Teaching and learning strategies for improving language accuracy in Final Year Projects

Presenters: Hui Yin, Songqing Li (English, Culture and Communication) & Weiyi Chu (Language Centre)

Key words: Teaching and learning strategies, Language accuracy, Final year project

Based on the empirical findings of language errors in  Final Year Projects (FYPs) also referred to as undergraduate dissertations at XJTLU, we would suggest some directions for the practice of teaching and learning in academic writing for improving language accuracy in FYPs. Top three error types were found to involve word form, subject-verb agreement and non-finite verb observed through an analysis in 20 FYP samples. The error patterns suggest the importance of appropriate teaching materials in language, content, methods of delivery, etc. to help students avoid such language errors. A number of suggestions are made with regards to how to design teaching materials if considering factors like students’ needs, different ways of teaching and learning, and different medium of instruction. Based on the coded errors, we will establish a database of FYP useful to raise students’ awareness of typical errors. With popularity of technology, we suggest more use of electronic resources to encourage students’ self-study in the future. Authentic examples from FYPs could be used to design writing practice posted through ICE. Based on the error patterns and examples of FYPs, on-line writing workshops will be designed as self-study material for students. This study also informs us of prominent effects of language transfer. We will present a contrastive analysis of writing errors between English and Chinese from the linguistic and cross-cultural perspective. Comparative teaching methodology will be recommended as another strategy to help students avoid L1 negative transfer in FYPs to reduce language errors.

*This is a Teaching Development Fund project