TEACHING WRITING

1. TEACHING WRITING ENGLISH METHODOLOGY I PROFESSOR: Mg. R.Correa I SEMESTER 2009

4. How can I know what I think until I see what I say (Auden,1962) Writing is not simply speaking on paper (Dvorak 1987)

5. Functional types of writing Transactional: • for communicating information Poetic: • forcreating beautiful objects Expressive: • for exploring and reflecting upon ideas. (Britton,et al. 1975)

6. TOW: graphic representation of spoken language. Ex: copy hwk from the whiteboard,fill out application forms,play word games, write shopping lists,etc. TOW activities limit the scope of the students’ espressions. Composing: as the result of thinking, drafting and revising procedures. Composition entails a more complicated process. It envolves the combination of words and phrases to express ideas to convince, to muse, to investigate, to inform, to delight. Transcription-oriented writing vs. Composing

7. Careful control of learners’ output reduce the likehood of structural errors. TOW are good activities for beginner levels of foreign language learning. The issue of the audience, context and purpose influences the written outcome. Somo composition activities coul be: Keeping journals Information gap activities. Guided-composition Do not confuse guided writing with grammar practice or translation activities. Transcription-oriented writing vs. Composing Write a five sentence-paragraph in which you describe your plans for a summer vacation. Say when you will leave, where you will go, how you will get there,and what you will do when yo arrive .Be sure to use Simple Future

8. Paulson (1993) found that students produced more thoughtful, more effective and more accurate compositions when: • the task was stated in terms of a problem to be solved and, • the audience for the writing was clearly indicated.

9. Writing-Communicative Approach • A communicative approach to foreign lg instruction will avoid assigning tasks for the sole purpose of practising language structures. • Writing activities will integrate cultural, personal perspectives along with the information derived from lectures, readings and discussions.

10. Behaviourism Learning to write Teacher centered T’s Role:pre-write tasks and evaluate. Socio-Cognitive A. Writing to Learn Student oriented. T’s Role: motivate & help sts to develop their writing skills. Changes in the Approaches towards Writing

11. Behaviourism The Teacher is the only audience. Teacher responds to the final product. 1 linear and final draft. Socio-Cognitive A. Write to different audiences Feedback from Ts and peers during the process. Many drafts are checked. Changes in the Approaches towards Writing

12. The ballance between Process and Product Help Sts writers to : • Understand their composing proces • Build repertoire of strategies • Revise • Discover what they want to say

13. The balance between Process and Product Teacher’s role • Provide time for writing. • Provide feedback through the process. • Encourage feedback from peers • Include one to one lessons

14. Process Approaches focus on the steps involved in drafting and redrafting a piece of work. It is accepted that thatn there will never be the perfect text, but perfection may be achieved through reflection , discussing and reworking succesive drafts of a text. Product –oriented approaches focus on the final product. The coherent free error is seeked. Writing as a learning process/ Writing as product

15. Writing involves a variety of subprocesses rather than a linear sequence. Witers differ in their uses of the processes. The processes vary depending on the nature of the writing task. (Applebee,1984& Nunan 1999 ) Based on tasks where the learner imitates, copies or transforms models provided by the teacher and/or textbook. ( Reproductive Lg Work) This approach (RLW) was consistent with sentence level-structuralist linguistics and bottom-up processing. Writing as a learning process/ Writing as product

16. Some criticism • …( Students) need structure , they need models to practice , they need to improve even mechanical skills, and they still need time to think through their ideas, to revise them, and to write for real purposes and real audiences. • Rodríguez (1985:26-7)

17. The balance between Process and Product • “Process is not the end;it is the means to the end” (Brown 2001, p. 337)

18. Responding to students’ writing: Feedback and Evaluation • The developmental nature of second language acquisition does no support the belief that correcting the sts ‘ errors will result in the elimination of them. • Research has shown that beginning levels of FLL are not good at correcting their own or each others’ grammatical errors.

19. Can nothing be done to improve the accuracy of students’ writing?

20. Semke (1984) Rob,Ross and Shortreed (1986) found that the single best predictor of improvement in sts ‘writing was the amount of second language writing that they produced.

21. Research has shown that correcting every grammatical error , especially in composition oriented writing, it is not an effective way to improve students ‘performance.

22. But if not by grammar correction, how might teachers respond to students’ writing?

23. Procedures involved in producing a witten text.( 6 recursive procedures) Drafting Structuring Reviewing Focusing Generating ideas Evaluation

24. Principles for designing writing techniques • Promote “good “ writers practices. • Balance Process and Product. • Account for cultural/literary backgrounds. • Connect reading and writing. • Provide as much authentic writing as possible. • Respect and frame your techniques to the process of writing