Thanks again Johanna. I certainly found your message interesting and stimulating. As far as teaching English as a second language is concerned I try to find a balance between grammar correction and true communication.I teach in a monolingual Spanish context so it is kind of difficult for students to use English as a means of communication. Either they want to say more than their grammar enables them to or their compositions are too silly and artificial. (Just a collection of sentences not a true text) So what I do is to ask them to write things that are suitable for the grammar I have just tought. For example if we have worked through the present simple and they can produce sentences like: " I sometimes go to the park on Saturday morning" I would ask them to write a composition on such a topic as:"My weekend" or " An ordinary week". That's my line of work as far as writing is concerned. I have also found that I can give the students a test focused on grammar items that goes much more into details such as the adjective-noun relationship or the article-noun relationship than the composition. So I can test if they know their grammar (in the broad sense that is including sintax and spelling as well) and I can ask them to use that knwoledge of English to produce a text in ordinary English that should be correct enough for an average English person to understand. Grammar correction and true exchange of information. That must be what is all about!! Well, thanks again. By the way if any of you is currently doing or plans to do a reseach involving second language adquisition, I happily offer myself if I can be of any help.