Examines the discourse in an English as a second or other language (ESoL) classroom in a best-case scenario that contrasted dramatically with more typical school settings. Samples student critical turns (SCTs) across a six-week literature-rich science unit. Shows that the teacher played a crucial role in extended dialogue among students.

The article explores the purpose and methods of teaching the personal narrative in foreign language classrooms. Following a cross-cultural comparison of the history, purpose, and form of autobiography in first-language contexts in the United States and Japan; a review of the place of personal narrative in second- and foreign-language compo sition theory and practice; and the results from survey research involving 160 Japanese freshman students about high school writing instruction in English, a rationale and methodology for teaching personal narrative to Japanese college students of English is presented. The five-paragraph, thesis-driven personal essay presented in English as a second language/English as a foreign language textbooks is critiqued, with recommendations for a more organic form synthesizing story and essay, as in Barrington's concept of “scene, summary and musing.” The limitations of peer editing are discussed, and the bundan writing workshop is described as an effective alternative.

Addresses issues of English language anxiety in two settings: English as a second language and mainstream classrooms. Reveals that interaction with Chicano students raised anxiety levels and that such strategies as avoidance were used to reduce anxiety. Concludes with recommendations for teaching and research that recognize the complexity of anxiety for English language learners.

In this examination of Mexican-American bilingual college writers, it is argued that implicit language ideologies, common misconceptions about bidialectalism/bilingualism, and the classroom attitudinal domain subvert the success of ethnolinguistic minority students. The author designed and conducted a randomized language attitude survey (N = 195) of 1st-year composition students on the assumption that language attitudes, reflective of the social/ethnic/linguistic polarization of south Texas, exist inside the English classroom. Findings correlate the multiple ethnolinguistic identities of this student population with language myth adherence. Results reveal the tendency among college writers for subscription to various language myths: dialect misconception, English bias, language purity myth, literacy myth, misconception of oral performance.

L2 writing scholars have recently debated the appropriateness of using cultural constructs to enhance the teaching of English. An important aspect of writing, critical thinking, has received considerable attention. Some have suggested that Asians, including Japanese, do not display critical thought in their writing in English. Other researchers claim that Asians display critical thinking abilities differently than Western learners. In addition, they argue that learners from a particular culture are too diverse to make claims about the whole group's thinking abilities. This study proposes a model for assessing critical thinking in the writing of L2 learners to determine whether content familiarity plays a role in critical thinking. Findings of a study of 45 Japanese undergraduate students indicate that the quality of critical thought depended on the topic content, with a familiar topic generating better critical thinking. Results also suggested that differing assumptions between the L1 and L2 culture may lead to misinterpretations of the critical thinking ability of L2 learners.

Research has shown that contemporary popular films are a valuable resource in the ESL classroom. However, the short, silent film has been overlooked. Using D.W. Griffith’s The Painted Lady, Kaspar and Singer demonstrate how to use silent films to facilitate the development of ESL students’ critical thinking and writing skills.

Teachers and researchers in the field of Technical English have always been concerned with the nature of this subject, its major characteristics, and its chief uses in Science and Technology. Obviously, less time and efforts have been spent on how technical English is learned, particularly in situations where foreign students have to relate their limited linguistic knowledge to meaningful realizations of the language system in technical texts of immediate concern to their specialist studies. This research is an early effort to show how technical English is learned and, more specifically, what relevant factors are involved in the overall learning process.

This study by a philosophy professor and a compositionist focuses on the progress of an ESL student in the philosopher's writing-intensive Intro course. In it, the authors answer calls for examination of instructional supports that help ESL students in their college classes across the curriculum. Their report is divided into three parts. In the first, the philosophy professor explicates his classroom aims and expectations, rooting them in the educational approaches of Dewey, Freire, and Gramsci. In the second, the compositionist offers an account of the ESL pupil's experiences in this philosophy classroom, describing the pedagogies that promote her progress toward achieving the professor's goals. In the final section, the authors, acknowledging the contested nature of “progress” in this context, describe the ideological conflicts behind their different interpretations of the successes and failures of this ESL student.

Presents a semi-annual annotated selected bibliography of recent research in the teaching of English. Offers 45 annotated bibliographies addressing: bilingual/foreign language/second language education; classroom discourse; curriculum; exceptional learners; literacy; professional development; reading; and writing. Notes most entries were published between January and June 2000.

Describes three reading/writing lessons on the topics of linguistics, environmental science, and anthropology used in a discipline-based college-level English as a second language course to illustrate how to use film to teach academic writing skills. Discusses how students analyze a film to help articulate the content of an essay or a book.

Examines the code-switching patterns of a bilingual preschooler involved in English and German shared reading and independent reading. Finds that melodic text reduced code-switching; her view of the task influenced her code-switching; and her code-switching patterns during discussions were similar to talk outside the literacy event. Suggests qualitatively different benefits of highly predictable and literary texts for literacy/language development.

Based on the belief that students produce better writing when they are personally engaged in the writing topic, the University of Arizona’s Composition program is working to integrate service-learning into a variety of the courses it offers. Research to date suggests that composition students and instructors feel a greater sense of purpose and meaning when they believe that their work will have tangible results in the lives of others.

Suggests that beginning writers can improve skills when they exchange letters with peers, teachers, and others. Offers a brief historical perspective on the use of letters as a pedagogical device. Outlines current applications of letter writing and exchanges in: English as a second language; technical and business writing; composition and literature classes; and portfolio reflection letters.

Vivian Cook, University of Essex, advises his fellow EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers to view their students as multicompetent language users rather than as deficient native speakers. The same advice can readily be given to technical writers and editors who may occasionally struggle to adapt the writing of nonnative speaking (NNS) engineers, researchers, and programmers to style book norms. This approach certainly applies to those of us who work with or manage NNS colleagues. Although addressed to language teachers, the author considers how Cook's observations have validity for many workplace interactions in the growing international community.

The issues of authentic context and authoritative ethos are explored through a study of a graduate student learning to write for mathematics within the context of an English for academic purposes (EAP) course. The student faced conflicts about audience, purpose, and content knowledge as she was required to write math texts within what she perceived was an inauthentic context, an English as a second language (ESL) course. She questioned the purpose of the writing tasks as well as why an ESL instructor was teaching her to write for math, and she addressed the conflicts by writing for the instructor's discourse community and expectations, rather than her own, to earn a grade for the course. The text the student created was thus inauthentic within her own discourse community and lacked her voice of authority. These findings question the validity of EAP courses and raise several issues, especially in terms of the transferability of skills from EAP to content courses.

Describes a study unit for ESL (English Second Language) students on language and identity. Explores the dichotomy of attitudes and behavior occurring when a nonnative speaker tries to embrace a new language and culture. Concludes that reading and writing about multicultural literature in the ESL classroom helps students gain language skills and better perspectives on the diversity of American culture.

Reviews five books: Grading in the Post-Process Classroom: From Theory to Practice, ed. by Libby Allison, Lizbeth Bryant, and Maureen Hourigan; Alternatives to Grading Student Writing, ed. by Stephen Tchudi; The Theory and Practice of Grading Writing: Problems and Possibilities, ed. by Frances Zak and Christopher C. Weaver; Teaching ESL Composition: Purpose, Process, and Practice, by Dana Ferris and John S. Hedgcock; “M” Word, by Jane Isenberg.

Argues that the marginality of English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) expatriate teachers exemplifies the postmodern condition affecting society at the end of the millennium. Uses the image of the paladin and its juxtaposition with the conceptual framework of postmodernity to generate new ways of thinking about issues in ESL/EFL teaching.

What is the primary focus of business communication teachers in classrooms in which English is not the native language of students? Do they concentrate on strategies for improved professional and interpersonal communication skills, or do they direct most attention to purely language issues? These questions have become more important because the number of nonnative English students in business communication classrooms in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and so forth is increasing and because English is becoming more important for business and education in many Asian and African countries. This article outlines some of the language-related problems that occur when teaching nonnative speakers business communication and calls for a drive to address the issue of acceptable language usage in this context.

This study examined the problems that four international graduate students of various linguistic and cultural backgrounds encountered in the process of adapting to the requirements of discipline-specific written discourses during their first year of studies in the United States. Qualitative data including participant and faculty interviews, observations, analysis of written samples, and reflective journals kept by the participants were collected. The results of the study suggest that international students, who bring different writing experiences with them to U.S. classrooms, need assistance to adjust more easily to the requirements of the new academic environment. This assistance, however, depends on international students and U.S. faculty alike learning to address explicitly how academic writing conventions differ across cultures.

Reviews five books: Errors and Expectations: A Guide for the Teacher of Basic Writing, by Mina Shaughnessy; Telling Writing, by Ken Macrorie; Writing without Teachers, by Peter Elbow; Structured Reading, by Lynn Quitman Troyka and Joseph W. Thweatt; Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning, by Stephen D. Krashen.

This article examines the strategies used to read science articles written in the IMRD (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion) format. Drawing on the results of a survey conducted at an international conference of science editors, it shows how three reader roles—those of the scientist, editor, and reviewer—influence reading strategies. Overall, respondents were more likely to read in IMRD sequence as editors than as reviewers. When reading for personal gain as scientists, they read strategically, not in IMRD order. Other variables considered were the mother tongues (native English or nonnative English), ages, and scientific backgrounds of readers. Nonnative English speakers tended to focus on news-rich sections, especially when reading as scientists. No evidence was found of an effect of age, but there was some evidence of a difference between readers from the hard sciences and those from the humanities. The findings have implications for our understanding of the function and development of the research article and for teaching scientists how to write for publication.

RHETORICA 338 for most individual readers. I am happy to report that the International Sales Manager of Brill subsequently wrote to me to say that, as a result of my review, the cost of those books was being reduced to 90.00 dollars each. DK is still expensive, but much less so than these others were; and where a bilingual edition is involved, it is understandable that overhead costs would be higher. And, once the purchase is made, the reader may luxuriate in the sumptuous quality of a Brill edition. JOHN T. KIRBY Purdue University Vivian Salmon, Language and Society in Early Modern England (The Netherlands: John Benjamins, 1996) 276 pp. The twelve essays reprinted in this collection demonstrate a variety of approaches to, and treatments of, the topics of language and society in Early Modern England. The subjects range from language concerns of the sixteenth-century England, to the development of female rhetoric by figures such as Bathsua Makin, to the discussion of the actual use of language in a specific socio­ political context, such as the early Anglican church. Although Salmon writes from a linguist's perspective, her well-researched material allows the reader to place rhetoric within a broader context. Her descriptions of historical figures and their contributions are well defined, especially in relation to their connections to logic, rhetoric, and grammar. She includes social, historical, religious, and political details that influenced linguistics and rhetoric. Her theory is balanced nicely with concrete examples, such as enhancing foreign language instruction by the rhetorical considerations of gesture and tone. Salmon looks at the connection between pronunciation and rhetoric, claiming that "sounds changed in accordance with certain figures of rhetoric, for example, prosthesis, apharaesis, epenthesis, and syncope" (p. 8). Other figures, she notes, cautiously retain the classification of sound changes by reference Reviews 339 to rhetorical figures" (p. 8). She also examines challenging issues in translating the Bible, teaching the native tongue to foreigners, and finding the Adamic language. In chapter one Salmon emphasizes the rhetorical elements of syntax. She discusses the seventeenth-century belief that meaning is a nonverbal concept in the mind. Some elements of that concept might remain unexpressed in speech, or even actively "suppressed". Priscian used the term "subaudiri" to refer to sentence elements that are "understood" but not spoken; Salmon notes that traditional rhetoric came to terms with this view by distinguishing between simple and rhetorical syntax, a distinction that was familiar to seventeenth-century scholarship (p. 17). Salmon traces this rhetorical concern with syntax through Gill, Wilkins, Linacre, Sanctius, Lancelot, Cooper, Lane, and Harris. Salmon spends several chapters focusing on the power of words. Chapter three is constructed on three main points: the natural or conventional origin of words (Platonic/Aristolian debate, Socrates, and Hermogenes); the status and power of words; and the meaning of translation, especially when translating the Holy Scriptures. Chapter four talks about language properly to be employed in the liturgy and sacred books of the church. More specifically, Salmon mentions the developments of two kinds of sermons: the "typical Protestant type of Hugh Latimer and Laurence Chaderton that was plain and colloquial" (. 94); the other type was "typical of High Church divines influenced by the rhetorical style of much of sixteenth-century poetry and prose, and in the seventeenth century in the witty and metaphysical style of John Donne, directed at more sophisticated hearers" (pp. 94-95). In chapter five Salmon notes that some seventeenth-century authors like Wilkins argued for a plain writing style because congregations had difficulty understanding the highly rhetorical style adopted by Anglican preachers in the later sixteenth century (p. 103). Bedell was also convinced that his Protestant congregation got lost in the incomprehensible vernacular and the use of rhetorical and ambiguous language (p. 101). Of significance to rhetoricians is chapter six, "Wh- and Yes/No Questions: Charles Butler's Grammar (1633)". Butler's work influenced eighteenth-century rhetorical grammarians like 340 RHETORICA John Walker (1785) who in turn influenced the training of elocutionists. Salmon observes that previous grammarians placed "question" in a section on syntax, but that Butler was the first scholar to place "question" in a chapter on punctuation where he looked at "tone...

Although the number of nonnative speakers of English in U.S. institutions of higher education has been increasing continuously during the last four decades, the development of composition studies does not seem to reflect this trend.

Describes an instructional model that develops English-as-a-Second-Language students’ linguistic and academic skills through extended study of discipline-based content presented through multimedia. Illustrates the approach via a sample lesson from a unit on environmental science. Discusses the use of focus-discipline groups that research class topics. Notes positive student achievement and feedback.

Offers a 30-year retrospective on the evolution of a researcher and of the field of English teaching. Discusses the tradition of scholarship that seeks to ground its approaches to teaching and learning in the best of their understandings of language use and language learning, drawing broadly on rhetoric, linguistics, sociology, literary criticism, cognitive science, and anthropology.

Presents a 43-item selected annotated bibliography of recent research in the teaching of English published, generally, between July through December, 1998. Divides entries into sections on assessment; bilingual/foreign-language education; media, society, and literacy; reading; research methodology; teaching and learning of literature; technology and literacy; and writing.

Investigates English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students’ native literacy-learning experiences, via written learning autobiographies of 26 students from at least eight different countries. Discusses writing instruction in students’ native languages; most satisfying writing assessment in their native languages; and differences between writing in their native language and English. Draws five conclusions for ESL instruction.

The cultural informant role as sketched by Judith Powers, in her article “Rethinking Writing Center Conferencing Strategies for the ESL Writer,” was warmly received in our writing center when I introduced it shortly after her article appeared in 1993. With ESL students comprising a steady 30% to 40% of our clients, we had had plenty of experience with feeling not only the inadequacy of nondirective tutoring for meeting the needs of non-native writers but also the uneasiness of sessions that strayed from that approach, by then synonymous with effective one-toone work (Brooks 1; Ashton-Jones 31-33; Shamoon and Burns 135-36). The cultural informant role endorsed by Powers gives writing center tutors flexibility for meeting specific needs of ESL students not met by the nondirective writing center ideal. With their many cultural, rhetorical, and linguistic differences, ESL students often lack the knowledge to engage in the question-and-answer approach to problem-solving used in most writing centers (Powers 40-41). And the read-aloud method for discovering sentence-level errors, frequently productive for native speakers, provides little help to ESL students who lack the ear to hear their own errors (Powers 41-42). The value of the cultural informant role, then, is that it validates sharing information about English that these students have no way of knowing on their own. Yet after several semesters of basking in this more flexible approach, many of us on the staff, including graduate assistants in both English and Linguistics as well as practicum students, began to feel that too often this role, at least when sentence-level errors were concerned, tended to translate into the tutor editing and the student observing. Katherine Purcell, in her recent article “Making Sense of Meaning: ESL 6 The Writing Center Journal

Examines the author’s daughter’s experiences of being socialized into the language of Iceland through the eight-year-old’s immersion in Icelandic culture. Shows how play-based activities with native-speaking peers was critical to her language and literacy development. Argues that authentic activity in social life is the key to learning literacy concepts.

Studies the moral dimension of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teaching to adults. Analyzes examples of classroom interaction to reveal the moral substrate of the teacher’s words and actions. Finds that various features of classroom routines and impromptu exchanges have profound moral significance. Suggests that the moral meanings present in classroom discourse cannot be reduced to simple judgments of right versus wrong.

Presents a 48-item selected annotated bibliography of recent research in the teaching of English (most published in scholarly journals between July and December, 1997). Organizes the annotations into sections on assessment; bilingual education and foreign language education; discourse processes; family/workplace literacy; professional development; reading; research methodology; teaching and learning of literature; technology and literacy; and writing.

This book undertakes a general framework within which to consider the complex nature of the writing task in English, both as a first, and as a second language. The volume explores varieties of writing, different purposes for learning to write extended text, and cross-cultural variation among second-language writers.The volume overviews textlinguistic research, explores process approaches to writing, discusses writing for professional purposes, and contrastive rhetoric. It proposes a model for text construction as well as a framework for a more general theory of writing. Later chapters, organised around seventy-five themes for writing instruction are devoted to the teaching of writing at the beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels. Writing assessment and other means for responding to writing are also discussed.William Grabe and Robert Kaplan summarise various theoretical strands that have been recently explored by applied linguists and other writing researchers, and draw these strands together into a coherent overview of the nature of written text. Finally they suggest methods for the teaching of writing consistent with the nature, processes and social context of writing.

Technical writers and editors assume that readers are generally helped when nominalizations and the weak verbs that accompany them are replaced with the verb form of the nominalization. The study discussed here tests that assumption. Specifically, the study assessed the effect of nominalizations, nominalization imageability, and idea importance on readers' recall of technical prose. The results indicate that denominalized text is most effective in helping native speakers focus on more important information. Yet for non-native speakers, nominalized text may work quite well. Conclusions and recommendations for further study are offered.

Argues that a process-oriented nonjudgmental instructional approach can help English-as-a-Second-Language community college students become better writers. Discusses the principle of nonjudgmental awareness and its rationale, and describes five pedagogical techniques used in a nonjudgmental writing class.

Describes an English-as-a-Second-Language class writing and discussion project in which students retold and explained their favorite folk stories, eventually publishing them in a booklet.

1. Background to second language acquisition research and language teaching 2. Learning and teaching different types of grammar 3. Learning and teaching vocabulary 4. Acquiring and teaching pronunciation 5. Acquiring and teaching a new writing system 6. Strategies for communicating and learning 7. Listening and reading processes 8. Individual difference in L2 users and L2 learners 9. Classroom interaction and Conversation Analysis 10. The L2 user and the native speaker 11. The goals of language teaching 12. General models of L2 learning 13. Second language learning and language teaching styles

Although the writing needs of English as a Second Language (ESL) students in U.S. higher education have been increasing as the number of ESL students continues to rise, institutional practices that are responsive to the unique needs of ESL writers are yet to be developed. The relative lack of attention to ESL issues in writing programs may be related to how the field of ESL writing has been defined in relation to its related disciplines: Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) and composition studies. This study attempts to construct a view of the field that meets the needs of ESL writers. For this purpose, I present three models of ESL writing in relation to TESL and composition studies and discuss their implications.

Presents a selected bibliography of recent research in the teaching of English. Subdivides the 51 items into sections on assessment, bilingual and foreign language education, discourse processes, family/workplace literacy, professional development, reading, research methodology, teaching and learning of literature, technology and literacy, and writing.

This article compares essays written in Spanish and English by bilingual writers whose prior formal academic writing instruction has been only in English. The authors describe both writers' discourse-organizational and clause-combining strategies, showing that one writer's organizational structure reflects explicit planning, whereas the other employs a more emergent organizational structure for her essays. In each case, these choices are the same for Spanish and English. Analyzing these writers' clause-combining strategies demonstrates that organizational structure at the discourse level is reflected in the types of clause combinations chosen by the writers at the sentence level, with one writer using more simple sentences and embedded clauses and the other using more hypotactic and paratactic clause combinations. The article demonstrates how clauses constitute and reflect the structure of texts and suggests that development of a repertoire of styles and discourse strategies depends on control of a variety of syntactic options.

As most rhetoric teachers know from experience, arguments about controversial issues slide easily into disputes with an ethical edge. In Writing Arguments, John Ramage and John Bean note that the line between ethical arguments ... and other kinds of disputes is often pretty thin. Even issues that seem involve straight-forward practical values, Ramage and Bean explain, turn out have an ethical (352). And the ethical dimension is especially strong in controversies that involve not simply disagreements but deep conflicts, such as the kinds of topics that are found in many controversy-oriented anthologies. For example, Robert Miller's The Informed Argument (4th ed.) has units on gun control, AIDS in the workplace, sexual harassment, immigration policies, culture and curriculum, and freedom of expression. Thayle Anderson and Kent Forrester's Point Counterpoint (2nd ed.) includes units on the wilderness, funeral practices, advertising, sex differences, bilingual education, obscenity, and the internment of Japanese residents during World War II. These kinds of topics involve serious disputes about what practices we should permit, whose rights we should protect, which are most important, which policies are fairest, etc. Recognizing that controversial issues often invite ethical arguments, some textbook authors have begun discuss principles of moral philosophy and methods from applied ethics, specifically as a way for students tackle disputes with an ethical edge. For example, Ramage and Bean include a section titled An Overview of Major Ethical Systems, in which the authors present the Utilitarian focus on consequences, the Kantian ethic of principles, and finally a comparison and integration of these approaches. The reason for knowing about these different ethical systems is that they provide strategies for examining controversial issues, such as capital punishment. In another textbook-the fifth edition of Writing and Reading Across the CurriculumLaurence Behrens and Leonard Rosen include a unit on Business Ethics, including essays that discuss moral theory as well as some cases for analysis. As stated in the Instructor's Manual for the text, the authors included this unit in order to introduce freshmen the subject of ethics . . . offer models for making ethical decisions; provide cases upon which students can test those models; and raise difficult, debatable questions about values (71).

In this article we (a) argue that mainstream composition studies is at present too narrow in its scope and limited in its perspective and (b) offer some thoughts, from our unique interdisciplinary position, that we feel could help mainstream composition professionals improve this situation. In our article, we first provide evidence that we feel suggests an unfortunate pattern of neglect in mainstream composition studies of writing in English as a second language (ESL) and writing in languages other than English. We then introduce a number of concepts from second language studies (primarily from second language acquisition and second language writing instruction) that we believe could help mainstream composition studies address its limitations; develop a more global and inclusive understanding of writing; and thus avoid being seen as a monolinguistic, monocultural, and ethnocentric enterprise.

Presents a selective list of recent research studies in the teaching of English. States that most appeared during the six-month period preceding the compilation of the bibliography (July through December 1996). Contains 57 items divided into sections on bilingual education, cultural studies, literacy studies, literature, professional development, research methodology, and writing.

Abstract As publishers integrate international issues into professional writing textbooks, we must analyze how curricular globalization is presented to students. Textbooks examined here position international students as clients, consumers, and exotics who present barriers to effective communication. Furthermore, most of the textbooks contain catalogs of decontextualized cultural factoids rather than strategies for identifying and understanding cultural differences. To expand our notion of international issues, we might consider reading relevant English as a Second Language scholarship for insights. A limited annotated bibliography concludes this article.