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English textbooks are the most pivotal learning materials in the EFL context. However, in Vietnam, English textbooks for general education are randomized by schools, which arouses a problem of whether they are equivalent for students to gain the same proficiency. This study attempts to report the differences in lexical demands and features, including length, sophistication, and diversity, of these textbooks. To this end, the researchers compiled a corpus of 54,566 tokens extracted from their listening transcripts. Results profiled by AntwordProfiler showed that 1,000, 2,000 to 3,000, and 3,000 to 4,000 word families in the BNC/COCA wordlist plus four supplementary lists of proper nouns (PNs), marginal words (MWs), transparent compounds (TCs), and acronyms were necessary to comprehend 85%, 95%, and 98% of listening in all the textbooks, correspondingly. Moreover, the results of pairwise comparisons run by Jamovi indicated significant differences in text length and lexical diversity between the textbooks but not in sophistication. In short, these grade-10 textbooks could support students in learning English vocabulary although they impede students from using them randomly. Hence, the study heightens the roles of teachers in the classroom and paves the way for researchers who are fond of vocabulary and English textbooks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transcription is an important component of the writing process that affects the quality of children's compositions. However, little is known about how transcription mode influences productivity or spelling accuracy, two word-level markers of compositional quality, among children learning to write in an additional language. To address this issue, we compared the effects of handwriting and keyboarding on text length and spelling in the compositions of L2 French learners. Grade 2 to 4 students (n = 48) in French Immersion were given two writing prompts and asked to produce one text on paper and one using a keyboard. The prompts were counterbalanced across the two writing conditions. The total number of words, total number of words spelled correctly, and proportion of correctly spelled words were calculated. A series of repeated measures ANOVAs revealed an advantage in both the average number of correctly spelled words and the proportion of correctly spelled words in the students' compositions favouring the keyboarding condition. Conversely, the total number of words across conditions was not significantly different. Our findings suggest that keyboarding may offer an advantage over handwriting with respect to spelling accuracy in the context of L2 composition in the elementary years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transcription is an important component of the writing process that affects the quality of children’s compositions. However, little is known about how transcription mode influences productivity or spelling accuracy, two word-level markers of compositional quality, among children learning to write in an additional language. To address this issue, we compared the effects of handwriting and keyboarding on text length and spelling in the compositions of L2 French learners. Grade 2 to 4 students (n = 48) in French Immersion were given two writing prompts and asked to produce one text on paper and one using a keyboard. The prompts were counterbalanced across the two writing conditions. The total number of words, total number of words spelled correctly, and proportion of correctly spelled words were calculated. A series of repeated measures ANOVAs revealed an advantage in both the average number of correctly spelled words and the proportion of correctly spelled words in the students’ compositions favouring the keyboarding condition. Conversely, the total number of words across conditions was not significantly different. Our findings suggest that keyboarding may offer an advantage over handwriting with respect to spelling accuracy in the context of L2 composition in the elementary years.

This study explores the relation between writing quality and contextualization and elaboration moves, two kinds of textual expansion devices crucial for building common ground between writers and readers. We ask whether elaboration and contextualization features differentially predict writing quality and whether their quality contributions differ between genres. We also ask to what extent elaboration and contextualization are tied to individual writers, and can be explained by writer characteristics. To examine these issues, we annotated descriptive and argumentative texts of Dutch adolescents. Text quality was rated holistically, using benchmark scales. As regards elaboration, depth affects quality more than breadth does. It also contributes across genres, whereas breadth only contributes in argumentations. Depth shows a large individual consistency across tasks, which is substantially related to students' school type, grade and gender. Breadth shows weaker links to individual writers and their characteristics. With regard to contextualization, opening and closing moves play a modest role in text quality. Initial support moves contribute to quality across tasks; concluding moves contribute more in argumentations. Concluding moves are most consistent within writers; however, for all contextualization moves, the writer variance is substantially explained by writer characteristics. This study opens up new avenues for explicating writing quality and writing skill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing self-access libraries and the texts therein (anthologies of model essays) has long been cited as an essential part of university writing center services, as the reading of model essays has been found to positively affect the reading-writing relationship. When choosing such texts, readability is typically measured via quantitative readability formulae (e.g., the Lexile Readability Formula). However, this practice only measures two (i.e., semantic, syntactic) of the many features that influence readability, leaving others (e.g., text length) unexplored. To address this, this article reports the findings of an exploratory mixed-methods study conducted in an Asian university writing center setting which showed that the informants' ranking of ease and difficulty was significantly different than the Lexile Formula and that text length had a significant positive association with this ranking. It was further found that length was viewed as (a) a primary (i.e., an isolated feature), (b) a conjoined feature (i.e., comprising two or more associated entities where the second impacts the first: interest, vocabulary), and (c) a feature which impacts the influences of other features (interest, vocabulary, and vocabulary in context). The study also offers suggestions for writing studies professionals (teachers, writing center staff) and the publishing industry that text length be included in a hybrid (quantitative-qualitative) procedure when considering the difficulty of model essays found in anthologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research demonstrates that primary and secondary school teachers often find teaching young learners to write in a second language a slow and effortful process. Moreover, students in this age range lack the motivation to write. Therefore, it is important to explore the EFL writing pedagogy suitable for young learners. The present study investigated how story continuation (with or without reading input) under different topic familiarity conditions serves as a viable pedagogical means for secondary school students. Ninety-one Chinese students in four intact classes of comparable proficiency levels were assigned four writing task conditions in a 2 ⨉ 2 factorial design. Group 1 (Fam) was provided with the beginning of a familiar story in L1 Chinese and was required to complete the story in L2 English. Group 2 (UnFam) had the same task as Group 1, with an unfamiliar story. Group 3 (Fam+Input) was initially provided with the complete familiar story in Chinese (the same story as Group 1) as reading input and were then instructed to write the story in English with the reading material taken away. Group 4 (Unfam+Input) received the full unfamiliar story in Chinese (the same story as Group 2) as input before writing. Again they were not allowed to refer to the reading in the composing process. The results revealed that the young learners who wrote on familiar topics (Groups 1 and 3) produced longer texts and demonstrated greater lexical diversity than those with unfamiliar stories (Groups 2 and 4), although topic familiarity did not affect their writing quality or lexical sophistication. As for the story continuation conditions, students who completed writing the story without the L1 reading input on the topics (Groups 1 and 2) developed longer compositions and better writing quality than those with such input (Groups 3 and 4), although their lexical profiles (both lexical diversity and lexical sophistication) remained uninfluenced. Pedagogical implications for EFL writing among young learners were also discussed in the present study.

Prior research demonstrates that primary and secondary school teachers often find teaching young learners to write in a second language a slow and effortful process. Moreover, students in this age range lack the motivation to write. Therefore, it is important to explore the EFL writing pedagogy suitable for young learners. The present study investigated how story continuation (with or without reading input) under different topic familiarity conditions serves as a viable pedagogical means for secondary school students. Ninetyone Chinese students in four intact classes of comparable proficiency levels were assigned four writing task conditions in a 2 x 2 factorial design. Group 1 (Fam) was provided with the beginning of a familiar story in L1 Chinese and was required to complete the story in L2 English. Group 2 (UnFam) had the same task as Group 1, with an unfamiliar story. Group 3 (Fam+Input) was initially provided with the complete familiar story in Chinese (the same story as Group 1) as reading input and were then instructed to write the story in English with the reading material taken away. Group 4 (Unfam+Input) received the full unfamiliar story in Chinese (the same story as Group 2) as input before writing. Again they were not allowed to refer to the reading in the composing process. The results revealed that the young learners who wrote on familiar topics (Groups 1 and 3) produced longer texts and demonstrated greater lexical diversity than those with unfamiliar stories (Groups 2 and 4), although topic familiarity did not affect their writing quality or lexical sophistication. As for the story continuation conditions, students who completed writing the story without the L1 reading input on the topics (Groups 1 and 2) developed longer compositions and better writing quality than those with such input (Groups 3 and 4), although their lexical profiles (both lexical diversity and lexical sophistication) remained uninfluenced. Pedagogical implications for EFL writing among young learners were also discussed in the present study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assessment of text quality is a transdisciplinary issue concerning the research areas of educational assessment, language technology, and classroom instruction. Text length has been found to strongly influence human judgment of text quality. The question of whether text length is a construct-relevant aspect of writing competence or a source of judgment bias has been discussed controversially. This paper used both a correlational and an experimental approach to investigate this question. Secondary analyses were performed on a large-scale dataset with highly trained raters, showing an effect of text length beyond language proficiency. Furthermore, an experimental study found that pre-service teachers tended to undervalue text length when compared to professional ratings. The findings are discussed with respect to the role of training and context in writing assessment.

The assessment of text quality is a transdisciplinary issue concerning the research areas of educational assessment, language technology, and classroom instruction. Text length has been found to strongly influence human judgment of text quality. The question of whether text length is a construct-relevant aspect of writing competence or a source of judgment bias has been discussed controversially. This paper used both a correlational and an experimental approach to investigate this question. Secondary analyses were performed on a large-scale dataset with highly trained raters, showing an effect of text length beyond language proficiency. Furthermore, an experimental study found that pre-service teachers tended to undervalue text length when compared to professional ratings. The findings are discussed with respect to the role of training and context in writing assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The authors deal with one of the key issues in teaching translation, namely selecting suitable texts for in-class translation training. Translation belongs to the core courses in the study programme “Foreign Languages and Intercultural Communication” at the Faculty of Applied Languages, University of Economics in Bratislava. For the text to be selected for the purpose of its didactisation, and in this way to contribute to the development of translation skills, it has to fulfil numerous criteria. The focus of this paper is on text topic and its content, text type, text length, and degree of text complexity. Learners need to be prepared for diverse situations; therefore they have to be exposed to diverse text types in terms of topic and genres. As far as the criterion of text length is concerned, we consider shorter texts more suitable for training translation, because they enable teachers to work with several texts within one lesson unit and study texts on various topics. We deal with the text complexity in terms of content, as well as syntactic structures and lexical density. Text complexity has to be adapted to learners’ language, professional and cultural level of students. Features of this kind of text and criteria of text selection described in the paper are based on domestic and international sources as well as on authors’ experience in teaching translation and their own translation activities.

Recently, it was demonstrated that generalized entropies of order α offer novel and important opportunities to quantify the similarity of symbol sequences where α is a free parameter. Varying this parameter makes it possible to magnify differences between different texts at specific scales of the corresponding word frequency spectrum. For the analysis of the statistical properties of natural languages, this is especially interesting, because textual data are characterized by Zipf’s law, i.e., there are very few word types that occur very often (e.g., function words expressing grammatical relationships) and many word types with a very low frequency (e.g., content words carrying most of the meaning of a sentence). Here, this approach is systematically and empirically studied by analyzing the lexical dynamics of the German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel (consisting of approximately 365,000 articles and 237,000,000 words that were published between 1947 and 2017). We show that, analogous to most other measures in quantitative linguistics, similarity measures based on generalized entropies depend heavily on the sample size (i.e., text length). We argue that this makes it difficult to quantify lexical dynamics and language change and show that standard sampling approaches do not solve this problem. We discuss the consequences of the results for the statistical analysis of languages.

The article presents a study which examined word count in each article published in the medical journals "The New England Journal of Medicine," "The Lancet," "Journal of the American Medical Association," "The British Medical Journal" and "Annals of Internal Medicine." The variables include types of article, the absolute mean difference in word count, and abstract word limit. The requirements set by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) for publishing are discussed.

Recently, it was demonstrated that generalized entropies of order α offer novel and important opportunities to quantify the similarity of symbol sequences where α is a free parameter. Varying this parameter makes it possible to magnify differences between different texts at specific scales of the corresponding word frequency spectrum. For the analysis of the statistical properties of natural languages, this is especially interesting, because textual data are characterized by Zipf's law, i.e., there are very few word types that occur very often (e.g., function words expressing grammatical relationships) and many word types with a very low frequency (e.g., content words carrying most of the meaning of a sentence). Here, this approach is systematically and empirically studied by analyzing the lexical dynamics of the German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel (consisting of approximately 365,000 articles and 237,000,000 words that were published between 1947 and 2017). We show that, analogous to most other measures in quantitative linguistics, similarity measures based on generalized entropies depend heavily on the sample size (i.e., text length). We argue that this makes it difficult to quantify lexical dynamics and language change and show that standard sampling approaches do not solve this problem. We discuss the consequences of the results for the statistical analysis of languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]