Resources for Multi-Lingual Writers
Just Writing: Grammar, Punctuation, and Style for the Legal Writer by Anne Enquist and Laurel Currie Oates has excellent advice for multi-lingual law students in chapter 10. Consult pages 287-9 for a handy reference on proper use of prepositions. In addition, the chapter contains an excellent section entitled, "Rhetorical Preferences in Writing." This section provides an overview of various cultural assumptions embedded in American legal writing.
Designed for multilingual students, this site contains workshops, handouts, exercises, and quizzes.
If you have trouble selecting the correct preposition for a particular verb, try this site. If you click on "phrasal verbs," you will a fairly comprehensive list, complete with examples and definitions.
A project of The Internet TESL Journal, this site contains a variety of useful exercises and quizzes. The section on "Idiom Quizzes" contains a very extensive collection of short self-study quizzes on phrasal verbs.
Rhetorical Strategies
After reading the discussion of "Rhetorical Preferences in Writing" in Just Writing by Enquist and Oates, examine this sample of a persuasive letter and identify some of the persuasive strategies used by the writer. Then click on the yellow and red comment icons to see the dialogue between the writer, a multilingual student, and his peer editor about the effectiveness of the writer's rhetorical choices. The dialogue reveals several of the underlying cultural assumptions that shape the structure of the persuasive argument in the writer's letter.
Exploring Rhetorical Strategies (You need Adobe Reader to see this document.)