Experts in the field of second language acquisition acknowledge that most learners take up to ten years to develop fluency in a second language.
College students have substantial writing requirements.
They also have writing requirements for coursework in their major areas of study. Many ESL students are not ready for this after only one or two eighteen-week semesters. There is little classroom time available to meet the needs of ESL or bilingual students. Chinese characters have traditionally been written without word spacing. For non-Chinese students taking Chinese classes, such a tradition in Chinese writing has always been one of the biggest problems.