Writing can be a difficult task for many students in today's classrooms; however, for students who are culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD), writing can be especially difficult. These students often are in the process of developing their facility with the English language, and they possess cultural backgrounds that differ from those of…

"English" classrooms in U.S. institutions of higher education are not linguistically homogeneous. It is not logical, ethical, or realistic to designate "standard" English as the only discourse acceptable for the writing classroom. This praxis-oriented article chronicles a U.S. composition instructor's process of…

Recent studies on peer review groups in second language classes have focused on various topics, including collaboration (Carr, 2008) and the effect of peer review versus teacher feedback on students' writing (Zhang, 1995). One area that has received little attention is the content of students' speech during peer review. This longitudinal…

This study investigates the roles of learner agency and group work in learning writing in English as a foreign language (EFL). Through exploratory and participatory action research, this study examines how learner agency and group work function amidst the activity system of task-based EFL writing, especially how they influence and are influenced…

English as a second language (ESL) writing teachers face distinct challenges as they try to help students write in the language that is appropriate and natural to the native-English-speaking audience. It is disheartening when the writings of even advanced-level second language students often contain many awkward sentences and non-English-like…

This article calls for a rethinking of pure process-based approaches in the teaching of second language writers in the middle school classroom. The author provides evidence from a detailed case study of the writing of a Korean middle school student in a U.S. school setting to make a case for rethinking the efficacy of classic process-based…

Given the ubiquity of digital media in daily life, students must not only read and write traditional texts, but also those associated with information and multimedia technologies, such as blogs, photo and video sharing sites, social networks, and wikis. In response to the need to teach students to read and write these non-traditional texts, guides…

One common way of assessing learners' proficiency in second language (L2) listening comprehension is by comprehension-restitution (C-R), whereby learners write down what they have heard. The various forms of C-R differ according to characteristics of the input (e.g., length, speech rate) and of the output (e.g., amount of detail requested). The…

This qualitative instrumental case study explores various factors that might influence upper-intermediate-level English as a second language (ESL) students' summarizing from a sociocultural perspective. The study was conducted in a formal classroom setting, during a reading and writing class in the English Language Institute at a university in the…

This article is the culmination of the Cultural and Linguistic Autobiography (CLA) writing project, which details narrative descriptions of adult English language learners' (ELLs') cultural and linguistic experiences and how those experiences may have influenced the ways in which these learners constructed and reconstructed their identities.…

The purpose of this study was to develop specific rubrics for assessing critiques in English 202, an English as a foreign language course at the Lebanese American University to explore the effectiveness of these rubrics on students' writing and to investigate students' attitudes and reactions to the use of these rubrics. After development of the…

Message boards provide an opportunity for students, teachers, and parents to write (or draw) about a story from their lives on a large or small chalkboard. Oral language is then used to describe the written message during a structured circle time. (It is a variation of the traditional show-and-tell except that the focus is on the communication of…

After noting the disconnect between students' passionate oral stories and their lifeless writing, an adult education instructor made specific instructional and curriculum changes in an ESOL reading and writing course. All changes served the purpose of teaching the element of voice in second language writing. The instructor used the issue of…

The use of definite and indefinite articles in English is well known to be a major point of difficulty for many nonnative English speakers. These difficulties prevail even when the speakers are fluent in most other aspects of English grammar and style. This article investigates the pedagogical and linguistic reasons why article use is such a…

Suggests that constructing lessons and materials that are rich in students' known literacies helps teachers provide students with a powerful support for learning a new literacy--second language writing. (Author/VWL)