This article examines the special academic language challenges of second language (L2) learners who enter U.S. schools as adolescents through a case study of a female Taiwanese immigrant. It describes her English language learning history, her performance on a university writing placement test, and her subsequent writing development and academic progress at a four-year university. The study considers social and educational contexts of learning that may hinder literacy development, both oral and written. It underscores the importance of providing English language learners ample opportunities for meaningful, negotiated interaction and extended discourse production in secondary classrooms, both English as a Second Language (ESL) and mainstream.

While many US colleges and universities offer specialized writing courses for multilingual students entering as freshmen, including international students, there is typically little instructional support for the academic English needs of international transfer students. This article describes the development and implementation of a writing course at a four-year university intended for upper-division multilingual transfer students, with focus on international students. Starting with the proposal stage, it summarizes consultations with administrators and faculty to procure funding, identify a target population, and seek input for defining course objectives. Description of course implementation includes syllabi, student profiles, and student feedback from course evaluations and writing portfolio introductions on the most helpful and most challenging aspects of the course. Student feedback offers suggestions for writing instruction in lower-division courses. In conclusion, this article recommends further development of specialized writing courses for upper-division international multilingual writers.