Second Language Writing Second Edition Ken Hyland University of East Anglia CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESSSecond Language Writers and Teaching Contexts AIMS This chapter focuses on the main distinctions between second and first language writers and the key aspects of teaching contexts. The purpose is to highlight some of the areas of similarity and difference in both learners and the situations in which they learn. 2.1 What is a Second Language Writer? The theories of writing instruction discussed in the last chapter largely emerged from studies of first language writers. However, while there are important simi- larities between L1 and L2 writing, both teachers’ intuitions and empirical stud- ies suggest that there are also significant differences. What mainly distinguishes them is the background experiences that writers bring with them to class. But while I will discuss some of these in this chapter, we shouldn’t make the mistake of lumping all L2 writers together. Certainly, the term ‘second language writing’ implies a dichotomous framing which opposes first and second language writers and treats the ways L2 speakers write, and learn to write, as more or less similar. This is reassuring in some ways, providing teachers with the sense that they are dealing with a single manageable group, but it is also misleading. Some 1.5 billion people are currently learning English worldwide (TESOL, 2014) and while second language writers are individuals who are writing in a language which is not their native tongue, this is a massively diverse group. The differences between these writers are certainly greater than what makes them similar. They come from different educational backgrounds and from cul- tures with different writing systems; they use English in countries where the L2 has different statuses; they bring different prior learning experiences with them; they have diverse proficiencies, motivations, expectations and target needs; and their disciplines, genders, ages and social classes ensure a rich diversity of back- grounds and understandings. No two learners are the same and their different learning backgrounds and personalities will influence how quickly, and how well,30 2 Second Language Writers and Teaching Contexts they learn to write in a second language. The term ‘Second Language Writer’ smooths out these differences, homogenising writers and defining them in terms of perhaps the only thing they have in common: that they have, for one reason or another, to write in another language. Obviously, a person’s goals, attitudes and abilities are likely to be crucial factors in their successful acquisition of writing skills in an L2 but labelling does have its advantages and the concept of SLW helps us to more clearly see what makes this group of writers similar, It also reminds us that we have to adjust our teaching to recognise that these writers have different attitudes to learning and differ in some of their culturally influenced rhetorical practices which show up in preferences for particular ways of organising texts. Some years ago, for example, Silva (1993: 669) surveyed the literature comparing L1 and L2 writers and concluded that ‘L2 writing is strategically, rhetorically and linguistically different in important ways from L1 writing’. These included: * different linguistic proficiencies and intuitions about language; * different learning experiences and classroom expectations; * different sense of audience and writer; * different preferences for ways of organising texts; * different writing processes; © different understandings of text uses and the social value of different text types. REFLECTION 2.1 From your experience as a teacher of student, what do you think are the main similarities and differences between writing in an L1 and an L2? What information about the students and the context would it be useful to have in preparing a writing course for L2 students? In sum, the special status of our students as L2 writers has much to do with the fact that they draw on bicultural and bilingual understandings, bringing language and cultural experiences to the classroom that are often distinct from L1 writers. An understanding of these factors can help us to become better teachers. In the following sections I discuss some of the main potential differences, looking first at writer differences and then at the influence of cultural factors. 2.2 Potential L1 and L2 Writer Differences 2.2.1 Language Proficiency and Intuitions The most immediately obvious difference is that second language writers often have greater difficulties in adequately expressing themselves in English and one reason for this is that they typically have a different linguistic knowledge base 2.2 Potential L1 and L2 Writer Differences from native English speakers. So while most of us have a vocabulary of several thousand words and an intuitive ability to handle the grammar of the language when we begin to write in our L1, L2 writers often carry the burden of learning to write and learning English at the same time. Largely because of this devel- opmental aspect of language learning, research frequently finds texts written by L2 students to be less effective than those of their native English-speaking peers (Silva, 1997). Such formal differences in L1 and L2 student texts include less sub- ordination, more conjunction, less passivisation, less noun modification, repeated use of more commonly used vocabulary items, narrower vocabulary range, repet- itive grammatical structures and so on (Connor et al., 2008; Hinkel, 2005, 2011; Hedgcock, 2012) Students themselves commonly identify language difficulties, particularly an inadequate grasp of vocabulary or grammar, as their main problems with writ- ing and frequently express their frustrations at being unable to convey their ideas in appropriate and correct English. These quotes from students taking a writing course for pre-university and pre-graduate courses in New Zealand are typical. They feel they have good ideas, but lack the language to convey them in English: I have some ideas and | can’t, | can make it in my language or in my opinions, sometimes it’s English, but | can’t write down correctly. Ah, my essay always don’t be academic. It just tend to write personal writing always. Or my ideas don’t stay one point always. Still quite unskilful and what | want to say isn’t expressed, isn’t explained in my essay. (Maho, Japanese student) | will never reach the advanced stage because another language is not my own language ... and it takes a long time to know when you describe something you have to choose another word, not just by some simple words. If | have a good idea but | cannot write down my idea and | cannot graduate. (Liang, Taiwanese student) Right at first | tell you this is what | think in my language and I write in English and native speaker who use English fluently will not understand. But if | give this to my Thai friends to read, they will understand and admire every time . In my mind I can think more than I can write. | cannot find the suitable word. | just use simple words and not the ones that show the deep meaning. (Samorn, Thai student) This is not, of course, to suggest that L2 speakers are inevitably handicapped as writers. Many adult learners are successful writers in their first language and are able to bring sophisticated cognitive abilities and metacognitive strategies to the task of writing. The majority of journal articles are written by academics writing in a language that is not their mother tongue and which they often find easier than writing in their first language (Hyland, 2016c).But proficiency in an 1.1 may not necessarily be an advantage. Put simply, linguistic and rhetorical conventions 3132 2 Second Language Writers and Teaching Contexts do not always transfer successfully across languages and may actually interfere with writing in the L2 (Connor, 1996). This comment from a successful Japanese student articulates some of the consequences of these language and strategy differences: In the beginning | had a very difficult time making myself understood in writing. My sentences tended to be short and direct translation of Japanese sentences. | didn’t know that | was supposed to be logical or linear in thinking and choose a position in writing an opinion paper. So | often contradicted myself within a paragraph because | was not sure myself if | would support one position or another. | was merely presenting the flow of my thoughts. The sentences | wrote that seemed very explicit to me were not explicit enough for professors. (Yoshiki Chikuma, in Silva and Reichelt, 2003) It is uncertain what aspects of literacy transfer over from a learner's first lan- guage and we should not jump to conclusions and attribute all differences we see ina text to proficiency. But while the impact of the first language on second lan- guage writing will obviously vary, it can make a difference. In some cases, students will be able to draw on an L1 which is similar to the L2, with a common ancestry and a long history of contact, but in others the orthography of the writing system itself may pose a considerable barrier (think of Chinese or Arab students). On the other hand, strategies may transfer to the L2 context in a way which facilitates the learner's development. While there is no shortage of studies into the possible role LI plays during writing in L2, results are inconclusive. This lack of certainty is not due to insufficient research. Studies have found that adult writers use their L1 while writing in their L2 for purposes such as plan- ning (e.g. Beare, 2000; Woodall, 2002), generating ideas or content (c.g. Beare and Bourdages, 2007; Knutson, 2006), vocabulary choice (Wang, 2003) and writing style (Knutson, 2006) as well as to prevent cognitive overload (Knutson, 2006; Woodall, 2002). The use of Li as a strategy by L2 writers, mainly through trans- lation, seems to hold for learners irrespective of writing expertise or proficiency (Cumming, 1989; Sasaki, 2002). The small samples and different goals of these studies, however, have produced conflicting results. The general finding appears to be that the use of the L1 during L2 writing can be beneficial, but not in all situ- ations and not for all writers. L2 proficiency seems to be directly related to L2 text quality (Cohen and Brooks-Carson, 2001; Knutson, 2006; Van Wijen et al., 2009) but the type of task the students are asked to do, their topic knowledge and the extent to which the languages are related all make a difference. All in all, L2 proficiency, and writing experience, count when it comes to produc- ing effective texts, emphasising the importance of attending to students as individual when learning to write. But while students are likely to look to their L1 when trying to plan and write in their L2, this impacts not only the grammar and vocabulary of their texts but also the structure of what they write and perhaps how they learn. 2.2 Potential L1 and L2 Writer Differences REFLECTION 2.2 Do you agree that difficulties with grammar and vocabulary are likely to cause students the most problems when writing in English? If not, what do you think are the biggest challenges facing L2 students when writing in English? What do you think writing teachers can best do to help? 2.2.2 Writer Identities Another important factor to consider in learner differences is how the writing class- room reflects and constructs conceptions of identity. According to Ivanic (1998), writ- ing is an act of identity in which people align themselves with socio-culturally shaped positions, either reproducing or challenging dominant practices and discourses, and the values, beliefs and interests which underlie them. This is how she puts it: All our writing is influenced by our life histories. Each word we write represents an encounter, possibly a struggle, between our multiple past experience and the demands of a new context. Writing is not some neutral activity which we just learn like a physical skill, but it implicates every fibre of the writer’s multifaceted being. (Ivanic, 1998: 181) Such a view emerges from the fact that writing, and learning to write, are not merely cognitive activities but social practices involving interactions with others and the fact that we present ourselves to them in certain ways. Identity encompasses many aspects of writing, including the slippery idea of ‘voice’, a culturally based concept discussed more below, but it is now widely seen as a performance created through participation in social life. It does not exist within ourselves but between people, within social relations (Hyland, 2012). When writing we put on an identity, a particular way of acting, interacting, thinking and valuing that has meaning for readers in a given context so what we write for our friends or professionally presents us in different ways. Identity thus involves proximity: it depends on identification with something as we draw on a valued com- munity schema which both shapes and enables particular ‘speaking positions’ and disables others (Baynham, 2006). At the same time, these broad templates for how we write are also resources to present our own perspectives, our positioning towards what we are writing about (Hyland, 2012). For Ivanic (1998) there are three aspects of writer identity: ‘Autobiographical self’ is the writer's sense of their roots and dispositions to behave in certain ways. 2. ‘Discoursal self’is the impression a writer consciously or unconsciously conveys of themselves in a text, relating to values, beliefs and power relations in the context. 3. ‘Self as author’ concerns the writer's position, opinions and beliefs. 332 Second Language Writers and Teaching Contexts This way of thinking about identity is particularly useful when considering writ- ing at university since a possible reason students find academic writing difficult is that they may feel uncomfortable with the ‘me’ they are presenting in their writ- ing. They are unsure how far they can claim authority as the source of the ideas and establish an authorial presence in their writing. In the writing classroom, Park (2011, 2013) has used this model both to help adult learners develop their writing fluency and to view writing as a way to under- stand who they are as English language learners and users. Through a ‘Cultural and Linguistic Autobiography (CLA) project’ she used the concept of writer iden- tity (ie. autobiographical self, discoursal self and self as author) through writ- ing prompts that highlighted the students’ pasts in their native countries, their present in the United States as newcomers and their future educational and pro- fessional goals in the United States. This helped the students to understand them- selves and their goals while they developed writing skills, helping them to value writing as a method of inquiry into their own lives and writing. Thus one Korean student wrote: had forgotten my aim before | came here, because it was difficult for me to adapt to this country. | had a lot of time to think about me and my aim. | was reminded of my will of my aim through | write my biography. I'm very happy because | have biography of English, that | wrote myself, even though it’s not perfect. It was very good time that | could think about me. (Park, 2013: 342) REFLECTION 2.3 Park suggests prompts such as ‘Write about a specific childhood experience of learning English’ and ‘What are some of your short-term goals in learning to (write) English’. What other themes or topics might help students to connect their identities to their roots, societal level discourses and academic experiences? 2.2.3 Learner Identities ‘The importance of identity has not only been recognised in terms of writing itself, but the classroom practices which surround writing and the value it has for learners. Not long ago, cognitive and psychological theories dominated under- standings of how languages are learnt, and theories of the good language learner interpreted individuals as having an essential, unique, fixed and coherent core. Learners were often defined in terms of oppositions: motivated or unmotivated, introverted or extroverted, inhibited or uninhibited, without reference to the con- text or their goals. Now learner identities are more likely to be seen as multiple, 2.3 Potential Cultural Differences changing and shaped by their immediate conditions, experiences and imagined futures (Norton, 2013). Dérnyei’s (2009) L2 Motivational Self System has been important here. While drawing on psychological theories of motivation, he uses the idea of ‘possible selves’, or the visions people hold of themselves in the future, to suggest what prompts them to take action in the present. These hypothetical selves influence behaviour by guiding the individual towards attaining or avoiding the imagined future scenario. At the centre of the model is the Ideal L2 Self, which reflects a learn- er’s aspirations associated with the L2, such as career goals. It is the language user the learner would like to become. In contrast, the Ought-to L2 Self embodies lan- guage-related obligations, including motives like tests or parents’ requirements. It is what learners feel they should become. The third facet of the model, the L2 Learning Experience, concerns the influence of prior learning history and the current learning environment, including input from teachers and curriculum. Based on this frame- work, a student's effort and persistence can be explained by his or her desire to narrow the gap between their current self and their Ideal or Ought-to L2 Self. Based on research with learners in South Africa, Canada, Pakistan and Uganda, Norton (2016) uses the term ‘investment’ rather than ‘motivation’ to highlight the socially constructed relationship of learners to the target language and their sometimes ambivalent desire to learn and practise it. She notes that ‘if learners ‘invest’ in the target language, they do so with the understanding that they will acquire a wider range of symbolic resources (language, education, friendship) and material resources (capital goods, real estate, money) which will increase the value of their cultural capital and social power’ (Norton, 201. ‘motivated to learn a language, but may not necessarily be invested in the practices of a given classroom if, for example, these practices are racist or sexist. It appears that language learner investment is important for learning and that investment is enhanced when teaching practices increase the range of identities and audiences available to language learners, whether face-to-face, digital or online (De Costa and Norton, 2016).This research encourages teachers to try to use the competen- cies, both social and linguistic, that learners already possess and to better under- stand their hopes for the future. ). So learners can be 2.3 Potential Cultural Differences Culture is a key dimension of L1 and L2 writer differences that can potentially influence every aspect of teaching and learning. Cultural factors help shape stu- dents’ background understandings, what linguists call ‘schema knowledge’, and are likely to have a considerable impact on how they write, their responses to classroom contexts, and their writing performance. Culture is generally under stood as a historically transmitted and systematic network of meanings which36 2 Second Language Writers and Teaching Contexts allow us to understand, develop and communicate our knowledge and beliefs about the world (Lantolf, 1999). This means that language and learning are inex- tricably bound up with culture (Kramsch, 1993). This is partly because our cultural values are reflected in and carried through language, so we use language to create and refer to common experiences, for example. But it is also because cultures make available to us certain taken-for-granted ways of organising our perceptions and expectations, including those we use to learn and communicate in writing ‘Once again, we cannot lump all Chinese or all Iranian or all Brazilian students together as undifferentiated groups. Students have individual identities beyond the language and culture they were born into and we should avoid the tendency to stereotype individuals according to crude cultural dichotomies (e.g. ‘Students from X are not motivated’ or ‘Students from Y are always too personal in their writing’). Seeing cultures as static and homogeneous in this way risks taking a deterministic stance and a deficit orientation as to what students can achieve. But while cultural norms are not decisive, research shows that differences in expec tations, strategies and beliefs makes intercultural contacts highly susceptible to miscommunication. L2 writers seem to have greater difficulties in incorporating source materials through summarising and paraphrasing, sequencing material and constructing arguments, anticipating what readers expect in a text and the extent they need information spelt out or not (Mur-Dunas, 2008; You, 2013; Belcher and Nelson, 2013). So, features in our students’ essays may be evidence of different understandings, rather than of individual inability. REFLECTION 2.4 In what ways are cultural factors likely to influence how students write and learn to write? 2. 1 Conceptions of Knowledge and Writing One way in which different cultural schemata can influence L2 writers is through the conceptions of knowledge and writing that they make available, and neither teachers nor students may realise they are standing on different ground. Because teachers rarely think to spell out the basic ideas that underlie their expectations and judgements, these may be opaque to students, with serious consequences for how they find their writing performance evaluated. It is important to bear in mind, then, that educational practices are shaped by the cultures in which they operate. The attitudes, approaches and strategies we encourage and reward in our classes might therefore contrast and even conflict with those which are known and valued by our students. 2.3 Potential Cultural This kind of hidden ‘cultural curriculum’ can be found in the culturally diver- gent attitudes to knowledge which can seriously interfere in our assessment of 2 students’ writing. One obvious influence of cultural schemata is the way in which these attitudes spread along a continuum from respecting existing knowl- edge to valuing its extension. In Western contexts classrooms reinforce an ana- lytical, questioning and evaluative stance to knowledge, encouraging students to criticise and recombine existing sources to dispute traditional wisdom and form their own points of view. In writing classes students are often asked to analyse problems, reflect on arguments, and rework their ideas through recursive redraft- ing. Thus, as we saw above, Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987) characterise mature writing as ‘knowledge transforming’, where writers actively seek to elaborate and refine available knowledge. Many Asian cultures, however, hold a very different perspective which favours conserving and reproducing existing knowledge, establishing reverence for what is known through strategies such as memorisation and imitation. Both these strategies demonstrate respect for knowledge, but may look like reproducing oth- ers’ ideas to the writing teacher. In Bereiter and Scardamalia’s terms it is simply “knowledge telling’ which represents immature writing, where the writer’s goal is simply to say what he or she can remember based on the assignment, the topic or the genre. So by ignoring cultural considerations, teachers may see this as pla- giarism or repetition, and be misled into recasting such respect for knowledge as immature writing. Figure 2.1 summarises some of the implications of these distinctions. Figure 2.1 Attitudes to knowledge and learning (from Ballard and Clanchy, 1991: 22) Attitude t0| Knowledge Conserving <> Extending Learning reproductive <———> analytical <> speculative ‘Approach (telling) | (transforming) Leaming Type ‘memorisation critical thinking search for new Strategy imitation explanations Activities summarising questioning, judging ——speculating describing and recombining hhypothesising Identifying and ideas and information applying formulae into an argument and information Questions — what? Why? How? How valid? What if? How important? Aim ‘correctness’ ‘simple’ originality, ‘creative’ reshaping material originality, new into different patterns approach’ knowledge 372 Second Language Writers and Teaching Contexts REFLECTION 2.5 Look at the activities associated with the different approaches to learning listed in Figure 2.1. Think of a writing task that would encourage students to engage in an analytical and a speculative approach to learning. 2.3.2. Expectations about Teaching and Learning Cultural variations in assumptions about the nature of knowledge and writing are not the only differences between writing in a first and second language. Culture also intrudes into classrooms through the expectations that students may have about the writing tasks they are given. One currently influential theory of learning emphasises the idea of ‘situated cognition’ (Lave and Wenger, 1991), which holds that the setting and the activity of learning are inseparable from learning itself. In this sense L2 writing instruction should be seen as an expression of culture. Moreover, because educational contexts around the world are very diverse, we should also anticipate that students’ previous learning experiences may not have adequately prepared them for the kinds of tasks and assignments they encounter when learning to write in our classrooms. Time, topic and language, for instance, may be important, as Leki and Carson's (1997) ESL students mentioned: Time is the problem. Each time | write a paper in English | have to spend a lot of time to organise. So if you give me just a limited time, | cannot do very well. There are sometimes subjects you never think to write about those. For example, they say write about a custom or an important value. | never thought about writing about them. My principal objective in my English class is my grammar, not the idea, because sometimes the idea ... | made [up] the idea, Perhaps the most obvious issue, however, is the fact that writing topics are poten- tially culture sensitive and may be inappropriate for some groups. All cultures attri ute different meanings to events and human relationships and these cultural frames influence what we find comfortable to write about. Religion, politics, status, death and sex can be taboo topics, while the fact that ‘privacy’ is not a universal concept means that writing about personal or family issues may seem intrusive to some learners. Similarly, not all writers will be happy to take a critical or combative stance towards an assigned topic or to commit themselves to a position. While questions of topic can be solved with a sensitive approach, teachers need to be aware that writers from other cultures may apply different standards to what is addressable in writing. Teachers also need to be alert to the fact that some L1 teaching techniques may conflict with students’ expectations. One potential problem area is that of feed- back preferences. Many writing teachers, influenced by cognitivist and expressiv- ist ideas in L1 classrooms, stress the expression of meaning in their teaching and 2.3 Potential Cultural Differences tend to respond to the content of their L2 students’ essays in their feedback. But what they are writing about is often of little concern to many students who come from traditional product-centred classrooms focusing on accuracy. As a result, stu- dents often put a high premium on feedback which addresses the mechanics and grammar of their texts. In Hong Kong secondary schools for example, students expect their English teachers to correct every grammatical error they make in their essays. These different experiences may create disparities between preferred teacher and student practices. REFLECTION 2.6 Are there any topics that you might feel uncomfortable to write about in a classroom context? List some and consider why these are sensitive to you. Another potential problem area is that of peer review. Many teachers now ask students to respond to the texts of their peers, a practice seen as beneficial in L2 writing instruction as novice learners are able to support each other's writing and learn from each other (e.g. Villamil and de Guerrero, 2019; Teo, 2006). Peer review may also have a positive effect on student autonomy and encourage crit- ical thinking as the student needs to consider the advice from a peer more care- fully than that of a teacher (Berg, 1999). But while this may help some learners to develop better revision strategies and envisage their audience more effectively, peer response has been criticised as culturally inappropriate for learners from more collectivist cultures. Thus for the Chinese students in Carson and Nelson’s (1996) study, the primary goal in such groups was social ~ to maintain group har- mony ~ and this led them to avoid criticism of peers’ work and to avoid engaging in a dialogue about the comments on their writing. As a result, Chinese learners of English make more corrections based on teacher feedback than they do on peer feedback (Connor and Asenavage, 1994). These comments, from a German and a Hong Kong learner seem to reinforce these concerns: | want some comments and | asked ZC. Well, he said ‘it’s all right’. Nothing important, nothing useful. Maybe he didn’t like to comment. Especially for Chinese, for Chinese people you know they seldom comment on some other people’s work. | think it is not good. The conference is not so useful because our group members just give good comments. We just say the essay is OK. Perhaps suggest a small change sometimes, especially grammar mistake. We don’t usually make a criticism to ‘our classmate. While such cultural strategies may encourage a positive group climate and avoid threatening the ‘face’ of its members, they may be less effective in fostering a 392 Second Language Writers and Teaching Contexts critical appreciation of texts or developing writing skills. But Miao (2006) found that peer feedback led to more revisions involving meanings among L2 students whereas teacher feedback revisions are more likely to lead to surface-level changes. Clearly differing expectations regarding the value of peer comments and appropri- ate interactions mean there are challenges in using peer reviews in cross-cultural settings. But the advantages of peer feedback greatly outweigh the drawbacks so that some training and a simple peer review sheet can prompt fruitful discussion and help avoid face-risking situations (see section 7.4 for a fuller discussion). REFLECTION 2.7 Imagine you are using peer-response methods with a group of students from a range of cultures. How would you introduce the idea of peer response to them and how would you encourage them to share their writing and respond to their peers’ work? 2.3.3 Attitudes to Voice and ‘Textual Borrowing’ ‘Two important aspects of cultural attitudes to writing are the notions of voice and ‘textual borrowing” (see section 6.5.5). In the Western classroom, ‘good writing’ is generally seen to involve the writer's individual creativity and critical thinking, and teachers frequently see their role as helping to develop these skills in their students, They want learners to voice their judgements, display their knowledge and give their opinions, all essentially individualistic concepts which can create problems for writers from more collectivist or interdependently oriented cultures (Ramanathan and Atkinson, 1999). In these cultures, students are typically ori- ented by their education and experiences to group membership and to age and gender roles rather than to individual status (e.g. Gorodnichenko and Roland, 2012). Thus writing is done less to express oneself than to pass on the knowledge cone has received. The absence of a personal voice is largely irrelevant as the stu- dent does not presume to improve on acknowledged truths but to communicate what is socially shared. So while the uncited inclusion of others’ work allows Asian writers to display their knowledge, to honour important thinkers and show respect for the learning of their readers, writing in Western classrooms requires the writer's unique signa- ture, Such borrowings of others’ words or ideas is seen as mindless regurgitation or as plagiarism. Plagiarism is usually defined as ‘presenting language or ideas which are derived from another work as if they were one’s own’ (Pecorari, 2016: 329). Most L2 writers are studying to write academic texts which involve a high degree of intertextuality, as the current work demonstrates novelty and value by building on earlier work. The failure to signal the source of one's ideas is therefore both a breach of scholarly writing conventions and, possibly, deliberate deception to pass others’ work off as one’s own. Pennycook (1996) offers an extensive discussion of cross-cultural differences in plagiarism, showing how students can be led into trouble through their dif- ferent cultural and educational backgrounds. Recognising that such copying may be inadvertent or simply a desire to express something in a valued way currently beyond the learner’s own ability, alternative terms such as transgressive intertextu- ality (Abasi et al., 2006; Borg, 2009) and textual borrowing (Barks and Watts, 2001) have been adopted. In L2 writing the term patchwriting (Howard, 1995) has wide currency, indicating the practice of merging textual chunks from different sources with minor changes but without the intention to cheat. Indeed, substantial research shows that students are often at a loss regarding what is expected, permis- sible or appropriate in academic writing (Abasi and Graves, 2008; Pecorari, 2008). Indeed, the claims that culture is a contributory factor have come under attack in recent years, most effectively by members of the cultures said to be accepting of plagiarism (e.g. Ha, 2006; Liu, 2005). REFLECTION 2.8 Have you ever observed plagiarism when teaching? In your opinion was it intentional or unintentional? What was your reaction and what did you do about it, if anything? Would you handle it differently now? Issues of plagiarism are therefore seriously complicated not only by cultural fac- tors but also by the developmental aspects of learning to write and misunder- standings arising from uncertainties about the appropriate signalling of source use. ‘Matters are further involved because academic writing itself involves considerable intertextuality (a close relationship to other texts that it develops, critiques, or uses as support). Framing new work in the context of existing work, incorporating con- tent and language from earlier texts, is a prerequisite of academic writing and una- voidable. It is hardly surprising that all novice writers, whether L1 or L2 find the borders between patchwriting and plagiarism hard to navigate. The fact that they often lack the confidence to present a strong authorial voice may lead them to copy published texts for appropriate phrases to make their writing more scholarly. Overall, divergent cultural perspectives with regard to knowledge, texts and the self are major factors to consider in learning and writing, yet we tend to take our ‘own views for granted as self-evidently universal and can easily fail to recognise their cultural specificity. Teachers frequently see language problems as the main obstacle to effective writing, yet surface errors may actually be less serious than disjunctive perceptions of what ‘good writing’ is. The fact that our students may be operating from fundamentally different positions about texts and authorship means that we should be aware of the effects these can have on their writing, be flexible in our judgements and be as explicit as we can about our exp the reasons for our teaching methods. tions and a2 Second Language Writers and Teaching Contexts 2.3.4 Expectations of Textual Features Perhaps the most-examined aspect of how the schemata of L2 writers differ from those of their L1 counterparts is in their expectations about the rhetorical organ- isation and social functions of written texts. What is seen as logical, engaging, relevant or well organised in writing, what counts as proof, conciseness and evi- dence, can all differ across cultures. Intercultural rhetoric (IR) is the study of such differences in the preferred ways of organising ideas and how these may influence the literacy development of multilingual writers (Connor et al., 2016). So, IR sees language and writing as cultural phenomena and each language as having unique thetorical conventions. This is, naturally, of interest to teachers because instruc- tion focusing on major contrastive features might speed up the language learning process (e.g. Gass et al., 2013; Saville-Troike, 2012). Essentially, IR reminds us that the L2 writer is writing from his or her own. familiar culture and the L1 reader is reading from another context. One variance here may be their different preferences for where the main point of an argument comes in a text. Thus Hinds (1987) argues that Japanese and Korean writers tend to delay their purpose until the end, preferring an inductive rhetorical pattern, while Anglo-American writers overwhelmingly state their purpose very early in the text. This direct rhetorical strategy is certainly valued by Western readers and is often taught in writing classes (through making a ‘promise to the reader’ in the introduction, using topic sentences and so on) while many Asian writers avoid it as being unsubtle and perhaps offensive. Hinds (1987: 143) goes further, however, and suggests that in languages such as English the ‘person primarily responsible for effective communication is the writer’, but in Japanese (and some other lan- guages too) it is the reader. Writers compliment their readers by using hints and nuance and not spelling everything out. Americans, for instance, seem to use far more metadiscourse (features such as first, however, in conclusion to explicitly sign- post and signal text organisation) than Finnish writers, who are taught that it is not only superfluous, but the sign of a poor writer (Mauranen, 1993). ‘The idea of cultural differences in rhetoric has been of interest to writing teach- ers since Kaplan (1966) suggested that students from different backgrounds sys- tematically develop their ideas in different ways. Because these culture-specific patterns were believed to negatively interfere with students’ L2 writing, teachers were urged to provide students with explicit models of English expository para- graphs, concentrating on a ‘factual-inductive’ organisation with clear topic sen- tences. This early work, however, has been widely criticised (e.g. Casanave, 2004; Belcher, 2014; Kubota, 2010) for the following reasons: + creating a binary between English and non-English languages; + lumping different language groups together - for example, all Asians are ‘oriental’; + taking a rigid view of ‘correct’ English rhetorical patterns; + being Anglocentric in privileging the writing of native English speakers; + being too simplistic in attempting to see L1 thought patterns in L2 essays; + oversimplifying both L2 and L1 forms of writing; * failing to compare equivalent writing tasks. Today, IR is more circumspect about implying strong links between thought pat- terns and written outcomes and positing negative transfer from the L1. Japanese students, for example, are perfectly capable of using deductive organisational pat- terns (Kubota, 2010). The idea that writing paradigms differ across cultures, how- ever, has generated considerable debate and a great deal of research. It is clearly difficult to read L2 texts and untangle the influence of cultural preferences, stu- dents’ proficiency, their knowledge of L1-specific rhetorical patterns, and their educational experiences on how they were written. This research has contrib- uted a great deal to what we know of features that characterise genres within and across languages and cultures (e.g. Connor, 2011; Grabe and Kaplan, 1996; Hinkel, 1999). This is mainly by encouraging contrastive studies and linking research in diverse traditions of discourse analysis and corpus research. While findings are often inconclusive, patterns of organisation in written language differ cross-cul- turally and cross-linguistically. Some of these results are summarised in Table 2.1. TABLE 2.1 Potential differences between L1 and L2 student academic essays + preferences for organising written texts * approaches to argument (justification, persuasive appeals, demonstrating credibility) + ways of incorporating material (use of quotes, paraphrase, allusion, unacknowledged borrowing, etc.) ‘+ ways and extent of getting readers’ attention and orienting them to topic + estimates of reader knowledge + uses of cohesion and metadiscourse markers, * how overt linguistic features are used (generally less subordination, passives, modifiers, lexical variety and specificity in L2 writing) * objectivity (L2 texts often contain more generalisations and personal opinions) * complexity of style One consequence of taking culture seriously in L2 writing teaching has been to broaden the concept of culture itself, and to identify the impact of profes- sional, institutional and disciplinary cultures on writing conventions. Such views of wr ing acknowledge that the schemata we use to produce and understand texts are sensitive to the ways of thinking of our discourse communities (Hyland, 2004). Most of the significant writing we do is in our communities - in school, in recreational groups or in the workplace. Contrastive studies show us that writ- ing is a cultural resource and that different genres and rhetorical conventions operate in different settings. Simply, good writers are people who are better able to imagine how their readers will respond to their texts because they are familiar with the conventions and expectations which operate in those settings. This helps 432 Second Language Writers and Teaching Contexts to account for why many native English speakers find writing at university so dif- ficult - it is not a failure to think logically or an inability to write, but the struggle to acquire the literacy skills of a new culture. REFLECTION 2.9 ‘One problem for students writing in a second language is imagining an audience for their text and what they will need from it. One way to address this issue is to make use of a grid with the following columns: ‘What do I know about the issue? What does my reader know? ‘What does my reader need to know? What is my reader’s attitude likely to be? Select a genre your students need to wi land ask them to create and use such a grid. Did they find it useful? How might you improve it? Teachers can take a number of different insights from IR. Principally, however, it serves to remind us to avoid stereotyping as it shows how different writing styles can be the result of culturally learnt preferences and how student difficulties may be due to the disjunction of the writer's and reader's view of what is needed in a text. Acknowledging the importance of prior experiences also has practical impli- cations for what teachers do in their classrooms, suggesting that: * teachers should help students to become more aware of these variations so that they can see that there are different cultural criteria for effective writing and to recognise that both their own and the target practices are equally valid ways of accomplishing goals in different contexts; * teachers should explore ways of encouraging students to think about the needs, experiences and expectations of their readers, perhaps researching readers or grids like that in Reflection 2.9; * teachers should understand the patterns of the genres students will need to write in their target contexts and provide them with appropriate schemata for these; + students need to interrogate the tasks assigned to them to understand teacher expectations. 2.4 Variations in Instructional Contexts It is not only students, or their cultural backgrounds and experiences, which vary, but also the purposes for which they are learning to write and the situ- ations in which they are learning. Each instructional context presents its own 2.4 Variations in Instructional Contexts opportunities, challenges and peculiarities. In this final section I look briefly at some of the most salient characteristics of these contexts. 2.4.1 EFL/ESL and Migrant Teaching Contexts While the title of this book refers to second language writers, this is a shorthand for a more diverse range of learners and learning environments. One of the most common distinctions made in the literature is to separate out contexts where English is taught as a Second Language (ESL) and as a Foreign Language (EFL), a division based on the language spoken by the community in which English is being studied. When the local community is largely English speaking, such as Australia, the US, or the UK, this is referred to as an ESL situation, while EFL contexts are those where English is not the host language, such as Mexico, China and Spain. So, many students begin their journey as EFL learners in their own countries and become ESL students by moving to the US or UK to take a pre-ses- sional university course in English. Like most polarisations, however, the ESL/EFL distinction obscures more complicated realities. Students in ESL contexts might be in classes specifically designed to develop their English skills or integrated into regular content area classes, both groups referred to as English language learners (ELL). In fact, the catch-all term ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) has largely replaced the term ESL. More importantly, ESL contexts can be further distinguished between learners who are migrants, and who may therefore need occupational and survival writing skills, and those who are studying abroad, taking pre-sessional or EAP intensive English support courses and who plan to return to their own countries later. These courses tend to emphasise writing skills as this is the way students are assessed for entry to courses and how they are required to demonstrate their learning when they are on them. Pre-sessional courses are usually conducted as English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP) programmes, where teachers attempt to isolate the skills and language forms common to all disciplines. The idea is that once they have learnt these generic features, then students can use them in a variety of contexts and for a range of needs, most immediately to get a passing score in an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) or other university entrance exam. Thus teachers might find themselves teaching features such as nominalisation, imper- sonalisation, objectivity and lexical density (Hyland, 2016b). In many courses for undergraduates and postgraduate students, however, EAP may be tailored to meet the needs of the specific disciplinary circumstances of students (e.g. Hyland, 2017; Hatner and Miller, 2019). English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) may be more professionally challenging for teachers who have to familiarise themselves with the rhetorical and linguistic demands of particular disciplines. It requires the jack-of-all-trades writing teacher to become a specialist in the ways that particu- lar disciplines communicate. It does, however, elevate the importance of literacy 452 Second Language Writers and Teaching Contexts specialists and the centres they work in, gaining the respect of faculty who gen- erally appreciate the investment that teachers make in researching the specialist language of their discipline. Another major second language context is in non-academic migrant settings. ‘There are, for example, currently a million 5 to 16 year olds in UK schools who are bilingual or multilingual, making up about 17.5 per cent of all pupils in state pri- mary schools. More than half the children in inner London schools speak a lan- guage other than English at home (Annual Schools Census, 2017). Another major context is adult or vocational programmes for immigrants and refugees. Here the need is for them to develop general language skills in English for employment, cultural adaptation or just survival. In adult classes, lessons based on real-life, ordinary events are central, helping students to develop the skills to telephone the plumber or read product labels. In this context, writing is just one among many language skills students have to acquire with some urgency and may not be such a priority. Writing may focus on building a knowledge of language structures or orthography and involve tasks such as completing forms and writing job applications. The main challenges of teaching such courses is that classes are often made up of students with varied abilities and needs and who are often tired in class and busy out of it, having com- pleted long hours of work with little time for preparation or homework. Moreover, because courses are usually offered by further education and voluntary organisa- tions who want to be as inclusive as possible, they often have open-enrolment policies which allow students to start and drop-out whenever is convenient for their changing circumstances. This means that teachers may have difficulty in planning a syllabus that coherently builds skills week-by-week, and may have to teach individual self-contained units that have immediate pay-off (Gunderson, 2009; Mallows, 2012). REFLECTION 2.10 Imagine you have been asked to teach an evening course for European migrants. What specific writing tasks and topics might be most useful? Finally, EFL contexts are as varied as those where students are studying in a target language context. They may include those where an indigenised variety has emerged (Singapore, India) or where colonisation has afforded English a promi- nent role in local life (Hong Kong, Philippines), and those where English is rarely encountered (Korea, Japan). In each of these contexts the student body is likely to be more homogeneous than in ESL environments, but the teacher, possibly from outside the local culture, may need to become familiar with the local language and culture of learning. These will include some of the issues discussed earlier in 2.4 Variations in Instructional Contexts this chapter. What, for example, are local attitudes to English? What experiences have students had of writing in their L1 or in English? What are the expectations of the local institution and other relevant stakeholders? What is clear, and speak- ing as a teacher who has taught abroad in a range of very different EFL contexts for 35 years, it is the teacher who needs to adapt and to understand the local ways of working rather than imposing perhaps alien teaching practices on students from the beginning. In short, different contexts will have an impact on the kind of language stu- dents need and their motivation to acquire it, in the cultural and linguistic homo- geneity of the students, and in the resources available to teachers. REFLECTION 2.11 ‘Summarise some of the main implications for writing for teachers working in these three contexts: ESL academic, migrant and EFL. 2.4.2 Writing-to-Learn and Learning-to-Write Contexts Another important distinction to be made when considering L2 writing contexts is whether the students are learning to express themselves in writing (Learning-to- Write) or their purpose is to develop some area other than writing itself (Writing- to-Learn) (Manchén, 2011). Are students trying to improve their writing skills or is writing a way of acquiring knowledge of content, culture or language, that is, knowledge that is personally or professionally useful? Most research and talk around L2 writing generally refers to Learning-to-Write contexts, how we can understand and teach writing as an additional language. Writing as process and as text are the main foci in this perspective. Here L2 writ- ing seeks to foster good writing and understand how composing competencies develop in multilingual writers. The cognitive-rhetorical approaches of process, function and genre have helped illuminate this aspect of writing. In many L2 writing contexts, students have to acquire knowledge of the structures, genres and writing conventions valued by society or institutions so that writing is a tool they need to participate in target communities and to demonstrate their learning to readers in those communities. The focus is largely on writing itself, although in university contexts it may lead to the acquisition of an academic competence in both disciplinary knowledge and the ability to discuss it appropriately. It is, in fact, often difficult to distinguish the two as content always requires an appropri- ate expression in language. In English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) pro- grammes, for example, the act of writing promotes both the learning of rhetorical conventions and, at least to some extent, aspects of subject knowledge. Here writ- ing is taught by instructors familiar with the genres and rhetorical conventions of the target discipline 472 Second Language Writers and Teaching Contexts Writing-to-Learn, in contrast, can mean learning language (WLL) or content (WLC) (Manchén, 2011). While Learning-to-Write concerns the role of language in the acquisition of L2 written literacy, Writing-to-Leam Language refers to writing as a tool for language acquisition (Manchén, 2016). As I noted in Chapter 1, ‘writing as product’ approaches often use writing to develop language proficiency, assisting students towards grammatical accuracy and a larger vocabulary. Here writing is seen as having the potential to help learners analyse and consolidate the second Jan- guage knowledge, leading to wider language learning outcomes. In Writing-to-Leam Content, on the other hand, ‘writing is a mode of learning’, a heuristic device aimed at enhancing student learning about content subjects and in the process prompting learning (Emig, 1977). Writing thus provides ways to help students think critically by ‘applying concepts, testing out ideas, and integrating new information into what they already know’ (Craig, 2013: 21). A good example of this is found in second- ary schools where Content and Language Integrated Language Learning (CLIL) is employed, denoting the learning of a non-language subject combined with language learning (Airey, 2016). It therefore helps students use writing to learn and learn to write, but helps students think critically about a subject by giving them low-stakes writing assignments that lead them to deeper critical thinking in larger projects. REFLECTION 2.12 ‘What are your views on Writing-to-Learn Content? Do you see this as a useful learning tool or a distraction from developing important writing skills and the acquisition of valued genres? Try to explain your viewpoint. In practical terms, Writing-to-Learn differs from Learning-to-Write in that instead of asking students to plan and write extended academic assignments such as litera- ture reviews and argumentative essays, they write brief texts such as journal entries, posters, websites, reading responses, summaries, blog posts and so on. There are no drafts that have to be revised until completion, but short texts where students are able to express their thinking in writing, taking opportunities to recall, clarify and question what they know and would like to know about a subject (Knipper and Duggan, 2006). Runciman (2017) summarises the differences between tradi- tional (Learning-to-Write) and Writing-to-Learn tasks as shown in Table 2.2. TABLE 2.2 Writing-to-learn vs traditional assignments (adapted from Runciman, 2017) Traditional (Learning-to-Write) Assignments * Assigned as homework (often a relatively lengthy paper) * Process « Product (student's work finished when the product is turned in) * Graded on A/B/C/D/F basis by teacher ‘+ Writing to test what is known (is student's writing right or wrong?) 2.4 Variations in Instructional Contexts '* Asks students to be sure about what they write (What's your thesis?’) ‘Students see writing assignments as penalty situations Writing-to-Learn Activities * Assigned impromptu, often completed in class; may also be homework, often short * Process «> More Process (writing - thinking - more thought) * Ungraded, but meaningful; credit based on clear criteria * Writing to think, discover (intellectual engagement is goal; errors are natural) * Allows students to voice and explore questions + Students see writing as a tool, to help them think about new material 3 Writing Centres A final, very distinctive context, where writing teachers often find themselves working with L2 students, is the writing centre. This is a student-centred and learning-oriented space which provides good conditions for facilitating learning through individualised conferencing (Gustafsson and Ganobesik-Williams, 2016) Essentially a writing centre provides students with free assistance on their papers with a writing tutor offering his or her feedback on the piece of writing at hand. Rather than editing or proofreading the text, their goal is to show how it might be revised. This is done through conversing about the topic, discussing principles of writing, modelling rhetorical and syntactical moves, and assisting the student to identify patterns of error in the text. It is, then, a pedagogical initiative which respects the author's autonomy rather than providing a quick-fix on drafts. Writing centres originated in the United States as ‘Writing Labs’ in the late nine- teenth century and became established in many colleges and universities following open admission policies in the 1970s to offer support for students who need extra help with writing or coursework (Lerner, 2009). In recent years they have adapted to cater for a larger L2 clientele and have spread to other parts of the world, most notably to Europe (Thaiss et al., 2012). Here they have proved invaluable in sup- porting the Bologna Declaration and attempts to create a European HE area to facil- itate the greater mobility of students, With so many different educational traditions and cultures, writing centres have provided a way to promote a unified approach to writing support across Europe (Gustafsson and Ganobesik-Williams, 2016). The positioning of the writing tutor as a guide or mentor is a key feature of the US model and which has followed its export internationally; the tutor is someone who elicits students’ ideas and scaffolds their text rather than grades their assignment The idea is that students mature in their knowledge of effective writing through discussions with a tutor and opportunities to work in a guided way. But while collaborative discussion and the development of the individual writer are central ideas in the work of a writing centre, tutorial work may follow different approaches (Bruce and Raforth, 2009; Reynolds, 2009). Most commonly, these approaches have embraced rhetorical pedagogies which emphasise genre, purpose and audience. 4950 2 Second Language Writers and Teaching Contexts ‘The objective is to improve writers and not just improve texts, so typically help is given on the goals, structure and function of a text, assisting writers towards the realisation that no writing is decontextualised. In sum, writing centre tutors attempt to provide non-proscriptive and non-corrective responses, relying instead on fuller explanations of why a piece of writing may fail to fulfil the writer's aims. REFLECTION 2.13 In your view, what are the main qualities a good writing centre consultant needs? Not all writing teachers feel prepared or comfortable working in such highly focused, learner-centred environments and so some centres only employ con- sultants with specialised training or experience in working one-to-one with L2 students (Leki, 2009). The expansion of students requiring centre services, how- ever, has encouraged other pedagogic approaches, especially the use of peer writ- ing tutors (Devet et al. 2006), a practice endorsed by the International Writing Centers Association (http://writingcenters.org). Peer tutoring involves students serving as academic tutors with a trained advanced student advising a less profi- cient peer. Training and professional development for writing centre tutors varies by institution but often includes credit-bearing classes focusing on theories and pedagogies of writing tutoring and an internship. The following course descrip- tion is from the University of Michigan Sweetland Center for Writing, Welcome to WRITING 300: Seminar in Peer Tutoring! This course has three main goals: 1) to familiarize you with theory about peer consultation in writing, through reading, responding to, and critiquing tutoring pedagogy literature; 2) to introduce you to the practice of peer writing consultation through receiving consultations, observing others’ consultations, and doing some face-to-face and online consultations yourselves, as well as reflecting on these processes; 3) to address the ULWR goal of engaging the conventions of disciplinary writing, by conducting extended critical inquiry of your own in three major essays and several shorter responses to readings and observations of tutorials. Completion of WRITING 300 doesn’t guarantee admission to WRITING 301 and the Peer Writing Consultant Program. To continue on, you must demonstrate the qualities of an excellent peer tutor: community engagement, ethical behavior, and strong writing. (https://Isa.umich.edu/content/dam/ sweetland-assets/sweetland-documents/Courses/300_Modey. pd) 2.5 Summary and Conclusion The tutors themselves benefit by not only procuring paid employment in the centre, but also learning a lot about their own writing process and about effective teaching. They gain, in addition, the satisfaction of helping people who are usu- ally very grateful. Academically they may also acquire experience in developing as researchers who develop research projects and then presenting them to the writing centre staff or at conferences. 2.5 Summary and Conclusion This chapter has explored some of the main characteristics of second language writers and the broad contexts in which they study. It has emphasised that while there are parallels in the composing processes of 1 and L2 writers, the latter are distinguished by their bilingual and bicultural backgrounds and particularly their prior experiences as writers and learners. There are also significant differences in the contexts in which students find themselves as learners which can influence their motivation, attitudes, ability to devote themselves to study and their access to the second language. I have also emphasised that all writers are different, and we should be cautious about jumping to conclusions about students based on cul- tural stereotypes. Learners have their own personalities and there are numerous individual variables that can intervene to influence their acquisition of L2 writing skills. However, culture is too intimately bound up with language, learning pref- erences, and understandings of knowledge, texts and identity to simply ignore when considering writing instruction. ‘The main points of the chapter can be summarised as follows: * Individual differences influence how students learn, how they respond to instruction, and the progress they make to improve their writing. + 12 writers are unique because of their bilingual, bicultural and biliterate experi- ences, and these can facilitate or impede writing in various ways. * L2 learners may have different conceptions of knowledge, learning, self and texts which can conflict with teachers’ instructional practices and judgements of good writing. + L2 learners’ cultural schemata can impact on the ways they write and the writing they produce. Effective teaching can make these schemata differences explicit, encouraging consideration of audience and access to patterns of unfa- miliar rhetorical forms. * Student populations also differ in terms of whether they are studying in their home country or an English-language environment as this may affect their access to the language and their attitudes to studying it. * The distinction between Learn-to-Write and Writing-to-Learn raises important issues of approach and methodology which are only now being recognised * Different challenges are posed in ESL contexts where students are attending migrant language programmes or preparing for academic study. st52 2 Second Language Writers and Teaching Contexts An important point to take away from this chapter is that cultural factors should be understood as a potential source of explanation for writing differ- ences and used to recognise that there are numerous ways of making mean- ings. For inexperienced teachers or those without experience of other cultures there is a danger of ethnocentrism about learning to write, of regarding L2 students as simply deficient writers. An appreciation of writing differences can facilitate cross-cultural understandings and support teaching practices which make such differences explicit to students. FURTHER READING AND RESOURCES Bereiter, C. and Scardamalia, M. (1987) The psychology of written composition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Démyei, Z. and Ryan, S. (2015) The psychology of the language learner revisited. New York: Routledge. Hinkel, E. (2011) What research on second language writing tells us and what it doesn’t. In E. Hinkel (ed.), Handbook of research in second language teach- ing and learning (Vol. Il, pp. 523-38). New York: Routledge. Manchén, R. M. (ed.) (2011) Learning-to-write and writing-to-learn in an addi- tional language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Norton, B. (2013) Identity and language learning: Extending the conversation, 2nd edn. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Pecorari, D. (2016) Writing from sources, plagiarism and textual borrowing. In Manchén, R. and Matsuda, P. K. (eds.), Handbook of second and foreign language writing. Berlin: De Gruyter. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS AND ACTIVITIES 1. Much of this chapter is about L1 and L2 writing differences. What is the most interesting single difference for you? How far does culture influence this characteristic? List the main issues associated with this factor for the writing teacher and describe how the teacher might successfully address them. 2. The following topics are taken from an L2 writing textbook widely used in the United States. Do you think all cultural groups will be comfortable writing about these topics? * How common in your country is cohabitation, or consensual unions without marriage? * In your culture, how do people view births outside of marriage? * In your culture, do some people judge others by their manners at the table? * What kind of role model do fathers in your country provide for their children? 2.5 Summary and Conclusion From your own experience, do you think asking students to discuss their culture helps build on their personal experiences for writing or does it draw boundaries which polarise cultures and prevent them responding as individuals? The discussion of cultural differences in learning to write suggests that stu- dents would benefit from a clear understanding of how writing is used in their first language and culture, How could students discover more about writing in their own culture? How might you asa teacher learn about the most frequent kinds of writing they do, who the audiences are and the style of the writing? Interview someone who has learnt to write in a second language. What did he/she feel to be the main linguistic or cultural factors which affected this process? List the influences he or she identifies and note how these influences worked to assist or to hinder their writing development. This text is the acknowledgement section of a report written by a Hong Kong undergraduate. While the writer has a good control of the language, it nevertheless seems ‘wrong’. What aspects suggest the text reflects imper- fect schema knowledge? Do you think cultural factors may have influ- enced the writer? Having worked for more than half year in reading books and articles, collection of data in library and internet, it was a tough job for me to go through words, find the appropriate framework and theories, and reduce plenty of stuff to complete this report. So I hereby use this golden opportunity to solicit special thanks to my excellent and com- passionate supervisor Dr. Z. Ding because my report will surely not be completed without his constant encouragement and tremendous advice. Imagine you have been asked to teach a course for writing centre peer tutors. What would you include in the course and what practical training would you include? Consider what the differences are between a student studying a university preparation course in his or her home country and in the US or UK. What, as a writing teacher, would you need to do to best assist such a student to reach his or her goals? 53