Writing as the most important skill in the updated English language Programme

ОҚО, Шымкент қаласы № 20 Титов атындағы мектеп-гимназияның

ағылшын тілі пәнінің мұғалімі Чернышева Людмила Анатольевна

Writing skills are increasingly important at any level of learning English. Effective writing is a vital life-skill that is important in almost every subject in school as well in the work world. Additionally, standardized tests increasingly contain a writing component — an essay on some timed tests.

Writing skills include grammar skills: proper sentence construction, appropriate use of tenses, and punctuation, spelling, paragraph structure and other components of «correct writing». It is true that grammar is an important component of teaching writing. [1, 32]

Many students are familiar with the basic writing assignments such as book reports, short stories, and essays on topics such as: «What I did on my summer vacation». But these writing assignments should be thought of as applications of basic writing modes. For instance, a book report is usually a type of descriptive writing, and an essay on dinosaurs might include both informative and perhaps persuasive writing.

Compared to the other three skills, writing is considered to be the most difficult skill to master. Therefore, teaching writing is not an easy job because teachers might face several problems in the process of teaching writing in the classroom. The teachers face problems in relation to teaching preparation, teaching techniques, and the textbook used. As a consequence, the teachers got difficulties in (1) understanding the instructional objectives, (2) choosing themes and topics, (3) combining materials from the textbook and the workbook used, and (4) having insufficient time to prepare all the instructional preparation.

The four steps of the writing process are: prewriting, writing, editing, and proofreading.

PreWriting — this is when students gather their information, and begin to organize it into a cohesive unit. This process can include reading, taking notes, brainstorming, and categorizing information. Prewriting is the most creative step and most students develop a preferred way to organize their thoughts. Stream of consciousness writing, graphic organizers, outlines, or note cards are popular techniques. This stage is best taught by a modeling the different methods, perhaps a different one each week until the student finds which one works best for him.

Writing -the actual writing stage is essentially just an extension of the prewriting process. The student transfers the information they have gathered and organized into a traditional format. This may take the shape of a simple paragraph, a one-page essay, or a multi-page report. Up until this stage, they may not be exactly certain which direction their ideas will go, but this stage allows them to settle on the course the paper will take.

Editing is usually the least favorite stage of the writing process, especially for beginning writers. Critiquing one’s own writing can easily create tension and frustration. Editing can include adding, deleting, rearranging and substituting words, sentences, and even entire paragraphs to make their writing more accurately represent their ideas. It is often not a one-time event, but a continual process as the paper progresses. When teaching editing, be sure to allow your child time to voice aloud the problems they see in their writing.

Proof-reading — This is a chance for the writer to scan his or her paper for mistakes in grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Although it can be tempting to perform this stage of the writing process for the student, it is important that they gain proofreading skills for themselves as this improves a student’s writing over time. And because children want their writing to be effective, this can actually be the most opportune to teach some of the standard rules of grammar and punctuation. When students learn the rules of mechanics during the writing process they are much more likely to remember to use them in the future. [2, 24]

Activities most commonly used for organizing and providing a writing process:

1.Oral Group Brainstorming: this involves the use of leading questions to get students thinking about a topic or idea which is under focus. The questions can be written on the chalkboard.

2. Clustering: the focus is narrowed down to a specific word(s) or an idea. The teacher writes the stimulus word on the board and asks students to say what comes to their minds when they see the word. The teacher clusters their responses on the board. The clustering will be timed to one or two minutes. Then students are asked to write a paragraph using their clusters and give a title to what they have written.

3. Looping: this entails writing non-stop (without fear of errors or self-censorship) on anything that comes to students’ minds on a particular topic. After writing for a limited period of time the writer stops, reads, and sums up what he has written in one sentence.
4. Cubing: this activity involves a quick consideration of a subject from 6 points of view:
1) describe it: examine the topic or subject closely and tell what you think it is all about;

2) compare the topic or object to some others you have come across before: What is it similar to? … different from?

3) associate it with something you are familiar with already: What does it remind you of?

4) analyze it by telling what it is made of / how it functions/what is its structure/ what caused its existence, etc.

5) apply it, say what can be done with the object or topic, how it can be used, improved, etc.

6) argue for or against it, give reasons for supporting or being against the topic or object under focus.

5. Interviewing: each student is given 5 minutes to ask questions and jot down notes on other students’ views on the topic; then they are given 15 minutes to organize a rough draft of their notes. Then, notes are read to their partners for reactions and suggestions so that misconceptions can be corrected and information can be added and deleted.

6. Dicto-comp: here a paragraph is read at normal speed; then the teacher puts key words from the paragraph, in sequence, on the blackboard and asks the students to rewrite the paragraph from the best of their recollection.
7. Writing from opening sentence: students may be asked to find some intriguing and thought-provoking sentences from a variety of novels and short stories and develop from this basis; the final product can be anything from a paragraph to a report.
8) Peer editing — students read papers of their groupmates or those of another group (the previous year) and answer the following questions for each paper:

What do you like/dislike the most about the writing?

What areas of writing seem unclear? Is there a consistent focus on the thesis?

How could the writer make the piece clearer?

What and where could be added to make the piece more convincing?

Is the introduction effective? Is there a logical sequencing of ideas? Is there a conclusion? Is the piece of appropriate length?

If the task is done in a written form, notes on the questions can be compared to help the writer think of ways to improve his piece.
9) Reformulating a paragraph: any extract from student work to original prose may serve the purpose; students are asked to rewrite the paragraph and either make the original statement stronger, or support an argument with an example, or give arguments against something, or describe similar occurrences.
10) Writing letters to an author: can be form of reviewing home-reading novels or accounting for extensive reading tasks.

Writing activities go from being tightly controlled to being completely free. In general, controlled and guided activities are being done to practice the language and concentration is on the language itself. Free activities should allow for self expression at however low level, and content is what matters most. [3, 72]

Recommended writing activities for BEGINNER LEARNERS

I. Controlled writing activities

Dictation is a very safe type of exercise if you can keep the language elementary and simple. For children dictations should be short. They should be read or said at normal speed. They should have a purpose and be connected to work which has gone before or comes after.

A sample of a short dictation: “Winter”

Winter is a cold season. The sky is grey. There are many clouds in the sky. The clouds give us snow. We can see snow on the ground, on the roofs, on the trees. People put on warm clothes. Children play snowballs and make snowmen.

II. Guided written activities

Fill-in exercises are usefulactivities, especially at the beginner stages. They do not require much active production of language, since most of the language is given, but they do require understanding. Recommended exercises: vocabulary work with familiar words and sentences.

For example, the pupils are familiar with the words for pets and a few adjectives. So, they are able to fill in the blanks in the following text: “My Pets”

We have got three family pets: a …, a cat and a tortoise. The dog’s name is Big Wolf. He is a ….. golden Labrador. He has got big ….. eyes and a long tail. He is a very friendly dog.

Letters/cards/invitations writing seems to be a popular language class activity, and it is indeed a useful way of getting pupils to write short meaningful pieces of writing. The teacher can have pupils writing to each other and ‘sending’ their letters via the classroom postman.

A sample of the guided exercise which can be used at any form:

Dear, …………..,

Are you free on…………..? I ….. going to the … .

Would you like to come with …….. ?

Love, ……………

And the reply:

Dear,……………,

I’d love to go to the ………. with ……. on …… .

Thanks.

Love, ……………

III. Free writing activities

In free activities the English language is the pupils’ own language, no matter what their level is. The teacher should be the initiator and helper, and is responsible for seeing that the task can be done by the pupils at that level. The teacher should try to look at the work being done, perhaps at the rough copy stage, correct mistakes and suggest possible ideas, words. It is better to use a pencil and an eraser for pupils. For trained pupils it is recommended to re-write their work, so the final product is not what they hand in for correction, but the result of working on the piece of writing. Ideally each pupil should have a folder of his written work. Pupils can decorate them and learn to keep their work in order. If everything a pupil has written is in one place, then both the teacher and the pupil can see how much progress is being made.

Recommended writing activities for INTERMEDIATE LEARNERS

Social Network Chat

All students like to communicate through Social Network using mobile phones or computers. This activity simulates ‘chatting’ – a popular online communication process which has features common to both speaking and writing. You will need one piece of paper per pair of students for writing on. To encourage students to write brief messages each time, this could be in the form of a ‘chatting page’.

1. The first time you do this activity with a class, spend a few minutes discussing online ‘chatting’ with students, highlighting some of the key features through concept-checking questions, such as: ‘Do you spend a long time thinking how to formulate each message when chatting?’; ‘What is more important when chatting, writing everything correctly, or communicating quickly?’.

2. Elicit/pre-teach some useful chatting abbreviations. Basic items could include: u=you; 2=to; c=see; 8=ate, (and any more you/your students might know). Students should also be encouraged to use contractions, and forms such as ‘gonna’, ‘wanna’.

3. Arrange the classroom so that each student is sitting back-to-back with a partner.

4. Choose a suitable subject for my students to ‘chat’ about, such as: ‘Discuss your favourite sports’. Subjects requiring students to reach a solution are particularly effective, for example: ‘Arrange to meet up with your partner at the weekend and decide what you are going to do together’.

5. Explain to students that in order to communicate, they write a message on the first line of their paper, say ‘Hi, how are you?’, and ‘send’ it over their shoulder to their partner, who will respond and pass the paper back as quickly as possible.

6. Set a time limit for the activity, say fifteen minutes, and then students start chatting.

7. At the end of the chatting session ask students to report back — either on the content of their chat or on how successfully they communicated. Intermediate students can analyze their messages and discuss how in this situation communication is more important than accuracy. [4, 98]

Cross-cultural activities. Knowledge of why people in the culture of the target language behave in certain ways should make native speakers more approachable and easier to interpret. When students become aware of social habits they may find themselves generating more input, because they begin to fall into the category of foreigner that native speakers find easy to talk to.

Exercise “Culture shock!”

In this task students describe the problems people encounter when they have to live in a new country for a period of time. If students have not had experience of living in a foreign country, you can ask them to imagine how strangers might feel.

Write some ideas how the following points influence the strangers in English-speaking countries:

1. Differences in the weather.

2. Being away from the family.

3. Differences in the food.

4. Differences in the way people make friends

5. Transportation problems.

6. Getting used to new ways of learning.

7. Difficulties in communicating one’s ideas.

8. Different living conditions.

9. Different social customs.

10. Knowing what to do in everyday situations.

Recommended writing activities for ADVANCED LEARNERS

Cross-cultural awareness. We accept the fact that language is embedded in culture, some element of cross-cultural training is inevitable and the inclusion of some cross-cultural work in the teaching. The content of a cross-cultural programme will vary considerably according to the circumstances, and the exercises which follow serve to illustrate some of the techniques which can be adapted for use with different content. [5, 37]

Exercise “Similarities and differences”

This exercise makes students sensitive to social behaviour in the target language.

Make students to write answers for following questions:

1. What do people of your country typically say when they greet each other?

2. Do people in your country shake hands, kiss, etc.?

3. Do they shake hands\kiss before, during, or after the greeting?

4. In your country would you expect someone to compliment you when you buy a new car (when you are wearing something new or special\ when you do something well\ when you’ve just made them a meal)? What do people say in each of the above situation?

5. Describe situations in which people would expect you to apologize in your country (when you telephone someone after 10:00 p.m., when you have forgotten something you were expected to bring, when you break something which does not belong to you, etc.).

6. When is it appropriate to criticize someone in your country? What for (dress, their work, their attitudes, etc.)?

Meaningful grammar practice. The ability to operate the structures and tenses of English in written form is an important part of being able to produce the language. The range of writing activities is very large, and the ideas which follow are meant to give an idea what might be possible to practice grammar and structures.

Essay “hypothetical would”

1. Before writing Essay put the following list on the board:

• Your school.
• Your job or occupation.
• Your friends.
• Your habits (smoking, exercise, eating, etc.).
• Your hobbies (playing the musical instruments, stamp collecting, etc.)
• Your skills (languages, carpentry, etc.)

2. Ask the students to write a personal essay for each heading. Then they should write which of these they would or would not change if they were to live their lives again.

Product orientated tasks

These tasks are characterized by the fact that students have to work out and write a set of instructions within a given time. The execution of the task involves students in the creative use of language: making leaflets, brochures, magazine articles… [6, 114]

Students’ motivation to write suffers when teachers focus on conventions first and ideas last. Many students have little self-confidence when they write because teachers have been too quick to point out their errors instead of praising their ideas first. This problem can be solved by having students share first drafts in a positive, conversational atmosphere that focuses only on the content of their writing, with no correction of errors. The proper place for teaching conventions, then, is at the end of the writing process, during the editing phase, when students are preparing their writing for publication. When students know that their work will be published for a specific audience, they are more motivated to learn the conventions that will make their writing readable and to edit for those conventions.

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