1) APPROACHES TO TEACHING WRITING:
Attempts to teach writing – since the time when students were merely given a topic of some kind and asked to produce a “composition” without further help – have usually focused on some particular problematical aspect of the writing situation. Some key approaches are examined below.
a) FOCUS ON ACCURACY:
Mistakes show up in written work and not unnaturally come to be regarded as a major problem. It was assumed that students made mistakes because they were allowed to write what they wanted, and accuracy-oriented approaches have therefore stressed the importance of control in order to eliminate them from written work. Students are taught how to write and combine various sentence types and manipulation exercises like the one below are used to give them the experience of writing connected sentences.
A (1) man(2)
walked (3) down the street. A (4) girl (5) was waiting for him outside a (6)
shop. As he approached, she smiled (7) and said,
“hello, how are
you?”
1)
tall young
well-dressed
2)
with a
beard, in a black hat, with sunglasses
3)
rapidly,hurriedly,
impatiently
4)
pretty,
fair-haired, dark-skinned
5)
in
high-heeled shoes, with an umbrella, in a pink hat
6)
chemist’s,
grocer’s bicycle
plesantly, attractively, in a friend manner
Gradually the amount of control is reduced and the students are asked to exercise meaningful choice (in the example above they do not have to think and they cannot make mistakes). At still later stage, they may be given a good deal of guidance with language content, but allowed some opportunities for self expressions.
This controlled-to-free approach emphasizes step-by-step learning and formal correctness. Many such schemes were carefully thought out and although no longer fashionable, they produced many useful ideas on how to guide writing.
B) FOCUS ON FLUENCY:
this approach encourages students to write as much as possible and as quickly
as possible – without worrying about making mistakes. The important thing is to
get one’s ideas down to paper. In this way the students think that they really
writing, not merely doing exercises of some kind; they write what they want to
write and consequently writing is an enjoyable experience.
This approach draws attention to certain points we need to keep in mind. Many students write badly because they do not write enough and for the same reason they feel inhabited when they pick up a pen. Most of us write less well if we are obliged to write about something. A fluency approach, perhaps channeled into something like keeping a diary, can be useful antidote.
C) FOCUS ON TEXT:
This approach stresses the importance of the paragraph as the basic unit of written expression and is therefore mainly concerned to teach students hoe to construct and organize paragraphs. It uses a variety of techniques, singly and in combination, such as
- Forming paragraphs from jumbled sentences.
- Written parallel paragraphs;
- Developing paragraphs from topic sentences (with or without cues.)
This approach identifies and tries to overcome one of the central problems in writing; getting students to express themselves effectively at a level beyond the sentence.
D) FOCUS ON PURPOSE:
In real life we normally have a reason for writing and we write to and for somebody. These factors which have often been neglected in teaching and practicing writing. Yet it is easy to devise situations, which allow students to write purposefully: for example, they can write to another in the classroom or use writing in role-play situations.
Although this approach does not solve specific problems which students have when handling the written language, it does motivate them to write and shows how writing is a form of communication.
The role of guidance:
The fundamental principle of guiding students in various ways towards a mastery of writing skills, and sometimes controlling what they write, is not one we can lightly dismiss, even if the principle has to some extent been misapplied (for example, in trying to eliminate the mistakes.). rather we should consider mare carefully what kind of guidance we should give them, particularly in relation to the various problems they have when writing.
On a linguistic level, since our aim is to develop, their ability to write a text, one way of helping the students is by using the texts as our basic format for practice, even in the early stages. While this does not rule out some sort of sentence practice, which may be necessary for the mastery of certain types of complex and compound sentence structure, best practiced through writing because they most commonly used in writing, we do not need to build into the writing program a step-by-step approach which will take the learners in easy stages from sentence practice to the production of text. With the text as our basic format for practice, we can teach within its framework all the other rhetorical devices-logical, grammatical, and lexical- which the learners need to master.
By using texts (letters and reports, for example – even dialogues in early stages) as our basic practice format, rather than some other unit such as the sentence or even paragraph, we can make writing activities much more meaningful for the students and thereby increase their motivation to write well. The text provides a setting within which they can practice for example sentence completion, sentence combination, paragraph construction, etc. in relation to longer stretches of discourse. In this way they can see not only why they are writing but also write in a manner appropriate to the communicative goal of the text.
In order to make writing more meaningful, we can integrate it effectively with other classroom activities involving not only reading but also speaking and listening f.eg. we see an advertisement for a job which involves “reading”. We talk about it and perhaps phone up about it, which involves speaking and listening. We then decide to apply for the job – which involves reading. Consequently we can use writing in the lesson as we normally do in our daily life.
We need a whole range of techniques, each appropriate to specific goals and needs. Variety is important. This is essential for the sake of interest: the learners get bored if they are constantly asked to perform the same type of task. But another significant factor is that certain techniques are effective for developing particular writing skills. For example, texts (read or heard) provide the right sort of context for note taking: they not only read expected. Visual material, on the other hand, properly used provides a more open-ended framework for writing activities of different kinds at different levels, but it is less suited for elementary writing activities than is often assumed. Particular kinds of visual material, such as diagrams and tables, are valuable for developing organizational skills. Clearly then our approach should be as eclectic as possible, using those forms of guidance which are appropriate to different kinds of different levels of attainment.
Imply tight control over what the learners write. If, for example, we accept that errors in speech are not only inevitable but are also a natural part of learning a language, then we should accept that they will occur, and to some extend should be allowed to occur, in writing too. Unless the learners are given opportunities to write what they want to write, they will never learn this skill. As in speech when we provide opportunities for free expression, errors will occur, but this is a situation, which we must accept. Perhaps it is largely our attitude towards these errors that is wrong: because they occur in writing, we feel that they must be corrected, whereas in speech, perhaps because it is more transient, we are inclined to be more tolerant.
This is far from suggesting that free expression is the solution to learning to write: on the contrary, the learners need guidance, as they do with oral work. They must be encouraged to look critically at what they write and taught to draft, correct and rewrite. But since no approach to teaching writing has yet been devised which will take them smoothly from writing under control to free expression, it seems reasonable to provide some opportunities for writing freely, even in the early stages. This will not only enable us to see whether the students are making any real process; it will also ensure that they become learners rather than leaners.
The needs of the
learners:
a) teach the learners how to write: since the spoken and the written forms of language are not the same and since writing is a different way of communication from speech, it follows that writing that writing skills require special teaching.
b) Provide adequate and relevant experience of written language: writing has to be preceded and accompanied by wide exposure dialogues in their textbooks and narrative prose in their readers, they cannot be expected to produce other varieties of the written language appropriate, for example to letters or reports.
c) Show the learners how the written language functions as a system of a communication: exposure to the written form of the language by itself it is not sufficient. The learners also have to be made aware of how we communicate through the written medium and how this differs from speech. In particular they need to be shown that any piece of writing, whether or not it is addressed to a specific reader, has a communicative purpose. They need to understand how the resources of the written language are used to fulfill this purpose, by establishing and maintaining contact withj the reader in order to get one’s message across.
d) Teach the learners how to write texts: writing involves the ability to organize sentences to a coherent whole or text.
e) Teach the learners how to write different kinds of texts: it is not enough to try to r-teach them a kind of neutral general-purpose form of written expression. They have to some extend at least to be able to select an appropriate style, formal or informal, depending on what they are writing about and whom they are addressing, and to able to present this to the reader in an appropriate form. Many of the difficulties, which the learners have in this area, arise because of the nature of the writing tasks. Also this kind of task does not encourage them to think of writing as communication. Likewise it might be noted, our goal should not be to teach different kinds of writing. But rather to see that these are practiced within the wider context of a text.
f) Make writing tasks relevant and realistic: all too often writing tasks lack reality for the learners because they do not give them the feeling that they are writing to or for somebody. They are done solely as a form of exercise for the benefit of the teacher, who reacts to them more like judge than a genuine reader. The use of the text as the basic format for the practice is only part of the solution. We must also attempt to identify those forms of writing which are most likely to relevant to the learners’ needs, such as various types of personal communication and institutional communication and to establish classroom contexts for practicing them. This does not rule out the possibility of other kinds of writing, provided the motivation for this kind of work can be established.
g) Integrate writing with other skills: writing tends to be the “cinderella” of the four skills and is often relegated to the end of the teaching unit and used mainly for framework. This is unlikely to make the learners want to write. Where possible, we should introduce writing activities that lead naturally onto or from the use of other skills, so that learners see writing as a real activity.
h) Use a variety of techniques and practice formats: this is important because the learners get bored with the same type of activity. Also some techniques and formats are appropriate to certain levels. For example letter writing is especially suitable for use in the early stages because it permits the learners to make some use of the spoken forms of the language within a new framework. We must also recognize that, in terms of developing writing skills, we cannot make sure how effective any single technique is.
i) Provide appropriate support: it has been argued that guidance should be tempered with opportunities for free expression. We should remember that writing tasks are generally imposed that the learners may not have either the relevant ideas, when this involves some contribution on their part, or be sufficiently stimulated by the tasks to think of them. The problem is further compounded by their having to work on their own. Clearly there are many solutions to this problem and they need to be explored in a flexible way. In particular, the use of techniques and procedures which have proved valuable for the oral work need to be examined within the context of the writing program. There seems no reason why, in the classroom at least, writing need be a solitary activity.
j) Be sympathetic: with the help of a program which takes the learners’ problems into account, we can hope to make writing a more rewarding activity for them, both in terms of attainment and satisfaction. But we need surrender our role as “judges”, except when writing is being tested or examined, and view what the learners write as attempts, however, inadequate, to communicate. There is always a great temptation, perhaps a natural inclination, to concentrate on what is wrong in a piece of writing, mainly because, it is there for us to read and reread. But we are to be truly readers rather than judges, we should perhaps look not so much at what the learners have failed to achieve but rather at what they have actually succeeded in doing.