JOURNAL OF SECOND LANGUAGE WRITING, 9 (3), 209 226 (2000)

Writing English as a Foreign Language: A Report from Ukraine

OLEG TARNOPOLSKY
Dnepropetrovsk State Technical University of Railway Transport, Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine This report investigates teaching writing in English in Ukraine. The past and present situations in teaching writing and the reasons for avoiding teaching communicative writing skills in English courses in that country are considered. The results of Ukrainian EFL students' needs analysis are presented, these results indicating the necessity of introducing writing into EFL courses. The process-genre approach is postulated as a foundation for elaborating an effective writing course for Ukraine, and the first version of the course based on such an approach is analyzed. Causes of the failure of this course are reported. It is demonstrated that a successful EFL writing course has to be not only communicative but also state-of-the-art. To motivate students, it also has to involve them from the beginning level in activities, making writing itself fun. The second (successful) version of the course, with a great part of learning organized as writing for fun, is presented, and its advantages are shown.

Ukraine is a typical post-Communist country of Eastern Europe and a typical representative of processes happening in the Newly Independent States (NIS) of the former USSR. This typicality also covers teaching English as a foreign language and teaching writing in English. At the present moment learning English is in great demand all over the former USSR and Eastern Europe as a whole. That is why it may be of interest to ESL/EFL professionals to get insights into teaching English writing in a typical Eastern European/NIS country. This is the purpose of this article. TEACHING WRITING IN ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN UKRAINE: PAST AND PRESENT In modern language teaching, it is an axiom that writing is a communicative activity and should be taught as such (see Pincas, 1993). This entails the need to
Direct all correspondence to: Oleg Tarnopolsky, Dnepropetrovsk State Technical University of Railway Transport, ul. Chkalova, 4, Apt. 8, 49029 Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. 209

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teach communicative writing, i.e., writing that serves purposes of genuine communication. But writing in English as a foreign language was the communicative activity least taught in the former USSR. Different kinds of communicative activities were emphasized at different periods and in different educational institutions since the 1950s when English gained the position of the leading foreign language to be taught. In the 1950s, reading was considered to be practically the only kind of communicative activity worth teaching. Beginning in the 1960s, speaking and listening, especially speaking, started to gain prominence, and not infrequently were declared the primary goals of teaching and learning. It should be noted, however, that most often those declarations remained nothing but declarations, with practical teaching/learning results far below the pre-set ambitious goals (see Tarnopolsky, 1996). But never in the former USSR was the objective of teaching writing in English as a communicative activity seriously and practically set in any kind of curricula, except for university courses training future teachers of English as a foreign language. Even there, it was treated as a skill of lesser importance than the other three. Consequently, it was allocated much less time in the curricula than speaking, listening, or reading; there were practically no specific materials for teaching writing as a communicative skill, and appropriate methods were hardly developed at all. The inevitable result was that teachers of English who graduated from Soviet universities developed little ability to write in English, and they were often totally unprepared to teach writing to their students. This lack was never an obstacle in their careers since, as already stated, teaching communicative writing was not in demand. To justify avoiding it in curricula, a specific line of thought was followed, somewhat akin to those ideas that were expressed in the articles by Brown (1982) and Troyanovich (1974). The gist of these ideas is summed up in the following quotation from Troyanovich (1974, p. 435), who insisted that ``the majority of our students have neither the psychological nor the practical need to write the foreign language.'' There was sound logic in such thinking because few people in the former USSR were allowed to write and send written documents across the borders of the country without attracting unfavorable attention from the state security authorities. This does not mean that writing was totally excluded from the curricula of different educational institutions. On the contrary, it occupied some place in almost every curriculum that of an ``academic exercise'' (Scott, 1996) as distinct from communicative writing. Sentence-composing and sentence-combining exercises, exercises for practicing grammar, and vocabulary, were the dominant (and sometimes the only) forms of writing in English classes. In many curricula, writing was explicitly proclaimed not an aim in itself but only a means of teaching, most useful for reinforcing grammar, vocabulary, and reading/ speaking skills. If some objectives in teaching writing as a communicative activity were set in a curriculum, they always were extremely limited, like writing ``a letter

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to a foreign pen-friend'' (in secondary schools) or a summary of a professional text just read (in higher schools). But in practice, implementing even such extremely restricted objectives was usually reduced to teaching students how to find relevant sentences in texts that they were reading, how to transform these sentences, and how to combine them into a new written text (a letter or a summary). The consequence of this attitude was an almost total absence of research on teaching English writing as a communicative activity. For instance, analyzing ESOL professional literature published in the former USSR in the 10-year period from 1970 to 1980, I could find only one candidate degree (equivalent to the US PhD) dissertation devoted to teaching writing in English for purposes of written communication. It is characteristic that even this single dissertation researched the issue of teaching written communication skills to university students who were trained to teach English. Since research results obtained by Western ESOL professionals were rarely accessible to their colleagues in the former USSR, the absence of domestic research on teaching writing resulted in the underdevelopment of efficient teaching methods. The conclusion is that when the USSR disintegrated, teaching writing in English as a communicative activity was practically non-existent. Neither were there teaching materials, methods, or trained teachers to effectuate that kind of teaching. Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the situation has remained totally unchanged in Ukraine, despite the English-learning boom that started with the downfall of the empire and that is still going on. On the one hand, the continuing lack of attention to teaching writing results from inertia. On the other hand, it is stimulated by the existing beliefs of many teachers (and the learning public as well). They still believe that speaking, listening, and reading are what learners really need, while writing for communication is required by an absolute minority. Several other reasons explain this lack of change. WHY WRITING IS NOT TAUGHT AND HOW TO START TEACHING IT The first reason for the lack of change is the lack of specialists. There are very few teachers who know how to teach English writing as a communicative activity, and universities have not yet focused their attention on training future teachers for it. The second reason is an economic one. The situation of deep economic crisis in the country does not permit much ESOL research in state-run educational institutions while commercial English programs rarely engage in research activities. As a result, students' needs in learning writing remain largely unknown, and methods of teaching it (adapted to local conditions) remain

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undeveloped. The same can be said for developing materials required to teach writing as a communicative activity. Western methods of teaching writing as communication and Western teaching materials (accessible now) could be used, and there are some infrequent attempts to do so, usually at state-run educational institutions. Not only are such attempts quite rare, they are also often of short duration. There are several explanations for this. 1. 2. Western teaching materials are expensive. Therefore, in the conditions of economic crisis, state-run educational institutions cannot bear the cost, and students cannot purchase them for the same reason. Western materials and teaching methods are mostly developed for teaching English as a second language, i.e., in English-speaking countries; they are usually designed for those students who have already entered or are going to enter US or British universities (EAP). This problem might be solved, at least in part, by combining what can be obtained from the West with materials and methods adapted to local needs. But the absence of methods and materials developed locally precludes this solution. Western materials and methods for teaching communicative writing in English as a second language do not ``deal with writing instruction at the beginning level of English study'' (Reichelt, 1999, pp. 186 187). But, according to Scott (1996), to make an efficient writing course in a foreign language, teaching it as a communicative activity should start at an early stage. In most Western teaching materials for the beginning level (e.g., Bell & Gower, 1998; Soars & Soars, 1993, both very popular in Europe), writing is dealt with either as an academic exercise or a series of pseudocommunicative assignments. They do not allow for what Bra uer (1997) argues to be important for learning writing skills the potential for exploring language in a playful and experimental way. Besides, in these materials teaching writing at the beginning stage is made a part of a conversation and/or reading course, that is, just an auxiliary to other courses, a condition that may work against its success (Greenia, 1992; McKee, 1981).

3.

4.

5.

The above analysis leads to certain conclusions concerning organizing an efficient and successful course of communicative writing in Ukraine for students of English as a foreign language. 1. 2. Potential learners' needs should first be analyzed to determine whether a writing course is in fact required and what kind of writing the students want to be taught. Principal teaching approaches, methods, and teaching materials for the course (if it is found to be needed) should be selected. Special attention

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3. 4.

should be focused on methods and materials to be used in a writing course for the beginning stage. Since this stage is a key to success of the whole undertaking, the writing course for beginners should be made more or less autonomous, i.e., not an auxiliary part of courses principally aimed at developing speaking, listening, and/or reading skills (see the already quoted opinions of Greenia, 1992; McKee, 1981; Scott, 1996). If the selected materials and methods originate from the West, they should be adapted to local conditions, appropriately modified, and/or supplemented. On this basis, the first version of the course itself with all its components can be elaborated, tried out in practice, and modified/altered according to results. UKRAINIAN LEARNERS' NEEDS IN WRITING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

In 1991, I was faced with a task of developing an intensive English program (IEP) for Ukraine, to be introduced in the city of Dnepropetrovsk. It was supposed to attract and meet the requirements of the greatest possible number of potential adolescent and adult Ukrainian learners interested in learning English for different personal or professional reasons. The program was to be designed for a commercial language school organized and owned by me (in partnership). Such a program could not be developed without taking the strictest account of learners' ``specific reasons for learning'' (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987), i.e., without analyzing their precise needs. The analysis was necessary to determine what to teach. It was also required to provide guidelines for developing or selecting teaching materials. Tomlinson (1998, pp. 22 23) justly observes that teaching materials should contain and reflect not only what research says about language acquisition but what learners (and teachers) want to see in them. For the purposes of this analysis, 300 potential learners were interviewed in the city of Dnepropetrovsk during 1991/1992, and 225 other potential learners were interviewed during 1996/1997. All the interviewees were people who had expressed some interest in learning English intensively. They represented different occupations businessmen, engineers, bankers, government employees, industrial workers, doctors, researchers in various fields of science and technology, students in high schools, tertiary institutions, and many others. The interviewees' ages ranged from 16 to 50 years old. The 1991/1992 interviewing procedure, questions asked, and the numerical results are analyzed in detail elsewhere (Tarnopolsky, 1999). Since the interviews in 1996/1997 were organized identically, only selected conclusions will be discussed below. These were drawn from the data collected during both interviewing periods and relate directly to the issues discussed in this article. Interviews in both periods demonstrated that up to 70 percent of potential students needed an ESP course, and not less than 65 percent of those who were

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eager to learn ESP preferred it to be Business English. At the same time, all potential learners without any exception said that they wanted a course of General English to precede ESP. One more important aspect was revealed in the interviews, a shift in learners' needs over the years in their interest in the four basic language skills (speaking, listening, reading, writing). In the 1991/1992 interviews, 59 percent of all the interviewees were interested only in acquiring speaking and listening skills. They believed reading and writing to be of secondary importance to them. Of the other 41 percent, everybody without exception thought speaking and listening to be the most important skills but also named reading as hardly less essential for their personal needs. As to writing, it was mentioned by only 26 percent of potential students. In 1996/1997 interviews, the overwhelming majority (85 percent or 191 potential learners) emphasized that they were in need of all the four skills (speaking, listening, reading, writing). Of these people, 99 (52%) said that speaking and listening were of primary importance to them, but they also absolutely needed reading and writing for communication. All the four skills were claimed to be of equal importance by 52 (27%) potential learners. There was even a considerable percentage of interviewees (40 or 21%) who stressed that although they needed speaking and listening skills in English, they required reading and writing skills in that language even more for their jobs. Such results can probably be attributed to the change in situation. 1991/1992 was the time of initial contacts of the Ukrainian public, businessmen, and specialists with people from other countries and potential foreign partners. Those contacts mainly necessitated personal meetings and oral communication. Today we are in a period of expanding, growing, or even well-established and regular contacts on personal and professional levels. This new situation requires dealing with foreign friends and/or partners not so much in person as through written (printed) papers, documents, letters, etc. As related to writing, in one respect 63 percent of interviewees who had said that they needed English writing were quite specific. They wanted to be taught writing for standard business letters and some other business documents. But in another respect, the needs of practically all (93%) potential students to be enrolled in a writing course were much less specific. Their requirements were best and most accurately summarized by one of the interviewees (S.M., a research associate, 35 years of age). He said that he wanted first of all ``a short course that would teach me the basic skills of writing in English and permit me to further develop my writing in any direction that I need for my personal or professional purposes.''1 This means that students wanted to acquire skills that could be adapted to any purpose or situation. The results obtained demonstrated Ukrainian students' need to learn to write English. They also showed that their specific needs necessitated the organization of at least two kinds of courses for teaching writing.

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1.

2.

A course for the beginning stage to develop students' most general and basic skills in communicative writing; these skills should neither be related to any particular area of social activities nor to any particular occupations but should be useful for doing a variety of writing tasks. Another course designed for a later period to develop students' skills in writing for business purposes.

As an outcome of needs analysis, the IEP curriculum in its final 1998 version was made up of seven courses. Every course was fully autonomous, so that a student could either take all the courses in sequence or any one of them separately in accordance with her/his personal or professional needs and/or her/ his level of command of English at the moment of enrollment. One of these courses was an 8-week long writing course for beginners, which is the object of the following discussion. It was aimed at developing learners' basic writing skills necessary for writing in any field. In this course, as in all the others, classes were held three times a week, 4 hours for every class (24 classes for the whole course). The course was third in the program as a whole and directly followed a 14-week long conversation course of everyday oral communication in English (General English). THE FIRST VERSION OF THE COURSE FOR TEACHING WRITING SKILLS2 In the beginning writing course, ideas underlying the modern approach to teaching writing were taken as its theoretical foundation. Those ideas may be summarized in two basic goals along which the course was organized. The first goal was designing the principal writing assignments according to the process approach (Tribble, 1996; White & Arndt, 1991; Zamel, 1982). This means introducing the sequence of stages for doing such assignments prewriting, composing/drafting, revising, and editing (Tribble, 1996). The second goal was planning the content of writing assignments following the genre approach (Swales, 1990). This means taking full account of communicative purposes of written texts, and teaching the writing of different texts in accordance with their communicative purposes. It was Tribble (1996, pp. 57 61) who strongly insisted on the necessity of combining both process and genre approaches to teaching writing. He also showed the way of achieving such a combination. Students should start by analyzing sample texts from the point of view of their genre peculiarities to find out what makes one piece of writing more acceptable than another. Then, on the basis of their findings, they should compose their own pieces of writing following the stages characteristic of the process approach. The writing course (the first version) was structured in accordance with these two goals. It was intended as a course for students who had already developed

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some basic skills in speaking and listening in the preceding elementary conversation course (see above). So, they were not beginners in learning English, but beginners, or rather false beginners, in developing their writing skills. The writing course for beginners was supposed to lead them from the beginning (elementary) to the pre-intermediate level in writing. Therefore, its objectives were set as teaching students to write: (1) different kinds of simple informal letters (for instance, an invitation to a friend to come and stay at the writer's country house for holidays); (2) some simple formal letters (e.g., reserving a hotel room); (3) short simple compositions (essays) of a descriptive and narrative nature (e.g., describing one's family, friends, or house, narrating some experience, etc.). The coursebook chosen for the course was Developing Writing by Peterson (1996). The choice was made because students were beginners in learning to write in English, and the coursebook is designed just for this level. It is aimed at teaching the basic elementary skills of writing spelling, writing grammatically correct sentences in a style adequate for written communication, combining these sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into a text, etc. At the beginning stage, acquiring the skills in question is the prerequisite for further advancement. Another reason for choosing the coursebook was the fact that it exposes learners to reading together with writing practice and balances writing and reading. This approach provides for transfer of skills from reading to writing and from writing to reading; it implements one of the leading ideas underlying modern methodology (see Eisterhold, 1991; Ferris & Hedgecock, 1998; Leki & Carson, 1993; McDonough & Shaw, 1993; Raimes, 1983). It also allows the introduction of elements of contrastive rhetoric (Connor, 1996; Grabe & Kaplan, 1996; Silva, 1990) into teaching writing. Reading texts and analyzing them from the point of view of contrastive rhetoric as a preliminary to writing similar texts is a good foundation for genre analysis. But the selected coursebook Developing Writing could not be used for organizing all learning. The objective set by its author is to teach only the most basic and elementary writing skills, so the activities suggested in the book are mostly product-oriented controlled compositions. This makes introducing process-oriented activities difficult. Besides, the communicative purpose of every piece of writing is not sufficiently stressed, since no attempts are made to provide an audience for products written by students. But it is well known that this audience should not include only the teacher but at least other students, as in role-playing, exchanging letters, etc. (Raimes, 1983). To compensate for this, classes were divided into two types. Nineteen regular classes out of twenty-four were totally based on the coursebook. Every fourth class beginning with the eighth one (five classes in all) was organized as a class for communicative writing of a more creative nature. In such classes students were supposed to write different kinds of simple informal and formal letters to each other and simple narrative and descriptive compositions to be exchanged and discussed. The design of these classes followed (with minor changes) the sequence

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of activities recommended by White and Arndt (1991): (1) reading a teachersupplied sample text; (2) discussing it from the point of view of contrastive rhetoric, defining its genre peculiarities, and making conclusions as to how similar texts should be composed; (3) getting an assignment to write a text of a similar type (assignments were mostly designed following practical recommendations by Byrne, 1988; Hedge, 1992; Tribble, 1996; White, 1980); (4) brainstorming the assignment in pairs or small groups; (5) writing the first draft; (6) exchanging drafts for peer-reviewing and commenting; (7) conferencing for sharing comments, experiences, and ideas as to how the final draft should be written; (8) writing the second draft; (9) self-evaluating (editing) and proof-reading; (10) commenting on the finished drafts done by the teacher; and (11) final revising. There is no need to describe further this first version of the course introduced in November December 1997 because it was a failure. The problem was not in the chosen method or coursebook since the students who did complete the course were found to be proficient enough in writing the informal and formal letters, descriptions, and narratives that were set as course objectives. The failure was evidenced by learners' enormous dropout rate. Of 12 students who had enrolled, 6 dropped out in the first month, and the 2-month course was completed by only 3 students, who demonstrated the satisfying results mentioned above. The reasons for dropping out became evident during interviews with the quitters. There was only one reason they were bored. In this respect, the explanation given by one of the quitters (M.B., 17, a high school graduate) is very characteristic. ``I would like to learn writing in English very much, but I do not have an urgent need for it. And it is difficult to make myself work if the task at hand does not greatly interest or excite me. And what we are writing about is no fun.'' Interviews showed that though students readily admitted their need to learn to write letters, descriptions, and narratives, they could not become really interested in doing it. Besides, it is well known that writing is rarely an activity preferred by most students of English. ``For many students, writing is a chore to be got through for a grade, and to many others, not only is it a chore, but a boring one at that'' (White & Arndt, 1991, p. 11). If there is no direct external incentive, such as grades or an absolutely urgent need, it is no wonder that students start dropping out. In these conditions, to make the course work, there is probably no other alternative but to find internal incentives, i.e., to make writing assignments exciting by introducing more elements of creativity and playfulness into them. This means the requirement to make writing fun from the beginning stage. MAKING WRITING FUN THE SECOND VERSION OF THE COURSE To achieve this goal, one more type of class was added to the second version of the course (again lasting 2 months and having 24 classes, each 4 hours long).

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The regular classes, which focused on the coursebook, Developing Writing, remained unchanged but were made more compact (11 of them instead of 19). Five classes of the second type, i.e., those that in the preceding course were devoted to communicative writing, were also introduced with no changes. The new third type was writing-for-fun classes. Their name was derived from the term ``writing for fun'' used by Byrne (1988) to distinguish writing activities of a playful nature that require a certain degree of creativity from students in doing them and make developing writing skills entertaining to learners. Eight writing-for-fun classes (one-third of the course) were created alternating with all the others. Further discussion will be focused only on them and on samples of students' writing from these classes since classes of the two other types have already been discussed. Writing-for-fun classes were first introduced into the writing course for beginners in the spring semester of 1998. The group of students consisted of eight adolescent and adult learners (four males, four females) aged between 15 and 42 having different occupations high school and tertiary graduates, government employees, research associates, and a businesswoman. This approach was again used the following year in the spring semester of 1999 with a similar group of eight adolescent and adult learners. All the following samples of learners' writings are taken from these two groups. The writing-for-fun assignments were divided into series and mostly organized as team writing (though individual writing was also widely used). Team writing means not only peer-reviewing of texts written by every student, but also working on texts to be written in pairs or small groups. For instance, one student may write one part of the text and another student or several students may complete it and then they all review and revise it together. Such collaborative methods of writing were considered to be conducive to accelerated development of writing skills as they generate discussions that encourage efficient writing (Hedge, 1992). Besides, it was also supposed to promote speaking skill development because the discussions were to be held only in English. The first series of writing-for-fun assignments were called absurd writings since they required writing texts absurd as to their content. The idea of absurd writing was adapted from Littlejohn (1998, p. 11) published in Russia. In this article, Littlejohn suggested using what he called zany descriptions, like the following one, that learners had to correct in writing:
Cars usually have four wheels, a motor and wings. They run on water and can go very fast. They taste very nice with tomato sauce but are expensive to buy.

The assignment to correct this text in writing was done individually, and students exchanged their corrected texts for peer-reviewing with further evaluation. Below is an example of how one of the learners succeeded in correcting the above text. It was done by one of the students from the 1999 group, Adam.3

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Cars usually have four wheels, a motor and fenders. They run on gas (petrol) and can go very fast. More of people wants to have cars but they are quite expensive to buy.

This assignment was certainly of a controlled-composition type and did not make great demands on learners' creativity. But its success in attracting students' interest and arousing their enthusiasm was great. So, a whole series of absurd writing assignments for classroom use were developed. All these assignments had one important difference from the one above they were made more creative because learners had to conceive and write absurd texts themselves not to get them ready-made. The first of such assignments was writing a descriptive text that was half-absurd in content. After writing, students exchanged their written texts in pairs, and everyone had to correct the text of her or his partner with subsequent whole-group discussion and evaluation. An absurd text written by Alex and corrected by Richard (1999 group) is given as an example. Alex's description:
The spring had come. The all the people are melancholy and angry. It's very cold. Birds fly on the South. There are many beautiful women on the streets. They all dressed the warm overcoat and fur-coat. There are more cars in the streets. The streets are slippery. The sun shine in the sky. It is snowing. The rivers are freezing. The ships stand without movement. I like this season very much.

Richard's correction:
Spring has come. Only old people are melancholy and angry. It's not very cold. The birds retorn from the South. There are many beautiful women on the streets. They all dressed in raincoats and jackets. There are more cars on the streets. The streets are green. The sun shine in the sky. It is merry. The rivers are flowing. I like this season very much.

The next assignment was writing an absurd narrative to be corrected by a partner. Another example is a narrative by Cindy corrected by Jane (students from the 1998 group). Cindy's narrative:
This story happened long ago, in 2178. It was winter. Elephants flyed away to the South and the sky was yellow, and it was snowing pink pearls. Along the street went an old man. He was 18 years old. He came in the shop. He was met by a salesman, `Can I help you?' `Yes' answered the old man, `I want to do shopping. Please, give me 4 meters of wind, 2 cans of jokes, 2 kilograms of best quality impressions. All this I will bring to home and will make a delicious salad. How much I owe you?' Salesman: `Cost of all this product is one good painter and one good writer.'

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Jane's correction:
This story happened long ago, in 1978. It was winter. Birds flyed away to the South and the sky was gray, and it was snowing. Along the street went a young man. He was 18 years old. He came in the shop. He was met by a salesman, `Can I help you?' `Yes' answered young man, `I want to do shopping. Please, give me 4 meters of silk, 2 pairs of shoes, 1 pair of gloves. All this I will bring to home and will make evening clothes and will dress on my birthday. How much I owe you?' Salesman: `Cost of this things is one hundred dollars.'

The third assignment was for individual students' work with subsequent peer review, revision, and whole-group evaluation/discussion. It was an individual task since it was intended to stimulate competition. All students were given a text that they had to transform into an absurd one. After discussing all the transformed versions, they voted for the text that they thought to be the funniest. The writer of that version was the winner of the competition. The original text supplied by the teacher was as follows:
It was a bright autumn morning. I got up rather early, at about 7 o'clock, and took my dog for a walk. On our way, we saw other people walking their dogs on leads, and my Bobby played with those dogs. At half past seven we came back home. I was going to have my breakfast and give Bobby his meal. I like cereals with milk and fruit for breakfast, bacon and eggs, and black coffee. But Bobby likes Pedigree Pal. Suddenly I found out that I had neither coffee for myself nor Pedigree Pal for Bobby. So, I had to go to the corner store to buy them. But it was closed. I returned home and had to invent something. I shared my bacon and eggs with Bobby, but as for myself, I had to do without coffee. It was terrible, but still, breakfast over, I was ready for my day's work.

The absurd transformation of this text voted the funniest one in the 1998 group was written by Hob:
It was a light summer night. I spoke with my dog Bobby. He said to me that he was very thirsty and wanted to drink something. We went to the neighboring store but it was closed. I know that if my dog wants to drink nothing can stop him. And we went to other store but it was closed too. Suddenly I had an idea that we had to break the window of the store and take a bottle of vodka. Then we did it. When we have already done it we drank this bottle right in the street. We had fun. And we began to sing songs. Suddenly the cop came and said that we had to go with him. But my dog began to speak. It spoke with the cop for a long time. Surprised, the cop ducked and could say nothing more. Cop's friends tried to bring him to his senses. But when he came to his senses nobody didn't believe him. And he had to leave his job. Two years ago

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I walked with my dog and met that cop. He sat near the church and begged for alms.

The next series of assignments were entirely team work. Every student started a story by writing one or two sentences. Then s/he gave her/his sheet of paper to the student next to her/him. This person had to add one or two sentences more and pass the story on until the circle was closed, and the last (eighth) student finished it. As there were eight students, each of whom had to begin a story, by the end there were eight stories. This activity was called fantasy ball writing because learners bandied parts of their stories like a ball to each other, and what was written totally depended on their fantasies. One such story (1998 group) that was the result of these collective efforts is given below.
One lovely couple in a dark night was very happy. They sat on a bench and spoke quietly. The moon was shining brightly. Suddenly they heard a scream. It was a crow. It fell asleep and fell down on a dog. The dog was afraid and bit the couple on the bench. ``Do you have a medical insurance?'' the man asked. ``Yes,'' answered the dog and died. Then the man put the dead dog next to the girl on the bench and happy went home. He was happy because he was alone. The girl was happy because she was asleep, and the dog was happy because it died having an insurance.

The following series of assignments were writing fairy-tales or stories from life with a moral and stories from life illustrating a proverb. Those assignments were also designed for team writing because after each student's story or fairy-tale had been written, her or his partner was supposed to transform it so as to make the sense quite opposite. To save space, no illustrations of these kinds of writings will be given as they were preliminaries to the last two series of assignments. The final two series were: (1) writing fairy-tales (in the style of the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen) about the ``life'' and ``adventures'' of some objects in the classroom and (2) writing stories or short essays where one certain action would be in the focus of attention. These assignments were also initially designed for team work, for instance, with one student starting a story and some others finishing it. But students of both groups categorically refused to share their stories and essays with their partners and stated that they wanted to do their writing themselves from beginning to end. The psychological meaning of this refusal, which seems very significant, will be discussed further, but it was the end of team writing. All the following assignments were totally individual, though certainly peer-reviewing, whole-group discussions/evaluations of all written work remained intact. One such individual's writing (Helen, 1999 group) is given as an example. It was done in response to the assignment to write an essay where a certain action would be the focus of attention.

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Everything Starts with Cry and Scream A human being, when born, he screams. I don't remember what I did when I was coming into this world. But my mother had talk to me that I was weeping. I have lived for many years already, but new things have begun with weeping for me. By the way, my learning English started after long weeping on my first trip abroad because I didn't know any foreign languages. Perhaps, I was just a cry-baby, but now I understand why. Maybe, I am greedy so that I am sorry that something is lost, that something is changing, that someone is going away; finally, that my life is going away.

The final series of assignments just described completed the course as a whole. DISCUSSION Testing at the end of the course both in 1998 and in 1999 demonstrated that the pre-set aims in developing students' writing skills were fully attained. In the test every student wrote (1) one formal or informal letter and (2) a short 150-word essay or a story of a descriptive or narrative nature according to given assignments. The assignments stipulated the essay (short story) topic and set a purpose and a situation for writing a letter. A typical sample of test writing is given below to show what level in writing narratives had been reached by the students. This particular piece of writing was done by Mary (1998 group) who had the assignment of writing a short story explaining and illustrating one popular expression ``The golden cage.''
The Golden Cage Eve opened her eyes. It was a signal for ten house-maids. They began to fuss around her: made hairdo, massaged her body, dressed, fed her, and so on. ``Everything is as always,'' thought Eve. She was melancholy for many-many days because she had nobody to speak to, she could not walk, and generally she could do nothing independently, without house-maids or a body-guard. ``It is a golden cage,'' thought Eve, lying in the bath filled with hot water and fragrances. ``I am an expensive toy'' told she aloud. She wasn't afraid to speak aloud because house-maids didn't know English. ``I am a kept woman,'' said she and laughed. Then she went out on the balcony, climbed on a railing and jumped down. She came to after some time and felt a mild touch. ``Miss, are you hurt,'' Eve heard a pleasant man's voice. Young man stood and smiled. In spite of pain in her legs, Eve raised her head and smiled too. She for the first time felt herself happy.

The student's short story may be of a questionable value in literary merits or even good taste. But it is certainly creative and shows considerable

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progress from the initial stage when only simple descriptions, like those by Alex and Richard (see above), were the highest attainable level. The sequence of sample writings in the preceding pages illustrates the rapidity of learners' advance since it took place during a short 2-month course. In that period the students progressed from simple to much more sophisticated texts that were not controlled compositions but were conceived and written totally by themselves. Nothing like that was observed in the preceding course when there was no writing for fun. Thus, it may be said that the suggested writing-for-fun approach has contributed to the development of learners' writing ability, and it can be effectively used even in writing courses at the beginning level. In this respect, one already mentioned fact seems to be of paramount importance. It is the fact of students' rejecting team work on their assignments close to the end of the course and unanimously opting for individual work. It can mean only one thing: students started to regard themselves not as learners doing written assignments in a language foreign to them, but as authors writing in that language. This fact, more than anything else, illustrates the development of their writing abilities and writing skills. It also suggests the motivational and attitude-setting potential of the approach. And indeed, this potential could be observed in students' apparent enthusiasm as they did assignments during writing-for-fun classes. In fact, interviewing students has demonstrated that they regarded such periods as a sort of reward for what they called ``the drudgery'' of regular classes. The motivational potential is also evident in the absence of even one single dropout during the 1998 and 1999 courses, absolutely unlike the 1997 course. Why the writing-for-fun methodology was so appealing to students can be concluded from what they said during post-course interviews. They unanimously called the activities they were doing ``great fun,'' emphasized that in doing them they ``did not feel that it was learning, it was just like a funny entertaining game, but one felt one's progress in English and in writing skills after every such class'' (M.V., 25, a businessman's personal secretary). ``Learning has become effortless and amusing, but the results have been much better and have been achieved much faster than in traditional learning'' (S.K, 24, a post-graduate student); ``learning was fast and enjoyable, making you `feel' the language and how to do things with it as if it was your own, not a foreign one; you started to really operate it freely to express thoughts and ideas'' (A.G., 20, a university student); ``we could play with the language in writing, and it helped a lot not only to learn writing, but to learn how to use the language for speaking in the best way. Besides, in the writing course we were speaking in English all the time, discussing what we were going to write or have written. It was a great help in improving speaking'' (N.T., 40, a manager in a commercial firm). The quoted opinions are very different from those of students in the 1997 group (the first version of the course). At that time quite opposite views prevailed akin to what

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M.B., quoted before, said in his interview; not only quitters, but even those who had finished the course emphasized its boring nature and difficulty, saying next to nothing about its advantages. Therefore, it may be said that the methodology was appealing to students because it provided for rapid advancement in developing writing skills. It considerably promoted learning by allowing time and opportunity to access and manipulate the language, eliminated barriers standing in the way of free and fluent expression of one's ideas in a foreign language, developed an ability to ``play'' with it, to enjoy both the language itself and learning/using it. Very important is the fact of students' getting a better grasp of the language because of manipulating (``playing'') it in writing when there is time and opportunity to take risks impossible in speaking. This grasp, in learners' own opinions (see N.T. above), promoted both writing and speaking skills. The development of speaking skills was also greatly promoted by (1) team writing that generated both before-writing and while-writing pair/smallgroup discussions in English, (2) post-writing whole-group discussions and evaluations of written texts. All such positive results were achieved in activities that were enjoyable and relaxing, erasing the line between learning and having fun. CONCLUSION Writing in English as a communicative activity is something that has practically never been taught in EFL classes before either in Ukraine or in many other NISs of the former USSR. Learners' needs analysis has demonstrated that nowadays adolescent and adult students of English start feeling the need to acquire skills in this communicative activity though their requirements still seem to be rather vague. It is also clear that such skills should begin to be developed at the early stages of learning. But at these stages, absence of immediate need in acquiring writing skills often makes learners demotivated. Demotivation occurs in a writing course when the content of writing assignments does not allow students to have fun, to become excited about what they write. The suggested approach combines regular classes in writing with specific ``writing-for-fun'' classes. It provides an opportunity for learners to have fun in doing writing assignments. Writing for fun is implemented without, on the one hand, making excessive demands on learners' linguistic abilities in English. On the other hand, it encourages, stimulates, and motivates them to use those abilities to the utmost, to deploy all the resources at their command in order to get the best possible results. Because of that, it becomes a booster accelerating the development of EFL students' writing abilities, rapidly increasing these abilities to a degree of some sophistication, while simultaneously promoting their speaking skills.

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NOTES 1. Potential and actual learners were always interviewed in Russian to give them opportunities to clearly formulate their opinions. For purposes of this article, I have translated into English the quoted interview information. 2. The earlier and much abridged version of the last three sections of the article was read as a paper at the 1999 Indiana TESOL Annual Conference (Indianapolis, IN, October 23, 1999). 3. Students' names are pseudonyms, and in renderings of students' sample writings all errors in spelling, grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation are retained.
Acknowledgments: I greatly appreciate the valuable and insightful comments made by the two anonymous reviewers and the editors of the Journal of Second Language Writing, as well as their help, encouragement, and support that made considerable improvement of the manuscript possible. I would also like to thank my colleague and daughter Ilona Tarnopolskaya for her assistance rendered to me in organizing teaching in one of the groups described in the article and in collecting material for the study from this group.

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