The nature of second language writing (L2) has become clearer nowadays. Broadly speaking, we may say that research conducted in the areas of linguistics, psycholinguistics, cognitive psychology and sociolinguistics has helped us to gain a better understanding of how the ability to write is likely to be learned. We are now aware that writing is not a decontextualized activity but rather it is embedded in the cultural and institutional context in which it is produced (Kern 2000; Hyland 2002). Additionally, it involves a dynamic interaction among the three basic elements that play a part in the writing act, namely the text, the writer and the reader, which requires writers’ consideration of all them in order to write accordingly

1. Language Skill
Writing
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2. INTRODUCTION
The nature of second language writing (L2) has become clearer nowadays. Broadly speaking, we
may say that research conducted in the areas of linguistics, psycholinguistics, cognitive
psychology and sociolinguistics has helped us to gain a better understanding of how the ability to
write is likely to be learned. We are now aware that writing is not a decontextualized activity but
rather it is embedded in the cultural and institutional context in which it is produced (Kern 2000;
Hyland 2002). Additionally, it involves a dynamic interaction among the three basic elements that
play a part in the writing act, namely the text, the writer and the reader, which requires writers’
consideration of all them in order to write accordingly (Silva and Matsuda 2002).
Materials and Methods in ELT: A Teacher’s Guide, Third Edition. Jo McDonough, Christopher Shaw, and Hitomi Masuhara. © 2013 John
Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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3. COMPOSING VS. WRITING
 Composing as a process of writing
 Written products are often the result of thinking, drafting, and revising – skills that cannot be
develope naturally. (O’Brien, 2004; Silva & Brice, 2004; Leki, Cumming & Silva, 2008; Silva, 2010)
0 This resulted in a writing pedagogy that focuses students to generate ideas, write coherently /
cohesively, revise text for clearer meanings, and how to produce a final product.
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4. One major theme in pedagogical research on writing is the nature of the composing process of
writing:
 Written products are the results of thinking, drafting, and revising procedures that require
specialized skills, skills that not every speaker develops naturally (Chen, 2005):
• How to generate ideas
• How to organize them coherently
• How to use discourse markers (cohesive markers) and rhetorical conventions
• How to revise texts
• How to edit text for appropriate grammar
• How to produce final product
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5. PROCESS VS. PRODUCT
 Focusing on (accuracy, cohesion, etc. of) final product of writing; describing the forms; usual in
writing classes;
Vs.
 Focusing on process of writing; e.g. Text explains what s/he does when writing or asking
students what they are doing; writing is a thinking process; think aloud protocols; process is not
the end; it is the means to an end.
 The product is the ultimate goal; it is the reason that we go through the process of prewriting,
drafting, revising and editing.
(Hedgcock, 2005, pp.604-605; Silva, 2010; Hinkel,2011; Ferris & Hedgcock, 2014)
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6. - Process: where an new text is built through a series of planning and redrafting stages.
- Product: where a text is analyzed and imitated.
The general trend has now shifted to focus on the balance between process and
product. The latter is used as the ultimate goal of writing while the former is used
as a means to that end, rather than the end itself. We do not want students to be
drowned in a sea of revisions.
(Hedgcock, 2005, pp.604-605; Silva, 2010; Hinkel,2011; Ferris & Hedgcock, 2014)
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7. INTERCULTURAL & CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC
• Kaplan (1966): different languages (and their cultures) have different patterns of written
discourse; this may make writing in an L2 challenging. L1 schemata and scripts and native
language pattern of thinking take place. They may influence learning L2 rhetoric paradigms
(Connor, 2002; Casanave, 2004).
 Kaplan (2005) and Conner (2002):
No one can deny the effect of one’s native culture, or one’s predispositions that are the product of
years of schooling, reading, writing, thinking, asserting, arguing, and defending a concept that
become known as Contrastive rhetoric.
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8. INTERCULTURAL RHETORIC
 intercultural rhetoric: “Account for the richness of rhetorical variation of written
texts and the varying contexts in which they are constructed”. (Connor, Nagelhout, &
Rozycki, 2008, p.9)
 Writing contexts (who is writing, to whom, and for what purpose) and specific
conventions within subgroups of genres (e.g., a scientific laboratory report; a
personal narrative essay) may prove to be far more important for learners to attend
to than a possible contrasting native language convention (Conner, 2011)
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9. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN L2 & L1 WRITING:
It was initially believed that the composing process in both L1 and L2 was similar. However,
recent research suggests that L2 writers (Silva, 1993):
- do less planning
- are less fluent (Fewer words)
- are less accurate
- less effective in stating goals and organizing
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10. PEDAGOGICAL PRINCIPLES FOR L2 WRITING:
(HEDGCOCK,2005; HINKEL,2011; WEIGLE, 2014)
0 It’s important to determine appropriate approaches to writing instruction for L2 writers in
different contexts.
0 Writing teachers need to be equipped to deal effectively with the sociocultural and linguistic
differences of L2 students (Weigle,2014).
0 The assessment of L2 writing should take into account the fundamental differences between
L1 and L2 cultural norms in writing. (Hinkel,2011)
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11. AUTHENTICITY(HEDGCOCK,2005; WEIGLE, 2014; PALTRIDGE, 2004)
• Is classroom writing like real writing?
• How much writing in class?
• Real writing vs. display writing?
0 Authentic writing is those that reflects writing activities that are performed in real life outside the
class such as: writing telephone messages, texting on the phone, writing Facebook messages, etc.
 Another way of looking at authenticity issue is to distinguish between real writing and display writing:
0 Real writing: aims to get genuine communication with the reader: letters, emails, diaries,
messages (Raimes, 1991)
0 Display writing: aims to display one’s knowledge: Short answer, grammar exercises, essays,
reports display writing skills and techniques.
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12. THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER
(FERRIS & HEDGCOCK, 2005, 2014; GOLDSTEIN, 2010; FERRIS, 2011; WEIGLE, 2014)
 Writing as a process of thinking and composing was mainly developed due to
the emergence of CLT. In guiding the students towards the cumbersome process
of writing, teachers need to adapt the role as facilitator and coach, and not as an
authoritative director.
 As a facilitator, we may want to guide students in the thinking process of
writing. However, we have to be careful as not to impose our own thought. We
need to respect their ideas too!
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13. CONTENT- AND
GENRE-BASED
WRITING PEDAGOGY
CBW writing about a specific content in ESP; more real writing; (Hinkel, 2011, p.
533)
GBW  learning the discourse and syntactic features of various genres (like e-mail,
memos, reports, research papers etc.) and write in them (Martin, 2012; Tardy, 2013).
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14. CHARACTERISTICS OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE
1. Permanence
2. Production time (usually limited & students should overcome time limits)
3. Distance (with audience? Who reads?)
4. Orthography (irregular spelling system, dictation)
5. Complexity (less redundancy, combining sentences, etc.)
6. Vocabulary (words in context)
7. Formality ( e.g. texting a friend; academic writing)
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15. 1. PERMANENCE
Whatever you can do as a teacher, guide, and facilitator to help your students to revise and
refine their work before final submission will help give them confidence in their work not a
feeling of being hopeless and vulnerable.
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2. PRODUCTION TIME
If you are teaching in an academic context, train your students to make the best possible use of
time limitations. With sufficient training in process writing, combined with practice in display
writing, you can help your students deal with time limitations.

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3. DISTANCE
Writers need to be able to predict the audience’s general knowledge, cultural schemata, specific
subject-matter knowledge. The distance factor might be termed “cognitive” empathy, in good
writers can “read” their own writing from the perspective of the mind of the targeted audience.
4. ORTHOGRAPHY
Oldestain, 2014:
English spelling is thought to be “Irregular”. However, many data-driven studies have shown
English to be more rule governed than we suspect, with a high percentage of predictable
orthography, especially when morphological factors are considered.

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5. COMPLEXITY
6. VOCABULARY
Writers must learn the discourse features of the written L2, how to create syntactic and lexical
variety, how to combine sentences, and more.
Good writers should learn to take advantage of richness added in a wide variety of word choices.
For L2 students the most complex conventions occur in academic writing where students have
to learn how to describe, explain, compare, contrast, illustrate, defend, criticize, and argue , all
within certain prescribed styles.
7. FORMALITY

18. MICRO- AND MACRO-SKILLS FOR WRITING
Micro skills: (support coherence)
1) Produce graphemes and orthographic patterns of English
2) Produce writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose.
3) Produce an acceptable core of words and use appropriate word order pattern.
4) Use acceptable grammatical system, patterns and rules.
5) Express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms.
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19. MACRO SKILLS: (SUPPORT COHESION)
1. Use the rhetorical forms and conventions of written discourse.
2. Accomplish the communicative functions of written texts according to form and purpose.
3. Convey links and connections between events and communicate such relations as main idea,
supporting idea and etc.
4. Correctly convey culturally specific references in the context of the written text.
5. Develop and use of writing strategies such as accurately assessing the audience’s
interpretation, using prewriting devices, using phrases and synonyms, soliciting and peer
instructor feedback, and using feedback for revising and editing.
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20. TYPES OF CLASSROOM WRITING PERFORMANCE
1. Imitative or mechanical writing (p. 438: e.g. dictation)
2. Intensive or controlled (e.g. controlled; guided; dictocomp)
3. Self-writing (e.g. note taking; Diary; dialogue journal)
4. Display writing (e.g. homework)
5. Real writing (academic writing; Vocational / technical writing; Personal writing)
6. Academic writing
7. Vocational/ technical  writing in L2 for advancement of their occupation
8. Personal (letters, diaries, post cards, notes, … all informal writing
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21. IMITATIVE OR MECHANICAL WRITING
1) Recognition techniques: Identification of letters, letter and word matching (Oldshtain, 2014, p.214)
2) Coping (an old-fashioned but effective practice in small doses)_ (Hensher,2013)
3) Sound-spelling practice (matching phonemes to graphemes)_ (Oller & Ziahosseiny, 1970)
4) Dictation (one effective way for practicing sound-spelling correspondences as well as
reinforcing grammatical and discourse features)
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22. PRINCIPLES FOR TEACHING WRITING SKILLS
1. Incorporate practices of good writers: consider various things that efficient writers do (p.
442e.g. Brainstorming, outlining, etc.)
2. Balance process and product: carefully monitor students’ process and final attainment;
3. Account for cultural/literary backgrounds: help them learn English rhetoric conventions
4. Connect reading and writing;
5. Provide as much authentic writing as possible;
6. Frame your techniques in terms of prewriting, drafting, and revising stages;
7. Strive to offer techniques that are as interactive as possible
8. Be a facilitator, not a judge, in responding to students’ writing
9. Clearly instruct students on the rhetorical, formal conventions of writing
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23. 1. INCORPORATE PRACTICES OF GOOD WRITERS
Good writers:
 focus on goal or main idea in writing
 perceptively gauge their audience,
 spend some time (but not too much!) planning to write,
 easily let their first ideas flow onto the paper,
 follow a general organizational plan as they write,
 solicit and utilize feedback on their writing,
 revise their work willingly and efficiently,
 patiently make a many revisions as needed.
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24. CONCLUSION
1. Writing is integrated: We cannot separate linguistic elements such as vocabulary, grammar, or discourse
from writer purposes or rhetorical contexts.
2. Genres are social; they are used purposefully by individuals to get something done – even if that something is
only to attain a good grade in a classroom.
3. Texts from genres vary: the situation and writer’s purposes, in addition to the conventions of the genres,
determine the resulting text. Because the activity systems in which our students find themselves are highly
complex, they need to develop their abilities to be researchers: to use corpus and other research methods to
investigate genres and the activity systems in which they are found. They also need to use both investigation
and critique to examine the visual and auditory influences upon their lives – and the technologies that
influence thought and discourses. We must conclude that our responsibilities as EAP teachers and researchers
are both comprehensive and complex as we attempt to prepare students for the demands of the 21st Century.
(Ferris and Hedgcock 2005: 142)
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25. Most students are visual, analytic learners, probably as a result of the interaction between
teachers, publishers, and text-writers. These actors in education encourage learners who can
focus on chunks of information, who memorize and retrieve consciously, and who are
systematic in their learning.
This influence probably comes from the way subjects, other than language, are taught in
schools, where effort, conformity and application are generously rewarded by teachers.
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