Ann M. Johns

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor Emeritus at San Diego State University

In this paper, I use Paul Prior's (1998) terms to describe the writing processes of three diverse secondary students as they discuss and draft their Personal Statements for university entrance. Most notably, I argue that writing processes are much more complex than the straightforward, cognitive descriptions found in most of the current textbooks a...

It is probably no exaggeration to say that needs assessment is seen in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) as the foundation on which all other decisions are, or should be, made (Belcher, 2006: 135). In the sustained involvement project reported here as a critical ethnography, we describe our efforts to research, design, and execute an ESP curricul...

Using Prior's (1998) definition of the "complexly laminated" writing process, this study explores the processes of three linguistically-diverse students at two academic levels as they grapple with, and respond to, the demands of the Personal Statement, a genre required for university entrance and grant applications.

After making two major claims about academic language and reading, the author outlines eight pedagogical principles that encourage the mergence of reader, his/her culture, and the text being read.

Written for a collection edited by Luciana de Oliveira and published by TESOL, this manuscript makes two major points related to the Common Core State Standards: first, that content teachers need to accept the fact that there is no general English--thus, they must acquaint students with the cultures and texts of specific disciplines; and secondly,...

In this manuscript, written for an international audience, I provide some history of English/LA standards in the United States and then discuss, at some length, the nature of the Common Core Standards and the controversies that surround them.

The author first discusses the evolution of two major concepts in Genre Analysis, “genre”, particularly as it relates to purpose and text prototypicality, and “task”, particularly as it relates to context. Then, she draws from evolving understandings of these concepts, the work of Swales and Feak, 2012a and Swales and Feak, 2012b and of Rhetorical...

This forum paper is based on a friendly and informative interview conducted with Professor Ann M. Johns. In providing answers to the interview questions, Professor Johns suggests that all good teaching is ESP, and also distinguishes between EOP and ESP in that the former entails much more “just in time” learning while the latter may be directed mor...

This forum paper is based on a friendly and informative interview conducted with Professor Ann M. Johns. In providing answers to the interview questions, Professor Johns suggests that all good teaching is ESP, and also distinguishes between EOP and ESP in that the former entails much more “just in time” learning while the latter may be directed mor...

This paper argues for more contextualized teaching of academic reading and writing, following the lead of the Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS) theorists. After discussing the problem to be addressed, the author defines rhetoric and genre, two concepts central to understanding situated texts and RGS views. Then, two pedagogical approaches informed by...

This chapter reviews the history of English for specific purpose's (ESP) research in four sections: The Early Years (1962–1981), The Recent Past (1981–1990), The Modern Era (1990–2011), and The Future (2011 plus). In the years following World War II, the central focus of ESP research was English for science and technology (EST) in academic contexts...

After providing some genre theory background, the author recommends field-tested activities involving opinion editorials that will enhance students' genre awareness through questioning and analyzing the contexts in which texts from a genre appear and examining how these contexts influence the ways in which specific texts are produced.

In this essay, the author explores four fundamental, but contested topics in Genre-based Writing Instruction (GBWI) about which decisions must be made as curricula are developed. Drawing from the three major genre traditions (Hyon, 1996), the author examines the contested topics (naming, awareness/acquisition, pedagogical focus, and ideology) and s...

Genre, the most social constructivist of literacy concepts, has been theorized and variously applied to pedagogies by three major ‘schools’: the New Rhetoric, English for Specific Purposes, and Systemic Functional Linguistics. In this paper, I will discuss my long, and ongoing, search for a pedagogy drawn from genre theories for novice academic stu...

The summary task requires the use of higher order reading skills; identification of main ideas and condensation of text while maintaining the focus of the original. Though there have been a number of studies examining the summarizing skills of elementary and secondary students (e.g. Brown et al. 1981; Day 1980; Winograd 1984), skills of university...

How to provide appropriate feedback to students on their writing has long been an area of central significance to teachers and educators. Feedback in Second Language Writing: Context and Issues provides scholarly articles on the topic by leading researchers, who explore topics such as the socio-cultural assumptions that participants bring to the wr...

The book addresses issues in the field of teaching academic writing to non-native speakers. This book provides a series of discussions about multiple aspects of second language writing, presenting chapters that collectively address a range of issues that are important to new teachers at the post-secondary level. The 13 chapters provide scholarly vi...

There are widespread (and correct) beliefs that the writing tasks that students are asked to undertake as they move through their undergraduate and graduate years show a broadly upward progression in terms of length, complexity of resources utilized, and sophistication expected. Even so, we also suggest that a number of uncertainties persist: wheth...

Although EAP researchers have devoted considerable attention to written texts, less has been paid to the use of visual representation in the disciplines. After reviewing the literature from several fields, this paper describes the strategies of a first year university student as she privileges visual texts in both her macroeconomics and reading/wri...

In this dialogic essay, we reflect on various aspects of our two professional lives. The first section begins by offering commentaries on our initial reactions to each other as authors. It then discusses our first face-to-face meeting (Egypt in 1984), and briefly describes how we subsequently came to co-edit English for Specific Purposes for a numb...

This text explores fundamental issues relating to student literacies and instructor roles and practices within academic contexts. It offers a brief history of literacy theories and argues for "socioliterate" approaches to teaching and learning in which texts are viewed as primarily socially constructed. Central to socioliteracy, the concepts "genre...

“High” and “low” culture artifacts and related in-group behaviors provide a general framework for a study of the relationship between culture and language. In LSP, we are specific about cultures, about language, about texts and about the factors that influence a rhetorical situation. All LSP teaching should therefore be carefully planned to meet th...

Of the various concerns in the teaching of second language writing, issues regarding audience, or readers' expectations, have been the least explored. This article reviews the audience literature in composition studies, focusing on the topic of real audiences as central to understanding how writers produce successful texts in authentic contexts. It...

In a response to an article on second-language (L2) composition instruction, it is argued that the disciplines of first-language (L1) and L2 writing instruction are different, the students come with different backgrounds, the teachers are products of disparate disciplines, and each can and should learn from the other. (25 references) (MSE)

L’article met d’abord en évidence la problématique de la notion d’ESP aux Etats-Unis de nos jours, ainsi que le nombre restreint de travaux liés à l’anglais de spécialité. Il propose ensuite deux domaines de recherche, «sociologie du savoir scientifique» et «analyse du genre», qui pourront apporter des éléments de réponse aux praticiens de l’anglai...

In this article, interviews with a Vietnamese-speaking science student who has repeatedly failed a required English competency examination are presented. Topics relating to this examination include prompt type, essay content, rhetorical organization, student preparation for writing, and audience. Questions are raised regarding the purposes, develop...

Over the past 30 years, English for specific purposes has established itself as a viable and vigorous movement within the field of TEFL/TESL. In this paper, English for specific purposes is defined and its distinguishing features examined. The international nature and scope of the movement are particularly emphasized. Finally, questions and controv...

Though summarization is a task often required in academic classes, little is known about summary processes and products of university ESL students. In this study, a coding scheme based on the Kintsch and van Dijk text-processing model (1978) was employed to compare idea units in summary protocols produced by university ESL students at two levels of...

Coherence in written text is a complex concept, involving a multitude of reader- and text-based features. Perhaps because of this, we writing instructors and the textbooks we use often discuss coherence in a vague or incomplete manner. This article reviews current coherence literature, defines coherence in broad terms, then presents a three-lesson...

The teaching of the language of business, sometimes also called the “language of commerce” or “administration” (Yates 1977), has the longest history of any specific purpose teaching area; and, in ESP at least, the largest number of textbooks have been produced for business students (Robinson 1980). Yet most seminal research contributions to ESP hav...

A survey was conducted among community college and university faculty to obtain information on writing task assignments and evaluation in classes (excluding English classes) taught during the first two years of postsecondary education. It was found that faculty in two- and four-year colleges commonly require only essay responses in tests and assign...

An increasing number of immigrant, bilingual, and international students are enrolled in college and university basic writing classrooms across the United States. Though at some universities, non-native students are assigned exclusively to ESL classes; at others, most are enrolled in classes designed for native-speakers of English, either because t...

Business communications instructors enroll an increasing number of English- as-a-second-language (ESL) students in their classes, yet find that the assigned communications and grammar texts are often inappropriate for this population. Research in the grammatical, rhetorical, and lexical items characteristic of business does exist, as do nonnative s...

An Academic Skills Questionnaire was distributed at San Diego State University to 200 randomly selected faculty from all departments in order to determine which skills (reading, writing, speaking or listening) were most essential to non-native speaker success in university classes. The receptive skills, reading and listening, were ranked first by f...

A questionnaire was distributed to faculty members to determine which of the four basic language skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking) were most essential to nonnative speaker success in university classes. The receptive skills of reading and listening were ranked first. Implications for teaching and curriculum development are given. (Auth...

The purpose of this study is to determine whether “constellations” (White 1975) of cohesive items occur in three types of applied and academic written discourse: letters, reports and textbooks. Twenty complete letters, and randomly selected pages from annual reports and ten business and economics textbooks were coded for cohesive elements using the...

The teaching of discourse features which affect the relations among sentences in a paragraph has often been delayed until students are considered advanced. Yet, because control of such features is considered essential to gaining control of language segments, instruction in these features should be given from the beginning. One category of discourse...

Throughout the considerable history of English for Specific Purposes, practitioners have been seeking ways to design curricula and assessment that balance the demands of the target situations in which their students will be using English and the necessity for developing literacy processes and practices that enable students to respond to these Engli...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Southern California, 1979. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 532-549). Photocopy. s