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IntroductionOf the four English Language skills, writing is the most challenging for teaching and learning especially in the second or foreign language [ESL/EFL] context. In Pakistan, English is taught as a second language in most contexts; however, English is taught as a subject rather than a language. The skills- based language teaching is ignored and the students are generally taken through a routine of reproducing printed matter following rote learning. Classroom instruction and examination in English courses, though, generally seem to focus on writing skills; but a closer look would reveal that the writing tasks and activities in reality are not targeting the development of students writing abilities in English Language as evident from the studies undertaken earlier such as Mashori and Iqbal (2007) noted, "writing remains always unclear and full of grammatical mistakes" (p.2). Majority of the public and private school subject 'English' teachers either dictate students summaries, essays, letters, and long answers etc. or provide them notes like written summaries, essays, letters long answer from text books) (Shamim, 2008; Fareed, 2009).Assessment of writing, in the local education system, too most of the time may simply mean marking an answer which was written by the teacher or copied from some other source, memorized and reproduced in examination (Siddiqui, 2010). Learners who secure more than 80% marks in 'English' may not be able to write a small paragraph of fifty words. Guides, notes and guess papers from class IX onwards are conveniently available at book shops which have expected summaries, essays, letters and answers for the board exams. Guides as Siddiqui (2010) calls them 'get through guides' have a major role in stopping students from reading text books and practicing writing because they offer short cuts to pass examinations without much effort. These contextual happening do not leave much room for rigorous efforts in writing an original and creative write up involving the tedious process of drafting, revising, proofing and finalizing even in case of an ambitious learner. Also, this situation can de-motivate any aspiring language teacher who believes in authentic teaching - learning efforts being necessary condition for developing writing skills in English Language.There are a number of factors that hinder adequate development of writing skills in learners pursuing English Language. The most common impediments are ineffective and outdated writing skills pedagogy, insufficient writing practice, absence of feedback, flawed assessment. Most of these problems are directly an outcome of the large class size. In developing countries such as, Pakistan normal class size in a public sector educational institution may reach up to 200 students (Shamim, 1996). Siddiqui (2010) also shares, "I recall my experience of teaching (English) at intermediate class of more than one hundred students" (p.176). The large class size, common feature across all levels in Pakistan, makes it impossible for teachers to provide opportunities for regular and continuous practice of writing which, also, involves assessing students' written work and providing corrective and helpful feedback, quite a gargantuan task.In this situation some language teachers have used peer assessment as a creative way to address some commonly confronted problems while teaching writing skills. Problems like insufficient writing practice, absence of corrective and helpful feedback, and provision of formative assessment were the issues that a peer assessment strategy seems to address to some extent. However, generally the teachers use it rather informally as a classroom activity instead of using it as a formal and valid strategy at least at the universities.This study was carried out within this scenario to address some problems faced in the English writing classes by teachers and students. The study is based on the rationale that developing writing skills is necessary, and that it assumes central focus at undergraduate studies with English for Academic Purposes [EAP] being a compulsory course with academic writing as a major component. …

New Zealand (fig. I I) was probably one of the last fertile, substantial areas of the earth to have been colonized by prehistoric man. It marks the end of migratory movements and its former isolation seems to have ensured little or no cross-play with other societies. Thus, within limits, what took place in New Zealand must have resulted from the inherent powers of its settlers, rather than from cultural and technological 'leapfrogging', found in areas more open to the diffusion of influences from centres of development. Such a situation is most suitable for the study of cultural processes, which, indeed, the archaeology of the country amply shows to have taken place (see Golson and Gathercole I962 for a useful outline). But any study of cultural processes will require some control over the time dimension, the weak point in the logic of earlier generations in ethnology. The need for this control is taken for granted by archaeologists, who normally divert a considerable amount of effort towards establishing and refining time-scales. Yet the archaeologist also experiences difficulty over handling time, perhaps more than he suspects. The root of the difficulty seems to lie in the archaeologist wishing to perceive historically exact events, when his methods of time measurement would permit him only to make generalizations. How many cultural sequences throughout the world are there, neatly divided into boxes of time, with exact boundaries, which are quite outside the archaeologist's power to define? They would be harmless enough if so much more was not erected on such spuriously exact foundations. It is not, however, the purpose of this paper to hunt out 'wrong-thinking' in others, though a surprising amount of selfrighteousness may be hidden beneath the surface of academic writing; the intention is rather to face up to the fact that there is no known method of time measurement which will yield the precise age of an event. This is well reflected in the misunderstandings of archaeologists over radiocarbon dates. It is not to be wondered at that an exact-seeming figure, although followed by a mathematical recognition of vagueness (?:), may be mistaken for an event. The true situation has been lucidly explained in one of the few available texts on radiocarbon dating for the layman, that by H. A. Polach and J. Golson (I966: I5).

In line with current discussions in the field of critical composition studies urging us to identify pedagogical approaches that engage the multilingual and multidialectal competencies of our students, this paper mines the pedagogical potential of the concept of translation in the composition classroom. Specifically, it presents a pedagogical exercise in intralingual translation that asks students to explicitly and deliberately place Standard English in conversation—and in tension—with varieties of English drawn from their own linguistic repertoires. Through a close reading of the students’ translative practices, we showcase their compositional competencies as they engage with and transform the rhetorical, stylistic, and grammatical registers of the source text.

EARLY in their first year of college many students discover that the kind of writing that once brought them high grades now brings them low ones. Often they start to work harder and longer on their papers, but still their grades do not improve. Their mechanics, diction, and sentence structure may be all right, but teachers keep harping on things like thesis, unity, substance, and order. The students are baffled. Why? Of the an-, swers to the question, one is most important here-important because it is fundamental and because teachers can do