Writing & Teaching
Writing & Teaching
Writing & Teaching
Discuss the ways in which a second language learner’s writing in the target language may be
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ASSIGNMENT 2
Discuss the ways in which a second language learner’s writing in the target language may
Introduction
able to articulate one's thoughts and ideas unambiguously through the written word. It is
generally agreed upon that a sufficient command of one's native tongue is essential to achieve
one's full potential in academics. This is due to the fact that academics commonly use the ability
Because of this, students of all skill levels view writing as a challenging endeavour that they are
required to conquer in order to pass their assessments, despite the fact that their competency
levels may vary. Writing in a foreign language is challenging for students for a number of
reasons, including the fact that it is an active and productive activity. It is amazing to be able to
communicate one's ideas in writing in a way that is both clear and succinct, even if one is doing
so in a second language. Because of this, being able to write in a foreign language necessitates a
and vocabulary, as well as cognitive skills that enable language learners to express themselves
fluently in the other language. Consequently Nevertheless, despite the fact that there is so much
ongoing dissatisfaction in classes where they are learning either their first or second language.
Comparing the productive language skills of writing and speaking may provide insight into
the nature of writing by highlighting similarities and differences between the two. Accordingly,
Barrette, Paesani and Vinall (2010) hypothesised that there would be significant distinctions
ASSIGNMENT 3
between the two in terms of vocabulary, fluency, the length and complexity of the phrases, the
forms of addresses, and other aspects of language use. They went over a number of points that
differentiate oral communication from written communication. On the other hand, in comparison
to speaking, writing is typically done more privately. Second, while the utterance or turn
functions as the fundamental building block of speech, the sentence is the fundamental building
block of written communication. Writing, on the other hand, requires more planning and
preparation than speaking, which is more impromptu. The conventional and socially acceptable
modes of writing have a tendency to be more standardised, in contrast to the openness of accents
in spoken language. Fifth, it is more possible for written communication to be removed in time
and space (taken out of context), but oral communication is more likely to take place face-to-
is visual and places a greater emphasis on form and organisation. Teachers have a key part to
play in assisting students in improving their writing abilities. One way they can do this is by
educating students on the significance of effective writing skills for the development of
successful careers. They are able to conduct and organise productive writing classes for students,
which will help students develop skills and knowledge in effective writing strategies. These
Characteristics of Writing
However, given that writing is both a mental and an emotional activity, the affective
variables of the environment in which one writes have an effect on every aspect of the writing
process. A number of researchers have already looked into the affective factors that are involved
in writing. For instance, Genesee, Geva, Dressler and Kamil (2007) investigated the writing
ASSIGNMENT 4
connection to different affective aspects. Researchers say that the ideas and attitudes that EFL
students have about academic writing (such as how confident they are in their writing talents) are
crucial indications of whether or not they are able to create quality academic writing. These
findings lead researchers to claim that. In a different piece of research, Lou and Noels (2019)
environment utilised different writing styles in accordance with their levels of motivation and
attitudes. They contended that the students' interest in writing was impacted by their desire to use
their writing for a particular goal, and that this interest motivated the students to write. They
discovered that students who had a high degree of motivation also had higher levels of
confidence, satisfaction, and a favourable attitude toward successful teaching ways for writing.
Additionally, these students had a tendency to turn to writing tactics more frequently. Writing is
also characterised by the fact that it is a cyclical process, which requires writers to move back
and forth between the stages of prewriting, writing, reviewing, and altering their work. This is
another distinguishing feature of writing. In order to emphasise the significance of the prewriting
stage, a minimum of seventy percent of the time spent writing should be devoted to prewriting
(Schmitt, 2019). According to the findings of research conducted by Gevers (2018), students
who used their first language to generate ideas before writing in a second language shown a
marked improvement in the quality of their writing. As a result, they recommended that teachers
of writing employ students' L1s to produce ideas, particularly when working with novice
The lack of writing ability displayed by some students may be attributable to a number of
different factors. The following are some of the reasons behind this, however the list is not
exhaustive: The very first cause is a method of teaching composition that places an excessive
emphasis on the role of the instructor and is unduly reductionist. This method overlooks the
connection that exists between composition and other language skills. Because of this, students
are not given the opportunity to choose their own preferred topics for writing because the focus
writing or fear of writing may be the result of a product approach, which solely focuses the
product of writing rather than the process of writing itself. This may contribute to the
development of writing anxiety or dread. When it comes to teaching students how to write, the
lecture style is not very effective, and this is the third aspect that contributes to this
The large number of writing classes offered within the EFL/ESL curriculum is one factor
that contributes to the fourth problem. The proliferation of other types of digital media, including
television, radio, music, video games, and other electronic entertainment options, along with
personal computers and movie theatres, is ultimately to blame for the decline of print culture.
Recent years have seen the development of a metadiscipline in applied linguistics and second
language research. This metadiscipline focuses on the study of second language writing, which
has been an area of academic investigation for approximately sixty years (Teimouri, Goetze, &
Plonsky, 2019). The study of second-language authors and writing in general is not the primary
literacy education and instruction. TESOL and applied linguistics are often used to indicate the
position of the field in relation to other subjects like foreign language studies, composition
ASSIGNMENT 6
studies, bilingual education, and other TESOL programmes. This is because TESOL is a
multidisciplinary field and applied linguistics is a branch of TESOL. TESOL and writing in a
second language have been connected in a few studies, but there is a clear need for additional
Since the 1990s, a new field of research known as "metadisciplinary inquiry" has
emerged with the purpose of investigating the philosophical and methodological roots of the
work done in a specific field of study. In order to gain an understanding of how disciplinary
inquiry operates, metadisciplinary inquiry centres its attention on questions such as "who we are,
what we do, and how we do what we do" (Wang, Derakhshan & Zhang, 2021). One of the many
ways that metadisciplinary research can be carried out in the subject of second language writing
is to define the field itself, which is one of the many ways that metadisciplinary research can be
carried out (Schmitt, 2019). Studies of writing in foreign languages have traditionally
concentrated mostly on the syntactic domain; nevertheless, some scholars have begun to
investigate additional topics, such as the pragmatics of metadiscourse. To cite just one
illustration, García-Pastor and Miller (2019) found that the utilisation of metadiscourse markers
was linked to fluency in a second language. In this regard, they placed an emphasis on the good
effects that can result from receiving education. Studies of writing in a second language also
focus on a wide variety of topics, such as how children acquire the ability to read and write in a
foreign language, the connection between reading and writing, and issues pertaining to ideology
and politics. The influence of social, cultural, and educational factors on the study of writing in a
second language is another essential factor that L2 writing researchers need to take into
consideration.
ASSIGNMENT 7
Writing studies in the modern day have been broken down into four major subfields by
García-Pastor and Miller (2019). These subfields are the writing process, the writing product, the
writing context, and the teaching of writing. The process of writing entails a variety of activities,
some of which are the analysis of compositional methods, the modelling of cognitive activities,
the monitoring of changes through time, and the consideration of individual differences. Analysis
of text, as well as error analysis, comparative analysis, and contrastive analysis, are all
components of the writing process. In the context of writing, it is normal practise to investigate
and motivation. The final point to make is that research into writing education focuses on
the evaluation of a person's capacity to write. Research in both L1 and L2 should not be thought
second language (also known as L2) is continuously expanding in both its theoretical and
practical aspects. This encompasses not only pragmatic but also educational, methodological,
and theoretical points of view as well. Research on writing in a second language (L2 writing) is
demographic), as well as by the attempts of L2 writing scholars to adapt to those shifts (Kessler,
2018).
Finding methods that are both appealing and practical to help students improve their
writing is a long-standing goal of researchers who are seeking for ways to assist students in
improving their writing, which is a challenging endeavour for even the most proficient language
learners. The methods used to instruct writing have been subjected to a great deal of evolution
over the years as a direct consequence of this fact. As a consequence of this, this section
investigates the growth of writing in a second language, provides a historical review of empirical
research into writing in a second language, and then explores the behavioralist and contrastive
rhetorical methods that are commonly used to instruct writing (Hartshorne, Tenenbaum &
Pinker, 2018).
In the 1950s, there were not many studies that looked at writing in a second language
because there were so few people doing it. Only people who spoke Spanish in North America
were given the opportunity to learn English as a second language; throughout this historical
period, English was mostly disregarded as a foreign language everywhere else. When it came to
schooling in the 1950s, the method that was most popular put an unwarranted emphasis on vocal
skill rather than writing proficiency. In the 1960s, a substantial number of students from other
countries arrived to the United States to pursue higher education. As a result, teachers of first
language writing observed major discrepancies in the writing of first language students and those
learning English as a second language. As a result, the "disciplinary division of labour" between
composition studies and L2 studies was developed, based on the perception of these differences
in the challenges associated with L1 and L2 languages (Mendoza & Phung, 2019). Since there
was not enough emphasis placed on teaching ESL students how to write in English in the past,
ASSIGNMENT 9
the field of second language writing research came into being as a result. The Audiolingual
Method, which was the most popular approach to educating pupils learning a second language
(L2) throughout the 1960s, placed a focus on the structure of the L2 through prescriptive
controlled practise in writing instruction (Culpeper, Mackey & Taguchi, 2018). Therefore,
writing was limited to exercises such as filling in blanks, making substitutions, and changing
forms. Utilizing this instrument allows for the examination as well as the strengthening of
grammatical rules. This extremely restricted emphasis did not take into account the extremely
After that, teachers of writing, particularly those who instruct students on how to
construct paragraphs, came to see the significance of expanding their focus on writing skills
beyond the sentence level. In response to Li's (2018) emphasis on the fundamental concept of
cultural variances and variations in students' writing, he developed Contrastive Rhetoric (CR), a
method that applies syntactic structure to paragraph structures in a way that is both practical and
applicable. In addition to that, this tactic places an emphasis on the requirements that should be
met by readers who are not already enrolled in a class. It is the rhetorical forms, not the
grammatical forms, that are supposed to be the paradigms, and the reader is regarded as the
distinctive rhetorical patterns of English as a Second Language (ESL) writing by analysing the
writing of seven hundred students learning the language as a second. These patterns are a result
of the effect of the students' native language and their cultural background. The "cultural thought
Oriental, Semitic, Russian, and Romance. This is because English, Oriental, and Semitic
languages are all distinct from Romance languages. The research that the author did on
contrastive rhetoric led to the discovery that an English-speaking writer needs to utilise a linear
framework with precise specifics in order to maintain the subject. In contrast to people who
spoke English, he concentrated on the rhetorical models of speakers of other languages. When
compared to speakers of English, Arabic writers made use of a greater number of coordinating
terms inside their written work. Students who were speaking French or Spanish veered off
subject by explaining things that had nothing to do with the discussion at hand, while students
from Asia displayed a circular and illogical structure in the way that they presented their ideas.
extended further than CR characteristics (including CR as well as syntactic analysis) (Saito &
Plonsky, 2019).
Setiyad (2020) cited a weak version of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis as the origin of
contrastive rhetoric. Only then can the Whorfian hypothesis be tested once more. Before
asserting that a language learner's writing style is influenced by the language they speak or the
culture they are a part of, it is vital to have a better understanding of how a language, culture, and
group are assimilated. This is the case before making such a claim (Byram & Wagner, 2018).
Despite the fact that Li's (2018) groundbreaking work on CR had a considerable impact on the
field of research into writing in a second language, his analysis caused a great deal of
controversy. There are some people who believe that the deterministic rhetorical model has a
built-in anti-L2 bias and "prioritises the writing of native English speakers while simultaneously
denigrating linguistic and cultural differences in writing among different languages." These are
some of the claims that have been made by the critics. Chou (2018) and Wallace (2022) are a
ASSIGNMENT 11
few examples of the critics that fall into this category. Despite the fact that research on
contrastive rhetoric was used to EFL/ESL writing classes, some composition scholars urged for a
critical pedagogy to assist L2 students in becoming integrated into the target discourse
community. This drew severe criticism from other writing academics (Byram & Wagner, 2018).
According to Jiang and Dewaele (2019) warned that it could generate an ideological dilemma
and dishonour the values of the students' social as well as cultural uniqueness if EFL/ESL
students writing in English were instructed to follow the English rhetorical pattern blatantly. The
application of contrastive rhetorical analysis has been of significant assistance to the discipline of
writing in a second language. Texts written by L2 authors were distinguished by the grammatical
and lexical traits that they possessed, which were shaped by the authors' respective cultural
environments. The present studies of contrastive rhetoric are reshaped as a result of the new
opportunities offered by contrastive rhetoric pedagogy. Saito and Plonsky (2019), researchers in
the field of second language learning, defined contrastive rhetoric as "an area of research in
second language learning that identifies challenges in composition faced by second language
authors and, by referencing the rhetorical methods of the first language, attempts to explain" (p.
5). She emphasises that the use of contrastive rhetoric has resulted in a good impact in other
sectors. Expressionist, cognitive, and social constructivist writing styles are the three primary
approaches to writing that can be derived from the theories of rhetoric and composition. Using
these several methods, one is able to conduct an analysis of both the product and the process of
writing in a second language. Text linguistics techniques are very important to contrastive
rhetoric since they are used to analyse text features such as coherence, narrative organisation,
and grammatical aspects of texts. Through the application of text linguistics, it has been
demonstrated that writings in first and second languages, in addition to texts from other genres,
ASSIGNMENT 12
have distinct differences in their rhetorical styles. According to the author's classification, during
the past three decades, research into contrastive rhetoric has expanded into four main areas.
These categories include studies of writing as a cultural and pedagogical activity as well as text
linguistic analyses of contrastive texts. Studies that are exclusive to a certain genre and
classroom-based comparison study are two examples of other sorts of research. She views
contrastive rhetoric as a method that, when used to research and instruction, can help students
develop their writing skills and broaden their cultural backgrounds, particularly in situations
involving EFL. She believes that "contrastive rhetoric is an excellent resource for advanced- or
college-level ESL/EFL teaching authors," which is relevant when it comes to the development of
writing programmes that take into consideration issues related to genre, culture, and rhetorical
concerns (Peters, 2019). According to Kukulska‐Hulme and Viberg (2018), "future contrastive
rhetoric studies should be sensitive to the premise that authors be understood as individuals in
communities that are undergoing ongoing change" for the future (p. 76). Even though both the
response to an earlier model of education, they are not incompatible with one another in terms of
how they teach writing. The process of instructing writing has gotten more challenging as a
direct result of the prominence of various methodologies, all of which have seen widespread
adoption.
traditionally been the two most frequent methods to the study of writing. According to Li (2018),
one of the most significant differences between the two methodologies is the route that was taken
ASSIGNMENT 13
to get at the final product (Naser Oteir & Nijr Al-Otaibi, 2019). On the other side, the product
approach places more of an emphasis on the finished product as well as the evaluation of it. Both
strategies were conceived at the same time in direct reaction to one another and were developed
simultaneously. Even the process-oriented approach pays attention to this facet of the problem,
which is distinct from the product or finished piece of labour. On the other side, this technique
places a greater emphasis on arriving to the destination and developing one's skills along the way
(Rose et al., 2018). Because of this, collaborative writing has had a meteoric rise in popularity
over the past several years as a direct result of a new stage of development in L2 writing known
as post-process, which places a greater emphasis on the social aspects of the topic being studied
(Godwin-Jones, 2018). According to Kukulska‐Hulme & Viberg (2018), writing products have
been investigated in terms of the use of language and linguistic structure, as well as more general
rhetorical theories. Peters (2019) suggests using syntactic length as a method for evaluating the
level of a writer's ability. According to Warner and Dupuy (2018), in order for a piece of writing
to be effective, all of its phrases must be connected to one another. In a different way of putting
it, this linkage provides "the structural and semantic ties between words across phrases, from the
link between single words throughout sentences to abstract, global thematic and structural
patterns". During the process of writing, Godwin-Jones (2019) state that a composition is the
outcome of the interplay between three different aspects. The term "task environment" refers to
everything that is not the writer themselves and is located outside of their body. This pertains to
Following that, there is the author's expertise with the topic matter, as well as their
understanding of various rhetorical issues, tactics, genres, and traditions. The writer is able to
ASSIGNMENT 14
retrieve previously stored knowledge from their memory at various points throughout the writing
process. When writers sit down to compose a piece of writing, they engage in a wide range of
intricate mental processes, the culmination of which is the writing process itself. According to
the investigation of protocol1, this is the very last piece of the puzzle. At the beginning of the
1980s, Shao, Pekrun and Nicholson (2019) came up with the idea of applying a process approach
theory to the investigation of the writing process. This hypothesis implies that factors such as the
writer's long-term memory and the work at hand have an effect on the writer's output. The
planning, the translation, and the evaluation stages make up the three steps of the process
approach theory. The process of creating material, organising that content, and establishing goals
and procedures for writing are all aspects of the planning process. The writer needs to participate
in some kind of mental activity before they can start writing, and one of the most common types
created through translation. When writing, one of the goals of the writer is to present his or her
ideas in a style that is logical and consistent. During the process of translation, a writer may find
that they need to return to the drawing board. The process of reviewing entails evaluating
everything that has previously been planned and written down. If the evaluation produces
unfavourable findings, the author may be required to make adjustments to the piece (Boudreau,
MacIntyre & Dewaele, 2018). This method places an emphasis on writing processes, instructing
strategies for discovery and invention, as well as taking audience and context into consideration;
it places an emphasis on recursiveness, which requires writers to go back and read what they've
already written before moving forward; and it differentiates between goals and modes of
description). Additional research conducted by Pakula (2019) demonstrates that second language
ASSIGNMENT 15
Conclusion
It cannot be denied that students' writing abilities are an extremely important factor in
determining how well they can communicate in a second language, and this is true not only in
the classroom but also in academic studies. Writing is seen as a tough activity by native speakers
to a certain extent; but, for non-natives, particularly students of English as a foreign language
(EFL), it is far more terrifying. The ability to express oneself clearly and concisely in writing is
widely regarded as one of the most challenging linguistic abilities to acquire. Many times,
research topics related to writing in a second language will fit into one of these three categories:
Language instructors and academics have pointed to analytical and impressionistic (holistic)
approaches to grading writing for a significant amount of time as two methods that are
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