Search

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influences of a six-stage story structure (4S) approach on elementary students' story production. To this end, the 4S approach was developed and realized in the form of paper-based and digital storybooks based on scaffolding theory. Specifically, the students learned the six-stage story structure (i.e. setting, theme, attempt, consequence, climax, and resolution) from a number of stories in the dual tasks (i.e. the use of digital storybook after the use of paper-based storybook) and then applied this structure to create their own stories. To address the influence of the 4S approach, forty-nine fifth-grade students participated in a quasi-experimental study for seven 40-minute sessions over 2 weeks. The students in the Experimental Group using the 4S approach were compared with those in the Control Group without the 4S approach. The findings revealed that the 4S approach helps students' story quality, interests, and attitudes. Some implications and limitations are also discussed in this paper.

This study investigates research writing anxiety and self-efficacy beliefs among English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) graduate students in engineering-related fields. The relationship between the two writing affective constructs was examined and students' perspectives on research writing anxiety were also explored. A total of 218 survey responses from engineering graduate students at Taiwanese universities were analyzed, along with qualitative data from open-ended questions and semi-structured interviews. The findings show that while master's and doctoral students felt a similar moderate level of writing anxiety, senior doctoral students were more self-efficacious about writing research papers in English than their junior counterparts. Overall, students with higher writing self-efficacy felt less apprehensive. Additionally, among the individual variables, experience in writing for publication better predicted writing anxiety and self-efficacy than students' self-reported English proficiency and the number of writing courses taken. The qualitative findings indicated various sources of graduate-level writing anxiety, including insufficient writing skills in English, time constraints, and fear of negative comments. Furthermore, composing different sections of a research paper provoked different levels of anxiety due to the variations in the rhetorical purposes and discourse structures of particular sections. Implications on dealing with research writing anxiety are also discussed.

Many non-native English speaking (NNES) graduates are required to write academic papers in English; consequently, recent research in the past decade has been devoted to investigating the usefulness of genre-based Writing Instructions (GBWI) on learners' writing cultivation. There is little specific guidance, however, on how GBWI can be employed in online learning environments. The study aimed to design an e-learning tool with a Chinese-based interface and to evaluate its perceived usefulness on users' English academic writing development. Needs analysis and GBWI were employed as the main approaches for the system development, for which 32 participants involved in the trail. The results indicate that the participants considered the system useful and helpful while learning English academic writing and extract the design principles derived from the empirical results in the study. The findings provide both learning content developers and e-learning tool designers with developmental insights for graduates to acquire academic writing ability in English. In conclusion, this study contributes to the understanding of GBWI acting on the NNES engineering graduates' development of English academic writing knowledge and skills with the development of e-learning tools.

The various possibilities that social media offers to language learners and teachers have long been recognized by researchers within the field of language instruction, and many studies have been carried out in an attempt to address and unpack its potential contributions. This paper aims to review such research on the use of mainstream social media in language teaching and learning published in "Computer Assisted Language Learning," a top tier (i.e., Q1) journal indexed in major citation index systems (e.g., Arts & Humanities Citation Index, the Social Sciences Citation Index and Scopus), between the years 2016-2020 inclusive. For the purposes of the study, a total of 23 articles that meet the selection criteria is reviewed and presented in five sections. The first section deals with the majority of the articles, which are found to be on the use of social networking in language teaching and learning. In the following sections, studies on the use of videoconferencing, wikis, blogging and forums are discussed. Collectively, the studies reviewed in this paper outline a critical role for the use of social media in language instruction and the study aims to provide valuable insights for researchers, teachers and learners.

With the advent of information communication technologies, an escalating number of youths is communicating, creating, and sharing narratives via Web 2.0 social networks. To ensure the continuity between in-class and out-of-class literacy practice, digital storytelling has become increasingly prevalent in educational settings. Digital storytelling has the potential to enhance digital literacy and self-efficacy through innovative learning and identity expressions. However, the research at this juncture is scarce. Therefore, this study incorporated Storybird, a Web 2.0 collaborative writing tool, into a freshman composition class to cultivate digital literacy in English among 18 college students who are studying English as an International Language in Taiwan. In addition to developing digital literacy, this study also explored the effects of Storybird-mediated storytelling on English as an International Language students' self-efficacy as a legitimate user of English. The results from both the quantitative and qualitative data analyses indicate that after year-long participation in Storybird-mediated digital storytelling, the majority of the participants rated their digital literacy in English higher than before. Similarly, they developed a stronger sense of confidence as English as an International Language writers. Some pedagogical considerations are offered at the end of this paper for those who wish to incorporate Web 2.0 tools into their English as an International Language classrooms to boost their pupils' confidence in participating in this ever-connected global community.

With a growing demand for learning English and a trend of utilizing computers in education, methods that can achieve the effectiveness of computer-mediated communication (CMC) to support language learning in higher education have been examined. However, second language factors manipulate both the process and production of CMC and, therefore, attention is required when discussing factors influencing CMC in a second language setting. This paper discusses text-based CMC in an English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) context and examines correlations between items included in CMC measures via a second language. Results show that CMC measures and second language proficiency are statistically correlated at a significant level. Some key points raised here are (1) a computer user's second language writing proficiency influences the computer communicative skills that he or she applies to the online dialogues; (2) a computer user's second language proficiency is related to his or her self-perception of the achievement on online dialogues; and (3) an EFL computer user's motivation for CMC is connected to his or her second language writing ability.

This research investigates students' performance while writing Chinese essays using an interactive online writing system. Participants include students from two seventh-grade classes of a junior high school in Taoyuan County, Taiwan. The experimental group uses the conditioned writing interactive online system, while the control group receives traditional paper-and-pencil writing instruction. Findings show that this writing system makes a significant difference in students' writing performance in the areas of "argumentation" and "organization and structure", two essential elements of Chinese essay writing. This study proposes practical applications of the online interactive writing system for junior high school students' Chinese essay writing. (Contains 12 figures and 5 tables.)

Summary writing has been considered an important aspect of academic writing. However, writing summaries can be a challenging task for the majority of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Research into teaching summary writing has focused on different processes to teach EFL learners. The present study adopted two methods--keyword and question generation--to guide Taiwanese university students in writing summaries in English. To decrease the students' apprehension resulting from the difficulties in writing summaries, portfolios were used as a vehicle to help the students collect and reflect on the articles they read and the summaries they wrote. This paper investigated how much keyword methods and question generation helped Taiwanese EFL university students improve their English summary writing. The data showed that, with the help of keywords and question generation, the two approaches helped the majority of the participants increase their English reading and summary writing abilities.

The United States has always been the top choice of Taiwanese university students who want to study abroad. Consequently, English writing is especially vital for doctoral dissertation; insufficient research deals with academic writing of such students, despite its importance to their success. This paper aims to fill the gap by analyzing the course syllabi as well as interviews with Ph.D. students at a university in New York State. Task analysis and verbal reports of these students yielded significant insights that may contribute to more effective guidance for both academic writing instructors and curriculum developers in Taiwan.

This study attempted to discover learners' perceptions on the use of blogs for EFL (English as a foreign language) learning. Participants were 49 first-year university students from Southern Taiwan and were divided into ten groups in the study. Students in a group read the articles posted in the teacher's blog and collaboratively wrote group reflections using their group blog. A post-blogging survey was administered to elicit participants' perceptions on the use of blogs. The results of the surveys suggested that most of the students positively perceived the use of blogs for EFL learning. Only few students responded to the use of blogs negatively. The results also revealed that blogs have the potential for developing reading and writing skills. More detailed results and discussion are presented in the paper. Some pedagogical implications are also provided. For instance, teachers are suggested to post appropriate reading materials in the blog based on students' English abilities. In addition, if students are not used to using blogs, it is suggested that students could complete blogging tasks in class rather than after class.

This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of integrating a learner-centered blogging approach into the EFL writing classroom in Taiwan. For this purpose, a 16-week experiment was conducted, involving an intact class of 18 university-level Taiwanese EFL student writers. During the experiment, the participants first created their own blogs on "Lang-8," a free online language blogging platform, and then were encouraged to post at least seven entries on any issues that they wished to blog about. To better assess the effects of such an approach, both quantitative and qualitative inquiries were employed. Two writing tests were used to examine the participants' writing performance, a questionnaire investigated their learning attitudes, and in-depth interviews explored the student bloggers' learning experience in detail. The results suggest that the integration of learner-centered blogging into EFL writing instruction helps students develop writing skills as well as motivation and self-efficacy. However, their subjective blogging experience was mixed: although they conveyed enthusiastic support for the approach and strong belief in its effectiveness, this enthusiasm did not translate into much actual blogging activity. The paper concludes by offering suggestions for remedying the problems identified, and opening up avenues for further research.

This study reported how ten Taiwanese Master's students perceived their experiences of receiving feedback given by their peers and writing consultants to revise a shortened version of their thesis proposals. Collected over the course of one semester, data included students' writing portfolios and interviews with them. Analysis of the data revealed three major themes: (1) The participants felt quite positive about providing and receiving peer feedback, although they seemed cautious toward language-related peer comments; (2) they generally had positive experience with the writing consultants, although the perceived usefulness of the consultants' feedback varied with individual consultants and (3) the two types of comments served different functions for students, and questions arose from the peer editing process could serve as prompts for writing consultation sessions. Possible future research directions as well as pedagogical implication are outlined to conclude the paper. (Contains 3 tables and 1 footnote.)