The purpose of the conference presentation upon which this paper is inspired was to present an innovative approach to motivate students to write in a second language during a first-year Spanish class. Usually, students comply with writing exercises that convey basic thoughts, due to constrained vocabulary and limited knowledge of grammatical…

Presents an in-class writing exercise that is designed to stimulate creativity and promote sophistication of style in the advanced conversation and composition German language class. (GLR)

Describes two experiments carried out with a class of foreign language learners in the Department of French studies at the University of Sydney. The first experiment involved keeping a learner's diary, and the second experiment focused on learner's self-assessment of their writing performances. (CB)

Group creative writing activities encourage foreign language students to participate on various levels as thinkers, writers, readers, and critics. Students stimulate, correct, and give feedback to each other about writing skills. (CB)

Evaluates software developed for advanced learners of a second language. The software uses the target language (German) exclusively, brings together language and literature teaching, and includes a large variety of written exercises with scored feedback. Findings reveal that students are enthusiastic about using this multimedia program and…

This report defines and describes audiotaped dialogue journals produced by fourth year, Chilean university students in their English class. The taped journals were used as a way for students to obtain additional practice in reading, writing, listening, and speaking in an environment where school was the only place they practiced their English. The…

A survey of students of English as a Second Language at the University of South Florida found most ranked listening and/or speaking skills as most important to learn, and reading and writing skills much lower. They also perceived the inverse to be true of teachers. The challenge is to create a curriculum that provides for listening and speaking…

The rationale for using critical autobiography projects in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) instruction is discussed, and procedures for implementation are outlined. Writing a critical autobiography involves the student's presenting a personal narrative while exploring external factors influencing his life. Critical experiences in life provide…

Use of a directed creative writing exercise to assess intermediate language students' skills is discussed. The technique was developed for second-year college Spanish instruction as an alternative to conventional writing tests in which anxiety or lack of motivation may inhibit performance. Differences in the nature of language skills (listening,…

Communicative language teaching (CLT) is compatible with cooperative learning as both promote interaction through peer exchange. Cooperative education can take group work one step further and should therefore be incorporated into English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) writing classrooms. In English writing classes in a Japanese junior college, formal…

This paper discusses a framework for designing online tasks that capitalizes on the possibilities that the Internet and the Web offer for language learning. To present such a framework, we draw from constructivist theories (Brooks and Brooks, 1993) and their application to educational technology (Newby, Stepich, Lehman and Russell, 1996; Jonassen,…