Before, throughout and after the most recent #eltchat, many burning questions emerged in my mind. The topic of the chat was
How to teach writing. Based on my experience, teaching writing is not exactly popular with most EFL teachers. I don't think that it's primarily because
teachers find it off-putting to correct written assignments; I suspect the
reason may be that most teachers really don't know how to teach writing effectively.
Personally, I have no problem with speaking, listening or reading. I think I
can prepare a meaningful lesson focusing on any of the three skills. When it
comes down to writing though, I don't feel so confident. Is it because in real life,
I do more
speaking, listening and reading and so I find it easier and more natural to teach these skills in
L2?
I wouldn't say I'm
a totally inexperienced writer, though; I've been writing this blog for some time now, and I think I have some idea of how difficult it is to produce a cohesive
and coherent piece of text. I have a huge advantage, however. I can write whatever
I want and whenever I wish. The problem is that at school, students are permanently asked to
write about topics prescribed by the teachers or the curricula. Write an opinion essay about technology and
how it can affect people's lives, write a report about an accident you've
recently had, etc. Sometimes we let our students choose the topic, but I
dare say that it doesn't happen very often. And they definitely have to
write when the teacher tells them.
Although I too struggle with teaching writing, I think I've done a couple of simple activities which proved quite effective, especially when done repeatedly and frequently. For example, I ask Ss to describe and compare random pictures in pairs and
later on, when they've had plenty of time to prepare, I get them to do the same
in writing. Over time, I've seen some great
improvements in my students' basic written production. My students have improved
their grammar tremendously (verb agreement, plural, the present continuous,
prepositions, there is/are, articles, stative verbs), vocabulary (clothes,
colours, verbs for actions, adverbs of place, linking devices), but they've
also polished their style (for example, they know it's best to start with the general and continue towards the more specific). By asking
Ss to write their descriptions down, I encourage them to recycle vocabulary and
focus on the language they use in speaking naturally and fluently, but in which
they often tend to make mistakes. This activity is something between controlled
practice and free practice; Ss are free to write about anything they like but
obviously, they're restricted by the content of the prompts – the images.
To be completely
honest, I don't think L2 learners should be given too much freedom in writing
up to a certain level of proficiency, say intermediate. It's great when Ss
can express their ideas and get their message across. The trouble is that they are fond of using their
self-invented idioms and collocations, usually directly translated from L1, and
when these fossilize, it's difficult to get rid of them. That's why I think
learners should practise using ready-made chunks and fixed phrases, rather than
let their fantasy unwind too much at the early stages of learning the language.
I think it's best the teach Ss paraphrase and summarize (or, alternatively, elaborate) first, and only later let them create their own, unique pieces of
writing.
There's one thing
I've recently got really excited about; it's the News In Levels website. I’ve been peeking in there for some
time now but I've never actually tried out any of the audios in class, even
though I believe it's a fabulous resource. While reading Ceri Jones's post Writing to
Learn, where she mentions the concept of dictogloss, I couldn't help visiting the website
again and immediately an idea occurred to me. Obviously, the three-level audios are great
for practising listening and they are a great source of useful vocabulary, but I believe they’re also highly suitable
for teaching writing. This is what I'm planning to do:
A) Gradual elaboration: 1) Ask Ss to listen to the easiest (simplified)
version of the authentic news item, i.e. Level 1. This is very short so I'll use it as a
dictation. 2) Play the more difficult version, including more details and more advanced vocabulary, which may be pre-taught if necessary. 3) Ask Ss to re-write the first version, i.e. they elaborate on it from
memory, using more detail and more advanced vocabulary. 4) Play the Level 3 version - the
original one - just the video, no sound. Allow Ss to make any changes again. 5) Play the video with the sound on. Let Ss add more information to their texts. 6) Ask Ss to write up and submit the final draft.
B) The backward alternative of the activity; summarizing and paraphrasing: 1) Show the original video, sound off. Ss guess what happened. 2) Show the video again, this time with sound on. Ss try to get a grasp of
the general meaning of the news item. 3) Play
level 2 and finally level 1 (just audio, no video available). Thus I'll make sure that even the
weakest students know what the news item is about. 4) Ask Ss to write
a summary of the news item. I hope that the overlap of visual and verbal memory with their previous knowledge will help Ss to produce the text, but they will probably produce different texts, based on their level of
proficiency and writing skills. The weakest students will come up with some
basic vocabulary and grammar, while more advanced learners, having caught more advanced structures, will
write up a more elaborate summary. This may be perfect for mixed-ability
classes. Subsequently, I'll definitely include some vocabulary practice, because I believe it's primarily extensive vocabulary that makes good writers.
I'm going to try
this out sometime next week. I think I'll write a postscript, maybe a brand new
post, to let you know how it worked. I’m not yet aware of potential
drawbacks and dangers but unless technology fails, I believe everything should work
well. I’m convinced this type of activity will be beneficial for many reasons: the videos are interesting, authentic and relatively up-to-date. They
are short enough to keep Ss’ attention. The task to write the text is
manageable. Ss will learn lots of useful, high-frequency vocabulary. Ss will
practise listening, as well as writing, namely spelling (during the dictation),
word order (when summarizing and elaborating). I hope the videos will incite interesting
discussion. And students can even write an opinion essay in the end! :-)
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