How to Motivate Students in Second Language Writing

Writing competence is considered as the most difficult output ability for an EFL （English as a Foreign Language） learner to master. This paper offers valuable suggestion for second language learners when considering affective variables in Chinese context. Motivation, especially intrinsic motivation plays an increasingly important role in L2 （Second Language） pre-writing, online writing and post-writing processes; besides, with the hope of this awareness it will help teacher to decide greater language learning tasks, and help students achieve better performances in writing.

A Review of Studies: Technology-mediated Peer Feedback on Learners' Motivation in Second Language Writing Course

Increasing studies are focusing on the efficacy of applying technology in the second language writing course.This paper intends to review studies exploring impacts on learners'motivation by using technology-facilitated peer feedback.

The Effectiveness and Issues of Using Feedback in Second Language Writing

Based on the description of feedback in the literature and the classification of feedback by different scholars,this paper discusses the efficiency and possible issues of the teachers’use of different feedback in the teaching of second language writing.Through interviews with experienced English majors,this paper further demonstrates the importance of teachers'use of feedback in second language writing teaching.At the end of the paper,the author also shows that the combination of different feedback according to specific situations in teaching can better promote the writing proficiency of second language learners.

Fluctuations and Directions in Teaching Second Language Writing

The research literature on teaching writing in a L2 （second language） has inspired L2 writing teachers with various sorts of activities in the last few decades and scholars have highlighted multiple aspects of L2 writing on which L2 writing teachers should focus. This paper presents a chronological sketch of the main approaches and trends in teaching and researching L2 writing around the world. It summarizes the components of L2 writing addressed in these approaches and enumerates the dimensions of L2 writing stressed in different approaches including language structure, text functions, themes and topics, creative expression, composing processes, content, genre, and context of writing. Referring to the types of knowledge that need to be imparted to L2 writers, the paper exemplifies teaching activities that can enrich L2 writing classes. The theme that emerges from the discussion is that varied pedagogical implications of the research literature will not be confusing for L2 writing teachers, if they broaden their vision of L2 writing to extend a social view to all dimensions of forms, processes, audiences and L2 writers Teaching L2 writing is presented as the teaching of social individuals using socially-mediated processes to produce socially-meaningful texts for socially-aligned audiences

DISCOURSE COMPETENCE VS. COGNITIVE ABILITY: DO SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNERS WRITE THE WAY THEY THINK?

This is a replication of Tyler and Bro's study (1992) on the effect of discourse level phenomena on audience perception of comprehensibility. 53 Chinese students of English and 10 native English speakers were taken as informants to a questionnaire, in which orders of ideas, discourse miscues and other types of errors (e.g. cohesion and redundant ideas, etc.) were used as variables to see whether they could affect the comprehensibility of texts. Strong resemblances were found between the two groups. Order of ideas (i.e. deductive or inductive) seems not to have affected text comprehensibility much, but the interactive cumulating miscues at the discourse level played an important role in discourse comprehension. As disparities are found between what nonnative speakers do and how they react to what they have done, the paper discusses whether people think the way they write, and if linguistic competence correlates with cognitive ability. The paper suggests that knowing and doing are two aspects of learning; teachers of English, therefore, have to understand the perplexities second language learners face and try to help them write as effectively as possible in the target language.

Effects of FonF Feedback on Learners' Cognitive Processing of Language Errors

In order to analyze the learners＇ cognitive process under the teacher＇s focus-on-form feedback on second language writing, this study carried out an simulation experiment to investigate learners＇ correction rates and confidence levels according to three major variables： feedback modes, error types and treatment orders. The results show that： （1） treatments of ＂Code＂ and ＂Underline＂ both had their advantages and disadvantages under different situations; （2） different types of errors are sensitive to different feedback modes; （3） orders of treatment may influence learners＇ perception of instructor＇s intention; and （4） learners＇ confidence level may record the cognitive level of the target language and correlate with the correct rate. Finally, it is suggested to pay more attention to the interactive mechanism of feedback effect and to apply more diversified treatments under various situations in practice.

Appraisal of the Production-Oriented Approach： An Introduction

The production-oriented approach （POA） has been developed over a decade. It is driven by the need to improve English classroom instruction for university students in China （Wen, 2016）. It is also motivated by the aspiration to enhance the quality of foreign language education in other similar pedagogical contexts outside China. A volume of research has been done by Wen Qiufang and her research team, to formulate the theory of POA and to test its effectiveness in classroom pedagogy （e.g. Wen, 2016, 2015; Yang, 2015; Zhang, 2015）. At the moment, the POA is still at an early stage of theory building and almost all empirical research is done in the Chinese context. In order to improve the quality of this theory and to make it intelligible to the international academic community, a one-day symposium was held in Beijing Foreign Studies University on May 15, 2017. The symposium was entitled ＇The first international forum on innovative foreign language education in China： Appraisal of the POA＇. In the forum, leading experts in applied linguistics were invited to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the POA and the directions for its future development. The symposium was the first attempt for the POA research team to discuss its latest work with international scholars. This Viewpoint section collects the responses of four experts who participated in the symposium, listed in alphabetical order. The collection of articles covers three topics related to the POA： its pedagogical application, its use for teacher training, and its research. Alister Cumming is Professor Emeritus and the former Head of the Centre for Educational Research on Languages and Literacies, University of Toronto, Canada. His article focuses primarily on POA research as an exemplary case of design-based research. Rod Ellis is Research Professor in the School of Education at Curtin University, Australia. He discusses POA in terms of pedagogy, teacher training and research, with both critiques and constructive suggestions. Paul Kei Matsuda is Professor of English and Director of Second Language Writing at Arizona State University, the writed states. He responds to POA from the perspective of an expert researcher and teacher of L2 writing. Charlene Polio is Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Linguistics ＆ Germanic, Slavic, Asian ＆ African Languages atMichigan State University, the writed states. She conceptualises POA as a useful method to address some issues in pre-service teacher development. Overall, the articles in this section are insightful and reader-friendly. They are not only useful for the development of POA in particular, but may also be valuable to a broad range of researchers as they touch upon pertaining issues, as well as emerging topics, in the field of applied linguistics. We therefore find it necessary to make them accessible to a wide readership.