English language teaching
Fazel Alaei; Shiva Kaivanpanah; Maedeh Mohammadi
Abstract
The present study examined the difference between L1 and L2 lexical diversity of argumentative and narrative writings of L2 learners, and the contribution of syntactic complexity and lexical diversity to the writing quality in the L2 argumentative and narrative writings of EFL learners. To this end, ...
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The present study examined the difference between L1 and L2 lexical diversity of argumentative and narrative writings of L2 learners, and the contribution of syntactic complexity and lexical diversity to the writing quality in the L2 argumentative and narrative writings of EFL learners. To this end, 46 pre-intermediate and intermediate Iranian EFL learners from four intact classes wrote one argumentative and one narrative essay in L2, and one argumentative and one narrative essay in L1 on different topics. Paired-samples t-tests revealed that lexical diversity surfaced more in the L1 writing of the learners. Multiple linear regressions indicated that among five measures of syntactic complexity, mean length of T-unit and clauses per T-unit better predict the quality of argumentative writing. In addition, complex nominals per clause are better predictors of narrative writing quality. Simple linear regressions showed that lexical diversity is a significant predictor of L2 writing in both genres. Based on the findings, writing instructors are advised to provide L2 learners with explicit instruction on the use of diverse vocabulary and different syntactic structures in order to help them improve the quality of their writing.
Shiva Kaivanpanah; Mohammad Alavi; Rose Meschi
Abstract
Writing is thought as the most complicated skill in second language acquisition; therefore, L2 researchers have always been in pursuit of discovering an effective approach to improve it. One of the most debated ways is feedback which has a key role in improving the quality of writing. Much of the previous ...
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Writing is thought as the most complicated skill in second language acquisition; therefore, L2 researchers have always been in pursuit of discovering an effective approach to improve it. One of the most debated ways is feedback which has a key role in improving the quality of writing. Much of the previous research on feedback has focused on analyzing different types of feedback and their effect on the learners’ writings and few studies have examined the effectiveness of computer feedback. Therefore, the present study was conducted to 1) determine what aspects of students’ writings receive computer feedback, 2) examine the difference in the effect of computer-generatedfeedback (CBF) and Teacher-based feedback (TBF) on improving the students’ writing quality and 3) compare the differences in Depth of Processing (DOP) in processing computer and teacher feedback. The results indicated that content, style and organization of their essays received feedback from the teacher and the computer. Teacher feedback was more effective in terms of its impact on improving the quality of the writing of the students than computer-generatedfeedback and it resulted in deeper processing of lexical items, whereas computer-generated feedback invoked medium processing on grammar.
Parviz Ajideh; Gerhard Leitner; Seyed Yasin Yazdi-Amirkhiz
Volume 8, Issue 17 , July 2016, , Pages 1-24
Abstract
This study purported to comparatively investigate the influence of collaborative writing on the quality of individual writing of four female Iranian and four female Malaysian students. The first semester students at a private university in Malaysia, who were comparable in terms of age, gender, study ...
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This study purported to comparatively investigate the influence of collaborative writing on the quality of individual writing of four female Iranian and four female Malaysian students. The first semester students at a private university in Malaysia, who were comparable in terms of age, gender, study discipline, and language proficiency, were divided into two Iranian and two Malaysian dyads. The dyads performed collaborative writing tasks for 15 sessions; after three consecutive collaborative writing sessions, each participant was asked to individually attempt a writing task. Both collaborative and individual writing tasks comprised isomorphic graphic prompts (IELTS Academic Module task 1). Writing quality of the five individually-produced texts during the study was rated in terms of task achievement (TA), cohesion/coherence (C/C), grammatical range/accuracy (GR/A), and lexical resources (LR). The findings indicated a hierarchy of development in TA and C/C among all the students, while LR showed minor improvement only among three of Malaysian students, and GR/A barely exhibited any progress among everyone. Intermittent progressions and regressions were also discerned in the trajectory of their writing development. The findings are discussed in the light of the socio-cultural and emergentist perspectives, the typology of tasks used as well as the role of the participants’ level of language proficiency.
