The research presented in this paper aimed to investigate the linguistic and discourse characteristics of narratives produced by upper-intermediate foreign language learners in a bilingual secondary school. In our analyses we used a variety of linguistic and discourse variables and a recently developed computer tool (Coh-Metrix 2.0: McNamara,…

Adolescent writers in second language settings often spend the majority of their school days in content area courses, such as math, science, and social studies, where they must negotiate challenging literacy tasks in their second languages with little explicit writing instruction. While genre scholars have built an extensive body of knowledge…

This study investigates the reactions of students in two Hong Kong secondary classrooms to their teachers' feedback, focusing particularly on the factors that might have influenced their reactions. Student data from questionnaires, checklists and protocols were triangulated with teacher data from interviews, classroom observations and feedback…

Much of L2 teacher feedback research is conducted with advanced students in process-oriented classrooms in the United States. There is less published research about how school teachers in EFL contexts respond to student writing. Specifically little is known about why teachers respond to writing in the ways they do, and if discrepancies exist…

Increasing calls for equity and accountability in U.S. secondary schools have led to intensified scrutiny of the academic literacy development of English learning (EL) adolescents. This paper discusses some of the challenges that EL secondary students face in achieving the language and literacy skills that will enable them to succeed in their…

It has frequently been claimed that, in foreign language writing, attention to linguistic processes inhibits attention available for higher level conceptual processing [e.g., Chenoweth & Hayes, 2001; Whalen & Menard, 1995]. This study examines this hypothesis for foreign language revision processes by comparing online revisions made by 22…

Error correction research has focused mostly on whether teachers should correct errors in student writing and how they should go about it. Much less has been done to ascertain L2 writing teachers' perceptions and practices as well as students' beliefs and attitudes regarding error feedback. The present investigation seeks to explore the existing…