Papers by Connie Mitchell
Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies
A rubric is used for assessing student work and performance. It is a tool that works in various w... more A rubric is used for assessing student work and performance. It is a tool that works in various ways to develop student learning and has great possibilities. The study presented aims to investigate the rubric development of second language learners' argumentative writing. The study's significance is to explore how well the rubric assesses students' achievement of the skills needed to develop argumentative essays. This study will add to the literature more data regarding rubrics' effectiveness in providing constructive feedback to students. This research describes the results of the current study in relation to rubric feedback from undergraduate students and the faculty who teach them from a private university in Saudi Arabia. The use of the rubric would be to support instruction and student performance. The researchers have proposed a methodology to design, develop, and implement a rubric as a scoring guide for argumentative essays based upon the achievement of learn...
Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies, 2020
Argumentative writing is a mode of academic writing and a common writing genre that college-level... more Argumentative writing is a mode of academic writing and a common writing genre that college-level students use at universities. The purpose of the study is to investigate common difficulties that affect the second language learners’ argumentative wiring. The significance of the study is to explore the struggles that culturally and linguistically Saudi backgrounded students face in writing argumentative essays to provide insights that could be used to improve instruction and student performance. The researchers examined 187 Saudi students’ (100 male and 87 female) argumentative writings to explore the frequency of the common difficulties students might encounter with writing argumentative essays. The second phase of the study included independent-samples t-test to statistically compare differences between male and female students’ difficulties in writing an argumentative essay. Anticipated results of the study lent to the improvement of the writing courses. The findings of the study ...
Patterns of spelling errors by EFL learners can reflect both intra- and inter-lingual influences.... more Patterns of spelling errors by EFL learners can reflect both intra- and inter-lingual influences. On the intra-lingual part, spelling errors may reflect poor linguistic competence on different levels, including phonological awareness, and knowledge of orthography, vocabulary, morphological and semantic relationships, and mental orthographic images (Apel & Masterson, 2001; Apel, Masterson, & Niessen, 2004). On the interlingual part, patterns of spelling errors can also manifest differences between the first language (L1) and the second language (L2) as research shows that previously acquired L1 literacy skills influence EFL word recognition (Akamatsu, 2003; Koda, 2005) and spelling skills (Figueredo, 2006). The present error analysis study aims to identify patterns of spelling errors among Saudi high-school female graduates who learn English as a foreign language. The participants were asked to compose a paragraph on a given topic, and spelling errors were identified and analyzed. Pa...
Patterns of spelling errors by EFL learners can reflect both intra- and inter-lingual influences.... more Patterns of spelling errors by EFL learners can reflect both intra- and inter-lingual influences. On the intra-lingual part, spelling errors may reflect poor linguistic competence on different levels, including phonological awareness, and knowledge of orthography, vocabulary, morphological and semantic relationships, and mental orthographic images (Apel & Masterson, 2001; Apel, Masterson, & Niessen, 2004). On the interlingual part, patterns of spelling errors can also manifest differences between the first language (L1) and the second language (L2) as research shows that previously acquired L1 literacy skills influence EFL word recognition (Akamatsu, 2003; Koda, 2005) and spelling skills (Figueredo, 2006). The present error analysis study aims to identify patterns of spelling errors among Saudi high-school female graduates who learn English as a foreign language. The participants were asked to compose a paragraph on a given topic, and spelling errors were identified and analyzed. Patterns of spelling errors were classified into seven categories; homophones/confusables, misrepresentation of vowel sounds, misrepresentation of consonant sounds, misapplication of spelling rules, silent letters, double letters and mispronunciation. The results are statistically analyzed and interpretations are made in terms of intra- and interlingual influences. Implications for spelling instruction and EFL curriculum design are made.
Uploads
Papers by Connie Mitchell