ABSTRACT
One of the issues facing English for academic purposes writing teachers is the choice of classroom activities that will prepare students for their future writing needs and at the same time encourage learners to on language use—on how to express their ideas clearly, appropriately and accurately. Meaning-focused writing tasks require students to compose a text and attention to language in such tasks is incidental; that is, it occurs when the co-authors encounter a difficulty in the process of composing their text. Researchers who have compared learners' attention to language generated by meaning and language-focused tasks have shown, perhaps not surprisingly, that language-focused tasks tend to generate more attention to language forms whereas meaning-focused tasks tend to generate more attention to lexis. One final issue to consider when arranging students to work on collaborative writing tasks is whether to allow students the option of self-selecting their partners or whether the teacher should allocate students into groups.
