EFL Settings

I was most interested in Lei's article about writing strategies as a social process within the framework of activity theory. A point that consistently comes up in our readings about second language writing is that learning often occurs outside of the classroom. Many of the writing strategies that the students in this article used were implemented outside of the classroom and, most likely, without the teacher's knowledge. I'm wondering how teachers can capitalize on the varied strategies of home/social literacy practices rather than narrowly focusing on more traditional, academic based writing strategies. I'm also wondering how much teachers should attempt to learn about literacy practices that occur outside the classroom. I firmly believe that those literacy practices are valuable and should be considered by teachers, however, can our views into students' private writing practices become an encroachment at somepoint especially for adult learners?