Evaluating the Role of Writing in the First and Second Year University Foreign Language Curriculum

Abstract

Approaches to foreign language (FL) instruction have changed a great deal in the past fifty years, the most fundamental change being the shift from a focus solely on language form to a focus on communicative competence (CC). Although most FL instructors now appear to focus on CC in the teaching of speaking, they do not necessarily apply CC to writing in the same way. The study reported here attempts to describe the role currently played by writing in the first and second-year FL curriculum by detailing the methods used by 10 professors working at 7 different universities across the United States to teach FL writing in these courses. Results indicate that writing-to-learn activities make up a large majority of the writing methods used, but that learning-to-write activities that foster CC in writing have also been successfully integrated into the beginning FL curriculum.