Second language learners need to be given tools with which they can make language learning a personal experience. In writing, this means that they are given the skills needed to collect, organize, and present information that stimulates acquisition of new vocabulary and production of authentic writing that encourages language-related risk-taking.…

A unit used in an Australian school to teach English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students how to write a discussion is described. The 3-week unit was planned and implemented jointly by an ESL resource teacher, class teacher, and teacher librarian. The class was divided into three heterogeneous groups, two of which were observed for this study and…

A discussion of the communicative approach in the second language classroom reasserts its value while highlighting some of the difficulties in implementing the approach: time constraints; difficulty in providing motivation for communication in the more formal language registers; potential imbalance in emphasis on oral and written communication…

A study examined the interaction strategies of one teacher for promoting student writing in the dialogue journals of 12 limited-English-proficient sixth grade students and the effect of these strategies on the length and complexity of the students' writing. The teacher strategies identified include requests for a reply and personal contributions…

A middle school teacher describes the process by which she discovered a collaborative approach to teaching writing to a class including English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students. To create a meaningful writing experience, she had students prepare a personal narrative, starting by having the class generate endings to the sentence beginning "I'll…

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,…

A teacher of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) to adults in a non-English-speaking country describes use of classroom writing conferences to improve student language use and introduce writing into the communicative syllabus. The approach is based on a conference format and focuses on self-directed inquiry. Students are provided with monolingual…