Page 27 - English - Teaching Academic Esl Writing

ONGOING GOALS IN TEACHING ESL SKILLS 13
from various sources, such as published materials, textbooks, or laboratory experiments.
Advanced cognitive and information-processing tasks entailed in trans- forming knowledge and demonstrating knowledge in writing place great demands on 12writers' language skills.
Assumption 4: Intensive and Consistent Instruction in L2 Vocabulary and Grammar, as Well as Discourse Organization, Is
Paramount for Academically Bound NNSs
Instruction in L2 vocabulary and grammar improves learners' receptive and productive skills and provides important means of expanding NNS lex- ical and syntactic repertoires necessary in L2 reading, constructing aca- demic text, listening, and other fundamental facets of functioning in the academy. The effectiveness and necessity of teaching L2 vocabulary has been demonstrated in a large number of studies such as Channell (1988), Coady (1997), Cowie (1988), Coxhead (1998, 2000), Dudley-Evansand St. John (1998), N. Ellis (1994, 1997), N. Ellis and Beaton (1993), Harley (1989), Huckin, Haynes, and Coady (1993), Hulstijn (1990, 1992, 1997), Hulstijn and Laufer (2001), Jordan (1997), Kelly (1986), Laufer (1994), Carter and McCarthy (1988), Nation (2001), Paribakht and Wesche (1993, 1997), Santos (1988), Sinclair and Renouf (1988), Schmitt (2000), and Schmitt and McCarthy(1997).
For instance, Laufer and Nation (1995) identified significant positive correlations between learners' gains on vocabulary tests based on Na- tion's (1990) UniversityWord List (see also chaps. 5, 8, and 9) and the in- crease of academic vocabulary in the compositions written by the same group of learners. Similarly, Laufer (1994) reported that persistent in- struction in L2 vocabulary increases learners' vocabulary range in writ- ing to include the foundational university-levelvocabulary and progress beyond it. However, Nation (2001)cautioned that productive knowledge of vocabulary requires more learning and greater motivation for learn- ing than receptive knowledge, in which effective and measurable gains
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can be made within a matter of days.
The fact that consistent grammar instruction is important to develop
learner language awareness and improvement in the quality of L2 produc- tion has long been established in the work of, for example, Allen, Swain, Harley, and Cummins (1990), Celce-Murcia and Hilles (1988), R. Ellis (1984, 1989, 1990, 1994, 1997, 2001), Fotos (1994, 1998, 2002), Fotos and Ellis (1991), Kumaravadivelu (1993), Mitchell and Martin (1997), Norris and Ortega (2001), Muranoi (2000), Rutherford (1984), Rutherford and
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Asresearch has confirmed, it follows from this observation that vocabulary teaching can re-
sult in improvements in L2 reading comprehension earlier than in the increased quality of writing production (Huckin, Haynes, & Coady, 1993; Nation, 2001).
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