MidTESOL Matters Spring 2001

Symposium on Second Language Writing 

By Karen Schwelle 

On September 15-16, 2000, the editors of the Journal of Second Language Writing brought together foreign language and ESL professionals for "Contexts of L2 Writing," the second Symposium on Second Language Writing at Purdue University.  

One hundred participants from as far away as Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, and Sweden came to West Lafayette to present and attend sessions on topics such as computer-assisted writing, writing assessment, error feedback, peer review, writing for specific purposes, and ties between culture and rhetorical style/choices. The presenters addressed questions faced by ESL and foreign language writing teachers at all levels as well as program administrators, teacher trainers, and researchers. The keynote speakers were George Braine, Linda Harklau, Ryuko Kubota, and John Swales. The small number of participants facilitated interaction, and some attendees even made time for a pilgrimage to the bricks-and-mortar site of the Purdue Online Writing Lab (http://owl.english.purdue.edu).  

The first such symposium was held at Purdue in 1998, and a collection of papers presented there, edited by Paul Kei Matsuda and Tony Silva, will be published soon by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. For information on the next Symposium on Second Language Writing, keep watch at http://icdweb.cc.purdue.edu/~silvat/symposium/.