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JLLT edited by Thomas Tinnefeld
Journal of Linguistics and Language Teaching
Volume 6 (2015) Issue 2


Encouraging Student Engagement in ESL Writing Classes in Asian Classrooms: Recommendations for Actions to be Taken

Andrew Szanajda (Taichung, Taiwan, ROC) / Wei-Yu Chang (Durham, United Kingdom)

Abstract
This paper examines how to improve EFL/ESL students learning engagement, especially in writing classes. Many other such works have dealt with related issues, but they fail to give a series of recommendations to solve this common problem because students, especially Asian students, usually are in lack of learning motivation and engagement. In order to help students overcome barriers that block confidence and motivation, some recommended methods are addressed, including providing a menu of options, having students write about their experiences, providing context with writing sample, making critique a part of the process, making connections with the real world, and celebrating writing success. Firstly, giving a menu of options is a way to allow students to choose their preferable genres to write, so they might find that writing is interesting. Secondly, having students write about their experiences helps them connect their own lives with learning, which makes learning meaningful and purposeful. Thirdly, by providing context with sample pieces, students might have clearer ideas about what to write and how to write it, especially for less competent writers, because they could have a model to simulate. Fourthly, students are expected to learn a lot by giving feedback to others after reading. Through making critiques, students could understand the differences between well-written and poorly-written texts. It is suggested that connecting students’ writing with the real world (e.g. business life) that they are going to face is important, and it will help them understand the world outside the classroom and realize how to deal with problems in the future. Finally, adequate praise cannot be underemphasised when students complete writing tasks effectively so that they may be motivated to engage in further such tasks. The primary purpose of this work is thus to bring forth effective teaching and learning methods for both instructors and learners in EFL/ESL writing classrooms, and to help students find some different perspectives in writing in order to cultivate their writing competence.
Key words: EFL/ESL students, writing classes, writing competence, learning motivation and engagement

1 Introduction
In the current increasingly globalised business climate, it has become more important than ever for those who wish to be successful to speak two or more languages. In order for students to engage in the global conversation, it is also nearly imperative that one of these languages be English, since it is the most prevalent language of academic scholarship as well as of business and technological innovation. Learning English is therefore of great importance for students in Asian countries. In fact, this importance cannot be overstated. Students can be better prepared for success in the classroom and in wider contexts if they can speak, read, and write English with some degree of fluency. Writing is particularly important in this equation, since it exists in both formal and informal contexts. Students will use writing in one or more of these contexts, no matter what field they will work in during their future careers. To put students who come from non-English speaking countries, on the same footing as their peers from English-speaking countries, the most effective means of having non-native English-speaking students interact with others is to train them in using foreign language skills in both professional and private contexts. This starts at home: making sure that students learn English before they launch their careers is the responsibility of those teaching in universities around the world.
In recent years, scholarly literature on educational practice has focused on how to engage students from other cultures who are learning English as a second or foreign language, with learning English, and there also being a particular focus on writing and speaking. A wide variety of approaches to all aspects of language learning - from grammar to reading comprehensio - have been examined with varying degrees of scrutiny in order to determine the best possible methods. A consensus seems to have emerged: students need to be engaged in their learning in order to succeed, and different students can be best engaged, using different methods and activities in the classroom. How to engage university-level students in learning languages in particular is a difficult question.
This paper will examine how to engage Asian students at the university level in learning English - particularly learning writing skills in English - with a focus on authentic assessment and product differentiation in order to provide the highest possible level of student buy-in and engagement for writing tasks and assessments. It will provide background material on related issues as they have already been covered in the body of the peer-reviewed literature, including the idea of authentic assessment and the existing knowedge about university students' engagement, particularly in the context of learning English. The literature review will be followed by recommended activities and classroom practices for university instructors.

2 Literature Review
2.1 Student Engagement
A university classroom should theoretically have an unmistakable appearance: students are motivated, busy, and engaged with each other and with the instructor. They are on task, and talking to them would reveal that they are interested in their work. This sort of student engagement has repeatedly been shown to lead to higher levels of learning and academic achievement, and such engagement begins with teacher-student relationships. Although many instructors do not consider this to be a priority of their pedagogy, positive teacher-student relationships have a considerable impact on student engagement, and also impact academic success, albeit to a slighter degree. This correlation between engagement and teacher-student relationships is especially strong at higher levels, such as with university students, and negative teacher-student relationships can lead to corresponding negative outcomes in student engagement as well (Roorda et al. 2011). High levels of student engagement repeatedly show a wide range of positive correlations with desirable outcomes in ESL populations, including higher speaking skills, better mastery of academic content delivered in English, and more student-centered learning (Bondie et al. 2014). All of these are important, and so it follows that student engagement is a crucial concept for the best teaching of ESL students at any academic level and to any student population, regardless of ethnic or cultural factors.
Student engagement is related to strong academic outcomes, including higher grades, better attendance, and better performance on critical thinking tasks. It is also worth noting that these correlations have been found to be higher for students who are relatively weak (Carini et al. 2006). Students who might otherwise be considered difficult to reach by teachers and who might be at risk of poor grades, uncooperative behaviour, or other such negative outcomes are especially affected by engaging activities, and therefore, modification of activities and the application of engaging material for students is of even greater import, since it can be key for educators who consider how to engage their most problematic students or those who are, for whatever reason, difficult to reach.
Even students whose expectations of a course are being met do not always report engagement and may still be absent from class quite often. A study that was conducted at the university level included allowing students to choose whether or not they would go to class on their own, without the influence of parents or others directly in contact with them on a daily basis. Engagement thus does not easily take place by default. It is therefore the responsibility of educators to determine how to best engage students so that they attend class (Lobo & Gurney 2014). Furthermore, they must come prepared to learn and to meet the instructor's expectations. Students are simply more likely to do so if they consider that they are going to face useful material that is worth learning, and if they are interested in the class work and assignments. The essence of student engagement is whether students are willing to cooperate in facing the challenge of acquiring course contents through active participation.
In order for students to be as engaged as possible, it is important that teachers address their concerns and make sure to teach the skills that students think it is most important to learn, although this must be balanced with the teaching skills that students need, even if they do not perceive them to be important. For Asian students in particular, who are learning in the context of being international students in graduate programs, the skills that they most want to learn and are thus most likely to be easily engaged in include test taking skills, and, most particularly, oral communication skills. Students report being concerned about being asked to lead discussions or do oral presentations in class, and these particular skills should therefore be addressed in the ESL classroom (Kim 2006). Of course, these are not the only important skills: basics including grammar fundamentals, both in spoken and written expression, need to be taught as well, and it is important that they be taught in-depth and in engaging ways, even when this means that instructors need to make additional efforts to create materials and to teach very actively by paying attention to each individual student, rather than merely providing students with conventional tasks, such as completing workbook exercises or using other traditional instructional tools. Students should be asked leading questions to be answered in class in order to provide them with learning opportunities to figure out concepts with inductive reasoning. This approach involves attempting to anticipate individual answers, rather than merely delivering traditional direct instruction, which can lead to making deeper impressions and establishing fundamental understanding of English language building blocks (Puji Widodo 2006). Without these basics in place, students are going to make slower progress in learning to write well and confidently in English, and it is less likely that they will enjoy or be engaged in writing tasks. Hence, teaching grammar and other foundational concepts must take place in every ESL classroom before written assignments are to be completed independently or with some peer cooperation during class time under the instructor’s supervision.
Asian students learning English also report that they sometimes struggle with motivation and self-efficacy. Problems with self-motivation to learn new contents and mastering understanding, or taking ownership, of those contents can lead to academic difficulties in general and in English classes in particular (Phakti & Li 2011). Another argument for engaging students as much as possible in the ESL classroom is that students who enjoy and are intrinsically motivated by their ESL learning experiences, may have fewer overall academic difficulties in all types of coursework. Writing is particularly important here, since students write across the curriculum, from science classes to literature and other humanities-based topics. If students can be engaged in writing in particular, they are more likely to be academically successful in all classes, since they are asked to write on a variety of topics in almost ever class situation.
Across the Asian and Pacific countries that participated in a recent survey, students' attitudes toward study were found to be predictive of academic success and of students' relationships with instructors and even with peers. Students who had more positive feelings toward their study scored higher on reading assessments in both their native languages (L1) and English (L2), and were more interested in reading. Students who were more interested in study also had fewer discipline problems than others (Lai et al. 2015). All of these are positive factors for education, and they all stem from student engagement. Making students enjoy study and want to do their work is not merely superfluous added value. It should be the key to students’ educational attainment.
Although Asian students are commonly thought to be reticent in terms of class participation, at least one study shows that they actually have a strong desire to participate in classroom activities and may be held back only by situation-specific factors, such as activities they are uninterested in or a lack of the necessary proficiency to feel comfortable interacting in English with each other or with their instructors (Chen 2000). These are conscientious and even enthusiastic students, but current modes of instruction are not engaging them as much as they might be, leading to a seeming reticence on the part of the students, which may not accurately reflect their feelings. In fact, although it has long been thought that cultural factors inherent in the Confucian educational and philosophical model make Asian students passive and prone to rote learning, recent scholarship has found that situational factors, such as school culture and the learning environment, as well as social interactions at school, make far more difference to the way students present their existing knowledge and to the way they learn new contents (Gan 2009). Students can be motivated and even pushed to have positive attitudes toward learning in general and toward specific language-learning strategies in particular, which also holds true when they are learning a second or foreign language, such as English. Asian students studying English want to be engaged: the question is how this can best be done?

2.2 Authentic Assessment and Product Choice
Assessing students authentically involves ensuring that the way that students are assessed and the skills that they are being asked to use are analogous to what they will have to use in real world experiences outside of the classroom. This type of assessment has been shown to make students more engaged and motivated, and this sort of assessment in language learning begins with the assessment of specific oral language skills in terms of fluency and grammar, and not just as a byproduct of writing or reading skills. That is, instead of assessing students' speaking only when they, for example, read aloud or when they explain the contents of a research paper they have written, authentic assessment should start with assessing students' practical abilities in having the types of conversations they will have in English in the world outside of the classroom (Hallam 2004). This idea that students should be assessed based on what they will actually need to do and their application of these skills, rather than based on the artificial context of the classroom, is the essential idea of authentic assessment. Authentic assessment does not, by definition, mean that such assessment must involve conversation, rather than written or other types of products, since the goal of teaching students English is that they will be able to communicate fluently. However, assessing oral communication is an important beginning and can then lead to assessing writing.
Authentic assessment can lead naturally to higher levels of student engagement because students will be demonstrating their mastery of content, possibly in any subject, in ways that will appear to be relevant to their lives as well as in future endeavours. Chung & Behan's (2010) study found, for example, that students engaged in inquiry-based science content learning both enjoyed their work more and learned more when assessed authentically, as opposed to being assessed in traditional testing-based formats. Connecting academic content to the real world by providing examples of practical applications can help students, especially millenials (i.e. those born between 1982 and 2003) engage better. Since the majority of students who are currently enrolled in secondary and higher education are part of this generation, it is important to understand this phenomenon and to account for it. In order for millennial-aged students to be engaged, teachers must meet them where they are, and make efforts to tap into their specific interests, skills, and strengths in order to teach them English language skills. Encouraging ESL students to write about topics that are of interest to them will lead to better writing, in terms of content and also organisation, provided that sufficient practice is administered during class times in order to provide adequate amounts of guided practice and offering feedback, regardless of whether these topics correlate to topics found on standardised tests. Since writers need writing skills, and not just test-taking skills in the real world, it is clear that topic choice in writing is part of effective ESL teaching (Lo & Hyland 2007).
This concept also relates to the idea of product choice. Different students can use different products to show their mastery of content. For example, one student might like to write a research paper, while another shows their knowledge of the same content with a PowerPoint presentation. Both products feature written English and a display of content knowledge, but the two students would have demonstrated their knowledge in ways that were interesting for each of them individually.
According to current research, millenials also prefer to learn using technology and are especially engaged when pop culture is connected to their learning (Nicolette & Merriman 2007). This can fit well with product choice: learners can show what they have learned in ways that are intrinsically motivating to them, because they will be interested in the activities. Giving a choice of authentic assessment products and options is, thus, the key to student engagement. Students who perceive that they have autonomy in their own learning and are supported in this autonomy by their teachers self-report higher levels of emotional engagement and behavioral engagement, i.e. being actively engaged with their schoolwork assignments (Shih 2008).
Product choice also ties into the widely-supported idea of differentiation - different levels of materials and different assignments for different students - in order to best support all learners within the same classroom (Konstantinou-Katzi et al. 2013). In today's budget-conscious educational environments, it is important that all learners be supported, but at the same time, there are often not enough teachers to have separate classes for students at every possible level and for every type of learning style. Thus, teachers need to be able to make sure that the diverse learners in their classrooms, who may come from different backgrounds, have different skills, or have different goals for or modes of learning, can all learn together and experience success and content mastery. Product choice, in which students are able to select their own preferred learning modalities from a given menu of options, is one way for teachers to ensure appropriate levels of differentiation within their classrooms, regardless of the subject matter. This can be made possible through administering writing practice assignments during class times.
When it comes to writing, studies have shown that not all students engage with traditional writing assignments in which they must use sources, paraphrasing and synthesizing to communicate their points and thoughts. While the skills tested by such assessments are important, students do not always have true understanding of the skill of paraphrasing and why it is important, even when they are doing it (Hirvela & Du 2013). Teaching this skill and assessing it in the context of real-world writing, such as asking students to summarize a text in their own words in a memo or email, rather than a complete research paper with multiple paragraphs, is one way to get around this problem. Product choice can, thus, help give students such options so that they can completely show their mastery of crucial skills in a way that is going to hold their attention by being engaging to them.

2.3 ESL Specific Concerns
ESL learners, of course, need deliberate supports in order to learn English successfully, and a great deal of research has been devoted to this topic (Nikula & Courtney 2014). There are particular issues that instructors who teach English to Asian students must address specifically, and these factors must not be discounted when making recommendations about how to best engage ESL students from Asian countries learning English. Although there has been a great deal of recent scholarly work on how to engage students in second language or English learning in the classroom, other recent studies show that the ways students engage with both their first language and their newly-learnt English outside of the classroom are equally important. Such engagement can have a huge impact on literacy skills in English, as demonstrated by a study examining Korean adolescents (Youngjoo 2005). Teachers can and should use this fact to their advantage by bringing interactions with English, that typically take place outside of the classroom, such as interactions with social media interactions, into the ELS learning context.
Another important goal for ESL students in particular is inciting them to speak. Although conversational assessment is an important part of authentic assessment for students, in the example of a study at a Japanese university, many ESL students reported feeling awkward and uncertain about speaking tasks and choosing not to speak in class. One major way to make these problems less difficult for teachers and learners was to change the class syllabus, to have it include personalized topics, more support in students' L1, and direct instruction of some strategies for decoding and speaking (Talandis & Stout 2015). These forms of support should be paramount to any successful instruction for ESL students in English at the university level.
Asian students learning English also need to be prepared for possible academic experiences as international students, such as at universities in English-speaking countries. Many Asian students report that in these situations, they have trouble dealing with classroom expectations and learning norms in English-speaking classroom contexts (Campbell & Li 2008), and this is something that should be addressed throughout the process of learning English in students' native countries. In a quantitative study, Leki (1995) found that Asian students learning in an ESL context employ a variety of coping strategies in order to deal with the new demands of learning in English-based environments, and that the more these environments can be made familiar to them, i.e. the more they can experience these environments in English classes in their home countries, the easier such coping will be. This finding may arguably be especially important for writing tasks. Since in Asian countries, many teachers rely on memorisation and recitation in their classes, students are not necessarily prepared to write extemporaneously with comfort and confidence. Therefore, the more their teachers can help them to be confident in these particular areas, the more successful these students will be in their future endeavours, regardless of whether the latter will be educational or career-focused, no matter where in the world students may find themselves in the future.
Of course, teaching English to Asian students in particular has advantages as well as the above-mentioned specific concerns, and these positive aspects must also be addressed in order for ESL teachers - whether experienced or aspiring - to have a complete picture of the unique functions they have to fulfill. One of these advantages is the extremely low amount of off-task behaviour that students tend to engage in when compared to their peers in Western countries. This behaviour cannot be attributed to curricula only: in fact, when American and Asian students followed the same online curriculum with identical activities, the Asian students were far less likely to engage in off-task behaviour, indicating a cultural component in this equation. This may give the ESL teacher a bit more flexibility in terms of providing exciting activities, such as computer-based learning, that might otherwise invite students to be off-task, since students in Asia are less likely to take advantage of these situations in a negative manner and may instead learn more from them (Rodrigo et al. 2013).
A final issue that needs to be brought up is ESL / EFL teachers' professionalism. In Zan & Goh's (2011) study of Chinese teachers of English at the university level, it was found that teachers were hindered by their own lack of comfort speaking extemporaneously in English, and their perception that they lacked pedagogical resources and experience. In combination with large class sizes, which teachers also reported, teaching ESL is clearly a difficult undertaking at any level. Offering teachers training to help them become more comfortable with their teaching assignments is obviously an important step that must be taken, but it is easy to imagine that more engaged students might make the teaching of ESL easier by simplifying classroom management tasks and raising potential student achievement, thus reducing the stress on the instructors’ performance concerning consistently attaining positive results. Although teacher training and pedagogical help are outside the scope of this article, it is important to note that not all issues of the ESL classroom can be solved with differentiated assessment, as other types of change may well be needed as well.
Teaching English as a second or foreign language to Asian students is an undertaking in which managing class times and course pacing is imperative. Research shows that repeating a year of an English-based language curriculum has either no effect on students' scores on comprehension tests in English, or can even have a negative impact on these scores (Morrison & Leong On No 2007). Teachers must therefore teach effectively and engagingly from the very first day of an English class in order to best serve the particular population of Asian higher education students.

3 Recommendations
Student engagement is an important part of what responsible educators need to do in order to teach students to write with the best possible outcomes, particularly when one is discussing how to face ESL students. There has also been enough research specifically on Asian students to make it clear that these issues pertain specifically to this student population in the higher-education sector. One way to engage students is to allow for product choices within the framework of authentic assessment, giving students options as to how they will demonstrate their learning while making sure that the skills and competencies on which they are assessed are directly related to real-world tasks, rather than artificial constructs. The following recommendations are designed to help classroom teachers implement this research-based intervention successfully and as accessibly as possible, with a minimum of disruption to their previously established and currently existing teaching practices.

3.1 Give a Menu of Options
The first practice teachers can adapt is fairly straightforward. For each writing task students will be turning in for a grade, present a menu of options. This can be as simple as a handout that lists possible options, or it can be a poster displayed in the classroom with options that students can use for all assignments. It may be effective to make a different menu for each of the assignments, rather than having one generic list of options for students.
Students can be asked to do research and present their findings in written form on the topic of dining in a restaurant (a common topic for students in a beginning English class), the following options might be presented. One student might decide to write a traditional paper explaining his or her research into a certain type of cuisine. Another student might create a mock menu for a restaurant, and a third student might decide to write a collection of recipes reflecting what he or she has learnt. A student with a creative bent might even be able to write a story, or the script for a short skit or play that would take place in a restaurant setting. All of these students would be working on the same concepts, and all would be using the same vocabulary word bank and engaging with the same cultural tropes and ideas, but each student would be doing something they chose, thus making the task more inspiring and engaging. These options can be presented to students when the assignment is given, and students could select one of them at that point. It is important to note that students should be asked to commit to a specific project in writing and / or by a certain deadline so that they do not try to switch back and forth in order to make their work easier or less. Each option that the teacher provides needs to be given a rubric, although the same rubric might be able to be used for many different assignments throughout the semester or year, so that students know exactly what is expected of them. In some cases, the same rubric can be used for multiple types of products, since the same things, e.g. using certain vocabulary words correctly, will be assessed.
Example 1:
Write an essay on the topic
My Favourite Restaurant
  • Organise the content of your essay according to a logical division of ideas to provide readers with reasons why this restaurant is worth frequenting.
  • Present your reasons, ranging from the least to the most important one and add qualifying details so as to support them. Do not forget to give examples in order to illustrate the different points.
  • Think of your readers: express your ideas clearly and intelligibly.

3.2 Have Students Write about Their Experiences
At any level, students enjoy expressing their thoughts about themselves and their own lives, and using this tendency can make assessment a lot more authentic. The teacher can ask students to use the vocabulary or concepts that are being learnt to write about themselves or their experiences. For example, in a unit about travel, students could produce a travel guide for their own home city.
This intervention does not just make writing more interesting for students. In fact, it can be connected to speaking tasks as well, especially since research shows that Asian students in particular are nervous about and often do not feel prepared for these types of tasks. Students can have natural conversation in English when they do not have to think about the content, and this is easiest when students discuss their own experiences, opinions, and preferences. Any unit that can be adapted with at least the possibility or option for students to write something to which they are personally connected should be modified in this way. This will, in turn, change the class so that students consistently write and speak in English about topics with which they are comfortable, allowing them to gain and then to show their mastery of English that differs from their mastery of any particular or specific academic content. The following examples will clarify this point:
Example 2:
Write an essay on the topic
My Best Friend
  • Provide reasons why you like and respect him or her such as:
    • his or her character,
    • his or her behaviour in a certain situation
    • the way he or she helped you in a difficult phase of your life.
  • In addition describe his or her in detail, e.g.:
    • his or her appearance and / or
    • his or her personality and / or
    • his or her interests.
  • Organise your essay in such a way that your readers will enjoy reading it, by making it clear, easy to understand, and vivid.

Example 3:
Write an esay on the following topic:
My trip to ...
  • Describe your trip in chronolgocal order.
  • Say why it was so enjoyable and what you liked in particular.
  • Express the feelings you had at a certain moment, at a certain place or in a certain situation.
  • Make sure you connect the different parts of your text logically, using the correct linking phrases and transitional elements.
  • Try to make your description so interesting that your readers would like to go for the same trip (perhaps even with you).
Inciting students to write their own experiences does not only mean to take them seriously and respect them. Expecially in Asia, where their personal opinions are usually not asked for in a classroom context, an approach as the one described here and exemplified in the above instructions, permits to show students that they are important and that their opinions and feelings do have an impact on their teachers and classmates and, eventually, on their future lives.

3.3 Provide Context with Sample Pieces
Many students know, in the abstract, that there are certain skills that they will need to demonstrate in English with regard to writing, such as writing an email. However, many students, even the most dedicated or interested ones, have not seen examples of such a document in English. Along with explaining to students how to do the task, it is worthwhile to provide context by showing them real-world examples of such a document.
Doing this provides students with a model to follow when they write their own product, but it does more than that. Before writing, students can spend time analysing the sample pieces provided by their instructor. This strategy allows them to take ownership of the process of composing such a document, since they will have a chance to notice on their own and compare multiple examples of the different elements of an email (e.g the subject line or the closing). This strategy connects with the idea of authentic assessment. Nothing is more authentic, and thus more engaging to students, than something which they can see clearly and will be able to use in real life outside the classroom environment. Showing students examples from real-world applications of the targeted skills will help them to engage further and be more motivated as they learn these skills and apply them.
A highly practical application for this type of writing is learning how to write business letters in the workplace or other such formal situations. These may include writing to make enquiries or send information or complaints, requesting actions to be taken, providing news, as well as writing memos, business reports, and press releases about launching new products. The following example will clarify this point:
Example 4:
Commercial Correspondence: Write a Complaint
  • Specify the product you would like to complain about.
  • Say why you are not satisfied with the product in question.
  • Specify your conditions:
    • Would you like the product to be replaced with a new one – and, if so, by when?
    • Would you like to have a discount?
    • Can you imagine any other form of compensation?
  • Respect the official format of this text type.
  • Use the specific style which is typical of business correspondence.

3.4 Make Critique a Part of the Process
Writing does not happen in a vacuum. In the world outside the classroom, students will be critiqued on what they write, and may have to produce multiple drafts. Responsible and competent teachers are likely to require their students to write and revise multiple drafts of assignments as appropriate and as deemed necessary. However, few teachers take the opportunity to take the next step and bring students into the critiquing process. Allowing students to engage in hands on experiences through having their writing evaluated through peer revision, having multiple students read it and provide constructive feedback, is helpful for all students. The students receiving the critique will have multiple perspectives on their work, while the other students see examples of writing that may contain ideas or devices that they wish to emulate or that may give them important lessons as to what not to do. All of the students will also gain practice conversing and making themselves understood in English. Students tend to enjoy being asked to use their own expertise, and they will take more ownership of the English writing conventions they know if they are asked to critique each other. Furthermore, seeing each other's work can help the whole class because struggling students then have more models from which to work, while students who are excelling can be encouraged in this way to reach an even higher level so that they keep becoming increasingly better.
Teachers can - and should - also grade students on their critiquing. That is, students should be held responsible for giving clear, consistent, and constructive oral and written feedback to their peers. This is the ultimate form of student empowerment in authentic assessment, since this is certainly something students will need to do and experience in the business world, should they ever be working in English. Giving them this experience is crucial to building their capabilities in English.
Peer review in a classroom environment can be orchestrated in two different ways.
  1. To model student correction under the supervision of the instructor as a class, anonymous examples of students’ mistakes (not indicating the author of the written contents) can be written on the board. Every student is asked to provide feedback with regards to clarity of the contents as well as to come to the board at the front of the classroom and correct any mistakes with the assistance of their peers who should be encouraged to forward their thoughts orally to their classmate at the board.
  2. After students’ writing samples are collected, the instructor redistributes these examples of written assignments at random among the students in the classroom, and have either individuals or pairs examine their classmates’ contents for clarity and grammatical accuracy, and write written corrections or suggestions that the instructor can take into consideration. In either case, students who actively participate in the process can be given class credit for participation. Students must also be given the opportunity to rewrite their assignments after both their peers and the instructor have indicated their earlier errors.

3.5 Connect Explicitly with the Real World
Writing is a skill that students will need throughout their lives, and writing in English is an especially marketable skill that will put students, currently in Asian universities, in good stead as they progress throughout their careers. However, too many instructors forget to remind students of this advantage whenever possible. Students should experience English writing as a crucial skill that they must learn. Raising expectations in this way increases student engagement, and the way to do this is simple: make it clear to students that precisely what they are learning to write will be used in the professional contexts in which they will later find themselves.
Different instructors may want to do this in different ways. For one instructor, explicit real world connections might take the form of stories from their own life and career. For another instructor, who does not have much experience in his or her own career writing in English, having guest speakers in class or inviting students to brainstorm about when they might use different writing products or skills in their own lives may be a good way to ensure that things are connected to reality. Above all, students need to understand that writing is a hugely important form of communication, regardless of the language in which it is done, and that they need to master this form of communication in order to reach their full potential. Bringing each assignment, unit, or idea out of the classroom and connecting it to what students will later do in their adult lives will help them to remain engaged.
Instructors ought to provide clarification about future job requirements that will involve having to complete written tasks in different situations. Those who are interested in being engaged in the field of education need to be informed about how the students themselves can apply writing skills in teaching work at various levels of proficiency, which is also a specialised skill in demand in Asian schools and universities. Students aiming toward careers in business or the civil service must be advised that clarity and accuracy will be expected from readers in those spheres of professional activity. Using writing can also have unlimited possibilities for communicating with others in a common language in the social sphere for different purposes, such as expressing their views, regardless of whether these are informal contents posted by individuals in different forms of social media that has users worldwide, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, etc., or in terms of fulfilling necessities, such as making personal travel arrangements in writing by using email. Examples of writing these types of contents can be practiced in the classroom.

3.6 Celebrate Writing Success
A final recommendation is one that, although it does not directly concern authentic assessment, has much to do with keeping students engaged. Often, students are asked to complete assignments and given grades, but no additional positive reinforcement. Grades are, for the most motivated students, their own reward, since students will gain good outcomes, such as gaining praise from their parents, or better job prospects, from good grades. However, in order to make writing specifically something students are excited about and engaged in, teachers should build in time to celebrate writing. Students should be able to share their writing with peers and applaud or otherwise celebrate each other, giving comments of what they liked about each other's writing and getting a chance to bask in the adulation of their fellow students. By giving students extra recognition for writing, teachers are providing extrinsic motivation. While not being as important to long-term success as intrinsic motivation, this strategy will still help students be more excited about writing in English.

4 Conclusion
Ultimately, engaging students in writing in English is a crucial endeavor for teachers at any level, and this may be especially true at the university level. At this age, students are very close to starting their careers and to moving into fields in which, in many cases, they will need to communicate effectively in English, since it is the lingua franca of science, business, and a variety of other growing fields in today's world. When teaching Asian university students who have grown up with the cultural tropes and norms of many Asian countries, it is especially important to take into account the unique interests, challenges, and strengths of these students in order to teach them in the best possible way. These students want to be engaged, and it is student engagement that leads to long-term positive consequences in terms of academics and independently taking charge of their own learning. Students do best when they are learning material that they perceive as important or necessary to their success, not just because they will be graded on it, but because they will use the acquired skills and knowledge in their future endeavors. This is the essence of student engagement: making students want to learn and want to excel.
One way to make student engagement happen is to leave behind the conventions of traditional classroom learning of language, and allow students to come as close as the constraints of the environment will allow to doing real-world tasks that have relevance to their lives. These tasks will then be graded in order to determine students' competencies. This is the concept of authentic assessment. Giving students choices of products to show their learning and allowing them to write the same sort of things they will as career-driven adults, is the best way to engage them. Although more research is needed as to how well various interventions and strategies, including those discussed in this article, work in the classroom with different student populations, it is clear that students engaged in writing should be the goal of every ESL instructor.

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Authors:
Andrew Szanajda, PhD
Associate Professor
Overseas Chinese University
Taichung, Taiwan, ROC
E-mail: andrew.szanajda@gmail.com

Wei-Yu Chang
Doctoral candidate
Durham University

E-mail: wei-yu.chang@durham.ac.uk