Written statements must be constructed more carefully, concisely, and coherently to ensure that our meaning is clear. Repetition leads to redundance and the loss of the audience. Cognitive Factors Speech develops naturally and early in our first language. Competence in writing usually develops much more slowly in first language acquisition. Writing is usually learned through formal instruction rather than through natural acquisition processes.
Writing requires extensive previous learning.
Production is rarely rapid or fluent nor is meaning always clear. Because our students are thinking in their first language and translating sentence for sentence as they write in the second language, rather than translating ideas from the first to the second language, they often experience enormous frustrations as they learn to write in the second language.