Students of English as a second language (ESL) often come to the classroom with little or no experience in writing in any language and with inaccurate assumptions about writing. Rather than correct these assumptions, teachers often seem to unwittingly reinforce them, actually inducing errors into their students' work. Teacher-induced errors occur…

Considers "unpacking" or "deconstructing" sentences (the reverse of sentence combining) an effective teaching technique that helps students to develop clear predication and eliminate their tendency to use vague, confusing nominalized verbs. (RL)

A pilot study concerning the range of writing skills of intermediate students of English as a second language (ESL) is reported. The study identified the clause structures and relative low-order linguistic skills in the writing samples of 25 college students in this group. The method of evaluation of writing samples was a model of conformity to…

One technique for teaching college-level report writing consists of an essay that students use as a model for their own writing. This model, in turn, contains guidelines for composing a short essay, from title and subheadings to sentence and paragraph structure, word selection, errors to avoid, and revision. (MSE)

It is important that teachers help students to realize that writing is not simply a product, or a means to an end, but an exploratory, cyclical process. Research has shown that skilled writers conceptualize the effect of their writing as a whole, as a generative process, whereas unskilled writers are distracted by surface-level features and are…

Techniques for helping college-level non-native English speaking students understand the process of editing include individual and small-group conferencing, peer editing, and follow-up on errors. Teachers should give students the pencil, have them read the draft aloud, look for patterns of both good and erroneous usage, and focus on the positive.…

Offers suggestions for the college teacher with limited opportunity for individual writing conferences with non-native English-speaking students: tolerating some more complex errors; focusing on content; soliciting student ideas for correction; addressing only one or two error types; providing vocabulary choices; and highlighting correct usage.…

The 12 issues of the second language teaching and research journal, spanning 1988-1993 contain articles on a variety of language teaching and learning issues. A substantial proportion concern English-as-a-Second-Language instruction, both general and academic, in a number of Southeast Asian cultural contexts. Regional variations of English are…