Sentence combining is the combining of "kernel" sentences into a longer, more complex sentence. As an effective approach to the teaching of writing which addresses syntactic skill, it has been of great interest to teachers and researchers for the past fifteen years, especially in North America. This syntactic approach has proven very successful with native speakers of English: numerous experimental studies (e.g. O'Hare 1973, Combs 1976, and Daiker et al. 1978) have shown that practice with sentence combining greatly enhances syntactic growth and brings about statistically significant improvement in overall quality of students' writing. Also studies on the effects of sentence combining for ESL students (e.g. Crymes 1971, and Klassen 1977), which have not been as extensive as those dealing with native speakers of English, have all demonstrated positive results. These experimental findings confirm that the sentence-combining approach to the teaching of writing is beneficial not only in L1 but also in ESL writing classes. The main merits of sentence-combining practice for ESL students can be summarized as follows. (1) It gives students psychological effects: it lessens students' anxiety and pressure which are usually present |n a writing situation by providing them not only with the content of writing but with the opportunity to explore a wide range of syntactic options. (2) It serves as a grammatical puzzle/game or problem-solving activity, making itself enjoyable practice to students, thus helping to increase their motivation. It is strongly proposed that sentence-combining exercises, especially discourse-level ones, be actively utilized in English composition classes in Japan. They are highly useful as controlled writing exercises complementing and supporting practice in free composition, which is directly linked with the ultimate goal of teaching ESL writing.
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