Different Models and Approaches of Teaching Writing in TESOL - Essay Example

While some adult ESL learners have had considerable experience in academic composing in their native language, others may not have been exposed to the kinds of writing that they are expected to master in academic English writing programs. Learning academic English composition skills can be especially challenging and stressful for ESL students. In addition to mastering the linguistic and grammatical features of written English, second language students must learn to think, create and compose in ways that may be quite unfamiliar and different from those in their native language (Swales, 2004; Crystal, 2003).
The structuralist linguistic view dominated theory and practice in the field of ESL literacy and almost exclusively guided pedagogy until about the middle of the 1960s (Kaplan, 1988; Crystal, 2003). L2 writing instruction was no exception in following audio-lingual teaching methods. Although writing was considered one of the "survival" language skills, writing was taught as a subsidiary component to oral language and was usually not dealt with until after students had acquired oral competence in English. It was believed that oral competence would automatically lead to written competence (Grabe & Kaplan, 1996). The primary technique of writing was called controlled composition, or guided composition, which modeled the "audio-lingual method" of second language teaching, focusing on recurring forms of spoken English rather than on written language (Mangelsdorf, 1989; Silva, 1990). The writing was seen as a habit-formed skill, errors were to be avoided and corrections and revisions were to be provided constantly (Zamel, 1976). Learning to write in the classroom, then, consisted of learning linguistic skills, reinforcing the grammar and vocabulary based on oral English. Thus, the textbook was often a collection of sentence patterns and vocabulary items.