Qzone weblog is one of the most popular weblogs in China. This study explores Qzone weblog for critical peer feedback to facilitate Business English writing among the Chinese undergraduates. A qualitative case study is conducted by NVivo 8 to analyze the three research data of semistructured interviews, Business English writing assignments, and critical peer feedback artifacts. Three research questions are focused on the case participants’ perception of this study, the strength and weakness of Qzone for critical peer feedback, and online features of Qzone affecting critical peer feedback in Business English writing. The findings indicate that Qzone weblog is a convenient information communication technology platform for online critical peer feedback among the Chinese undergraduates. The six aspects of strength and five online features are coded by NVivo 8, which are models by NVivo 8 with figures. The weakness of Qzone is the character number limitation for blogging and feedback. The conclusion of this study will be applied for the use of Qzone weblog and other kinds of weblog for online peer feedback in English writing.
This study explored critical peer feedback with critical thinking to improve Business English writing. Higher-order thinking skills in peer feedback is conducted to facilitate higher-level writing. This study focuses on the participants' mechanism of critical peer feedback, Qzone blog for critical peer feedback, and issues in critical peer feedback. A qualitative case study is conducted with six Chinese undergraduates. Three kinds of data including semi-structured interviews, Business English writing assignments and artifacts of critical peer feedback, are analyzed by QSR Nvivo 8. The findings reveal that critical peer feedback is a strategy of higher-order peer feedback to improve the higher-level writing. The Revised Bloom's Taxonomy is accepted for critical peer feedback. Critical peer feedback improves the quality of peer feedback and the quality of Business English writing. Qzone blog is a convenient ICT platform for critical peer feedback with many strengths. However, six issues are also perceived in the practice of critical peer feedback. The finding is significant to the process of critical peer feedback in second language writing.
With the vigorous development of the Internet, the continuous application of social media platforms has accelerated people's channels to obtain information. WeChat Public Platform (WPP), as a mobile learning platform, is derived from the current popular social platform "WeChat", which can transfer text, pictures, video, audio and other multimodal information. Based on various functions of WPP, combining it with language teaching is one technique to realize blended learning so that learners can experience a novel learning mode. Some issues have surfaced in the present Business English Writing (BEW) class for Chinese EFL undergraduates, including a lack of teaching time, students' psychological anxiety about BEW, and a rigid evaluation process. This study mainly applies WPP in Chinese EFL undergraduates' BEW class and investigates whether WPP can help improve students' BEW performance and enhance students' interest in learning BEW. Quantitative and qualitative research methods were adopted, and 80 Chinese undergraduates were involved in this quasi-experiment. By analysing the experimental results and data of the students' pre and post-test and the interview results, this study found that the English performance of the experimental class students who implemented the WPP-based BEW teaching mode has been remarkably improved, and their enthusiasm for BEW was gradually increased. Implications point to integration of WeChat in teacher instruction, teacher practice, ESL curriculum and assessment.
This paper reports the findings of an evaluation study on technical oral presentation and its potential application in English language courses for engineering undergraduates setting. The main aim is to delineate difficulties and challenges faced by engineering undergraduates in learning Technical Oral Presentation (TOP) skills in an English proficiency course. The participants were 310 engineering undergraduates who enrolled in the English for Technical Communication (ETC) course and nine instructors. Various difficulties and challenges faced by the engineering undergraduates to learn the TOP skills were identified and input from instructors were also examined. Suggestions to address the challenges faced by the students were highlighted with the view to preparing them for their future engineering workplace communication.
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