Combining Linguistic Accuracy and Cultural Awareness in Teaching Writing to ESL/EFL Learners

There are several approaches to teaching writing that would stress either quality (a-The Controlled-to-Free Approach), quantity, (b-The Free-Writing Approach), purpose and audience, (c-The Communicative Approach), process, (d-The Process Approach) or organization and accuracy (e-The Grammar-Syntax-Organization Approach); (Cf Raimes, 1983). All of these approaches have had their points of weakness and strength. Teaching writing to ESL/ EFL students should also take into consideration the culturally bound differences existing between L1 and L2. There are several cross-cultural rhetoric features that are involved in the process of writing in addition to the linguistic and stylistic content represented by word and structure choice. These features vary considerably from one language to another. In the case of ESL/ EFL contexts, students’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds must influence their organization of writing; how they express their ideas; and how they write in the foreign language; (Benda, 1999). Therefore; not only is a mastery of the linguistic components necessary to implement in the teaching of writing, but also an awareness of the rhetorical peculiarities of the target language must be taken into consideration; (Kaplan, 1966). The purpose of this paper/ presentation is to argue that linguistic accuracy should go hand in hand with cultural awareness. Suggested teaching strategies that work towards that purpose will be provided and discussed to support this view