C-R （Consciousness-Raising） has been around for some years, and while studies on the effectiveness of C-R have mainly focused on the learning of grammatical features, more attention needs to be paid to the mastery o...C-R （Consciousness-Raising） has been around for some years, and while studies on the effectiveness of C-R have mainly focused on the learning of grammatical features, more attention needs to be paid to the mastery of other language areas. The present study is a small-scale research that explores the impact of C-R technique on the learning of some elements of written business communication. Several intermediate EFL （English as a Foreign Language） learners were exposed to models of good business letters and instructed to notice three elements, namely, the rhetorical moves, the grammatical patterns, and the expressions. Afterwards, they were assigned to write letters on their own. Their mistakes were counted and analyzed for the kinds of mistakes in each of the elements above. The result shows that they did very well in arranging the ideas in correct rhetorical moves but made much more mistakes on grammatical features and appropriateness of expressions. The explanation offered to account for this finding concerns the learners＇ allocation of cognitive capacity to different demands of task complexity. The more complex the task, such as writing in correct grammar or writing appropriate expressions, the less they devote their attention and effort to language formal features. A suggestion concerning focus-on-form activities is then offered to teachers展开更多
In this article, I aim to compare the similarities and differences in the international student prospectuses of two universi-ties from the perspective of critical discourse analysis. By analyzing the layout and design...In this article, I aim to compare the similarities and differences in the international student prospectuses of two universi-ties from the perspective of critical discourse analysis. By analyzing the layout and design, visual features, the rhetorical moves, and lexico-grammatical features of two prospectuses, I expect to trace the impact of marketization on the genre-based discourse of higher education and identify to what extent international student prospectus are influenced by the new"customer-driven"trend in higher education.展开更多
文摘C-R （Consciousness-Raising） has been around for some years, and while studies on the effectiveness of C-R have mainly focused on the learning of grammatical features, more attention needs to be paid to the mastery of other language areas. The present study is a small-scale research that explores the impact of C-R technique on the learning of some elements of written business communication. Several intermediate EFL （English as a Foreign Language） learners were exposed to models of good business letters and instructed to notice three elements, namely, the rhetorical moves, the grammatical patterns, and the expressions. Afterwards, they were assigned to write letters on their own. Their mistakes were counted and analyzed for the kinds of mistakes in each of the elements above. The result shows that they did very well in arranging the ideas in correct rhetorical moves but made much more mistakes on grammatical features and appropriateness of expressions. The explanation offered to account for this finding concerns the learners＇ allocation of cognitive capacity to different demands of task complexity. The more complex the task, such as writing in correct grammar or writing appropriate expressions, the less they devote their attention and effort to language formal features. A suggestion concerning focus-on-form activities is then offered to teachers
文摘In this article, I aim to compare the similarities and differences in the international student prospectuses of two universi-ties from the perspective of critical discourse analysis. By analyzing the layout and design, visual features, the rhetorical moves, and lexico-grammatical features of two prospectuses, I expect to trace the impact of marketization on the genre-based discourse of higher education and identify to what extent international student prospectus are influenced by the new"customer-driven"trend in higher education.
