacher electronic feedback, we offer suggestions for improving the use of instructional chats in freshman ESL writing classes, in order to better engage students.

The Effect of Syntax Instruction on the Development of Complex Sentences in ESL Writing

The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate the influence that explicit syntax teaching has on the creation of complex sentences in English as a Second Language (ESL) writing, particularly in the setting of Pakistan. To achieve the aims, two instruments were applied i.e. semi-structured interviews beside the analysis of students' written compositions. Results demonstrate a considerable improvement in the participants' knowledge of syntactic structures as well as their application of these structures after receiving targeted training. The transformational impact of explicit syntax instruction is shown by the fact that written compositions exhibit varying degrees of syntactic complexity which are consistent with those of the previous study, which was conducted to highlight the beneficial association between training in syntax and improved writing skills. In addition to this, the research sheds light on the cultural integration of syntax, demonstrating a singular combination of linguistic abilities and cultural identity among students of English as a second language in Pakistan. The implications for ESL education include the possibility of using technology task-based methodologies and a culturally relevant framework. These findings contribute to the larger conversation about language education and provide useful insights for improving syntax instruction to cater to the varied requirements of ESL students in Pakistan.

Writing Woes of ESL Learners: Can Dynamic Assessment Be the Solution?

AbstractThis study explores the effectiveness of dynamic assessment (DA) in addressing grammatical writing difficulties in Pakistani English as a Second Language (ESL) learners' writing. Adopting an interactionist approach to DA, the research observes mediational moves by a teacher during the writing assessment process. The study employs a qualitative case study design, examining the interactional patterns and outcomes of DA for three higher secondary-level Pakistani ESL learners over an eight-week period. The findings indicate that the interactionist approach to DA is a promising method for improving the grammatical accuracy of Pakistani ESL learners, particularly in areas such as tenses, pronouns, and subject-verb agreement. The results of this study have significant implications for writing instruction in ESL contexts. Dynamic assessment can support the development of writing skills by providing ESL writers with opportunities to engage in distributive practice and receive feedback on their writing, resulting in a tailored and effective approach to writing instruction.

Use of Peer-Assessment in ESL Writing Classes: Learners’ Perception

Although peer-assessment tends to offer various benefits, and teachers and learners hold positive perception about peer-assessment, conventional paper-based assessment remains dominant in most of the educational programmes, including university English as a Second Language (ESL) courses. Hence, more studies are needed to make teachers, course designers and material designers aware of the potential benefits of peer-assessment. Most importantly, it is useful to examine what learners think about peer-assessment. Therefore, the present study, involving eighty three (N=83) first-year students following a compulsory English as a second language (ESL) course and forty-two (N-42) second year students pursuing English as a major at a state university in Sri Lanka, investigated the learners’ perception of peer-assessment. The study adopted the mixed methods approach in research. After the participants gained hands on experience in peer-assessment in an ESL writing class, they shared their views regarding their experience through a questionnaire, focus group discussion and reflective essay. The qualitative data were analyzed using deductive content analysis method while the quantitative data were analyzed using Microsoft Excel that produced descriptive statistics. The findings revealed that the ESL undergraduates generally hold positive perception about peer-assessment. However, limited language proficiency of the learners and friendship biases remain as challenges to implement peer-assessment practices effectively. The generalizability of the findings of the present study is subject to certain limitations as the sample was drawn from one particular state university. Further studies with a larger sample representing several universities are recommended in order to shed light on the potential of peer-assessment.

Assessment of Academic ESL Writing in an Online Tutorial for Graduate Students

English-as-a-second language (L2) graduate students often face challenges in developing academic writing skills, which can be exacerbated by a lack of timely support at institutional level. To help address this concern, an original set of online academic writing tutorials with a focus on the genre of Literature Review was designed by the authors to assist international graduate students enrolled in graduate programs in Canada. This paper introduces and compares multiple assessment tools employed in the online tutorial set for international English L2 graduate students. Our project pursues two major goals: First, to address the above-identified gap in Academic Writing support to English L2 graduate students with minimal costs and faculty involvement through designing the online tutorial set; second, to contribute to the research on e-learning of Academic English as a second language (ESL) writing in terms of developing integrated tools for online tutorial building, analysis of texts produced by learners, and assessment of learners’ writing progress. The research questions are: 1. What resources can be combined to develop an online tutorial set for graduate students at minimal costs? 2. How can the learners’ progress in academic ESL writing be assessed with different assessment tools? First, the paper describes the tools employed in the tutorial construction: MoodleCloud platform, H5P interactive e-book designed by the authors, surveys, and assessment tools. Second, we present and compare assessment tools employed to evaluate learners’ writing progress: Expert assessment with an analytic rubric, self-assessments of progress by the participants, and automated text analysis with corpus-based tools as reported in Li, Makarova, and Wang (2023). A comparison of the scores across the three assessment tools shows some discrepancies, which seems to suggest that combined tools yield a more comprehensive picture. The expert assessments and self-assessments demonstrate improvement in the writing quality over the course of the tutorial series, which are partially supported with the findings from corpus-based analysis of participants’ texts. The findings are of relevance to e-learning scholars, faculty, and administrators of English-medium universities with substantial intakes of international graduate students in Social Sciences and Education whose native languages are other than English.

Quality education through writing: aligning learning objectives in learning materials and question papers using Bloom’s taxonomy

PurposeThis study aims to examine the effectiveness of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE)-based English textbooks and question papers in developing second-language higher-order thinking skills (HOTS).Design/methodology/approachDescriptive analysis establishes a causal relationship between learning objectives and second language (L2) writing proficiency. Content analysis is used to compare and analyze tabulated data for textbooks and question papers for the English language by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and CBSE. This method categorizes the materials and their assessments under HOTS and lower-order thinking skills to ascertain the relationship between learning objectives and L2 writing proficiency.FindingsThe study highlights teaching material and assessment shortcomings and their alignment with learning outcomes to enhance students' writing skills. It underscores the need for HOTS-focused materials, discussing their impact on writing skills. The study also explores how textbook–question paper mismatch hampers Bloom's taxonomy-based cognitive skills.Practical implicationsThis research illuminates the efficacy of teaching and learning English as a second language (ESL) writing skills to improve the quality of education, which has real-world implications. The study highlights flaws in the educational system in India and suggests curricular and pedagogical changes.Originality/valueThe research examines NCERT and CBSE ESL textbooks and question papers to align teaching and assessment methods. The results aim to improve education through ESL writers' HOTS.

Effective Use of Metacognitive Strategies of Students in ESL Writing Based on Gender

There is a clear association between gender differences in using metacognitive strategies in English as a second language (ESL) writing and poor writing achievement, and one of the factors that contributes to this correlation is the sense of how male or female students use their brain hemisphere when presented with the writing task. Students who are studying ESL view the ESL writing task as difficult because they find it significantly more difficult to use metacognitive writing strategies in their writing tasks due to their poor proficiency in ESL and failure to use appropriate metacognitive writing strategies, which makes it difficult for them to write a coherent and cohesive essay. This study's primary purpose is to investigate whether students’ gender significantly affects their metacognitive writing strategies before, during, and after writing. This study employed a descriptive research design using quantitative data. 480 Form Four students from 12 secondary schools in Melaka, Negeri Sembilan, and Selangor made up the study's sample. The sample was chosen via purposive sampling. In order to gather data, the questionnaire served as the preferred method. The data from the questionnaire were analyzed using SPSS for Windows version 25. In this study, a one-way ANOVA was employed to detect whether there was a discernible gender gap in the use of metacognitive writing strategies before, during, and after the writing process by ESL male and female students. This study showed some interesting findings. First, the findings showed that in the use of overall metacognitive writing strategies, female students were much higher than their counterparts in ESL writing in terms of taking a position on the topic. Second, and this difference is crucial, female students also employed more metacognitive writing strategies before, during, and after writing. Therefore, it is suggested that metacognitive writing strategies be employed as an effective pedagogical tool to improve students’ writing performance and thus, education quality, in future ESL classes.

K-12 ESL Writing Instruction: Learning to Write or Writing to Learn Language?

Writing is an important literacy skill for K-12 students’ academic success. For English as a Second Language (ESL) children, developing writing skills involves both learning English and learning to write. This makes ESL writing instruction challenging as teachers have to strike a balance between teaching writing as a literacy skill and as a tool for students’ English language development. Recent research has identified that in-service teachers in K-12 settings lack requisite training in L2 writing, resulting in various challenges in the ESL writing classroom. One such challenge for them is to determine whether the focus of writing instruction should be to teach students how to write (learn-to-write) or to utilize writing as a tool to help students develop the English language (write-to-learn language). Eliciting the theoretical orientations of both learn-to-write (LW) and write-to-learn language (WLL), this article suggests that the LW and WLL approaches are not mutually exclusive for teaching ESL writing. Based on a review of recent research, the paper discusses a systemic functional linguistics (SFL)-informed genre-based writing pedagogy as well as teaching and learning activities that integrate both LW and WLL principles into ESL writing instruction in the elementary classroom.

Artificial Intelligence in Global World: A Case Study of Grammarly as e-Tool on ESL Learners’ Writing of Darul Uloom Nadwa

Studies worldwide have explored how Grammarly as Electronic Tool (e-Tool) assists English as a Second Language (ESL) students in enhancing their writing. The present study aims to improve Madrasa ESL learners’ writing by minimizing inflectional morphemes related errors at Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama in Lucknow, Northern part of India. The study participants included sixty-eight Madrasa students who were enrolled in Alimiyat (equivalent to 12th) grade and were formed into two separate groups: an experimental group was treated with Grammarly, while the control group got instruction using the communicative language teaching approach. The data was collected from all participants before and after the treatment. A quantitative approach was used to the analysis of the data. A repeated-measures two-way ANOVA test revealed that Grammarly enhanced ESL learners’ writing for inflectional morphemes following treatment in the experimental group relative to the control group. These findings demonstrate how ‘Grammarly’ as and e-Tool may support ESL writers, especially novel writers who find it challenging to write well in English.

RHETORICAL STRATEGIES FOR APPEAL TO LOGOS IN RESEARCH ABSTRACTS: AN ANALYSIS OF RHETORIC

This study examined the use of two rhetorical strategies - nominal-numerical types of supporting data and lengthy complex types of sentences due to their rhetorical appeal to Aristotelian logos in the writing of research abstracts. A total of 480 research abstracts sampled from English as a Native (ENL) and English as a Second Language (ESL) were analysed with LIWC2015 software application and Readable.com online applications. Guided by the Connor’s (1996)5 Contrastive Theory of Rhetoric with the integration of relevant conceptual models of the LIWC Model of Psycholinguistic Domains (Pennebaker et al., 2015)3, Aristotelian Rhetoric (Aristotle & Kennedy, 1991)2 and Compositionality (Bulté & Housen, 2018)14, it was found that both rhetorical strategies were used frequently in both types of ENL and ESL research abstracts to reflect the appeal to logical mind of the writers. Contrastive analyses revealed that ESL demonstrate more frequencies of lexical and sentential units than the ENL research abstracts. However, ENL research abstracts were found to have more frequencies of nominal-numerical types of supporting details and lengthy complex sentences than the ESL research abstracts which may most likely point towards their lack of near-nativeness rhetoric in these two rhetorical strategies. In terms of the linguistic item which demonstrates the ESL near-nativeness rhetoric is the use of coordination as the rhetorical strategy as both groups of ENL and ESL research abstracts did not show any significant differences. This shows that ESL writers can still strive towards the rhetorical level of nativeness in the choice of their linguistic strategies in the writing of research articles. Future research recommendations are also shown at the end of the research.

Teaching ESL Writing in Saudi Arabia: A Case for the Integration of Peer Feedback

Writing is the most difficult of all language skills and the one learned last. This is true regardless of L1 or L2 but, for many reasons, it is especially true when it comes to learning to write in a second or foreign language. Furthermore, available data shows that English as a Second Language (ESL) Saudi students are among the lowest-scoring in the world, especially when it comes to writing. In this project, we investigate deploying alternative sources of feedback in ESL writing classes, including peer feedback, with the aim of improving writing. We also investigate Saudi students’ perception of peer feedback. Data was collected using a questionnaire and pre- and post-test written exams involving control and experimental groups. Descriptive statistics from both methods were generated and presented accordingly. It was found that peer feedback provided an additional source of constructive feedback and fostered autonomous learning.

K-12 ESL Writing Instruction: A Review of Research on Pedagogical Challenges and Strategies

Writing is an important early literacy skill for English as a Second Language (ESL) students’ academic success, underlining the importance of effective ESL writing instruction at the K-12 level. However, there is little empirical research on ESL writing instruction in school settings. The goal of this systematic literature review is to examine the extant empirical evidence of the challenges teachers encounter in teaching ESL writing and the strategies that can be adopted to help teachers overcome the challenges. Our search yielded 49 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters published between 2010-2019. A content analysis (Stan, 2009) of these materials indicated that teachers encounter the following challenges in teaching K-12 ESL writing: (a) lack of pre-service training in ESL writing, (b) lack of writing pedagogy skills, (c) lack of time, (d) lack of professional development opportunities, (e) standardized tests, and (f) unique L1 influences on L2 students’ text production. The content analysis also revealed the following strategies that can be recommended for addressing these challenges: (a) incorporating an ESL writing course into teacher education programs, (b) creating opportunities for writing pedagogy support by mentor teachers and researchers, (c) incorporating integrated skills development in the writing classroom, (d) providing students with opportunities to write more, (e) adopting explicit writing instruction, and (f) creating professional development opportunities for teachers. Based on our findings, we discuss implications and recommendations for ESL writing instruction in K-12 schools.

Reflective Writing on an ESL Writing Course

Research shows that student reflective writing is a valuable window into student learning, particularly student metacognition; however, our knowledge of the challenges of accessing metacognition to inform curriculum design and assessment practices in the ESL (English as a Second Language) context is less robust. This paper reports two qualitative studies of student reflective writing on an ESL writing course within a teacher education programme. The studies investigate how student metacognition manifests itself in reflective papers and how mapping student metacognition can inform evidence-based curriculum design and assessment. The data comes from several iterations of an ESL writing course and is analysed using directed and conventional content analyses. Our results expose a complex relation between metacognition, curriculum design and assessment practices: 1) unless scaffolded by the curriculum design to use precise terminology, students resort to expressing their understanding of the course content in terms of everyday, vernacular language and 2) student reflective writing not only provides a more nuanced picture of their learning than the final course grades but is invaluable for developing scaffolding and assessment practices. Based on our results, we recommend integrating structured reflection as part of the regular curricula to gauge ESL student metacognition and monitor more precisely their uptake of course content.

Metacognitive Writing Strategies Model Used by ESL Writers in the Writing Process: A Study Across Gender

Writing for English as a second language (ESL) is one of the challenging production skills. Writing skill requires learners to be competent in the use of vocabulary, syntax, grammar, sentence structure, strategies and lexical. In other words, ESL writers should possess adequate language proficiency in order to produce a meaningful text. In the writing process, ESL writers should be guided by writing strategies. Writing strategies are used as a writing regulator that guides the writers to compose productively. Metacognitive writing strategies is one of the writing strategies that involved three main components which are planning, monitoring and evaluating. Hence, this study was conducted to explore metacognitive writing strategies besides constructing a model used by ESL writers in the writing process. Two students from one public university in Johor, Malaysia are grouped according to their gender. This qualitative study used Think-aloud protocol (TAP) as the main method in collecting data. From the findings, it was found that both male and female ESL writers used a variety of metacognitive writing strategies in their writing process, and the female writer used more strategies compared to the male writer. Results of this study have given a great impact on teaching and learning of ESL academic writing.

Self-Regulated Learning Development in Undergraduate ESL Writing Classrooms: Teacher Feedback Versus Self-Assessment

In the English as a second language (ESL) research context, teachers are committed to ensuring that students are aware of their writing skills and the kinds of errors they make in their writing. This explains why teacher feedback is frequently practised in the writing classrooms. Self-assessment is another supplementary strategy that provides opportunity for ESL students to take control of their learning. This study investigated the effects of self-assessment and indirect teacher feedback on self-regulated learning (SRL). A quasi-experimental design with an embedded experimental model was used in this research. Three intact classes were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. This study utilised both quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data were obtained through the Self-Regulation Strategy Inventory Self-Report. The qualitative data were derived from the SRL microanalytic protocol. The findings revealed that both self-assessment and indirect teacher feedback helped learners become more self-regulated. However, self-assessment reduced maladaptive behaviours more than indirect teacher feedback. This study concludes that self-assessment is an effective instructional practice that promotes SRL in terms of goal setting, strategy planning, strategy use, attribution and adaptive behaviour. It is recommended that self-assessment be part of an instructional practice rather than an alternative strategy in the writing class.

Using Social Media to Enhance ESL Writing Skill among Gen-Z Learners

English as a Second Language (ESL) in Malaysia faces many challenges due to multicultural and environmental factors such as lack of interactive speaking environment, lack of exposure, and unconvincing of teaching and learning method. Moreover, the evolutions of the generations contribute a great impact to the changes in our education sector especially in terms of teaching and learning process. It is important to understand basic needs and distinctions across generation for developing pedagogy that reaches the unique population. Currently, the wave of latest generation entered and occupied in most sectors including industrial and educational sectors are known and recognised as Generation Z. Therefore, this paper reviews the needs of Gen Z that would be essential in contributing to a successful teaching and learning method in ESL lesson. This paper also discusses further about the strategies utilised by successful language learner among Gen Z which is the use of social media as a medium of interaction in enhancing writing skill. In conclusion, this study proposes a new alternative in conducting writing activity during ESL lesson for a continuous learning process.

Secondary School Students’ Perceptions on the Use of Google+ towards Improving ESL Writing Skills

The use of social media in teaching has also revolutionized the way learning takes place. At higher education levels, measures have already been taken in incorporating the use of social media for learning purposes especially in the teaching of language. However, at secondary school levels, educators are still having doubts about using social media due to multiple issues. Thus, this study was conducted to investigate the perceptions of secondary school students and a teacher in Malaysia on the use of Google+ towards the teaching of ESL writing skills. A case study method was adopted to carry out this research. 12 students from a class of form four secondary school students volunteered to participate in this study. Data were collected through focus group interview on the students and an individual interview with the class teacher and field notes. The overall findings of the study are that participants had positive perceptions on the usage of Google+ towards ESL writing. They gained a number of benefits, which include: having enjoyable and attentive lessons through the interactive features of Google+, as well as engaging themselves in an active and interesting lesson. The participants felt that they were having a sense of purpose, thus becoming more engaged in the writing tasks. As for interaction, the participants were interacting more confidently in Google+ writing classes compared to conventional writing lessons. The implication derived from this study is that teachers need to be made aware of how to integrate social media as learning tools in the teaching of English as a Second Language (ESL), particularly, in the teaching of ESL writing to upper secondary school students.

Supporting ESL Writing by Prompting Crowdsourced Structural Feedback

Writing is challenging, especially for non-native speakers. To support English as a Second Language (ESL) writing, we propose StructFeed, which allows native speakers to annotate topic sentence and relevant keywords in texts and generate writing hints based on the principle of paragraph unity. First, we compared our crowd-based method with three naive machine learning (ML) methods and got the best performance on the identification of topic sentence and irrelevant sentence in the article. Next, we evaluated the StructFeed system with two feedback-generation mechanisms including feedback generated by one expert and by one crowd worker. The results showed that people who received feedback by StructFeed got the highest improvement after revision.

Structuring subjectivity in Asian Englishes

This study investigates the usage patterns of four near-synonymous mental predicates (believe, guess, suppose and think) across three Asian ESL (English as a Second Language) varieties as well as British and American Englishes. Using two multivariate techniques, multiple correspondence analysis and classification and regression tree analysis, the study shows the benefits of exploring cross-varietal variation through the lens of lexicalization patterns. The study also demonstrates that to make sense of semantic patterns it is crucial to account for extra-linguistic factors such as genre, as different ESL writers structure the meaning of believe, guess, suppose and think differently depending on their type of writing. Ultimately, in the broader context of the emancipation of ESL varieties, the results raise important questions about the developmental process of Asian Englishes and the place that semantic structure holds in this endeavor.

Mainstream Teacher Candidates' Perspectives on ESL Writing: The Effects of Writer Identity and Rater Background

This study explored the extent to which the ethnic identity of a writer and the background (gender and area of teaching) of a rater can influence mainstream teacher candidates' evaluation of English as a second language (ESL) writing, using a matched-guise method. A one-page essay was elicited from an ESL learner enrolled in an intensive English program and was manipulated to incorporate error patterns often observed among Chinese- and Spanish-speaking learners. Teacher candidates were led to believe it was produced by an ESL learner whose first language was either Chinese or Spanish. One-hundred-sixty-three undergraduate students enrolled in a teacher education program at a U.S. university were asked to score the ESL essay holistically, provide qualitative comments, identify the three most troublesome errors in order of seriousness, and offer advice on how to improve ESL writing. No significant effects of writer identity on the holistic scoring were detected, but the teacher candidates revealed different categories of rater responses depending on the writer's identity. Conversely, although the raters' backgrounds (gender and area of teaching) had significant effects on global scoring, they did not have any significant impact on the qualitative nature of rater responses.