Discourse and Text Linguistics Commons^™

Linguistic Discrimination In Writing Assessment: How Raters React To African American “Errors,” Esl Errors, And Standard English Errors On A State-Mandated Writing Exam, David M. Johnson, Lewis Vanbrackle

Faculty Articles

Raters of Georgia''s (USA) state-mandated college-level writing exam, which is intended to ensure a minimal university-level writing competency, are trained to grade holistically when assessing these exams. A guiding principle in holistic grading is to not focus exclusively on any one aspect of writing but rather to give equal weight to style, vocabulary, mechanics, content, and development. This study details how raters react to “errors” typical of African American English writers, of ESL writers, and of standard American English writers. Using a log-linear model to generate odds ratios for comparison of essays with these error types, results indicate linguistic discrimination …

Writing On!, Maria Aranda

MA TESOL Collection

This paper describes my participation in the development and implementation of an online writing program at Associacao Alumni, a Binational Center in Sao Paolo, Brazil. The program, Writing On!, was Alumni’s first of many online programs that was developed by a team of teachers of writing.

In Chapter One, I narrate my first experience with giving feedback online in a writing program designed for a young Brazilian student who needed to improve his academic writing skills in order to study in the U.S.A. this enriching learning experience planted the seeds of Writing On!.

In Chapter Two, I give an overview …

A Genre Analysis Of Advertisements In A Local Newspaper, Moi Moi Yong

Student Works (2000-2009)

This study attempts to investigate the organisation of advenisements on private institutions of higher learning taken from 'The Star' daily and to provide a descriptive account of how the advertisements are structured Twenty advertisements on different private institutions of higher learning are selected and analysed using the nine move structure analysis adapted by S. Kathpalia (1992). This genre based move structure is employed as a format to study the structure of these advertisements. It is revealed that there is a uniform pattern of organisation of the elements in the advertisements. An eight move structure is identified. It is also found …

The Affect Of Writing On The Internet, Jane Hoelker

MA TESOL Collection

This paper is a description of the development, objectives, implementation and results of an advanced composition course conducted on the Internet with IWE (International Writing Exchange) of the Helsinki University of Technology. The purpose of the course was to motivate students of English who were discouraged during the difficult IMF era in Korea in 1998. During the 90's the majority of English Education majors at Pusan National University in Korea had studied and/or traveled overseas for extensive periods of time during their undergraduate career. But, in 1998 opportunities for overseas travel and study had been greatly curtailed due to IMF …

Analisis Kesilapan Tatabahasa Dalam Penulisan Karangan Bahasa Melayu Pelajar Tingkatan Lima, Mohamad Abdul Rahman

Student Works (2000-2009)

This survey is mainly done for identifying the grammatical errors in Malay Language essay writing of form five students. It focuses on the wrong usage of three kinds of grammatical items; ; subject-verb-agreement, conjunction and pluralization. A total of 30 form five students from Guar Chempedak Secondary School participated in this survey. The data are analysed by using the descriptive statistic to find out the frequency and the percentage of the errors found in the essay. The finding indicates that a number of 279 grammatical errors (subject-verb agreement, conjunction and pluralization) are done by the students. The most significant error …

Persuasion In Thesis Writing, Faridah Noor Mohd. Noor

Student Works (2000-2009)

This study is an attempt to suggest that persuasion is employed in thesis writing . Based on the Social Constructionist Approach , the present study proposes that persuasion in thesis writing is implicit. This is in line with the demands of the academic community that expects scientific language to be objective. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were conducted in the study. The major study is a qualitative analysis based on a corpus made up of fourteen (14) Master's theses that were randomly selected from the Arts and Science fields. Two quantitative analyses were also conducted on the corpus. The first …

Kidwatching Going Beyond The Language Of The Test, Abha Gupta

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

A study examined the linguistic forms in the discourse of speakers during a language test to indicate why they use certain specific forms over others. Ten children were given the Grammatical Analysis of Elicited Language--Simple Sentence Level Test (GAEL), a language proficiency test for hearing-impaired children in the age group of 4 to 8 years. Three students were videotaped during administration of the test, and the other students' final responses (omitting the intermediate discourse) were recorded. Some of the test items on which the maximum number of children deviated from the target response were analyzed for common traits and classified …

Readings With Exercises For Advanced Esl Students, Vincent D. Antonelli

MA TESOL Collection

Readings in English for non-native speakers are usually simplified and controlled so that the students will not be overwhelmed by the linguistic complexity of the reading passage. For advanced English language students however, simplification is no longer useful or necessary. The student's interest in reading real material should be met by choosing material that is of high interest value. This project contains three readings which, although edited, have not been simplified. The readings have been chosen for their potential interest value to the ESL student. Exercises accompany each reading. It is the author's contention that for advanced level students, grammar …

An Adaptation Of Reading Materials For Students Of Science In English As A Second Language, Susan Maguiro

MA TESOL Collection

This project is an udating of the reader Scientific English Practice. Its purpose is to substitute outdated subjects, and expand others with more recent scientific information.

Vocabulary lists, comprehension questions, and grammar exercises were written to accompany several substituted essays. Vocabulary lists and exercises thereof were developed for the remaining essays, some of which were expanded upon.

The Teaching Of Poetry For Language Learning, Susan Jane O' Leary

MA TESOL Collection

No abstract provided.

Report On Supplementary Esl Reading Course, David B. Hopkins

MA TESOL Collection

The ESL Reading course described in this report was conducted for Latin American scholarship students during the summer of 1973 at the School for International Training. Since it was intended to be a supplement to the regular classes of these students, every effort was made to allow the course direction to develop according to the needs of the participants. Although the original thrust of the program was to focus upon reading attitudes, utilizing the reading interests of the students, a parallel focus on reading skills evolved. I believe that the program achieved some success by offering both the satisfaction of …

Easy Readings In English For Foreign Students: An Annotated Bibliography, Ronald Rojas

MA TESOL Collection

No abstract provided.

Teaching Strategies For Use In The Esl Class And In Esl Texts, Marc Steven Gold

MA TESOL Collection

No abstract provided.

The Efficiency Of Bilingual Children In Understanding Analogies In The English Language, Veta Walker Mercer

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

It is felt that the bilingual population in the southwest is of significantly large enough proportions to warrant specialized emphasis on its education problems. These children need to become better comprehensive readers, not merely word-callers. Teachers frequently assume that if their pupils recognize the words of selection, comprehension is assured. Unfortunately, this is not true in many instances. There are many aspects of English language which might cause bilingual children some difficulty. A few of these might be the analogy, synonym, homonym, multiple meaning, antonym, and the idiomatic expression. This study is designed to reveal the extent which bilingual children …