Đề tài Raising students' awareness of Cross-Cultural contrastive rhetoric in english writing via an elearning course

e very practical: 
real-life communication in both oral and written form. 
Para3 
Apparently, there is discrepancy between expectation and reality: university English courses are still 
about grammar points, vocabulary details, and therefore students do not feel learning anything new. The 
lack of oral and writing in English courses remains a problem in the curriculum and no wonder many 
students prefer not to go to English courses, but surfing on the internet reading authentic English 
materials instead. 
Para4 
It will be beneficial for the students if the university can arrange two types of English courses: one is oral 
English in class where students are encouraged to express themselves in English. The presenters can 
collect ideas from other students and improve their presentation skills. It will also be good fun for all the 
students no matter which discipline they are from, for they can sit down and share with what work they 
are currently doing, which expands their view of the world. The other is writing course after class. 
Language Learning & Technology 90
Xing, Wang, and Spencer Students' Awareness of Cross-Cultural Contrastive Rhetoric 
Students can do research on a certain topic and give their opinion to the e-forum. As other students are 
from different areas, they might see it from other angles and comment or add in new ideas. The teacher 
can guide them to use the appropriate expressions and structures to express their ideas. Students can then 
be confident to use the English is real-life situations. 
Codes: 
Theme/thesis statement: in the first paragraph 
Topic sentence: one in each paragraph 
Metaphor (SMALL CAPS): 2 
Discourse markers (bold italics): 26 
Number of paragraphs: 4 
ABOUT THE AUTHORS 
Minjie Xing is Senior Language Tutor at the University of Manchester, UK. She obtained her MA in 
Education from the University of Hull (1998) and PhD in Educational Technology in Language and 
Culture at the University of Salford (2002). Her research interests are e-learning, autonomous learning, 
and Chinese character development for foreign language students. 
Email: Minjie.Xing@manchester.ac.uk 
Ken Spencer is Lecturer in Education at the University of Hull, UK. He obtained his MSc in Psychology 
from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne (1976) and PhD in Education at the University of Hull 
(2000). His research interests are e-learning, effectiveness of educational technologies, and orthographic 
influences on literacy. 
Email: k.a.spencer@hull.ac.uk 
Jinghui Wang is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the Harbin Institute of Technology, China. He 
obtained his BA at Northeast Teachers’ University (1985) and MA at Beijing Foreign Studies University 
(1991). He is presently completing his PhD in Education at the University of Reading, UK. His research 
interests are discourse across cultures, metacognitive beliefs and strategies and computer-assisted 
language learning. 
Email: j.h.wang@hit.edu.cn 
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