2016 Annual Conference

This roundtable will share preliminary findings from a critical literature review of studies examining adult ESL learners’ motivation to write. Both the findings presented and the discussion that follows are aimed at examining how ESL instructors might foster more effective strategies for motivating their learners throughout the writing process.

The target audience for this presentation includes faculty, instructors, staff, or administrators associated with degree programs serving adult ESL learners, as well as others interested in the topic of teaching and learning of writing for ESL learners within adult and higher education.

This roundtable will share preliminary findings from a critical literature review of studies examining adult ESL learners’ motivation to write. Writing is a central and often mandatory component of college coursework for English as Foreign Language (ESL) students. Despite this, ESL teacher-researchers note that motivation to write essays and/or academic papers is a consistent and significant challenge. For many second language learners, there seems to be a much higher level of motivation to complete English tasks and projects that may involve speaking and listening, reading or even grammar components of the language when compared with motivation levels for writing. As such, researchers have echoed the need for additional work exploring the element of motivation in writing (Gupta & Woldemariam, 2011; He, 2005; Tran, 2007; Zhao and Dong, 2011). Participants will have an opportunity to discuss the implications of this work for teaching, for faculty development and for creating optimal learning environments for adult ESL learners who are often de-motivated to write in diverse academic programs.