Second language (L2) research suggests that synchronous written corrective feedback (SWCF) in online collaborative writing tasks can help improve L2 linguistic knowledge and writing skills. Following the rise of online collaborative writing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this exploratory study examines L2 learners' perceptions of receiving…

Within the context of second language (L2) writing, learner engagement with feedback has elicited significant theoretical and empirical interest (e.g., Zhang & Hyland, 2018; Zheng & Yu, 2018). Research has highlighted the dynamic nature of learner engagement with written corrective feedback (WCF), but the ways in which learner and…

Revisions in writing aim at text improvement. Literature has shown that revision activity differs between novice and experienced writers. Our ultimate goal is to understand how children and adolescents develop the capacity to shift perspectives from language producer to language recipient -- a prerequisite ability to successful revision. In this…

Young children enter the classroom with out-of-school resources from their lives, which can be used to support their official writing work. This qualitative case study, at French-English bilingual school, explores how two emergent bilingual second grade students made decisions about the topics that they included into their official writing pieces…

Although the concept of contrastive rhetoric has received considerable attention in research on second language writing, it has not been adequately examined in a linguistically complex context such as Tunisia. This study is an attempt to contribute to the growing body of research on second language writing through investigating the validity of the…

Improving university students' writing skills is always a challenge. In a third-year French composition course, the researchers introduced the use of public Internet discussion forums to see if that would help achieve the argumentative writing skills goals that were set for this study. The results show that participation in the forums had a…

The object of this exploratory study was to test two hypotheses. The first was that a student's preferential cognitive style, sequential or simultaneous, can negatively affect the imaginative fiction texts that he or she produces. The second hypothesis was that students possessing a sequential or simultaneous preferential cognitive style would…

This paper reports on a study on the relationship between cognitive task complexity and linguistic performance in L2 writing. In the study, two models proposed to explain the influence of cognitive task complexity on linguistic performance in L2 are tested and compared: Skehan and Foster's Limited Attentional Capacity Model (Skehan, 1998; Skehan…

It is proposed that many students are unable to distinguish between unguarded writing patterns and literate or expository ones, and it is becoming increasingly necessary in writing instruction to clarify and impose the distinction between these patterns. This problem is confounded by current trends toward exclusively spoken language in the…

Describes and reviews "systeme-D," a foreign language microcomputer software package that provides support for composition writing in French. The software's pedagogical philosophy, programming, usability, technical ease, teaching use, intended audience, learning use, and related research are discussed. (CB)

A text-editing approach to composition in the foreign language classroom is set forth. In a 15-week composition course meeting three times each week, students prepare a weekly composition that they will revise after an in-class text-editing session involving several student papers. The third day is devoted to grammar work. Criteria for evaluating…

Describes the way one teacher used Raymond Queneau's "Exercices de style" in a college-level French composition course. The students prepared 15 to 20 assignments, which focused on grammar and syntax, logical development of ideas, changes in perspective, shifts in mood or tonality, and experiments with different literary genres. (SED)

Student teachers at Paris' Alliance Francaise, inspired by three photographs, wrote their own short stories as a writing project. The project was divided into three meetings for the purpose of developing rhythm for writing and providing guidance for the student regarding the form of his or her work. Two of the completed stories are appended. (MSE)

Retrograde writing, the technique of telling events in a narrative passage in reverse order while maintaining a coherent progression of thought, is a stylistic exercise that can make foreign language writing instruction more interesting and effective. (MSE)

Proposes a classroom technique that has students examine texts from different points of view by changing the narrator. The method is an amusing, motivating, and challenging exercise in French composition, and is illustrated in an excerpt from a Camus novel. (MSE)