WRITING IN ENGLISHLW

A study examined the written English proficiency of Windsor, Ontario francophone eighth-graders being educated entirely in French and compared it to norms for English-speaking eighth-grade children educated in English or French. Results suggest that these francophone students compare favorably with anglophone groups in syntactic maturity and surface feature control, despite weaknesses in spelling and in the use of verbs and pronouns. It is noted that the study examined limited aspects of the students ' writing proficiency, and that some aspects of the francophone group's writing set it apart from the anglophone group, including use of unidiomatic expressions amounting to literal translations of French and a wider range of proficiency. Further research is suggested using more comprehensive analyses, making comparisons of native- and second-language writing proficiency, investigating influences outside the school, comparin