Malaysian ESL students` syntactic accuracy in the usage of English modal verbs in argumentative writing.
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 techniq...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Canadian Center of Science and Education
2013
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| Online Access: | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/29092/ http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/29092/1/Malaysian%20ESL%20students.pdf |
| _version_ | 1848846302130995200 |
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| author | Mukundan, Jayakaran Saadullah, Khairil Anuar Ismail, Razalina Jusoh Zasenawi, Nur Hairunnisa |
| author_facet | Mukundan, Jayakaran Saadullah, Khairil Anuar Ismail, Razalina Jusoh Zasenawi, Nur Hairunnisa |
| author_sort | Mukundan, Jayakaran |
| building | UPM Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | 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. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-15T09:00:33Z |
| format | Article |
| id | upm-29092 |
| institution | Universiti Putra Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-15T09:00:33Z |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publisher | Canadian Center of Science and Education |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | upm-290922015-10-08T04:15:44Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/29092/ Malaysian ESL students` syntactic accuracy in the usage of English modal verbs in argumentative writing. Mukundan, Jayakaran Saadullah, Khairil Anuar Ismail, Razalina Jusoh Zasenawi, Nur Hairunnisa 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. Canadian Center of Science and Education 2013 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/29092/1/Malaysian%20ESL%20students.pdf Mukundan, Jayakaran and Saadullah, Khairil Anuar and Ismail, Razalina and Jusoh Zasenawi, Nur Hairunnisa (2013) Malaysian ESL students` syntactic accuracy in the usage of English modal verbs in argumentative writing. English Language Teaching, 6 (12). pp. 98-105. ISSN 1916-4742; ESSN: 1916-4750 http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/elt/issue/view/950 10.5539/elt.v6n12p98 |
| spellingShingle | Mukundan, Jayakaran Saadullah, Khairil Anuar Ismail, Razalina Jusoh Zasenawi, Nur Hairunnisa Malaysian ESL students` syntactic accuracy in the usage of English modal verbs in argumentative writing. |
| title | Malaysian ESL students` syntactic accuracy in the usage of English modal verbs in argumentative writing.
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| title_full | Malaysian ESL students` syntactic accuracy in the usage of English modal verbs in argumentative writing.
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| title_fullStr | Malaysian ESL students` syntactic accuracy in the usage of English modal verbs in argumentative writing.
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| title_full_unstemmed | Malaysian ESL students` syntactic accuracy in the usage of English modal verbs in argumentative writing.
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| title_short | Malaysian ESL students` syntactic accuracy in the usage of English modal verbs in argumentative writing.
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| title_sort | malaysian esl students` syntactic accuracy in the usage of english modal verbs in argumentative writing. |
| url | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/29092/ http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/29092/ http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/29092/ http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/29092/1/Malaysian%20ESL%20students.pdf |