Learning to teach writing through tutoring and journal writing

Structured reflection on practical teaching experiences may help pre‐service teachers to integrate their learning and analyze their actions to become more effective learners and teachers. This study reports on 12 pre‐service English as a second language (ESL) teachers’ individual tutoring of learners of English language writing. The data of the study are the writing journal entries that the pre‐service ESL teachers maintained during their tutoring experience. These journals had common elements: all were used by the pre‐service teachers to consider what funds of knowledge they bring to their teaching of ESL learners, to evaluate their roles as writers, learners and teachers and to reflect on the educational, social and cultural implications of teaching writing in English to speakers of other languages. This article describes ways in which both native and non‐native English speaking pre‐service teachers adapted their instruction to meet the particular needs of individual ESL writers and what they learned in the process. It provides insight regarding the value of using tutoring and reflection generally in teacher education and specifically in the preparation of teachers of ESL.     

The effectiveness of dialogue journal writing in improving the writing skills of young deaf writers

Various claims have been made for the usefulness of dialogue journal writing for improving the writing of less proficient users of English such as deaf writers of English or speakers of English as a second language. However, the bulk of the research has focussed on either student attitudes towards writing or very limited samples of student writing. In a one year project involving the exchange of dialogue journals between 204 pairs of deaf and hearing students in 10 public school districts, the authors sought to evaluate the utility of dialogue journals for improving the writing skills of the deaf writers. The age of the correspondents ranged from 10 to 18 years old in grades 4 through 12. Among the deaf writers, the average hearing loss was 89 dB in the better ear with a range of from 45 dB to 120 dB. The journal entries of 153 of the deaf students were evaluated for both changes in content and syntactic complexity. When the pair of writers maintained a relationship over time, there was an improvement in the quality of the writing of the deaf student and a change in the nature of the contents of the deaf student's entries. Results suggest that for some young deaf writers an exchange of dialogue journals with hearing peers can both improve the writing skills of the deaf writer and develop a relationship between the correspondents. Suggestions for implementing such a program are included.     

Discussion on University English Vocabulary Teaching

Vocabulary is the foundation of language systems and the students' vocabulary ability directly affects their ability of listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating.However, the traditional college English teaching of vocabulary can't meet the needs of memorizing words for students. Memorizing words is a heavy burden of students.Teaching practice shows that using the etymology of auxiliary teaching in the process of teaching can improve the students' learning interest and deepen their memory,also can improve the efficiency of vocabulary memory,which isnot only help students enlarge their vocabulary, but also can strengthen the students understand the English national cultures.In this paper, we start from the importance of vocabulary teaching and the present situation of college English vocabulary teaching,we talk about the feasibility of using etymology college English vocabulary teaching strategies based on the etymology related knowledgein this paper in order to improve the English skills for students.     

Evaluating deaf students' readiness to meet the English language and literacy demands of postsecondary educational programs

The purpose of this study was to investigate alternative methods for evaluating deaf students' readiness to meet the English language and literacy demands of postsecondary educational programs. In the first part of the study, scores obtained by a large sample of deaf students on the ACT Assessment (ACT Composite score and scores on the ACT English and Reading tests) were compared to their scores on various measures of English language and literacy skills. In the second part of the study, the performance of a smaller sample of deaf students on the ESL Reading and ESL Grammar/Usage components of COMPASS/ESL was compared to their performance on a set of concurrent measures of English skills. The results of this investigation demonstrate that neither the ACT Assessment nor COMPASS/ESL are appropriate for the full range of deaf students seeking admission to postsecondary educational programs. However, the ACT Assessment is appropriate for deaf students seeking admission to transferable (BS and AAS) degree programs, and the ESL Reading and Grammar/Usage tests appear to be appropriate for deaf students seeking admission to nontransferable (AOS) degree programs. Taken together, the combination of the ACT Assessment and COMPASS/ESL appear able to provide a valid, reliable, and coherent approach to admissions screening assessment for the full range of deaf students seeking admission to postsecondary programs.     

Stress typicality effect in Chinese advanced and intermediate ESL learners

In English, positions of lexical stress in disyllabic words are associated with word categories; that is, nouns tend to be stressed more often on the first syllable, whereas verbs are more likely to be stressed on the second syllable (i.e. subject (noun) vs. subject (verb)). This phenomenon, which is called the stress typicality effect, has been shown to facilitate word recognition to native English speakers. However, there is little research on whether it also facilitates word recognition to non-native speakers of English, in particular, to English learners with a tonal first language. To fill this research gap, the present study investigated whether the stress typicality effect modulated word recognition in native speakers of Chinese who learned English as a second language. Both visual grammatical classification and lexical decision tasks were administered to ESL learners with intermediate and advanced English proficiency. The results revealed that Chinese intermediate ESL learners were not sensitive to stress typicality in English; however, the advanced learners were. The findings suggest that different performances in stress assignment among Chinese ESL learners were influenced by their English proficiency levels.     

基于语义学的大学英语词汇教学探究

词汇教学一直是大学英语教学的主要内容,学生对词汇知识掌握的程度是影响他们能否快速提高听、说、读、写、译等语言应用能力的关键因素。探索如何有效地记忆和准确地运用词汇,如何让学生正确而又快速地掌握词汇,是每个大学英语教师专注的重点。因此,运用语义学的相关理论对指导英语词汇教学具有一定的实用价值。     

浅析英语教学中单词有效记忆方法

单词记忆枯燥乏味、词汇课程空洞无内容是许多师生的同感。文章从师生角度，用教育心理学理论剖析了这一现象。学习效果不佳、授课反应平平主因是学生急功近利，依赖短时记忆能力，未能及时将短时记忆转为永久记忆储存。有的学生则依赖于时间仗，靠拉长战线，长时间疲劳记忆导致记忆效果不佳。教师在单词教学过程当中方法单一，单纯通过听抄翻译词义的方式授课，增加教学负担，学生反应也不好。文章提出根据人的记忆特点，采用高频度短时间反复记忆，用听、说双管齐下的“懒人”方法结合画面感辅助记忆方法加强记忆，加速短时记忆的转化。     

Evaluating the efficacy of using sentence frames for learning new vocabulary in science

Science students are increasingly challenged to use technical language related to the topics that they are studying, and therefore, science teachers benefit from knowing which tools are effective to support students in learning to use new terms. This study examined the impact of using one such tool—sentences frames—to teach science vocabulary, as measured through a science-writing task. Using an experimental approach with extant middle school science classes that offered a sample of 75 mainly Latino school students from grades six through eight, the researcher together with participating teachers identified 10 essential terms per science unit. The teachers used vocabulary-focused sentence frames for teaching the terms in one science unit, and a more traditional science text-based approach for teaching vocabulary in another unit. The writing task required at the end of the units consisted of essays in response to science-based prompts that directed students to use as many target science words as possible; matching/cloze format quizzes were also used to measure pretest and posttest receptive vocabulary knowledge. Findings indicated that there were advantages for teaching new science vocabulary via sentence frames as measured by use of the words in writing, but there were no advantages for sentence frames on quizzes measuring receptive vocabulary. Advantages of sentence frames for writing approached but did not reach statistical significance. There was some evidence that current and previous English language learners benefited more than initial English speakers from sentence frames, implying that utilizing sentence frames to teach science vocabulary might offer needed support especially for these subgroups. Limitations of the study included the sample size and the possibility that the strategy utilized in the comparison group might have offered some of the same advantages in producing language with technical vocabulary that the sentence frames unit offered.     

EFL学习者在学术写作中的主要问题及对策

EFL学习者在学术写作中还面临着诸多问题,突出表现在写作文体非正式性、过分强调写作＂成品＂性自主性动机匮乏上。在此情况下,实施以＂过程写作法＂为中心的学术写作教学势在必行。＂过程写作法＂大致包括六个写作阶段,其反馈方式主要有三种（教师编辑、同伴编辑及自我编辑）。正确实施运用＂过程写作法＂可以提高EFL学习者的英语学术写作能力。     

大学生英语逻辑思维能力的培养

文章从大学英语写作教学的实践入手,分析学生英语作文中心论点含混、举例不当、行文流散等问题的超语言层面原因,阐明英汉文化差异是导致英语作文出现中式思维逻辑问题的主因,学生英语作文水平的提高有赖于英语写作思维能力的培养。     

程式化语言在中国英语学习者汉译英中的使用及其特征

基于中国大学生英汉汉英口笔译语料库（PACCEL）,研究程式化语言在中国大学生汉译英中的使用并总结其特征。结果表明：1．学生的程式化语言正确运用能力与学生的翻译成绩呈显著正相关;2．学生在翻译过程中选择短语层面程式化语言的频次很高;3．高分组与低分组学生的程式化语言使用频率呈现显著差异。学生的程式化语言使用能力能够预测他们的翻译水平,应当重视程式化语言教学,提高他们的运用能力。     

浅谈词汇与英语写作

词汇是语言的三要素之一,也是语言最基础的元素,词汇使用能力的好坏直接影响着整篇文章的写作内容,英语学习者要在不断的写作实践中掌握用词技能,逐步提高语篇写作水平。     

英语书面表达的问题与策略

英语书面表达是考生英语水平的综合体现。学生的书面表达问题有词汇量有限,用词错误,词性错误,动词误用,句型误用。问题的主要成因是母语的影响。要使学生有较好的书面表达,要重视练笔基础训练,复习时正确处理好听说读写关系。     

对英语专业基础阶段词汇习得策略的探讨

对英语专业的学生来说，词汇是顺利进行听、说、读、写、译等语言交流的基础。词汇学习始终贯穿整个英语学习的过程，而且大多数词汇主要是通过直接词汇习得之外的途径习得的。因此，在英语专业基础阶段对学生进行词汇习得策略的讲解是十分必要的。教师应教会学生如何自己处理遇到的生词，即如何采用不同的习得策略来掌握这些生词，从而对学生词汇量的增长起到事半功倍的效果。本试对词汇习得策略进行探讨，从而使学生的词汇习得更加科学、有效。     

Ambiguity – A tool or obstacle for joint productive dialogue activity in deaf and hearing students’ reasoning about ecology

The ambiguity of words and signs as a resource or obstacle in group discussions is studied. How deaf and hearing students aged 13–15 years elaborate on ecological concepts through dialogue is described. Group interviews were conducted with 14 hearing and 18 deaf students. Probes were used to initiate discussion about the different meanings of ecological concepts: producer, consumer, nutrients/nutriment, food-chain and cycles. The results show that the dialogues are less elaborated for deaf learners than for hearing learners. It is argued that dialogues between hearing students have a greater chance of becoming ‘joint productive activity’, since words in Swedish pave the way for shared meaning-making. To deaf learners, differences in connotation between the Swedish words and the signs used lead to uncertainty and unproductive lines of reasoning. One implication for instruction is that this bilingual communication needs to be taken into consideration to a much greater extent.     

Conceptually based vocabulary intervention: second graders' development of vocabulary words

An instructional strategy was investigated that addressed the needs of deaf and hard of hearing students through a conceptually based sign language vocabulary intervention. A single-subject multiple-baseline design was used to determine the effects of the vocabulary intervention on word recognition, production, and comprehension. Six students took part in the 30-minute intervention over 6-8 weeks, learning 12 new vocabulary words each week by means of the three intervention components: (a) word introduction, (b) word activity (semantic mapping), and (c) practice. Results indicated that the vocabulary intervention successfully improved all students' recognition, production, and comprehension of the vocabulary words and phrases.     

词汇习得研究与大学英语词汇教学

近年来,人们已经越来越认识到词汇对于英语学习的重要性。但是,由于对词汇知识内涵的认识还不足,大学英语学习者没有充分重视高频词（使用频率较高的词）的学习。在新时期,社会的发展需要大学生具有一定的英语口语表达能力。高频词则是英语口语的主体,它们对于学习者语言能力的提高极为重要。因此,大学词汇教学的主要任务之一就是要让学生了解词汇知识的内涵,以及高频词对英语学习的重要性,并将词汇学习的重点引到高频词上来。     

英汉词汇的文化不对等与词汇教学

英汉词汇所附着的文化意义的不对等导致许多英汉词汇意义的不对等,包括其功能意义、范畴、联想意义、情感意义、使用频率等方面的不对等,这将在跨文化交际中引起障碍.因此,在词汇教学中,有必要开设与交际文化相关的课程,教师不能以讹传讹,学生应尽可能地增加跨文化交际的实践.     

Processing orthographic structure: associations between print and fingerspelling

Two lexical decision experiments are reported that investigate whether the same segmentation strategies are used for reading printed English words and fingerspelled words (in American Sign Language). Experiment 1 revealed that both deaf and hearing readers performed better when written words were segmented with respect to an orthographically defined syllable (the Basic Orthographic Syllable Structure [BOSS]) than with a phonologically defined syllable. Correlation analyses revealed that better deaf readers were more sensitive to orthographic syllable representations, whereas segmentation strategy did not differentiate the better hearing readers. In contrast to Experiment 1, Experiment 2 revealed better performance by deaf participants when fingerspelled words were segmented at the phonological syllable boundary. We suggest that English mouthings that often accompany fingerspelled words promote a phonological parsing preference for fingerspelled words. In addition, fingerspelling ability was significantly correlated with reading comprehension and vocabulary skills. This pattern of results indicates that the association between fingerspelling and print for adult deaf readers is not based on shared segmentation strategies. Rather, we suggest that both good readers and good fingerspellers have established strong representations of English and that fingerspelling may aid in the development and maintenance of English vocabulary.     

The importance of morphemic awareness to reading achievement and the potential of signing morphemes to supporting reading development

The ability to access and understand the meaning of multi-morphemic words is essential for age-appropriate literacy growth as well as for achievement in other participants, such as science and social studies, which are so print-dependent. This paper provides a theoretical basis for focusing on the morphology of English when teaching students who are deaf or hard of hearing to read through a review of the literature on the role of morphology in reading for both hearing students and those with a hearing loss. In addition, the authors review the empirical literature on Signing Exact English (SEE), a system of signing English constructed in which the morphology of words is made visible to children who might not be able to hear them. The authors propose that students' use of SEE can provide a bridge to developing the morphemic awareness so necessary for age-appropriate reading development and achievement.