Tập huấn 6

TEACHING WRITING
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1.What kind of writing should students do?
2. Point out writing activities as controlled writing and free writing- Implication for teachers.
3. How would teachers correct student`s written work?
4. Suggest possible techniques in responding to students` writing.
What kind of writing should students do ?

According to Harmer (1995:80), the type of writing teachers get students to do will depend on their age, interests and level.
The writing tasks/activities include writing postcards, letters of various kinds, filling in forms such as job applications, writing narrative compositions, reports, playscripts, advertisement, or poems.

What kind of writing should students do? (continued)

There is no limit to the kinds of text teachers can ask students to write. Teachers’ decision will be based on how much languages the students know, what their interests are and what teachers think will not only be useful for them but also motivate them as well.
Below is the kind of writing teachers use for elementary to intermediate level (Doff, 1995: 148)

A. Writing activities as controlled writing (Doff, 1995: 150-152)
Gap-Filling
Re-ordering words
Substitution
Correcting the facts
Dictation
B. Writing activities as free writing
(Doff, 1995:154-155)

1. Paragraph writing
2. Letter writing
3. Essay-writing

Writing activities as free writing (continued)

Problem for free writing: When facing a free writing such as writing a paragraph to describe their own town or village, many students would probably find it quite difficult and make many mistakes. If so they would find the task frustrating and probably not learn very much from it.
Students would probably approach the task in different way and produce a wide variety of different paragraphs.


NOTE TO THE TEACHER

Thus the only way to correct their work would be individually, book by book, this would be very time consuming for the teachers.
Therefore, teachers should help students progress beyond very controlled writing to freer paragraph writing by guiding their writing:
Giving a short text as a model
Doing oral preparation for the writing

Writing correction

Correction is worthless if students ignore the mistake and correction.
 Teachers have to ensure that students understand the problem and then redraft the passage correctly.
Basic procedure for correcting simple written work in class

The teacher writes correct answers on the board, or gets students to write them.
As the teacher gives the answers, students correct their own work.
Then the teacher moves around the class to supervise what they are doing; or students can exchange books and correct each other’s work.
Techniques for correcting written work


With more advanced classed and even with lower level classes, it is important for the teacher to correct students’ work individually.
Over correction can have a very demovating effect. One way of avoiding the ‘over-correction problem is for teachers to tell their students that for a particular piece of work grammar they are only going to correct mistakes of spelling or grammar, etc. This will make students concentrate on that particular aspect, and cuts down on the correction.
Ways of correcting the students’ work more positively and effectively.

The teacher could only correct the errors that seem most important or only errors of a certain kind (e.g. items that were taught recently, or just problems with verbs)
The teacher could reduce the amount of underlining and write corrections in the margin; this would make the page look less heavily corrected.

Ways of correcting the students’ work more positively and effectively.(Continued)


The teacher could simply indicate where the student has made important errors, and asks her to try to correct them herself. This would encourage the student to look again at what she has written and think about possible errors.
Note to the teacher


For more advance classes, systems of abbreviations can be used. Teachers regularly write in the margin to indicate different kinds of error, e.g.
sp = spelling mistake
g = grammar mistake
wo = word order

Note to the teacher

This way helps the students to correct all their own mistake, and gives good training in reading through and checking what they have written and makes correction look less damaging.
It is always worth writing a comment at the end of a piece of written work – anything from “well done” to “this is good work but you must look again at your use of grammar/your spelling/word order”, etc…
THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER IN TEACHING WRITING
Motivator
Teacher motivates students, creating the right conditions for them to generate their own ideas.
Teacher gets students involved in creative writing activity so that students find it easier to generate ideas.


THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER IN TEACHING WRITING (continued)
Resource
Teacher should provide information and language where necessary.
Teacher offers advice and suggestions in a constructive and tactful way.



THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER IN TEACHING WRITING (continued)
Feedback provider
Teacher should give feedback on students’ writing tasks with special care.
Teacher should respond positively and encouragingly to the content of students’ written work.
Teacher chooses kind of mistake to focus on when correcting their written work. Overcorrection should be avoided.

Techniques in responding to students` writing.
Written comments
Talking about the papers
Providing a checklist
Students’ responses to students’ writing
Self-editing
Example of a checklist


Check carefully to see whether all the subjects agree with the verbs.
Check carefully to see if the verbs are in correct tenses.
Check carefully to see if you have all the adjectives in right order.
Check carefully to see if you use all the adverbs correctly.
Approaches to teaching writing in ESL classes

The controlled to free approach.
The free writing approach.
The communicative approach.
Techniques in planning writing class - basic questions.

How can writing help my students learn their second language better?
How can I find enough topics?
How can I help to make the subject matter more meaningful?
Who will read what my student write?
Techniques in planning writing class - basic questions.


How are my students going to work together in the classroom.
How much time should I give my students for their writing?
What should I do about my students` errors?