Using computer keystroke logs, this study investigated how writing skill affected L2 writers’ pausing patterns to gain insights into their management of the cognitive writing processes. The 59 participants, 29 in the more-skilled group and 30 in the less-skilled group, were recruited from a college English course at a key Chinese university. The two groups completed an argumentative essay in a ...

An important topic in writing research has been the use of cohesive features. Much of this research has focused on local and text cohesion. The few studies that have studied global cohesion have been restricted to first language writing. This study investigates the development of local, global, and text cohesion in the writing of 57 s language (L2) university students and examines the effects o...

In this Teaching Issues contribution, six instructional strategies to address culture in second language (L2) writing are discussed. These have been conceptualized as a set of heuristics enhance student awareness about various cultural and linguistic resources L2 writing. Each teaching strategy is based on challenges that writers typically encounter the classroom. Thus, needs, align with curren...

This paper explores the ways in which the transfer of assumptions from first language (L1) writing can help the process of writing in second language (L2). In learning second language writing skills, learners have two primary sources from which they construct a second language system: knowledge and skills from first language and input from second language. To investigate the relative impact of ...

concept. In order to help tutors provide effective scaffolding, Aljaafreh & Lantolf (1994) attempt to catalogue some of the characteristics of effective scaffolding in an L2 context. They suggest scaffolded help needs to be offered only when needed and removed as soon as the learner is able to function independently; graduated according to the learner’s changing proficiency needs; and must be g...

Although several studies have explored the effects of task sequencing on second language (L2) production, there is no established set criteria to sequence tasks for learners in L2 writing classrooms. This study examined effect simple ? complex manipulated along both resource-directing (± number elements) and resource-dispersing planning time) factors compared individual performance using Robins...

Recently, wikis have been claimed to facilitate collaborative-writing projects and bring positive impact on student learning. While most previous exploratory studies conducted in L2 classrooms focused on students’ perceptions and their collaborative process, students’ produced texts have seldom been carefully examined from linguistic perspectives. To aim towards a more comprehensive understandi...

This study investigated the quality of metacognition at its inter-individual level, i.e., socially-shared metacognition, across two collaborative writing tasks of different difficulty levels among a cohort of Iranian EFL learners.  Moreover, it examined the correlation between the individual and the social modes of metacognition in writing.  The analysis of think-aloud protocols of a number of ...