This research paper describes the use of discourse markers (henceforth DMs) in paragraph writing by English as second language (ESL) learners who were enrolled in a writing class. 25 diploma level students from Landscape Architecture programme participated in the study. The main objective of the study was to investigate the use of DMs in paragraph writing by these learners. 50 paragraphs written by the participants were scrutinized and the DMs used in each paragraph were recorded. The DMs used by the participants were classified into four categories; a) Contrastive Markers (CDMs); b) Elaborative Markers (EDMs); c) Implicative Markers (IDMs) and d) Temporal Markers (TDMs). It was found that the participants use Elaborative Markers (73%) the most followed by Temporal Markers (13%), Contrastive Markers (8%) and Implicative Markers (6%). There is a weak linear relationship (r = 0.007) between the variety of DM used and the scores awarded to the paragraphs and a weak non-linear relationship (r = -0.004) between the total number of DMs used and the scores awarded to the paragraphs. It was concluded that the students had overused the high frequency EDMs such as 'and' and 'because' and had misused some DMs in their writing. The study concluded that EFL learners tend to use more limited and redundant sets of DMs in their writing due to their low English language proficiency.

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Recognizing the importance of lexis and vocabulary learning strategies (VLS) in any language learning, this study tries to identify vocabulary learning strategies preferred by university students. The aim of this study was to identify the least and the most use of vocabulary learning strategies preferred by high, medium and low proficiency learners. Moreover, this study discussed the impact of their preferences on the acquisition of English vocabulary. Hence, the study used a quantitative method and the instrument used was survey questionnaire that was distributed to the students. Seven vocabulary learning strategies namely metacognitive regulation, guessing strategies, dictionary strategies, note-taking strategies, rehearsal strategies, encoding strategies, and activation strategies which was proposed by Gu & Johnson (1996) is adapted for the study. 283 semester two students from five diploma programs of Universiti Teknologi MARA, Perak were involved in the study. A vocabulary learning questionnaire adapted from Gu and Johnson (1996) was used to collect the data. Results showed that the students preferred to use guessing in context and dictionary strategies at the most; the other five namely metacognitive regulation, note-taking strategies, rehearsal strategies, encoding strategies, and activation strategies were less preferred. Thus, due to the lack of English proficiency incompetence, findings also showed that the students were only able to encounter new words and using the word without getting the word meaning or consolidating the word form and meaning in memory.

Second language production, and proficiency are measured based on the Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency dimensions. During their learning process, learners master the multicomponent dimensions also known as the CAF construct. Second language learners often master one component at a time and prior research on the present demography has been minimal. Hence, the present research looks at language accuracy among Malaysian English as a second language (ESL) learners' written language. The population chosen for this study is tertiary level students who have undergone formal English language classes in schools for 11 years. In the present setting, they are undergoing prerequisite English classes in the local university that they attend. Following six weeks of classes where learners revise the grammatical and writing aspects of the lesson, they then complete a writing task which is then analyzed for errors and language accuracy. Six major areas are identified as inaccuracy in learners' language production. 20 writing tasks are analyzed through error analysis, and this process reveals that learners' accuracies are apparent in their vocabulary, first language/mother tongue interference, sentence structure, subject-verb agreement, tenses and word form. Ten out the total 20 documents contained severe accuracy errors that affect coherence, comprehension and maturity in the written product. Learners who struggle with accuracy often have unsuitable, long-winded and/or incorrect products be it in listening, speaking, reading, or in the present study's scenario, writing. Further research in the CAF construct is encouraged especially among the same demography to address the issue of poor language mastery and proficiency.