Kurdish Students' Writing Problems on the Mechanics of English as a Foreign Language.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kameran N. Abdullah
2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleni Griva ◽  
Dora Chostelidou

The present study was concerned with eliciting information about the problems that bilingual or immigrant students’ encounter and the strategies that they employ whilst writing in Greek as a second language (GL2) and in English as a foreign language (EFL). The sample consisted of a total of 32 bilingual students, aged between 10 and 12 from Albanian, Russian and Georgian families. The study followed a qualitative and quantitative method of data collection and analysis: (1) a screening writing test was used for student selection and their categorisation into skilled and less skilled writers; (2) student think-aloud reports and retrospective interviews were used to collect data whilst students were writing in GL2 and EFL. The findings indicated that the skilled bilingual writers held a much broader and complex view of their own writing process and showed more strategic knowledge compared to less-skilled writers. In particular, they were more flexible in using both cognitive and metacognitive strategies and employed a wider range of more ‘elaborated’ strategies. In contrast, the less-skilled writers had a more limited knowledge of the writing task, and they adopted lower-level processes and strategies. However, they had adequate awareness of their own writing problems related to word level, and they employed certain compensation strategies to overcome writing weaknesses. Some suggestions are made about the creation of educational and teaching conditions for developing bilingual students’ linguistic cognitive and metacognitive skills and expanding opportunities for them to become autonomous writers.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 110
Author(s):  
Maryam Sharafi Nejad ◽  
Shohreh Raftari ◽  
Shaik Abdul Malik Mohamed Ismail ◽  
Lin Siew Eng

Writing connotes the declaration or expression of thoughts, feelings, plans and wishes in a composed form that demands skills and expertise as opposed to knowledge. Skillful writing calls for diligent work, perusing or reading, composing through reaching inferences from perusing materials and long period of practice. This study seeks to investigate the problems and identify the practical needs of writing skill in English as Foreign Language (EFL) context with special focus on Iranian citizens studying in Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). In Iran, learning English language appears cumbersome for learners because it is handled as a foreign language. Hence, the leaners are confronted with plethora of problems in writing the language because it is not utilized in real life conversation or situation. In order to achieve its objectives, the study administered questionnaires to the respondents to elicit information on the difficulties confronting them while learning English as Foreign Language and their pragmatic needs.  


Author(s):  
Made Wahyu Mahendra

Abstract The importance of writing has become a primary concern in teaching English as a foreign language. The skill of writing enables learners to generate ideas into certain organisation and awareness once the process of writing is undertaken. From writing, learners are also expected to be able to construct and use the language more accurately because they have enough time to think compared to have an oral activity. However, such an ideal situation can hardly be manifested due to particular problems faced by learners. This present study aims at investigating the struggling points of writing construction done by students. There were fourteen students who were purposefully selected as the subject of this study. In order to gather the supporting data, the researcher employs document study and direct observation. This study is expected to give contribution to help teachers confirming common problems faced by students during learning writing. Nevertheless, it also contributes to other prospective studies which are on the same interest with this present one. Keywords : Assessing Writing, Writing Problems, Writing Construction 


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 300
Author(s):  
Sarah Al-Mukdad

This study is in the area of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). It aimed to investigate the academic writing problems encountered by students at Arab International University (AIU) who are taking the Academic Writing module (AWR). The purpose of the study is to investigate this problem from the perspective of students in order to suggest possible treatments to deal with it. The data was collected through distributing a questionnaire to 50 students from different majors at AIU. Upon analyzing and discussing the obtained data, results suggest that students tend to perceive all aspects of academic writing to be difficult. One reason is that they poorly recognize the difference between academic and general English writing due to the lack of background knowledge about writing academically. Another prime reason is attributed to having problems in different linguistic elements even at this supposedly high proficiency level. The study concludes with suggesting a number of ways to address this issue.


2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerry Paul Sheppard

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding how to successfully develop, write up and get research work accepted and published in an English language business research journal. Design/methodology/approach – A review of good basics in writing, producing good scholarly academic writing, presentation of papers that are in a style that is proper for academic English language journals and how to avoid common writing problems and mistakes. Findings – Getting research work published requires persistence, people and progress. One must have persistence in seriously approaching and improving one’s research work. Researchers need to involve a network of people (conference attendees, people who understand the area, reviewers and editors) to develop good research. Research should lead to progress in our understanding of the way the world works. Practical implications – This paper helps authors readily bring their research to publishable quality in English language research journals by reducing pitfalls to authors writing in English as a foreign language. Originality/value – By providing not only sound practical advice, and how to avoid potential errors, the paper also provides graphic diagrams and a checklist for research writing that will aid authors writing in English as a foreign language in readily bringing their research to publishable quality in English language research journals.


Nordlyd ◽  
10.7557/12.4 ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Miranda Lee

As one of the most notable studies in discourse level of English as second/foreign language (ESL/EFL) in Nordic countries, NORDWRITE project (1985) succeeds in identifying important problems and suggesting solutions for students’ writing in terms of discourse-level properties such as cohesion and superstructures. Findings from NORDWRITE project were reported in several papers, such as Enkvist (1990), Evesen (1990), Lindeberg (1988), Linnarud (1986), Wikborg (1990). However, a comparative study of Nordic and other EFL/ESL writing has not been dealt with yet. In order to identify similarities and differences between English writing of two distinct first language (L1) groups, in this study, a number of Chinese ESL texts were collected and compared with the results obtained from NORDWRITE project. In this study, narrative was elicited by giving subjects a series of pictures which allows reliable comparison across texts produced by different subjects. A group of Hong Kong Chinese tertiary students was asked to write narratives in both English and Chinese. Meanwhile, a group of English students with similar age and education background wrote the narratives in English, and their texts serve as a reference for comparison. The areas for analysis cover narrative structure and cohesion. By examining the similarities and differences in Chinese ESL students’ and Nordic EFL students’ texts, we find that certain similarities between the two groups are due to the fact that English is their second/foreign language. On the other hand, differences may be attributed to the influence of their L1, as the two groups belong to two distinct language groups. The study also shows that certain writing problems of ESL/EFL students are originated from inadequate understanding of English discourse. The implications of L1 influences on discourse level for ESL/EFL writing were drawn as well.


2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 111-118
Author(s):  
Lourdes Ramos-Heinrichs ◽  
Lynn Hansberry Mayo ◽  
Sandra Garzon

Abstract Providing adequate speech therapy services to Latinos who stutter can present challenges that are not obvious to the practicing clinician. This article addresses cultural, religious, and foreign language concerns to the therapeutic relationship between the Latino client and the clinician. Suggestions are made for building cross-cultural connections with clients and incorporating the family into a collaborative partnership with the service provider.


2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 196-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Géry d'Ydewalle ◽  
Wim De Bruycker

Abstract. Eye movements of children (Grade 5-6) and adults were monitored while they were watching a foreign language movie with either standard (foreign language soundtrack and native language subtitling) or reversed (foreign language subtitles and native language soundtrack) subtitling. With standard subtitling, reading behavior in the subtitle was observed, but there was a difference between one- and two-line subtitles. As two lines of text contain verbal information that cannot easily be inferred from the pictures on the screen, more regular reading occurred; a single text line is often redundant to the information in the picture, and accordingly less reading of one-line text was apparent. Reversed subtitling showed even more irregular reading patterns (e.g., more subtitles skipped, fewer fixations, longer latencies). No substantial age differences emerged, except that children took longer to shift attention to the subtitle at its onset, and showed longer fixations and shorter saccades in the text. On the whole, the results demonstrated the flexibility of the attentional system and its tuning to the several information sources available (image, soundtrack, and subtitles).


1998 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marvin L. Simner

Nearly all Canadian universities employ, as a standard for university admission, the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). In light of considerable evidence indicating only a weak relationship between TOEFL scores and academic achievement, the Canadian Psychological Association recently issued a report containing a position statement that called upon Canadian universities to refrain from employing the TOEFL in this manner. Because the concerns raised in the report are likely to apply to many universities outside Canada, the entire report is reproduced in this article.


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