Teaching ESL Writing (Final Paper) -- Education Learning Essays

Teaching ESL Writing At times the plethora of professional journals and the myriad subjects treated therein seems akin little more than a dizzying exercise in redundancy and a forum for education professionals to justify their worth in a competitive job market however, I would like to think that there is a hidden value for those of us whose brains seem to operate in what some might call a spiral rhetorical pattern, that as we work our way around and around certain issues related to composition instruction, we are moving gradually upward toward broader understanding and better practice. some studies seem to do little more than show the need for more studies, their authors falling back on such standard phrases as, clearly more look into is needed, but that at least is evidence that were moving toward something were trying to pinpoint the exact gap between educational practice as we know it and as we sense it might exist in an improved state. So, it is with this hope in mind that Ive undertaken yet another literature review, eat the writings of others in order to find a specific gap in (at least my own) understanding of educational practice as it relates to college-level ESL composition students in general, and to college-level ESL students with learning disabilities (LD) specifically. For the purposes of this paper I shall borrow Skinner and Gilespies definition of learning disabilities as follows Learning disabled persons are those of come or above average intelligence who have difficulty mastering skills in reading and spelling (often in the form of dis- lexia), and /or writing, or math. ... ...es. March/April 2001, 34, 2. 136-152.Munro, Murray J. and Tracey M. Derwing. Foreign Accent, Comprehensibility,and Inteligibility. Language Learning. June 1999, 49, 2. 285-111.Poon-McBrayer, Kim Feng and Shernaz B. Garcia. Profiles of Asian AmericanStude nts with Learning Disabilities at Initial Referral, Assessment, and Place-ment in Special Education. Journal of Learning Disabilities. Jan/Feb 2001,33, 1. 61-71.Skinner, Louise and Phyllis Gillespie. The Challenge of Adult Literacy Students withLearning Disabilities in the ABE Classroom. Adult Basic Education. inclination 2000, 10, 3.Spack, Ruth. Student Meets Text, Text Meets Student Finding a Way into AcademicDiscourse. Reading in the Composition Classroom Second Language Perspectives. Ed. Joan G. Carson and Ilona Leki. Boston Heinle & HeinlePublishers, 1993. 183-196.