Sentence Combining as a Consciousness-Raising Task for Japanese University Writing Classes

There has been much debate in second language research concerning the merits of sentence combining as a form of instruction. Some researchers argue that sentence combining improves both syntactic fluency and enhances the overall quality of essays. Conscious-raising tasks-exercises in which learners analyze and manipulate information - can aid learners to discover new rules and integrate these new rules to expand their writing. It is the purpose of this paper to: 1) review some of the current research in second language writing 2) offer a variety of pedagogical writing activities 3) discuss ways in which sentence combining tasks can be incorporated into the writing curriculum at Japanese universities