Malaysian ESL Students' Syntactic Accuracy in the Usage of English Modal Verbs in Argumentative Writing

Autor/inn/en	Mukundan, Jayakaran; bin Saadullah, Khairil Anuar; binti Ismail, Razalina; binti Jusoh Zasenawi, Nur Hairunnisa
Titel	Malaysian ESL Students' Syntactic Accuracy in the Usage of English Modal Verbs in Argumentative Writing
Quelle	In: English Language Teaching, 6 (2013) 12, S.98-105 (8 Seiten) PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1916-4742
Schlagwörter	Foreign Countries; Verbs; English (Second Language); Second Language Learning; Syntax; Second Language Instruction; Persuasive Discourse; Secondary School Students; Computational Linguistics; Qualitative Research; Discourse Analysis; Grammar; Writing (Composition); Language Usage; Statistical Analysis; Accuracy; Malaysia + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ausland; English as second language; English; Second Language; Englisch als Zweitsprache; Zweitsprachenerwerb; Fremdsprachenunterricht; Persuasion; Persuasive Kommunikation; Sekundarschüler; Linguistics; Computerlinguistik; Qualitative Forschung; Diskursanalyse; Grammatik; Schreibübung; Sprachgebrauch; Statistische Analyse
Abstract	This research studied the use of modals in argumentative written tasks by Form 5 Malaysian secondary school ESL students. The aim of this study was to examine the use of English modals at the syntactic level from data presented in the MCSAW Corpus. The research design comprised a qualitative technique through discourse analysis aided by descriptive statistics from a concordance, which was utilized to identify the modal verbs used by the Form 5 level in Malaysian schools. The research findings showed that Malaysian students had little problem using modal verbs grammatically in argumentative writing. It was also found that Malaysian students preferred to use a lot of modals in their writings. However, the use of these modals was limited to a few words only. It was concluded that despite the inaccuracies in terms of meanings, most students were able to use syntactically accurate modals in their sentences. Several recommendations are proposed with the aim of improving the teaching of modal verbs in Malaysian schools. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01