Language-Specific Composition Warm-Ups.

Classroom techniques for encouraging native Japanese-speaking learners of English to begin the writing process in English, rather than depending on translation from Japanese, are offered. They consist of short, structured exercises with parameters based on spelling, word length, syllable count, alphabetization, pronunciation, letter shape, and other untranslatable aspects of English. At the beginning of each class meeting, a new exercise is presented. For example, students are given one or two model sentences in which every word begins with a certain letter, or are asked to rephrase a sentence without using a given letter. Successful attempts are written on the board to encourage students. After these exercises, students proceed to regular classroom writing tasks. Twenty-six exercises are described, organized according to the untranslatable feature on which they are based, as noted above (spelling, etc.). Contains 41 references. (MSE)