ESL Writing: What are the best ways to improve my ESL Writing?

I feel that you might benefit from Strunk and White's http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0486447987/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/, which is standard reading for most high school students writing essays.

Failure to preview knows no linguistic barriers, it seems.

Yes, read. Music might not help much, since most lyrics are not written in a formal style. Find a good author you like, and analyze what it is about his or her writing that works well for you. By good writer, I mean one who writes clear description, not necessarily one who's on the best-seller lists. Oh, and you choose 'a' or 'an' depending on whether you pronounce the first letter of the following word as a consonant or a vowel. So: an ESL student a half-dozen a history (if you're speaking American) Other than that, your use of articles seems OK. I'd guess your native tongue uses them, too. My wife's Mandarin doesn't, and it still sometimes trips up her English. an hour a uterus a utensil an underpass an upset

I learned English as a second language, but didn't have to use it as my main language for school until high school. In my case I wrote much better than I spoke, due to my constantly reading books in English even during those years in which I didn't have anybody around with whom to practice the language. And I was reading everything - pulp science fiction, children's books, the latest paperback bestseller, etc. I wasn't understanding everything I read. The thing is, I'd been reading for quite some time but didn't have to write or speak in English until I hit high school. But when I had to write, I just could. There wasn't anything that sped up the process for me, it was just an accumulation of the language in my brain. I think you have to put yourself in a position where you are forced to think in English. I am wondering if listening to audiobooks might help - there are no captions or other cues from which to ascertain meaning, you have to rely solely on the words that are being said. I don't think this would be quick-fix solution. But perhaps after listening to the whole Harry Potter series on audiobooks on the T instead of say, the latest pop music sensation in your native language, you might find sentences in English coming out from you with less of a struggle.

Thank you for all your comments and kind words. I will definitely practice your suggestions. How many of you have learned English as a second language and become proficient in your English writing? How long did the process take? How much time did you need to put into it? Did any major realization speed up the process for you? I'm taking in everything you're saying and I'm excited that I found such an active forum with so many people willing to help.

First of all: read as much as you can. Watch as many movies as you can. Listen to as much radio and as many songs as possible. The next bit won't directly help you with your essays, but with your English is general. But this is the best advice I ever got while trying to learn a second language, and just couldn't master it: 1) Get a well-written book about something you know well (amazon.com is good for looking for subjects). You Catholic? Get a book on Catholic history. Whatever. 2) Read the book, look up the vocabulary you don't know. 3) Write the book out, either by hand, or typing it all. Not the entire book -- I say, for every 4-8 weeks, you should have written 20-40 pages (double-spaced). 5) Bring the 20-40 copied pages you made to a friend (or e-mail them the copy -- in which case, type it up!), go through it together to make sure you understood everything, then highlight phrases you liked. Make sure the friend tells you if the phrase is too casual for essays. I remember accidentally swearing in French essays. Don't try to remember full sentences -- just phrases or idioms, like "think faster in", "a certain stage", "too casual for". For example, "raining cats and dogs" is too casual for an essay, but useful to know. If you copy it, you'll remember it -- not only the phrases, but the grammar etc. If you remember it, your English will sound more natural. The above advice was given to me by the best French teacher, and possibly just the best teacher, I've ever had. It made a huge difference. My grasp of grammar, and the complexity of my sentences, jumped. And congrats, your English is already pretty good! :D

I'm an ESL teacher, but I teach students in non-English speaking countries. It's great that you want to improve your writing, because it will help you begin to learn and then use more and more new words and phrases in your speech, as well as read faster, both of which are very important in academia. One of the best tools for helping you improve your writing has been mentioned above - reading it aloud. This means you have to leave some extra time for you to make changes to things you think don't sound or look right. It's also amazing how many mistakes you will actually find - it really boosts your confidence to find things to change. The best reason to do this, though, is that it ensures that you do actually edit - for some people, it's very easy to write an essay all night and turn it in the next morning, but taking the time to change it slows you down and helps you see mistakes you make over and over again and gives you more of a chance to add detail or make arguments stronger. I recommend actually finishing a draft of the paper, and then printing it out and editing it by hand with a pencil - sitting in front of the computer screen, I find, might make you go too fast. Boston has some meetup groups that are focused on helping members improve their English, and most of them are free! http://esl.meetup.com/76/?gj=sj2's an example. That would be an excellent place to find people who are on all different levels of learning English, as well as their native-English speaking friends. You also might end up helping someone with their English - and that's also a good way to improve your own! One warning I have is that many books, articles, and websites claiming to "teach grammar" and show you common "mistakes" might be full of things which not even English speakers can agree on! Because there's no official "academy" that determines how English develops (though there are bodies and groups which have rules for their own fields), the language changes really quickly, and things which were thought to be wrong many years ago might be viewed as more acceptable today in many situations. For example, many people like to talk about "rules" like "never split an infinitive", but if the rest of the world thinks it's now OK to do so ("to boldly go where no man has gone before!" - Wikipedia link to split infinitives http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive), then it's up to you to find out whether a certain way of writing or saying something is correct for the audience you're addressing. It's a good idea, then, to make sure you consult multiple sources to make sure that you have made a "mistake" in the first place, and whether or not you need to correct it. Finally, you might want to contact our own http://www.metafilter.com/user/14752, who is experienced in many areas related to language and linguistics - I've seen him recommend alternatives to some of the books linked above. So: - edit your papers on your own - seek out other learners and native-speakers - be aware of the audience you're writing to - consult multiple resources when checking things you think are errors - contact languagehat! Good luck!

Elements of Style helped me a lot- Amanda recommended it to me, too. I also agree that reading materials like this helps. Also reading out loud helps tremendously. If you can convince someone to listen to you read your assignments, it makes a big difference.

If you're interested in improving how fast you write, I'd suggest IM over email. I don't think it will help you form essays better, but it might help you think faster in English and form sentences more quickly and easily, which I think you indicated is a problem for you. I'm not an ESL expert or anything, but I think IM might help you get faster at communicating your thoughts by writing in English