Second Language Writing IS at TESOL 2009

Here is a really useful message from Gigi Taylor, current chair of the Second Language Writing Interest Section at TESOL:

Dear IS Members,

As the deadline draws near (this Monday, June 2nd, 11:59 p.m. EST), I urge you to put the finishing touches on your TESOL proposals and to submit them under the Second Language Writing Interest Section.

Very simply, each interest section is represented proportionally--if SLW-IS proposals represent 20% of all TESOL proposals received, then we are assigned 20% of the adjudicated program slots.

If you have more than one brilliant idea, submit them all! You can only be the primary presenter on one of the accepted proposals, but the reviewers will select the one that will be of greatest interest and value to a balanced program. Please, give us plenty to choose from!

Also, please note that Discussion Groups are adjudicated this year, so even if you've got more questions than answers and would like to hear others' ideas, propose a discussion group this year.

Listed below are the topics brainstormed at this year's planning meeting--quite a varied list. Please know that your colleagues are interested in what you're doing and eager to learn from you.

All of us together are making the SLW-IS the vibrant, rapidly growing interest section that it is. Thank you for your participation and your proposals!

Best regards,

Gigi Taylor
SLW-IS Chair, 2008-2009

Brainstorming List from Planning Portion of Meeting: Suggested Proposal Topics

• Corpus linguistics
• Intercultural rhetoric (analysis through student interviews)
• Acquisition of academic language (native & non-native; academic language as a second language)
• Overlap with L1 academic language development
• Case studies from K-12 to Postsecondary
• What happens after ESL classes when students enter mainstream (thinking, pattering, prep in EAP)?
• Mainstreaming too early
• Higher Ed mainstreamed – longitudinal tracking across 4 years (post-ESL)
• Program administration – realistic expectations, institutional context, resources, funding sources
• “How to” advocacy for second language writers and SLW programs (successful program models for advocacy and for collaborating across contexts)
• All of the above in EFL (strategies, challenges, plagiarism, successes, environment)
• Assessing instructional needs
• Linked courses
• Materials development
• Assignment design
• Writing Across the Curriculum issues
• Graduate research writing (comparisons across ranches/disciplines)
• Teacher education/professional development for mainstream teachers
• Teacher training for graduate students for working with second language writers
• Programs that offer composition training and offer ESL
• Balancing ESL teachers’ expertise with need for all teachers to develop some expertise
• Professional placement of ESL writing professionals (rank? Track?)
• Writing Centers – L2 writing/inter-cultural sensitivity
• Writing strategies in EFL
• Plagiarism in EFL
• Formative feedback, effect
• Writing for accuracy versus writing for content
• Reading/writing connection
• Grammar
• Writing assessment (machine assessment/scoring, context, teacher education, placement, outsourcing)
• Rising [x] exam (i.e., rising junior)
• No Child Left Behind
• “Teaching despite the standards” (Meeting the standards and still using best practices)
• High school exit writing exams
• Continental/cultural differences: Dialogue about context (ESL vs. EFL, K-12 vs. HE)
• Conversation among people from different contexts
• Populations of L2 writers (voice, pedagogy)