摘要：The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of regular timed-writing sessions
in the intermediate-level foreign language classroom. Because today¡¯s foreign language
pedagogy encourages success with regard to oral communicative skills, writing may be a skill
that has fallen to the wayside. However, writing is a reality for all foreign language students. Not
only do they write daily in class and for homework assignments, foreign language students of the
lower-level sequence are often asked to develop compositions outside of class time. Furthermore,
writing is a component on every in-class examination, during which students are asked to write
an essay or a composition based on the theme of the chapter. Far too often, students complain
that there is not ample time to develop a composition on a test when they are already required to
manipulate other skills (listening and reading) during the remaining activities (listening
comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, and reading exercises). Beginning- and intermediate-level
foreign language students often find it difficult to express themselves in the target language (TL)
because they suffer from an incomplete working knowledge of the foreign language (FL)
grammar. They may know what they want to say, but they are unable to express it in the TL. One
challenge that may further impede these students from writing successfully is the burden of
writer¡¯s block, or not knowing what to write next. Just as in their first language (L1), foreign
language students must try to overcome this block, and must develop writing strategies that
allow them to keep writing. Timed-writing is generally thought of as the type of writing that is
required for placement examinations (like the TOEFL), wherein learners must prove their
writing abilities to place into certain levels of classes. But the fact remains that students in FL
classes are also expected to complete timed-writings of sorts. How better to prepare them for this
reality?
