Essay Prompts and the ESOL Student

Recent research on writing prompts which fit the preferences of English NS writers has found that NS writers prefer prompts in question form (Brossell & Ash, 1984) and that anticipating a good grade will positively influence writers' choices (Hayward, 1988). Little is known about whether this applies to L2 writers, however. The present study surveyed 142 ESOL students for their preferences as to form of prompt, and also surveyed for other factors relating to their choices such as perceived difficulty of a topic. Each student used a 5-point Likert scale to respond to ten potential prompts. The data were then analyzed using ANOVA, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis. No statistically significant difference was found in students' preference for prompts in different forms (question or statement). However, perceived ease, degree of interest, and potential prolificacy of prompt individually and as a group correlated strongly with students' preferences. It seems that ESOL students, while perhaps not alert to potentially helpful syntactic clues in prompts, are nonetheless probably using appropriate strategies when given a choice of prompt to write on