In this section, we will look at some FL writing tasks within university settings. The aim of the section is:

• to show you that FL writing is more diverse and wide-ranging than often appears to be the case;
• to look at some writing tasks that are actually set in various teaching situations;
• to give you the opportunity to evaluate the materials, and to allow you to decide if they would be appropriate for your students.

When discussing FL writing at university, you may think automatically about writing essays, or doing translations, but there are many other modes of FL writing that may be more relevant or engaging to students in their own learning contexts. As Ganobcsik-Williams (2001), a lecturer in academic writing at Warwick University, has observed, writing tasks might involve activities as diverse as the following:

• designing short reports;
• composing an article in a journalistic style;
• summarizing a text;
• evaluating a piece of personal research;
• writing a commentary;
• writing a review of a book, film or piece of literature;
• putting together a group journal or newspaper;
• writing business letters, CVs, emails, faxes, memos and publicity material;
• designing questionnaires;
• changing the register of a piece of writing from formal to informal;
• simulating the style of a published writer to write a parallel text;
• writing reflective journals;
• writing film scripts;
• writing short plays or poems.

Despite this variety, the range of FL writing tasks set in university departments has been quite slow to evolve, with tasks at higher levels often continuing to centre around the traditional 'triad' of prose, essay and translation. However, the communicative approach to FL teaching, emphasizing student-centredness and relevant use of language, has been in place in some more innovative FL departments since at least the 1980s (see Bate and Hare, 1986), and has gradually filtered into the writing syllabus of even the most traditional of departments. Increasingly, the study of language through a primarily high-culture, literary-based syllabus has been called into question, with command of the language now seen as the end in itself of many courses.