moves

Learners can collaborate with each other to achieve a lesson objective. In the collaboration, they can provide each other with guidance in order to identify mistakes and improve their achievements. With the rise of online instructions, this small-scale exploratory study aimed to see how proficient learners guided their less proficient classmates in correcting the grammatical accuracy of sentences. Twenty three learners who were taking a blended-learning grammar class were assigned to post brief essays on Edmodo and the more able learners were instructed to help their weaker classmates find and correct the errors in their essays. A total of 18 essays and 15 lines of comments were generated in their online interactions. A coding was done to identify the moves of the learners as they gave and received peer corrections. The results indicated that the more able learners made seven types of moves for guiding their classmates, with only three sequences incorporating a relatively complete scaffolding moves. The weak learners, however, hardly responded to their more proficient classmates. Reluctance to prolong the discussion in online setting and the difficulties in dealing with detailed grammatical items in such setting may have been responsible for this low rate of responses.

This paper explores sub-disciplinary variations and generic structure of research article introductions (RAIs) within three sub-disciplines of applied linguistics (AL); namely, English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Psycholinguistics, and Sociolinguistics, using Swales’(1990) CARS model. The corpus consisted of 90 RAIs drawn from a wide range of refereed journals in the corresponding sub-disciplines. The results indicate sub-disciplinary variation in the structure of this genre in terms of Move 2 / step 1B that can be justified through the concepts of ‘established’ versus ‘emerging’ fields. The findings underline the need for further in-depth research into sub-disciplinary variation and generic structure of RAIs. The results also promise pedagogical implications for ESP/EAP practitioners, course administrators as well as material developers.