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For academics, foreign language academic literacy is essential in order to read and analyze academic sources in the foreign language effectively as well as to produce and present their own work in that language. In spite of various studies and trainings on English for academic purposes, it is still questioned why academics and graduate students cannot have the literacy in this area. To address this problem, it is necessary to examine and determine their needs for foreign language academic literacy. Therefore, the present paper reports a large scale needs analysis on the academics and graduate students across different disciplines all over Turkey. Applying quantitative research method, this study adapted a survey model to determine and discuss which academic language skill is the most difficult and what language skill competencies they should improve from their perspective. The results were analyzed in terms of the language skill competencies and the participants' disciplines they studied. The findings indicated that the participants needed most of the competencies questioned in the survey, and their needs were language-skill specific rather than discipline-specific. The participants mostly emphasized academic writing competencies, which supports the assumption in the literature that productive skills are the most difficult skill to improve for learners.

Enhancing the quality of education has been placed high in the national policy agenda in Azerbaijan in recent years. Education policy makers are interested in developing quality curriculum for secondary education, implementing teacher development programs and creating a better learning environment. This study outlines one of the most significant skills in education; academic writing, and teaching and assessment of it for the quality in education. The reason for arguing this topic is that a multiple-choice test is still a dominant assessment tool at centralized exams in Azerbaijan, and a student's knowledge cannot be measured through standardized multiple-choice tests only. It is argued that the lack of teaching and learning academic writing at secondary education and its assessment might prevent the student's critical thinking.

The present study examines university students' perceptions of learning academic terminology and using specialised language, and discusses the consequences of their vision. The aim is to elucidate the relationship between academic culture, academic education and the construction of knowledge in higher education. The fields of meaning and the level of difficulty entailed in understanding technical or specialised content in the context of our students (L2) are associated with the current context and widespread use of technological devices. The lack of command of fields of meaning not only impedes the construction of new theoretical models, but also increasingly differentiates between groups, widening the gap between students who possess more specialised codes and those who do not.

As academic language skills develop, young learners are able to rise to the challenge of increasingly complex communication in increasingly formal settings (Snow, 2014; Uccelli et al., 2015). Studies suggest that CLIL contexts may favour the development of academic language skills (Dalton-Puffer, 2007; Nikula, 2007; Marsh, 2008; Pasqual Peña, 2010) to a greater extent than non-CLIL contexts. However, research that attempts to test this assumption has so far tended to do so from a pragmalinguistic perspective (Lorenzo & Rodríguez, 2014; Lorenzo, 2017). This paper takes a sociopragmatic approach to exploring the differences between CLIL and non-CLIL contexts regarding how they facilitate the development of early academic language skills. That is, how the communicative intentions that underlie CLIL and non-CLIL classroom discourse may help or hinder the development of such skills. The data were collected by observing classroom discourse in CLIL and EFL primary-school lessons, in Spanish-based and Catalan-based linguistic models. The method followed was to apply a taxonomy of the sociopragmatic level of academic language (Henrichs, 2010) to determine the quality of the conversational style and intersubjective cooperation found in the discourse. The results indicate that CLIL classroom discourse is characterised by the sort of conversational style that facilitates the development of academic language skills. However, in terms of intersubjective cooperation the results are somewhat inconclusive. Based on these results, the study suggests raising awareness of the role of conversational style in classroom discourse so as to boost the quality of teacher-student interactions in primary-school CLIL contexts and, thus, contribute to an identified need for continuous improvement of CLIL pedagogies and teacher training (Lorenzo, 2007; de Graaff et al., 2007).

Writing a Master of Arts (MA) thesis is a challenging task for postgraduate students. This complexity is of great significance when one is writing in his/her second language. From this perspective, genrecentered approaches help non-natives enhance their understanding of academic and scientific texts. This study is intended to comparatively investigate the rhetorical differences/similarities existing in the abstracts and introduction sections of MA theses produced by Iraqi and international students in the field of Applied Linguistics (AL). To achieve this goal, two groups of MA theses (30 theses each) were randomly selected. Hyland's (2000) proposed model and Chen and Kuo's (2012) framework were utilized in order to categorize the rhetorical structures in abstract and introduction sections, respectively. The findings showed that Iraqi university students included the steps of (a) "Research hypotheses" and (b) "Outlining thesis structures" in their abstracts while these rhetorical features were absent in their international counterparts. Iraqi students also discussed results in the abstracts more frequently than international MA students. Furthermore, although both Iraqi and international MA students utilized the moves with similar frequencies in their introduction chapters, international students utilized various steps for the realization of Move 1 and Move 3. The findings call for a genre-based approach in teaching academic writing to raise the students' awareness of these schematic organizations in MA thesis writing classes in EFL contexts.

The advent of corpora has opened new vistas for language study and restructured linguists' and academicians' approaches to lexicography and English language teaching (ELT). After 1980s, the use of online language corpora and computer tools garnered tremendous attention of English language teachers and academicians. Keeping in view the modern trends and needs of learners, this research focused on the practical implications of online corpora for ELT and its utility in the Pakistani context. Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE) is used as a reference corpus for this research. MICASE is a collection of nearly 1.8 million words of transcribed speech (almost two hundred hours of recording). The transcribed data of MICASE includes wide range of speech events like seminars, lectures, advisory meetings and lab sessions. The study identified the utility of lexical items at syntactic level and its usage in various contexts. Furthermore, the layers of meanings and uses of lexicons through in-depth study of right and left collocates were explored in the reference corpus. The results showed that lexicons can be used as noun, verb and adjective depending upon the context of the study and right and left collocates play a significant role in understanding the meanings of lexical items in various contexts. Thus, this strategy can be fruitful for English language learners and academic discourse community who are interested in understanding the versatile uses of lexical items and their contextual meaning.

Students in a fully online learning environment have limited opportunities to talk about math problem solving. While discourse is an effective pedagogical model, less is known about how it translates to online math learning. We analyzed online platform data from two fully online virtual elementary schools in the United States to address the following research questions: (a) Is participation in math discourse about reasoning and problem solving related to students' math confidence, self-efficacy toward math, and math mindset in an online learning environment? (b) Is participation in math discourse related to math performance? The study design involved school-level voluntary student participation and a retrospective analysis of online platform data. The results showed that repeated participation in discourse sessions in a course was not directly related to changes in math confidence, self-efficacy toward math, and math mindset. However, student participation in higher numbers of sessions was associated with higher final math course score and math state assessment performance, after controlling for prior performance and confidence, self-efficacy, and mindset scores. This study has important implications for the future design and implementation of online math instruction as well as the training and development of fully online math teachers.

This study applies the Mathematics Acquisition Framework (MAF) (Bossé, Ringler, Bayaga, Fountain, & Young, 2018) to investigate fifth- through seventh-grade students' comprehension of fractions and decimals and examines how students build understanding of mathematical principles and concepts regarding fractions and decimals. Based on case studies and discourse analysis, the results revealed students in different stages of the MAF with some students employing informal/social language in their mathematical communication and others using formal/academic language. Additionally, mathematically erroneous student communication was more positively interpreted through the lens of the MAF, which interpreted student errors, misunderstandings, and miscommunications as natural components to learning.

The approach to language learning as a way of coming to understand target culture and its impact on target language is reflected in the concept of teaching and learning languages through the integration of intercultural capabilities. The concept will be supported by a number of examples taken from authentic materials language learners have encountered in target language contexts, predominantly gaining experience through reading authentic materials. The paper presents the ideas of university students who carried out their own projects within and after research run by Trnava University, the representatives of which actively participated in a three-year project, supported by the VEGA funding scheme under number 1/0106/15. Twenty-two students who participated in our experiment were asked to analyze formal English in its written mode, searching for characteristic features of formal writing, used in contemporary English. After the completion of the first task related to the selection of appropriate samples, the students were expected to compare the quality of authentic materials received through technologies and that achieved from reading contemporary literary prose, newspapers and academic texts. The idea behind this task was to help university students to be able to critically assess other people's ideas and arguments, to apply critical thinking when reading, to evaluate authentic materials and to achieve the ability to construct effective arguments in formal writing.

Given the need to enhance the academic language and early literacy skills of young children from low-income homes and the importance of the home literacy environment in supporting children's development, the purpose of this qualitative study was to better understand the home literacy environment of low-income African-American and Latino mothers of preschool children living in the United States. Specifically, research aims were to examine home literacy environment practices, beliefs and influential factors as well as to compare the home literacy environment of African-American and Latino, specifically Puerto Rican, families. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 African-American and 10 Puerto Rican mothers. Data were analysed using the consensual qualitative research method. Twelve themes were identified: provision of educational materials, engagement with books, focus on print, implicit language opportunities, focus on other pre-academic skills, social interactions with books, influence of school, influence of other adults, parents' reading interest/ability, child's reading interest, parents' commitment to child's success and family stressors. Few differences emerged between African-American and Puerto Rican mothers. Implications for language and literacy intervention development are discussed.

Writing in a second language is complex, and complicated, mainly because of by the addition of new resources and norms (new structural elements of the new language, new rhetorical conventions, and some other things). Teachers therefore, whether they like it or not, have to select the most appropriate teaching methods and strategies in their writing classes, one strategy that teachers can apply in their "Academic Writing" class is "Process Writing" strategy. This study shows information on a teaching strategy named "Process Writin" which was applied to one group of "Academic Writing" class in Semester II, 2016-2017. Research took place from January to April 2016. This group was taught using "Process writing" teaching strategy, with the hope of helping students improve in both their reading and writing skills. There were 20 students altogether in this group. One central question to be answered in this study is: "How effective is Process writing strategy when it is used to teach Academic Writing students?" Instruments used were pre-tests, post-tests, direct observation, video-recording; and weekly journals that students had to write every time they passed a stage of the Process Writing. From the statistical analysis as well as from students' perceptions, one main conclusion can be drawn, that is, "Process writing" is effective to teach "Academic Writing." Another conclusion which is not less significant is that "Process Writing" can be used to teach any level of education, not to mention in tertiary education, provided that lecturers adjust the materials as well as level of difficulty. One last conclusion is that every strategy that teachers will apply in their classroom is very context-dependent. That is, it depends on the class situation, which varies from one class to another. The context, atmosphere, as well as situation of the class became the factors that contribute to the effectiveness and success of a strategy. This piece of research is hoped to benefit both lecturers as well as students of second language writing. Pedagogically, this research can enrich another source of literature in terms of teacher strategy in teaching second language writing.

This paper explores a process-genre approach to teaching academic writing skills to advanced English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) students. The 'reading-to-writing' tasks and procedures were designed to examine the feasibility of the approach for a doctoral English-for-academic-purposes (EAP) program in the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 academic years. Data for this action research were drawn from a collection of students' written tasks with peer-feedback and revisions spelled out, onsite researcher's observation notes, and two rounds of interviews with two selected groups of students. The results indicate that the participants benefited significantly through reading and analyzing peer-reviewed journal articles and getting familiar with the peer-review criteria for assessing academic texts. The approach stimulated the participants' interest in employing process writing skills and helped them understand the genre of disciplinary-specific academic writing. Issues with and implications for EAP learning and teaching in the Chinese context are discussed.

This research used an inductive qualitative method to examine how adolescents participated in online literature discussion, with limited guidance from adults, through a summer reading program. Using a New Literacies framework, the authors considered that literacy is social and collaborative and that adolescents often engage in such literacy practices on the Internet outside of school. This study considered these literacy practices to examine an eight-week voluntary online summer reading program at a public library and how such a program might inform such activities in school settings to promote more authentic opportunities for literacy engagement. In this program, 12 adolescents (ages 13-17) read print-based young adult novels and responded to their reading in threaded discussion boards, called book clubs, in a closed, online social network. Results indicated two overlapping themes related to students' formality in writing that promote shared learning and personalize digital discussions to make connections. Researchers found adolescents spontaneously adopted online discussion techniques that hybridized formal discussion practices with more personal practices to encourage emotive transaction with text. These results raised implications for integrating such activities in classroom settings to support all learners and to promote academic literacies.

Objective: In varying degrees of severity and seriousness, evidence of academic dishonesty exists in tertiary institutions around the world. This paper examines academic misconduct in a tertiary-level institution in one of the Gulf countries to see if academic dishonesty prevails, and if so, how and why it happens. Method: To gauge students' perceptions about academic dishonesty in this context, a survey was distributed to 111 junior, sophomore, and senior level students taking an advanced academic writing course in a private university. Results: Results show statistically significant evidence that cheating exists. Conclusions: While research on academic misconduct is extensive in Western contexts, less is documented in the Middle East and North Africa region besides conceptual papers that aim to create a general understanding of this issue and newspaper articles that discuss its prevalence. Implications for Theory and/or Practice: This paper underscores the existence of academic misconduct in the Middle East and North Africa region, identifying the need for further research and implementation of improved teaching strategies and increased attention regarding academic misconduct.

Metadiscourse is essential in establishing pragmatically effective academic written communication. However, little is known about how metadiscourse is used in written texts produced by tertiary level second language learners. This corpus-based linguistic research study aims to explore the frequencies and usages of metadiscourse markers in student essays written by Turkish learners of English and investigate the divergences from native speaker norms. As reference corpora, British Academic Written English (BAWE) and British National Corpus (BNC) were used. We found that in academic discourse, regardless of experience in writing (novice or expert) and L1 language background, interpersonal metadiscourse markers are used more frequently than textual metadiscourse markers. The commonalities between novice non-native and expert native writers together with differences between two native speaker groups suggest that pragmatic competence, particularly metadiscourse use, develops by experience regardless of L1 background.

Academic writing is the process of sharing original research with other scholars in accordance with certain standard rules. This process requires correctly following the steps of scientific academic writing. However, a close analysis of recent academic texts reveals a wide range of mistakes or shortcomings. The purpose of this research is to examine the characteristics of academic writing based on the views of the academicians creating it. A semi-structured interview form was created on Google Docs virtual office for this research using qualitative research methodology. Thus, 30 academicians from different cities and universities of Turkey were involved. Content analysis was used to assess the collected data. Each answer given by the academicians was placed into a category such as similarity and relatedness. These categories were transformed into tables by frequency values of the answers, and each table was supported with quotations extracted from the answers. The results show that the academicians presented the highest number of comments about the characteristics related to sections containing "methodology" and "results, discussions and suggestions." The participants also reported that in their article reviewing process, they encounter the highest number of errors in the "methodology" section, followed by errors in formal standards, spelling-punctuation / expression and academic style.

MOOCs (massive open online courses) promise higher education to participants who cannot travel to or pay for face-to-face classes. In 2013, a new MOOC introduced second language (L2) learners to concepts of English language academic writing. The authors of this article participated in the course as students and kept a reflective diary, which we analyzed qualitatively from a perspective of multimodal design. We describe the instructional modes present in the course and discuss the ways the course utilized affordances of those modes. We argue that while the course design provided linguistic input and fostered interaction among participants, it missed opportunities to utilize some multimodal affordances of the MOOC platform for supporting peer response and developing a learner community, thus limiting students' potential to learn English academic writing.

Motivation determines students' success in academic writing. The current study adopted 28 items of the academic writing motivation questionnaire by Payne (2012) translated into Indonesian language to explore students' motivation in academic writing. This study involved 120 prospective Indonesian language teachers at STKIP PGRI Bandar Lampung that were chosen by stratified random sampling technique. The result indicated that items clustered into four factors, namely (1) enjoyment (a = 0.98; s[superscript 2] = 34.96%), (2) self-efficacy (a = 0.91; s[superscript 2] = 17.90%), (3) instrumentality (a = 0.93; s[superscript 2] = 14.44%), and (4) recognition (a = 0.98; s[superscript 2] = 10.65%) with rotated factor loadings varying between 0.546 and 0.984. These results confirmed that the instrument used in this study had excellent validity and reliability. Based on degree of motivation analysis, the enjoyment had the highest contribution to writing motivation, followed by instrumentality, and self-efficacy. Finally, Pearson correlation analysis revealed the significant correlation between enjoyment and self-efficacy.

Genre analysis dealing with the study of situated language in a particular context is regarded as a crucial component in every communication in general and academic writing texts in particular. Furthermore, recently it has been set as a requirement for the graduated students to pursue a shared rhetorical pattern for generating an academic text. Several researchers have recommended detailed explanations for rhetorical structures of various parts of academic texts, and an extensive literature is dedicated to investigate different academic genres such as research articles, theses, and dissertations in English. But, there are not enough studies that work on the thesis as a whole product and analyze all sections together and not separately. Therefore, 40 M.A. theses produced by Iranian TEFL students at Islamic Azad University (IAU), Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch were collected and analyzed for the rhetorical structures of the Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion (IMRD) sections in order to accomplish the objectives of the study. Through calculating the frequencies and percentages of data, it was revealed that a number of moves in different sections was absent in the theses.

Writing a literature review requires highly sophisticated academic literacies. Many postgraduate students find this genre a challenge. While there is a growing awareness of the need for explicit pedagogy to support students writing this genre, many pedagogical interventions fail to move beyond a focus on citations as a stylistic convention or as a way of avoiding plagiarism. What is missing is a pedagogy that relates citing to the more complex, fluid conceptual and ontological practices that are implicit in academic contexts. The purpose of this paper is to explore the citation patterns, complexity and discursive practices in master's students' literature reviews, and to inform pedagogy.

This paper is based on statistical and qualitative analysis of library and information science (LIS) literature. Our study asks the question of whether, and if so, how, and how often, the discourse generated by scholarly literature in LIS engages discussion about identity in LIS, what topics are covered, and whether the articles engage praxis, or the application of theory to practice. Through searches in LISTA database that cross-referenced identity terms (e.g., Gender, LGBT) with terms describing prominent areas in the LIS field, we collected quantitative data and analyzed the co-occurrence of keywords and created network visualizations. We used a qualitative coding scheme to rate abstracts in terms of their relevance and actionability. Both modes of analysis show that generalized conversations about identity are most common, and praxis is rarely achieved. Using critical approaches to LIS, we explore the ramifications of silences within LIS literature upon the pedagogical and professional discourse.

The authorial stance in academic genres is conveyed with the use of linguistic conventions of disciplines, one of which is metadiscourse. The aim of this study was to compare the use of interactional metadiscourse features (IMDMs) by native academic authors of English (NAAEs) and Turkish-speaking academic authors of English (TAAEs) for the construal of their stance in their doctoral dissertations. In a corpus of 120 doctoral dissertations, IMDMs were analyzed according to Hyland's (2005) taxonomy by using Wordsmith Tools 6.0. Log likelihood statistics was conducted to see whether there was a statistically significant difference between these two groups in their use of IMDMs in terms of frequency and variety. A statistically significant underuse of IMDMs by Turkish-speaking academic authors of English regarding the overall use of 5 subcategories of IMDMs was found.

Developing strong communicative ability amongst science graduates, especially in science communication, has been included as a fundamental learning outcome in some science degree programmes. This article focuses on a compulsory academic literacy course for first-level undergraduates that is aimed at developing academic reading and writing skills beyond the considerations of deficit language proficiency. It straddles the general, discipline-specific dichotomy in the skills aimed at, course content, and materials used. It targets two core science communication skills in addition to general academic literacy. In addition, the content and materials consist of popular science and media texts to facilitate the discussion of scientific ideas made accessible to the lay reader. It investigates course effectiveness on developing coherence in students' writing. Results obtained suggest that indicators of coherence, especially in the integration of source ideas and writers' proposition and the logical progression of textual ideas, are correlated to the difference in improved essay scores.

In this study, a quasi-experimental within-subject design was adopted to examine the intervention effects of teaching academic formulaic sequences (FS) for writing with one intact class consisting of 15 EFL third-year college students. Fifty target FSs were chosen from five recently compiled academic formulas lists (mostly derived through corpus research) based on frequency, semantic transparency, and localized pedagogical considerations. Measurements included (a) the pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest on target FSs; (b) pretest and posttest timed summary writing; (c) free production of taught FSs in an out-of-class book report and research report assignments at the end of the semester or several months later. Additionally, the participants' perceptions toward the explicit instruction were investigated through a questionnaire. The results indicated that 60% of the taught FSs appeared in the participants' writing, and the numbers of FSs used increased after explicit instruction. Both the learners' posttest FS test and writing performance were better than those in the pretest, maintaining the effects. The current study shed some light for integrating FSs instruction into a college EFL writing class. Pedagogical implications suggested that writing teachers may take target genre types in their course into consideration when choosing appropriate formulaic sequences. Future research can recruit more participants with different backgrounds and different proficiency levels.

This article argues that composition studies' professional artifacts and pedagogical materials can perpetuate tacit ideologies about academic language that are in conflict with our field's larger goals toward social justice and inclusion in FYC. In order to exemplify a systematic analysis of our artifacts and materials for their tacit language ideologies, the author compares how three popular FYC textbooks--"The Norton Field Guide to Writing," "Everyone's An Author," and "They Say, I Say"-- represent academic language in seven major categories: name, placement, definition, characterization, features, examples, and instruction. This textbook analysis illuminates how no representation or discussion of academic language can be neutral, and it also illuminates the obvious gaps that still exist between scholarship on academic language and textbooks' representations of academic language. The author ultimately advocates for this kind of systematic and proactive analysis across our professional artifacts and pedagogical materials so they might be revised to better align with social justice and inclusion initiatives.

Purpose: We investigated the reading and writing attitudes of children attending a recreational camp to gain insights into student motivations toward literacy. Two national surveys were used to study children's attitudes toward the skills of reading and writing for academic and non-academic purposes. We wanted to explore reading and writing attitudes as a possible bridge to the concept of functional health literacy. A secondary purpose of the study was to determine the differences in attitudes for recreational reading, academic reading, and academic writing between boys and girls. Methods: Children (n = 102) aged 5 to 12 years responded to 30 questions read aloud by the research proctor from two national paper-and pencil surveys. Students participating in at least two of the ten weeks of the summer camp were given a pretest and posttest of the Reading Attitudes Survey (RAS), Writing Attitudes Survey (WAS), and a Demographic Survey after completing the IRB requirements of active parent consent and student assent. Results: Three findings emerged: 1) girls showed higher academic reading attitudes than boys; 2) girls showed higher recreational reading attitudes than boys, and 3) girls showed slightly higher writing attitudes than boys. Girls' (n=65) scores on the RAS averaged 31.84 (SD=6.58) when reading for recreation and 30.13 (SD= 6.53) when reading for academics. Boys' (n=37) scores on the RAS averaged 28.88 (SD=7.18) when reading for recreation and 25.14 (SD=8.42) when reading for academics. As girls' reading attitudes went up, boys' reading attitudes went down (r = -0.72 recreational reading; r = -0.85 for academic reading). Writing attitudes also differed between girls and boys. WAS scores averaged 63.22 (SD = 25.73) for 65 girls and 52.83 (SD = 25.91) for 37 boys (n = 37). As girls' writing attitudes went up, boy's writing attitudes went down (r = -0.85). Conclusions: Girls are more inclined than boys to read for fun and to have positive attitudes associated with reading and writing. Because a significant gap exists between what people know and what people do regarding health behaviors, this study may be the first to conceptualize reading and writing attitudes as a lens to understanding functional health literacy -- the ability to read, write, and speak about health. Recommendations: Future research is needed to explore how reading and writing attitudes relate to health literacy. Attitudinal studies between girls and boys are needed to investigate the complex role that functional health literacy plays as a determinant of health. If attitudes help to determine an intention to do a behavior and if one's intention is the key predictor of healthy behavior, then health education curricula should include reading and writing as possible determinants for shaping children's attitudes toward their health.

In a critical study, researchers explored academic writing experiences of three international female graduate students at a southern U.S. university in order to understand their perspectives of themselves as writers across cultures, their experiences with academic writing, and their coping strategies for academic writing assignments. Findings revealed participants' challenges and self-doubts about second-language writing abilities. Participants both challenged disconfirmation of their writing and at times were submissive as they negotiated a graduate degree program. The study demonstrates need for universities to recognize marginalized groups' knowledge and ways of knowing and to create spaces to discuss new possibilities for academic writing experiences among international students.

To improve academic ESL, a community college has been experimenting with linking an ESL class to a Sociology class. The primary goal was to use the methodology of Content Based Instruction to develop a curriculum that would promote academic vocabulary acquisition, critical thinking, and authentic communication in a sheltered environment. The paradigm of Action Research was used as a framework to reflect on the strengths of the program and to identify activities that engaged the students and contributed to improved language skills. Supplementary assignments of a Young Adult novel and provocative movies, used across both the ESL and Sociology class, helped students to apply abstract concepts to familiar situations. The structure of the link produced an effective learning community and a support system for the students. We suggest that linking ESL to a content course might be preferable to other options for developmental ESL students entering college.

Across many years of teaching Research Methods and assessing many applications for admission into higher degree studies which require an understanding of theories, principles, strategies and skills needed to complete a higher degree such as a Masters or a PhD, one of the things I have found problematic for many students is the inability to articulate differences between theory, theoretical framework and a conceptual framework for a proposed research project. This paper uses experiential methodology to draw upon my experience in practice, and systematic literature review methodology to draw upon supporting scholarly literature by leaders in the field, to contribute to existing knowledge on the meaning of each of these concepts, and more importantly to distinguish between them in a study of Research Methods, and in particular as they relate to designing a research proposal and a thesis for a higher degree. The primary aim is to help the reader develop a firm grasp of the meaning of these concepts and how they should be used in academic research discourses. The review answers five questions. 1. What does each of these terms mean? 2. When and how should each be used? 3. What purposes does a theoretical framework serve? 4. How do you develop a theoretical framework for your research proposal or thesis? 5. What does a good theoretical framework look like?

Much current debate about undergraduate student research involves a focus on 'students as partners' and co-constructors of knowledge (Healey, Flint & Harrington 2014, 2016). This debate reveals interesting tensions between student freedom and the role of structuring frameworks. Undergraduate lecturers and research supervisors might feel we are in a quandary concerning how far we can help manage a balance between supportive frameworks and the independence that student researchers need to develop. Will the use of the Research Skill Development (Willison & O'Regan, 2006/2018) framework and other frameworks at every step of the undergraduate research journey form a constraint, or an essential scaffold? This paper considers frameworks, scaffolds and the need for freedom and creative co-construction of knowledge to enable successful undergraduate research within the context of final year research and writing at undergraduate third year (UK), honours (Australia) or senior/fourth year (US and Canada).

Effective and continuing development of tertiary students' academic literacy during their undergraduate years has become a crucial issue for Anglophone universities into the 21st century. Research into pedagogies aimed at supporting students' academic literacy development has pointed to the inadequacy of generic approaches delivered as remedial support services, and has called instead for the integration of the teaching and learning of academic literacy into discipline content courses. Successful models tended to require collaboration between discipline and communication specialists. However, reluctance by discipline specialists to engage with language in favour of content teaching, and financial implications of collaboration represent two major barriers to the uptake and scalability of curriculum-integrated academic literacy development. This paper describes a collaborative approach to genre pedagogy that has the potential for overcoming the content-language dichotomy and also the cost barrier. It provides a method for the discipline lecturer's progress from initial dependence on the literacy specialist's expertise towards learner and teacher autonomy. The pedagogy is demonstrated by two Models of Engaged Learning and Teaching (MELT) that are derived from the Research Skill Development framework. This paper describes the two models and their potential role in overcoming barriers to curriculum-integration of academic literacy development.

The main purpose of vocabulary instruction is to enhance and support reading comprehension. This goal spans across the grade levels and different disciplines and is supported by a plethora of research. In recent years, a great deal of needed attention has been finally given to academic vocabulary and disciplinary literacy. To contribute to this body of knowledge, we believe it is critical to examine how the complex relationship between vocabulary and comprehension may be addressed in secondary content area classrooms, given the unique nature of the academic vocabulary students encounter daily in school. This conceptual paper contains the following: (1) definition of academic vocabulary; (2) description of what is known about the vocabulary-comprehension relationship; (3) conceptualization of the intersection of academic vocabulary and the vocabulary-comprehension relationship; and (4) instructional implications emerging from this intersection. Perhaps this conceptualization may provide disciplinary practitioners more insight to help them make decisions regarding vocabulary instruction.

In preparation for the academic rigor of higher-education institutions and the high standards of international businesses across the English-speaking globe, students must learn "to use language in more sophisticated ways: arguing, evaluating evidence, analyzing complex texts, and engaging in academic discussions." In order to give students the tools they will need to access academic content and achieve goals they have for using English, educators need to effectively teach these high-order functions of language. However, simply asking students to do such tasks with the language might not achieve this goal. Although language and content teachers may dedicate an allotted amount of time to performing text analysis and generating academic discussions, this does not effectively happen by accident. This article describes how to effectively scaffold academic language in discussions, focusing specifically on the use of writing to help students organize their thoughts, stay focused on the topic, and lower their second or foreign language (L2) speaking anxiety. The article includes examples from a high-beginning English as a second language (ESL) classroom in a university setting.

To address teacher retention in rural and remote areas, universities have begun to offer Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) programs to help people living in these communities gain their teacher certification. However, because many students who enrol in such programs have been out of school for many years, they often struggle with academic writing. Through student surveys and focus groups, along with instructor interviews, this design-based study sought to determine the extent to which technological supports and pedagogical techniques influenced the acquisition of academic writing skills for B.Ed. students within two online courses. Among the findings, students emphasized the importance of face-to-face interactions, particularly during their summer residency, to build the trust needed to provide authentic peer-to-peer feedback. They saw individual instructor formative feedback as having the most significant impact on their writing abilities. Although not originally intended as a writing intervention, students found ongoing discussion postings--albeit challenging and time consuming--as essential to the development of their academic writing abilities. Students appreciated the learning modules created for this course; however, their effect was mitigated by technical difficulties and a lack of teacher presence to provide guidance around how they could be best used. Recommendations include redesigning community-based B.Ed. programs to address writing skills, incorporate formative feedback structures, and provide scaffolding for writing and constructive peer feedback on discussion posts

Academic vocabulary knowledge is central to reading and academic achievement. Largely based in the lexicons of Latin and Greek, academic vocabulary comprises morphemic structures. Many teachers devote little time to focused instruction in this area because they may lack pertinent morphological and pedagogical knowledge. This article reports findings from a broader three-year longitudinal qualitative case study that explored the experiences of three elementary teachers who engaged in professional development that included study of the morphemic features of academic vocabulary and instructional techniques. This article describes changes teachers made to practice because of their deeper understanding of Latin and Greek morphology and how to teach it. Data sources included in-depth and semistructured interviews, direct observations of classroom practice, and analysis of instructional artifacts. Data analysis revealed that all three participants moved from teacher-centered, definitional approaches towards instruction that was student-centered and focused on developing metalinguistic awareness. Instructional shifts reflected participants' new understandings about metalinguistic awareness, student-directed problem-solving, and collaborative talk in vocabulary learning. Instructional shifts address metalinguistic awareness, morphology, word consciousness, and Spanish--English cognate instruction--areas that may be overlooked in many classrooms.

Academic vocabulary is the specialized language used to communicate within academic settings. The Coxhead (2000) taxonomy is one such list that identifies 570 headwords representing academic vocabulary. Researchers have hypothesized that students possessing greater fluent reading skills are more likely to benefit from exposure to vocabulary due to greater amounts of time spent reading (Nagy and Stahl, 2007; Stanovich, 1986). In this study of 138 sixth- and seventh-grade students, we assess academic vocabulary, indicators of fluent reading, and silent reading comprehension to gain insight into relationships between the three. Our results found that reading rate mediates the relationship between academic vocabulary and reading comprehension, accounting for nearly one-third of the explained variance. Using simple slope analysis, we identified a threshold suggesting the point where reading rate exerts a neutral effect on reading comprehension beyond which vocabulary learning is no longer hindered.

This cross-linguistic and cross-cultural, corpus-based study explores the notion of "writer identity" expressed through self-reference. The study examines how writers from two cultural regions -- Polish and Anglo-American -- construct a credible representation of themselves in writing. That is, it investigates the differences and similarities in the frequency of use, and the role of first person pronouns and determiners, in the corpora of 40 research articles in the area of applied linguistics -- 20 written by Polish authors in English, published in Polish institutions, and 20 by native English speakers, published in Anglophone journals. Additionally, the frequency of use and the role of nominal lexical items referring to the writers, such as "the author(s)" and "the researcher(s)", are explored. The location of pronouns, determiners and the lexical items in the IMRD structure (Introduction-Method-Results-Discussion) is also researched, as certain types of pronouns and determiners were expected to occur in the given sections, depending on their functions. The results clearly show that there is a striking difference between the use of pronouns and determiners in the texts written by the two groups of writers. The findings carry important implications for formulating clearer instructions and developing appropriate writing strategies by novices writing for publication in EFL.

Supervisors' feedback can be taken as the most powerful pedagogical tool in thesis writing. However, relatively little is known about the type of information supervisors focus on and the language functions supervisors use to communicate with their students. Data collected from eight supervisors' written feedback to students' theses at Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia were coded, tabled, and converted into percentages for analysis. The results of this study showed a wide range of supervisors' practices concerning the functions and types of written feedback. While the supervisors favored feedback on the genre knowledge the most and directive clarification language functions was most frequently used to communicate with the students, little or no attention was given for the expressive approval of language functions. Overall, the results of this study suggest that supervisors' written feedback can be taken together in regard to the process of effective communication. Finally, implications for better supervision practices and further research are presented that could shed light on the strengths of using other research tools.

This study examined English Learners' (ELs) self-efficacy beliefs in a U.S. university setting by using a survey, interviews, and focus group discussions. The results identified that ELs from different disciplines had positive self-efficacy beliefs about their overall English learning, and self efficacy was related to ELs' age, years of English learning, country of origin, and previous educational level. However, ELs in this study lacked confidence and self-efficacy in learning in academic courses, and they faced challenges when using academic language. Effective instructional strategies such as social modeling, social persuasion, motivational feedback, group work, and participative assessment methods were identified by ELs in this study.

Collocations, no matter where to use them, are an important linguistic issue if it is native fluency that is longed for in academic writing. In line with that, the present study aimed at increasing the awareness towards the importance of collocations in order to have native fluency in academic writing; making some suggestions regarding involvement of collocations in academic texts, and creating a practicable list of collocations to be used especially in research articles by non-native writers of English. A hundred research articles written in English in the field of ELT by native speakers of English made up the data of the present study. The data were analysed and the collocations were identified and categorized. The categorized collocations were enhanced through collocations dictionaries to be able to create a comprehensive list of collocations. The findings showed that native speakers heavily rely on collocations while writing academic texts. In addition, the literature also provided compelling evidence regarding the close relation between native fluency in academic texts and correct collocation use.

Even though there is plenty of published information about the advantages of peer review, little can be found on what the beneficiaries (i.e. the students) feel about this method and what they might expect from it. In this paper, we present an analysis of the perceptions of 44 students at one of the largest universities in Ecuador, who had just undertaken a course in academic writing which used peer revision as the main tool for improving final essay compositions. The results show that participants of the groups who followed a peer revision approach do believe that they benefited from this method. This conclusion was reached after analysing students' answers to a questionnaire which comprised closed option (multiple choice) questions as well as open-ended responses on the same three aspects pertaining to the impact of peer review: critical thinking, collaborative work and composition quality. This research is based on Vygotsky's socio-cultural approach; it also supports and broadens previous investigations on this topic giving a more detailed and deep-rooted perspective, as participants who have used this methodology comment on its benefits and/or flaws.

This qualitative case study sought to understand the experiences of international college students who were involved in the acquisition of academic literacies (via an English-as-a-Second-Language writing class). Data sources included observation field notes; messages posted in an online discussion forum; transcripts of interviews with five focal students and their instructor; and student-level reflective journal entries. Findings were validated via the triangulation of multiple data sources. Several themes emerged from the analyses that are associated with academic adjustment and intercultural communication, including an energetic class that highly valued participation, conflicting student views on participation, and unvalued collaboration. Implications included the provision of instruction-related opportunities that enable students to explore the cultures and culturally diverse communication styles of their academic peers.

In this research, it was aimed to determine the perceptions of postgraduate students towards academic writing skills through metaphors. In this context, the study group is composed of postgraduate (master and doctorate) students studying at Adnan Menderes University, Faculty of Education in the 2017-2018 academic year. In this context, 100 graduate students were interviewed by appropriate sampling method; an academic writing form was applied to these postgraduate students. In the research, descriptive approach has been adopted. Participants were asked to complete the sentences of "academic writing is like............; because............". The metaphors obtained from the research classified according to their similarities and differences with the descriptive analysis technique and then tabulated according to the frequency values separated by the categories. Then, the findings were interpreted. Accordingly, the metaphors associated with academic writing vary. The metaphorical perceptions are collected under 9 categories / themes. The categories include "a long / challenging/difficult process", "a process of producing / discovering new things", "an action that requires composition / analysis-synthesis / interpretation skill", "an action that requires expert support", "a multi-threaded action", "an action requires care in language and expression", "an unpleasant action", an action that gives joy" and "other" titles. Findings suggest upper academic level students with academic writing experience refer mostly positive attitude towards academic writing.

This paper offers some insights into the anxieties graduate students bring into the classroom about academic or technical writing. In this qualitative study, a focus group of graduate students was utilized to describe the specific negative feelings, attitudes and experiences held about writing. Findings suggest that students were able to identify three main reasons or causes of writing anxiety: (1) lack of confidence in writing ability (2) lack of time to devote to writing activities and (3) lack of skills in utilizing scholarly resources. Participants also suggest that colleges and universities take more proactive steps in implementing strategies early in the matriculation process to support graduate students in acquiring writing competency. This exploration suggests that there is still much to be learned from graduate students about what colleges and universities can do to improve writing literacy, help graduate students acquire writing self-efficacy and create a culture of writing expectations.

Vocabulary acquisition is central to language learning, and many instructors believe that technology can facilitate this core activity. While numerous websites and apps offer language-learning activities and games, not all provide evidence that their content and techniques are effective. VocabularySpellingCity (VSC), however, commissioned a study in 2016 to document its effectiveness. Researchers at McREL, a nonprofit education research and development organization, found favorable results among mostly native English-speaking primary school students, including a 43% increase in vocabulary retention scores as measured by pre- and post-tests of 143 students in a southeastern U.S. elementary school (Arens & Mace, 2017). VSC is a website and app that provide users with activities to learn vocabulary, spelling, phonics, and writing. Instructors create study lists by specifying words, definitions, and sample sentences before assigning activities. They can also monitor individual student progress (scores) as well as participation (time spent and number of activities completed). Although designed for K-12 students, VSC is popular among the author's community college colleagues, and the author of this article was interested in learning if findings by McREL hold true for adult ESOL students. Therefore, in fall 2017, Tim Krause conducted a study similar to Arens & Mace (2017) that involved 22 intermediate writing students and 18 academic reading students at Portland Community College in Portland, Oregon. Krause wanted to know if students who chose to use VSC would demonstrate greater improvement in vocabulary retention compared to those who chose other study methods. The results indicate that if community college instructors identify best practices and carefully curate the experience, then the data suggest their adult ESOL students are likely to benefit from using VSC.

This study explores the change of EFL learners' level of self-efficacy in process-genre academic writing instruction. The teaching experiment was conducted for 14 weeks. A total of 59 graduate students participated in the experiment. Before the experiment, the results showed that the general level of EFL graduates' self-efficacy in academic writing was relatively low. After 14 weeks of academic writing instruction conducted by the process-genre approach, participants' self-efficacy improved significantly. In the interview, participants also reported an increasing level of confidence in academic writing. Based on the findings, implications of academic writing instruction to improve students' self-efficacy are discussed in the paper.

The transition to Higher Education, while often exciting, is demanding for many students. Successful transition necessitates learning the conventions of scholarly conversation, including how to read and create work in an academic context. Knowledge of academic literacy practices is an important part of this process but these discourses and practices are often unfamiliar to students and this has implications for the development of academic identities. In this article, we report on an institution-wide initiative between librarians, lecturers and learning developers, designed to raise awareness of the role of feedback in developing academic literacies. While the rate of participation was low this initiative offered a space outside the formal curriculum and assessment processes to engage with students about feedback. The associated publicity raised the profile of feedback internally and offered valuable opportunities to open conversations about feedback with students and staff. The evolution of the initiative is discussed.

The present research offers an assessment of the online open source tools used in the L2 academic writing, teaching, and learning environment. As fairly little research has been conducted on how to best use online automated proofreaders for educational purposes, the objective of this study is to examine the potential of such online tools. Unlike most studies focusing on Automated Writing Evaluation (AWE), this research concentrates only on the online, open-source writing aide, grammar, spelling and writing style improvement tools available either for free or as paid versions. The accessibility and ability to check language mistakes in academic writings such as college-level essays in real time motivates both, teachers and students. The findings of this empirical-based study indicate that despite some bias, computerized feedback facilitates language learning, assists in improving the quality of writing, and increases student confidence and motivation. The current study can help with the understanding of students' needs in writing, as well as in their perception of automated feedback.