The temporary shift from face-to-face instruction to online teaching at North American universiti... more The temporary shift from face-to-face instruction to online teaching at North American universities as an alternative solution in response to the COVID-19 pandemic brought significant challenges to international students who had to study abroad from their home countries. Studies on how international students perceive their study-abroad-from-home experiences in such an emergency remote teaching (ERT) context remain scarce. Through the lens of community of inquiry and an additional perspective of emotional presence, this study explored 13 first-year international graduate students’ perceptions and experiences of their learning in ERT. Based on the analyses of the pre-learning questionnaire survey results and a series of three reflection journal entries, the study finds that teaching presence has played a vital role in shaping students’ understanding and experiences when they participated in a study-abroad graduate program from their home countries. In addition, the participants demons...
Recognizing the reciprocal connection between critical thinking (CT) and writing, many second lan... more Recognizing the reciprocal connection between critical thinking (CT) and writing, many second language (L2) instructors attempt to infuse CT in their writing classrooms but encounter great challenges due to the fact that teaching CT in a specific subject requires a "substantial reconstruction of a teacher's model of how to teach a discipline" (Nosich, 2005, p. 65). To facilitate this reconstruction, this study is designed to provide the needed conceptual, theoretical and pedagogical supports. Based on a clarification of the concept of CT in L2 writing and the establishment of a theoretical framework that draws insights from Skill Acquisition Theory and Constructivism, I developed a CT-oriented L2 writing approach that included both explicit CT instruction and CT-oriented writing activities. The effectiveness of this approach was evaluated in actual teaching practice that involved 44 second-year L2 undergraduates in a Chinese university. Employing a mixed method research design, the study involved a pre-study questionnaire survey, a quasi-experiment and a post-study interview. After the study, the participants' pre-test and post-test CT and L2 writing scores were analyzed. The results of the statistical analyses indicate that the CT-oriented L2 writing approach was effective for improving students' CT and L2 writing scores and that there was a significant high positive relationship (r=0.89, p
Abstract To ensure academic integrity, an increasing number of plagiarism detection tools, such a... more Abstract To ensure academic integrity, an increasing number of plagiarism detection tools, such as Turnitin, Unicheck, PlagScan, Grammarly, have been developed and adopted at higher education institutions. As plagiarism detection tools are usually used for surveillance and punishment, they may cause anxiety among students without being conducive to students’ learning of source-based writing (Canzonetta, 2019). It is thus worth exploring how plagiarism detection tools work and in which way they can be used positively and effectively to not only provide plagiarism alerts but also help students with their source use practices. In consideration of these purposes, this paper focuses on Grammarly’s plagiarism checker to review its plagiarism detection features and discuss how it can be used as an effective tool to facilitate students’ learning and assessment of source-based writing. Limitations of this tool as well as future considerations are also discussed.
This study examines 143 graduate assignments across 12 faculties or schools in a Canadian univers... more This study examines 143 graduate assignments across 12 faculties or schools in a Canadian university in order to identify types of writing tasks. Based on the descriptions provided by the instructors, we identified nine types of assignments, with scholarly essay being the most common, followed by summary and response, literature review, project, review, case analysis, proposal, exam, and creative writing. Many assignments are instructor-controlled and have specific content requirements. Some are also process-oriented, providing students with teacher or peer feedback on outlines or initial drafts, suggestions for topic choices, and examples of good writing. With an overview of the types of writing tasks across campus, the study has implications for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) or graduate writing program designers, material developers, educators working within and across disciplines, and researchers interested in the types of university writing assignments in Canada.
Critical Thinking and Argumentation is the 4th level of a textbook series English composition: Fr... more Critical Thinking and Argumentation is the 4th level of a textbook series English composition: From Creative Thinking to Critical Thinking designed for Chinese Englishmajor college students. It is an innovative practice for the creative use of the training of critical thinking as a way to teach writing. It brings the concept of critical thinking to the writing process to help learners brainstorm writing topics, to cultivate and develop learners’ creativity and to establish a wonderful experimental space for becoming a good writer as well as a critical thinker. By breaking the traditional model of teaching in a constrained content of language and structure, it breaks the walls in the minds of not only EFL learners, but also EFL textbook writers. Zhang Zaixin, the author of the book, is a professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, who got his MA in Arizona State University and his PhD in Louisiana State University where he taught English writing for six years. Zhang has been showing great concern on the teaching of EFL writing in Chinese colleges. As early as in 1995, he did research on the major problems in the teaching and learning of EFL writing in China. He found that the prominent problems shown from students’ writing were a lack of both content and skills in developing supportive details for the main ideas, and he related these problems to the teaching methods which contributed little to students’ global idea development and thinking skills (Zhang, 1995). Drawing upon the series of English composition: From Creative Thinking to Critical Thinking, Zhang advances a concept of improving writing through the development of thinking. Combing his studies in critical thinking with a process teaching approach, he focuses, in this book of argumentation, on writing with good logic and reasoning, which adds a higher value of the writing process as well as the outcome. Zhang writes in a democratic style of face-to-face talking, welcoming students to figure out something by themselves rather than forcing them to follow. As an EFL writing textbook, Critical Thinking and Argumentation illustrates many unique features in its preface, unit introduction, key concept explanation, as well as course and exercise design. At the very beginning of the book, he explains in the preface dedicated to the learners of this book, like an opening speech of a teacher in his/her first class, the
The temporary shift from face-to-face instruction to online teaching at North American universiti... more The temporary shift from face-to-face instruction to online teaching at North American universities as an alternative solution in response to the COVID-19 pandemic brought significant challenges to international students who had to study abroad from their home countries. Studies on how international students perceive their study-abroad-from-home experiences in such an emergency remote teaching (ERT) context remain scarce. Through the lens of community of inquiry and an additional perspective of emotional presence, this study explored 13 first-year international graduate students’ perceptions and experiences of their learning in ERT. Based on the analyses of the pre-learning questionnaire survey results and a series of three reflection journal entries, the study finds that teaching presence has played a vital role in shaping students’ understanding and experiences when they participated in a study-abroad graduate program from their home countries. In addition, the participants demons...
Recognizing the reciprocal connection between critical thinking (CT) and writing, many second lan... more Recognizing the reciprocal connection between critical thinking (CT) and writing, many second language (L2) instructors attempt to infuse CT in their writing classrooms but encounter great challenges due to the fact that teaching CT in a specific subject requires a "substantial reconstruction of a teacher's model of how to teach a discipline" (Nosich, 2005, p. 65). To facilitate this reconstruction, this study is designed to provide the needed conceptual, theoretical and pedagogical supports. Based on a clarification of the concept of CT in L2 writing and the establishment of a theoretical framework that draws insights from Skill Acquisition Theory and Constructivism, I developed a CT-oriented L2 writing approach that included both explicit CT instruction and CT-oriented writing activities. The effectiveness of this approach was evaluated in actual teaching practice that involved 44 second-year L2 undergraduates in a Chinese university. Employing a mixed method research design, the study involved a pre-study questionnaire survey, a quasi-experiment and a post-study interview. After the study, the participants' pre-test and post-test CT and L2 writing scores were analyzed. The results of the statistical analyses indicate that the CT-oriented L2 writing approach was effective for improving students' CT and L2 writing scores and that there was a significant high positive relationship (r=0.89, p
Abstract To ensure academic integrity, an increasing number of plagiarism detection tools, such a... more Abstract To ensure academic integrity, an increasing number of plagiarism detection tools, such as Turnitin, Unicheck, PlagScan, Grammarly, have been developed and adopted at higher education institutions. As plagiarism detection tools are usually used for surveillance and punishment, they may cause anxiety among students without being conducive to students’ learning of source-based writing (Canzonetta, 2019). It is thus worth exploring how plagiarism detection tools work and in which way they can be used positively and effectively to not only provide plagiarism alerts but also help students with their source use practices. In consideration of these purposes, this paper focuses on Grammarly’s plagiarism checker to review its plagiarism detection features and discuss how it can be used as an effective tool to facilitate students’ learning and assessment of source-based writing. Limitations of this tool as well as future considerations are also discussed.
This study examines 143 graduate assignments across 12 faculties or schools in a Canadian univers... more This study examines 143 graduate assignments across 12 faculties or schools in a Canadian university in order to identify types of writing tasks. Based on the descriptions provided by the instructors, we identified nine types of assignments, with scholarly essay being the most common, followed by summary and response, literature review, project, review, case analysis, proposal, exam, and creative writing. Many assignments are instructor-controlled and have specific content requirements. Some are also process-oriented, providing students with teacher or peer feedback on outlines or initial drafts, suggestions for topic choices, and examples of good writing. With an overview of the types of writing tasks across campus, the study has implications for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) or graduate writing program designers, material developers, educators working within and across disciplines, and researchers interested in the types of university writing assignments in Canada.
Critical Thinking and Argumentation is the 4th level of a textbook series English composition: Fr... more Critical Thinking and Argumentation is the 4th level of a textbook series English composition: From Creative Thinking to Critical Thinking designed for Chinese Englishmajor college students. It is an innovative practice for the creative use of the training of critical thinking as a way to teach writing. It brings the concept of critical thinking to the writing process to help learners brainstorm writing topics, to cultivate and develop learners’ creativity and to establish a wonderful experimental space for becoming a good writer as well as a critical thinker. By breaking the traditional model of teaching in a constrained content of language and structure, it breaks the walls in the minds of not only EFL learners, but also EFL textbook writers. Zhang Zaixin, the author of the book, is a professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, who got his MA in Arizona State University and his PhD in Louisiana State University where he taught English writing for six years. Zhang has been showing great concern on the teaching of EFL writing in Chinese colleges. As early as in 1995, he did research on the major problems in the teaching and learning of EFL writing in China. He found that the prominent problems shown from students’ writing were a lack of both content and skills in developing supportive details for the main ideas, and he related these problems to the teaching methods which contributed little to students’ global idea development and thinking skills (Zhang, 1995). Drawing upon the series of English composition: From Creative Thinking to Critical Thinking, Zhang advances a concept of improving writing through the development of thinking. Combing his studies in critical thinking with a process teaching approach, he focuses, in this book of argumentation, on writing with good logic and reasoning, which adds a higher value of the writing process as well as the outcome. Zhang writes in a democratic style of face-to-face talking, welcoming students to figure out something by themselves rather than forcing them to follow. As an EFL writing textbook, Critical Thinking and Argumentation illustrates many unique features in its preface, unit introduction, key concept explanation, as well as course and exercise design. At the very beginning of the book, he explains in the preface dedicated to the learners of this book, like an opening speech of a teacher in his/her first class, the
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