An important issue in the teaching of writing is whether students should prepare a plan before they start writing. Teacher guides generally recommend pre-task planning (PTP) but with provisos. Research that has investigated PTP, however, does not lend unconditional support to PTP. This article takes a look at the research and draws from it a…

Although it is a well-known fact that students' preferred learning styles vary, many instructors teach in the way that reflects their own learning style preferences despite the fact that mismatches in teacher-learner styles may result in lower student achievement. In a traditional ESL or EAP writing class, students who prefer to learn by reading…

Writing, and the vocabulary building that goes with it, is a more complex process than merely putting words on a page. In the process of acquiring vocabulary, for example, students need to understand not just what individual words mean but also which combinations of these words in sentences or paragraphs convey a meaningful message to the reader…

Explores essay writing problems common to intermediate and advanced English-as-a-second-language students and suggests such remedies as pre-writing exercises and post-writing analysis to help students overcome these problems. (Author/CB)

Suggestions are offered to help secondary and postsecondary language teachers think more deeply about speaking activities that prepare students for writing. Criteria for evaluating prewriting activities are discussed, along with brainstorming, collaborative concept mapping, and the 4/3/2 technique. (Contains 14 references.) (LB)

Teachers of English as a Second Language (ESL) can use prewriting activities at the earliest stages of instruction to help their students acquire good language skills. Prewriting involves energizing student participation in thinking, talking, group interaction, and skeletal writing activities that become components of a writing task. Concentration…

The main tasks of the foreign language writing class should be to focus on the writing process and to help the students see their work as an act of communication with value in itself. An important means of encouraging good writing is the provision of good readers during the composition stage. A Swedish undergraduate course in English as a second…

Numbers 3 through 5 of the 1981 TECFORS newsletter include these articles: "Pre-Writing Activities" (Sandra L. McKay); "Errors in Advanced-Level Discourse" (Robert B. Kaplan); "Sensory Imagery" (Elizabeth Jamison Hodges); "Introducing Advanced Concepts of Reading and Writing in the Beginning ESL Class"…

A student-centered noncredit writing course for students of English as a second language, designed to alleviate the problems of diverse class membership, consists of a series of composition assignments with topics determined by class interests and composition length determined by the student. The entire class participates in prewriting activities;…