Teaching Writing As a Second Language

Classrooms filled with glassy-eyed students provide an experiential base for Alice S. Horning’s new com­prehensive theory about basic writers.

Horning explores the theory of writing acquisi­tion in detail. Her examination of spoken and writ­ten language and redundancy give a theoretical base to her argument that academic discourse is a sepa­rate linguistic system characterized by particular psycholinguistic features. She proposes that basic writ­ers learn to write as other learners master a second language because for them, academic written Eng­lish is a whole new language.

She explores the many connections to be found in second language acquisition research to the teaching and learning of writing and gives special attention to the interlanguage hypothesis, pidginization theory, and the Monitor theory. She also addresses the role of affective factors (feelings, attitudes, emotions, and motivation) in the success or failure of writing students.