Papers by Abdulaziz B Sanosi
International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research, 2022
It is common knowledge that grammar instruction is a prime factor in developing EFL students' pro... more It is common knowledge that grammar instruction is a prime factor in developing EFL students' proficiency. However, the argument revolves around the best method of teaching grammar, whether implicitly or explicitly. Metalanguage (ML), which stands for the technical terms that describe language, is essential for explicit instruction. As this teaching method is widely acknowledged, much research has focused on the relation between ML and language acquisition and proficiency. The focus has always been on the role of ML in developing students' language skills and uptake when taught through such a method. However, there is a relative paucity of studies that explore the exact impact of ML-based instruction on students' grammatical recognition, especially in the Arabian EFL context. Accordingly, the current study investigated the issue through an experimental method. The participants' (n = 73, 35 in the experimental group, and 38 in the control group) scores on the pre-and post-tests were analysed using t-test and item-analysis to test the research hypothesis. The results revealed that ML positively affects students' grammatical recognition. However, this improvement was evident only in some grammatical structures. These results imply that ML is beneficial for grammar instruction; however, a mixture of teaching methods should be applied to account for all grammatical constructs. The study findings may contribute to enriching the literature on ML and provide evidence for its importance in grammar instruction.
Eurasian Journal of Educational Research, 2018
This paper investigates the accuracy order of grammatical morphemes followed by Saudi EFL learner... more This paper investigates the accuracy order of grammatical morphemes followed by Saudi EFL learners. The major aim of the research was to reveal the pattern of grammatical morpheme acquisition of the participants, and to compare it against the Natural Order Hypothesis (NOH) as stated by Krashen (1977). The different factors that affected the generated order were also discussed. Research Methods: The present research adopted a descriptive quantitative design. Three groups of male and female students (n= 258) participated in the study. The participants were selected randomly from public schools and university colleges. They responded to a grammar elicitation task designed to test their accuracy of using grammatical morphemes.
Studies in English Language and Education, 2022
Grammar teaching has been a topic of debate for a considerably long time. Researchers and teacher... more Grammar teaching has been a topic of debate for a considerably long time. Researchers and teachers discussed the benefits and shortcomings of its explicit instruction, which entails students' awareness of metalanguage. Although much research has investigated metalanguage, its effect on improving students' grammatical accuracy is still an unresolved issue, and the research concerning it is relatively limited. Nevertheless, it is widely recognised that metalanguage is beneficial for grammar teaching. Responding to this research gap, the present study investigated the relationship between EFL students' metalinguistic knowledge and their grammatical accuracy. The researcher adopted a descriptive quantitative research design where two tests were administered to undergraduate participants (n=124). The tests scores were analysed using the Blackboard item-analysis tool and SPSS software to generate statistical information regarding the participants' scores. The study findings revealed a significant positive correlation between the scores. This correlation was moderate and occurred at the students' overall score level. Moreover, the study revealed a proper level of metalinguistic knowledge that was not in perfect parallel with students' grammatical accuracy. The generated findings can provide insightful implications for grammar teaching. This finding is significant for EFL teachers as it supports claims on the importance of explicit grammar instruction. It is also essential for learners as they can use metalanguage to develop their learning. Moreover, the study suggests areas that may be helpful for researchers to further explore the issue.
Journal of Language and Education, 2022
Background: Lexical Bundles (LBs) have become the focus of many recent corpus linguistics studies... more Background: Lexical Bundles (LBs) have become the focus of many recent corpus linguistics studies. Research has found variable use of LBs in terms of quality and quantity pertaining to different linguistic groups or registers. Still, there is a paucity of research investigating Arab EFL writers' use and development of such a feature. Purpose: This study investigates the 4-word LBs use and development by Arab EFL learners and expert writers in a corpus of 250000 words regarding their frequency, functions, and structure. Methods: Two corpora were compiled for Arab learners and scholars. The LB use of both groups was compared to investigate the development of LB use. Further, the Arab corpus was analysed against a native reference corpus extracted from the British Academic Written English (BAWE) corpus to compare LB use across the two corpora. Results and Implications: The results imply that there is no noticeable effect of postgraduate education or professional practice on using LBs. The other results, however, are in-line with the previous literature in that native speakers' use of LBs varies in quantity and quality from nonnatives'. The fi ndings reveal that stance LBs are more frequent in the native corpus and that they tend to use more VP-based clausal LBs than their non-native counterparts. These fi ndings offer empirical evidence that EFL writing quality is lower despite the current academic writing instruction they receive. They, therefore, indicate the need to foster academic writing instruction programs to include training on using LBs in learners' writing at both Bachelor and postgraduate levels. Also, the results are expected to raise teachers' awareness of how EFL learners use LBs to develop their writing quality and thus to adapt their teaching strategies accordingly. Moreover, Arab scholars are called to reconsider their use of effective writing techniques including LBs for more effective writing.
Information Technologies and Learning Tools, 2022
The importance of Corrective Feedback (CF) to language learners has been a controversial topic fo... more The importance of Corrective Feedback (CF) to language learners has been a controversial topic for a long time. While some studies recognised CF's importance for accurate language use, others considered it deterrent to the meaningful acquisition of a second language. Recently, modern types of corrective feedback that utilise the vast advance in IT and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have emerged. This advancement has opened new investigation areas. Up to now, researchers have acknowledged the role of Automated Written Evaluation (AWE) in enhancing students' writing and motivating them. Other studies have focused on students' and teachers' perceptions of such tools. However, the particular variance between this type of CF and the traditional one is still an area to explore. Accordingly, the present study aimed to compare CF provided by teachers to that offered by a well-known writing assistant Grammarly. The descriptive design was used to analyse the CF instances provided by five college professors to the Grammarly suggestions on a corpus of 115 texts, 23700 words, written by college students. The descriptive statistics method was adopted to summarise the findings. The study's main results indicated no significant difference in the number of errors detected by the two techniques. However, human raters outperformed Grammarly in detecting grammatical errors and were more accurate in identifying structure-related mistakes. On the other hand, Grammarly was found more effective in detecting errors related to spelling and punctuation. These findings imply using focused CF to exploit both methods. Teachers can implement their regular CF approach to develop structural aspects of language. Further, they can encourage students to adopt sophisticated writing assistants to develop their writing mechanics. To account for the potential limitations of the current study, further research that employs a larger sample size and is conducted on longitudinal and experimental bases is required.
Australian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2021
This study aimed to examine the potentials of the NLP approach in detecting discourse markers (DM... more This study aimed to examine the potentials of the NLP approach in detecting discourse markers (DMs), namely okay, in transcribed spoken data. One hundred thirty-eight concordance lines were presented to human referees to judge the functions of okay in them as a DM or Non-DM. After that, the researchers used a Python script written according to the POS tagging scheme of the NLTK library to set rules for identifying cases where okay is used as non-DM. The output of the script was compared to the reference human-annotated data. The results showed that the script could accurately identify the function of okay as DM or non-DM in 92% of the cases. The inaccuracy of detecting the rest was found to be caused by a lack of proper and detailed punctuations. The main implications of the results are that new NLP approaches can detect DMS; however, proper punctuation is required to enable the proper identification of DMs. In accordance with the findings, the researcher recommended adopting the approach after conducting further comprehensive studies.
Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 2018
The present study investigates the use of Discourse Markers (DMs) in Sudanese non-native spoken E... more The present study investigates the use of Discourse Markers (DMs) in Sudanese non-native spoken English. Two corpora were compiled to typify Sudanese and British spoken English. Each corpus comprises 108600 words constituting over fifty TEDx Talks presented by Sudanese and British speakers in the last seven years. The study focusses on the frequency and placement of three DMs, namely: you know, well, and okay, in the Sudanese corpus by adopting data from the British native speakers' corpus as a measuring criterion. The frequency of use of the DMs was calculated using AntConc software while the data were manually analysed using Key Word in Context (KWIC) lists to study the positioning patterns of the DMs in the two corpora. The results of the study point to the higher frequency of DMs in the British corpus compared to the Sudanese one. Non-native speakers, nevertheless, used the three DMs in all in-sentence positions i.e. initial, medial, and final just as their native counterparts did. The results also show that you know was the most used DM in the two corpora and it consistently occurs in the medial position. It was also found that Sudanese speakers overused the DM okay. A number of implications of the results are discussed and relevant recommendations are presented.
This study concerns with the major objective of foreign language teaching: vocabulary acquisition... more This study concerns with the major objective of foreign language teaching: vocabulary acquisition. The modern trends of teaching and the vast advance of technology enable teachers to use online and mobile applications in a very wide range. The real effect of using such a method need to be measured. Accordingly, this experimental-design study investigated the effect of Quizlet, a rapidly growing application with an online and mobile phone version, on vocabulary acquisition. Two groups of low-level EFL learners at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia (N = 42) participated in the study. Each group underwent a pretest and a posttest to assess their acquisition of the assigned vocabulary lessons that were extracted from their syllabus. After using Quizlet for vocabulary learning for a month, the experimental group participants show a significant improvement in vocabulary posttest. Accordingly, the study acknowledges and recommends using the application at university level.
Conference Presentations by Abdulaziz B Sanosi
A conference presentation about the accuracy order of morpheme acquisition of Saudi EFL learners ... more A conference presentation about the accuracy order of morpheme acquisition of Saudi EFL learners based on Krashen's Natural Order Hypothesis.
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Papers by Abdulaziz B Sanosi
Conference Presentations by Abdulaziz B Sanosi