Search

On April 20th, 2018, Moroccan youths launched a boycott campaign on social media targeting three commercial brands. This incident has reinvigorated the debate on youth engagement in civic activism. Thus, this article compares Moroccan college-level students’ civic engagement through formal processes and online social networking as well as predicting students’ levels of engagement based on their demographic characteristics and political orientation variables. The analysis revealed that social media use was significantly correlated with youth virtual civic activities. Political interest and self-efficacy also had a significant impact on youth civic engagement. However, of the five demographic variables involved, only two were found to be significantly correlated with youth online civic activities. The study therefore identifies evidence corroborating other researchers’ finding that Moroccan youth play a role in influencing policy and decision-making through informal channels of civic engagement.

This chapter investigates the effect of self-review, peer review and teacher feedback on the English narrative writing skills of EFL students of different proficiency levels. It particularly focuses on the correction of content (story grammar) and form (grammar accuracy). Two lecturers and six first-year students at a Moroccan university of different writing ability (two high-level, two mid-level and two low-level) participated in the study. The students were asked to write timed narrative essays and then correct their drafts, in untimed conditions, based on self-review (by means of a checklist), peer review and lecturer feedback. They also expressed their views on the three types of feedback through a think-aloud protocol. Our findings suggest that the higher the ability level, the more self-corrections take place. The benefits of peer review are largely determined by student ability level. While lecturer review seems to better address accuracy, salience is a determinant factor: the more salient the teacher’s feedback is, the more students correct their drafts accordingly. Results of the think-aloud protocol suggest that unlike high-ability and medium-ability students, low-ability students tend to lack trust in their peers’ feedback. Moreover, content was neglected by both students and lecturers in our study and thus very little change was identified across students’ drafts.

The nature and size of vocabulary significantly determine quality in a given piece of writing. It therefore follows that an extensive vocabulary repertoire is a key factor to success in academic life. Most certainly, this explains the vast amount of scholarly attention that has been invested in this line of research. In this regard, a wide array of studies have provided evidence suggesting that human assessors of writing quality are substantially influenced by the range and sophistication of the vocabulary used by L2 learners. The studies that offered such evidence used different measurement tools to evaluate the nature and/or size of L2 learners’ vocabulary. However, very few studies have attempted to chart vocabulary knowledge across different college-level proficiency levels in narrative writing productions in the Moroccan context. To contribute to this debate, the present study aims to investigate university L2 learners’ vocabulary knowledge across three proficiency levels from two post-secondary institutions. More specifically, this cross-sectional study operationalized vocabulary knowledge in terms of diversity and sophistication in order to chart growth in the lexical repertoire of 90 participants. Data analysis showed that the participants displayed different levels of vocabulary knowledge. In terms of lexical diversity, second-year students’ vocabulary was as diverse as third-year students but it was not as sophisticated. Nonetheless, sophistication did not differentiate first- and second-year students but it did differentiate between second- and third-year students. Additionally, diversity and sophistication were both good markers of difference between first- and second-year students. The implications of the findings will be discussed.

This chapter reports on an empirical study investigating the effects of technology-mediated self- and peer assessment on L2 students’ writing development in tertiary education. Couched within socio-cultural and activity theories, the study rests on the understanding that effective learning results from collaboration, experiential learning, and hands-on, meaningful activities. Using a quasi-experimental pre-/post-test between-group research design, a group of 48 semester two students were exposed to a blended writing course over 12 weeks. Besides the process-based writing activities carried out in class, the students were divided into groups of four and were required to download multiple supplementary materials from Moodle and post their essays in an online workshop for discussion and exchange of feedback. Pre- and post-test score comparisons revealed that although both groups made progress in certain aspects of complexity and accuracy, the experimental group significantly scored higher in accuracy metrics. Qualitative analysis of students’ feedback comments showed that their noticing ability improved as demonstrated by a decrease in unhelpful comments and an increase in meaning-level comments. The implications of the results obtained for an effective blended writing course are discussed.

Researchers and language practitioners have long been interested in the quest for theory-based, research-supported constructs that can adequately characterize L2 writing proficiency and development. The ongoing scholarly inquiry in this research area has led to the mounting recognition that complexity, accuracy and fluency (henceforth, CAF) constitute a conceptual framework capable of charting L2 writing proficiency and benchmarking development. Against this background, the present study aims to investigate four college-level semester-one students’ L2 writing development over a time frame of twelve weeks. Couched within the constructivist paradigm, which advocates learner independence, meaningful learning and collaboration, the study examines the extent and nature of the progress that two highachieving L2 students made as compared with two struggling peers with regard to their written productions. On the basis of case study methodology, a thick description is provided for each student on account of his measurable progress as assessed by theoretically motivated indices of complexity and accuracy. The paper also explores the time spent on online Moodle activities by the four participants to ascertain whether or not a relationship existed with the progress made. Complexity was measured by mean length of t-unit, mean length of clause and number of clauses per t-unit; accuracy was measured by mean number of error-free t-units and the ratio of error-free t-units to total number of t-units. The writing program in which the participants were engaged was based on the use of Moodle as a platform where students have access to myriad supplementary materials including website links, videos, PowerPoint slides, book chapters and exercises handouts. They were also required to post their written assignments in the Moodle-hosted blog and to participate in forums designed for the exchange of feedback. The implications of the results for L2 writing instruction are discussed.