teaching writing to L2 learners

Pateyeva Natalia, PhDTeacher trainer

“Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted.” Jules Renard

By the end of this workshop participants will be able to:

Assess the issues involved in teaching writing in their own classrooms. Identify the approaches involved in producing different types of writing.Match writing sub-skills to a process writing framework.Analyze writing tasks from the point of view of audience, purpose and context.To provide an understanding on the principles of teaching writingTo provide a short overview on how writing is taught and evaluated by teachers to achieve certain objectives

The main points to present

1. Writing at glance and types of classroom writing performance

2. The principles of teaching writing3. How student writing is evaluated

To communicate over distances

To communicate across time

To participate in society

To remember and record

To “make thought visible” and express your inner self

Notes emails letters essays stories

Signs advertisements subtitles articles

Diaries/journals magazines plays recipes

Labels/brands brochures maps textbooks

Writing at glance Writing is the last skill of language after listening, speaking

and reading Many consider that writing is the most difficult skill among

the other three To be able to write well, one should work hard to practice

writing in addition to understanding writing concept and tools

Writing in your classroom

Using your plan and ideas to write a ‘rough’ preliminary version.

Presenting the piece of writing to the readers.

Checking, making alterations and re-writing.

Generating ideas and planning what to write.

planning brainstorming re-ordering selecting/rejecting ideasstructuring revising mind-mapping

questioningrevising re-structuring presenting finished piece to readerschecking focusing on grammar and vocabulary

Pre-writing: brainstorming, mind-mappingDrafting: selecting/rejecting, structuring, questioningEditing: revising, checking, re-ordering, re-structuring, focusing on grammar and vocabularyPublishing: presenting finished piece to readers

writers need :a purpose – a reason for writing, an audience –the readers, a context – background information to make it meaningful and to motivate learners to write.

Consider examples of writing tasks from textbooks in terms of how they meet the above criteria.

1. There is no audience. To make it more meaningful ask learners to write an article for an international student magazine, special issue on festivals around the world.2. The task works as it is but could be made more meaningful by having half the class write the complaint and the other half write the manager’s response.

3. The task provides no guidance to help learners write the story. Support could be given by supplying pictures, prompt words, gapped sentences, the beginning of a story etc. If the learners work in groups, they could write the stories for their classmates.

4. This task could be contextualized, for example, “You are having a party. Your classmates are your guests. Draw a map from the school to your home, without indicating exactly where your home is. Now write directions.” The ‘guests’ then have to pinpoint the home of the ‘host’ from the directions.

5. This needs a purpose and an audience. For example:”Imagine you are at a crossroads in your life. You have an appointment with a ‘life coach’ but first she has asked you to write about yourself. What can you tell her to prepare for your meeting? Think about your plans and ambitions etc.

Takes too much time Loss of student focus / interest

Not suited to some personalities

Students need to be taught it (peer editing / planning / stages)

Restricts spontaneity and range of writing activities.

The creation of a productWriting seen as a communicative and purposeful activity

Teaches students to plan and research

Student collaboration is developed.

Feedback and response given.

Isn't it surprising how many things, if not said immediately, seem not worth saying ten minutes from now? ~ Arnot L. Sheppard, Jr.

Speaking Vs Writing Impermanent Permanent

Immediate (unplanned) Delayed (planned)

Variation / Casual Conventional / Stylized

Low lexical density High lexical density

High Paralinguistics Low Paralinguistics

Communal activity Solitary Activity

Universal Learned

Simple sentences Complex sentences

Voiced Thought / Read

Pronounce Spell

Feedback No feedback

Pause / Intonation Punctuation

Speaking Vs Writing

The evaluation of writing, especially in a process-oriented classroom is a thorny issue. In writing class, a teacher serves as a guide and facilitator of students’ performance in the ongoing process of developing a piece of written work, but at the same time he/she should also serve as a judge.

To serve this dual role requires wisdom and sensitivity. Fairness and explicitness in what teacher takes into account in

evaluation are the keys of being writing judge.

Then how to evaluate?

There are six general categories that are often the basis for the evaluation of student writing

1. Content : thesis statement, related ideas, development of ideas through personal experience, illustration, facts, opinions

2. Organization : effectiveness of introduction, logical sequence of ideas, conclusion, appropriate length

next categories

3. Discourse : topic sentence, paragraph unity, transitions, cohesion, rhetorical conventions, reference, economy, variation

4. Syntax5. Vocabulary 6. Mechanics : spelling, punctuation, citation of

reference (if applicable), neatness and appearance

How is the system of weighting of each? Please note that the most evaluative feedback a teacher may give is the comments, both specific and summative of student’ workIf numerical score is needed, a teacher can establish a point scale for each category (e.g. 0 – 5) and return the paper with six different scores on them.If single grade or score is needed, consider weighting the first few categories more heavily, or you may emphasize on the content based flavor of the evaluation

Examples of weighting (Brown, 2001 p.358)

Content : 0 – 24Organization : 0 – 20Discourse : 0 – 20 Syntax : 0 – 12Vocabulary : 0 – 12Mechanics : 0 – 12TOTAL : 100

What did I know about process writing before the workshop?

What new information have I learnt?

How will what I have learnt impact on my teaching?

Thank you very much

Is there any question?

ReferencesWriting, Tricia Hedge, OUP (1998).HD. Brown. (2001). Teaching by Principles. London: LongmanSimple Writing Activities (Oxford Basics), Jill and Charles Hadfield, OUP (2000).Process Writing, White R & Arndt V, pp 51–52; pp 69-77; pp108-109; pp 122-123, and pp 137–138,Longman (1991).Harmer J, The Practise of English Language Teaching, pp255-268 Longman (2001).Ur P, A Coursebook in Language Teaching, pp159-175 CUP (1996).http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/approaches-process-writing