This volume integrates complex dynamic systems theory (CDST) and L2 writing scholarship through a collection of in-depth studies and commentary across a range of writing constructs, learning contexts, and second and foreign languages. The text is arranged thematically across four topics: (i) perspectives on complexity, accuracy, and fluency, (ii)…

Given the growing importance of English as a lingua franca, this study examines which context (classroom instruction in the students' home country vs. studying abroad in an English-speaking country) better facilitates the acquisition of English by learners of different ages: children, adolescents and adults. Participants (N = 197) completed…

An exploratory study of quantitative measurement of syntactic and rhetorical fluency examined students' writing near the beginning and near the end of a two-quarter, freshman English program. The syntactic analysis focused on the clause, which was classified according to basic syntactic type and elaborating syntactic structures. The rhetorical…

This booklet is one of a series of teacher-written curriculum publications launched by the Bay Area Writing Project, each focusing on a different aspect of the teaching of composition. The basic principles of literary cohesion (the way a text hangs together) are discussed and exercises are suggested to help students increase their sensitivity to…

A study of the interlanguage of bilinguals and multilinguals compared the oral French proficiency of 20 native Swedish-speaking and 20 Finnish-speaking university students as evidenced in error patterns in oral tests. With the exception of phonological and phonetic errors in pronunciation, errors were classified by word class (article, noun,…