Dear Sheeraz Ali:

Thank you so much for asking such an important question:

I believe that, in order to answer this question, we should take into consideration the Stephen Krashen's Theory of Second Language Acquisition:

"Language acquisition does not require extensive use of conscious grammatical rules, and does not require tedious drill.

Acquisition requires meaningful interaction in the target language - natural communication - in which speakers are concerned not with the form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying and understanding.

... 'comprehensible input' is the crucial and necessary ingredient for the acquisition of language.

The best methods are therefore those that supply 'comprehensible input' in low anxiety situations, containing messages that students really want to hear. These methods do not force early production in the second language, but allow students to produce when they are 'ready', recognizing that improvement comes from supplying communicative and comprehensible input, and not from forcing and correcting production.

In the real world, conversations with sympathetic native speakers who are willing to help the acquirer understand are very helpful."

Kind regards,

Javier.

I think that young people are VERY concerned about the possibility that they will be judged as less than perfect, in many parts of their lives, not just language learning.  This is why many language learners are reluctant to speak up in class.  This is true in L2, but some young people will not even ask questions in L1 classes, because "I doing want the other students to think I am dumb."

Sear Sheeraz Ali,

 As the maxim " what you write is you" indicates,  writing is perhaps the only skill that provides a solid representation of a learner's language proficiency.  This creates a kind of  apprehension which is a reality for many language learners at an advanced level. In point of fact,  fear of negative social and/or educational evaluation  often accompanied by infinitely more stringent educational demands creates  a threatening self-imposed pressure which  has generally an adverse effect on writing making it more problematic for the advanced learners. These threats are further reinforced by teachers and examiners' expectations of such  learners in handling  writing assignments where they have to meet specific writing standards . On this basis, through personal perseverance and teachers' guidance , the advanced learners can overcome their unpleasant experiences  and enjoy the fantastic rewards of good writing.

Best regards,

R. Biria

It can be analysed from the sociolinguistic perspective. In essence, advanced level implies standard, prestige and correctness. These metaphorical concepts are usually preferred by ESL/EFL learners. 

Ali, I don't think it's just a question of English language. That trend permeates the study of all languages. Perhaps the pressure is higher in the case of English insofar as it's the world's number one territorial language. But I definitely think the consciousness displayed towards English is not unique to the study of English, it's common with other languages too. 

Advanced learners of English are very often highly motivated to perfect their English for profesional reasons. They made need English for important face-to-face meetings and  business negotiations, They may need to speeches in English to inter-national organizations, NGOs, and academic associations. (An Argentine friend of mine was president of a global academic organization based in Stockholm, where English is the preferred language.) They may need English to read and publish academic research, as the majority of journals, particularly in the sciences, and medicine are published in English. 

Dear all,

I agree to what the research recommends particularly the theory of Stephen Krashen emphasizing the role of comprehensible input in language learning, Applying to learners' performance they find so many ways of say and writing something but it confuses them to choose the appropriate one from their cognition.

Regards

I think it has a lot to do with the fact that when speaking, you have less time to formulate an utterance in your head before you speak, and you also have the benefit of context and the presence of the person you are talking to so if you make any mistakes that affect understanding, you can clear them up straight away.  When writing, you know that someone is most likely going to read it without you there, so if you make mistakes, they might get completely the wrong idea and you have no chance to correct yourself.  Thus, you use the time available to you to try and make what you're writing as correct as possible.  

I have also noticed that a lot of students try to use "advanced" vocabulary which actually makes their writing worse.  I think because of a lack of exposure to the vocabulary through reading, they have vocabulary breadth, in that they have seen these words a couple of times and understand their meanings, but they don't have vocabulary depth, so they don't actually know how to use the words in an appropriate context.

Dear April Day,

I completely agree with the idea share by you.

Regards

Hi colleagues

It is dominance of English language. Thanks!

Hi Sheeraz,

I think that much of what has been said here is correct regarding all language learners and holds for any second language. Your initial point about the difference in writing as both communicative but also as a way to be more meta-cognitive (as Frank Smith has often suggested) is also an excellent point. With specific regard to your question, I believe April has a crucial point regarding the unique saliency of writing since it is less transitory so that potential errors are more noticeable.  This is both more important for the learner and for those interacting with the learner because it allows for authentic usage and the typical feedback that can be given within the writing context. You mention Krashen's idea of comprehensible input which I do like myself as explanatory but the work done expressing the importance of contextualized and authentic language usage so that one can monitor their grammatical productions and lexical selections is a major reason why the use of writing and the feedback possible is so important and beneficial.

This has been considered by many theorists and practioners on second language acquisition. For example, I think Krashen's idea of the "Monitor Hypothesis" and the work done by Michael Long on the "interaction Hypothesis", Merrill Swain on "Comprehensible Output Hypothesis" and Richard Schmidt's "Noticing Hypothesis" are all approaching this point but in slightly different ways. The consensus would be something like "input is not enough...learners need to have authentic and appropriate feedback of their output too so that they can modify their productions as they continued learning.  Writing due to its saliency is ideal as a contextualized production for both self-monitoring and feedback from others.

hi. advanced learners are really concerned about their writing skill.. they think that there is no time for regular correction like repairing their speech. they consider writing as a formal situation representing their linguistic competence. some of them are over-users of monitoring. due to their age and level of competence, they use their meta-language awareness to monitor their writing. best

Once a student shows genuine awareness of the words, which ones best suit an expression, convey feeling or stimulate, then they are on their way to writing well. But they still may not be capable of producing very good English until reasonable grammar is internalised.

I came across some poems in English written by someone whose grasp of sentence structure was not perfect, but the effect of his words were immediate. Another reader called him out, saying he had bad English. I pointed out that this was not actually true as he'd used English words with vigour and passion (if not complete accuracy).

I agree with Reza Biria

Dear All,

I truly appreciate the responses received on the question or an emergent issue faced by the foreign language learners.

Regards,

Sheeraz Ali

The writing skill has often received little attention in most curricula used in non English speaking countries. At the tertiary level of education, however, writing in English all of a sudden becomes prominent. Consequently, the learners come to realize what they write provides an evidential basis for their academic evaluation. As such, their attentional control system is mainly focused on accuracy- that is committing no structural errors. To become fluent writers, they need to read the works of great authors of their respective fields in order to develop their own writing styles enabling them to exploit accuracy, fluency, and structural complexity which form the basic core of successful academic writing.

Dear Raza,

I absolutely agree with your opinion regarding the FLL's error and issues in English writing.