Building confidence and enthusiasm in WRITING Neil Evans Teacher Trainer at British Council Korea
ACCESS ENGLISH: Transforming the teaching and learning of English in East Asia Overview of session today 1. Introduction – your experiences 4. Building writing fluency – Instant writing 2. Generating ideas for writing 3. Responding to writing
ACCESS ENGLISH: Transforming the teaching and learning of English in East Asia Do you agree or disagree? 1.My ss hate writing in class 2.I only use writing to practise grammar structures 3.I give my ss time to plan writing 4.I always correct my ss work 5.I don’t often ‘do’ writing in class
ACCESS ENGLISH: Transforming the teaching and learning of English in East Asia Generating ideas for writing Case study:British Council class 9/6/11 class of elementary-age learners writing lesson teacher wants to make sure the ss have enough ideas to be able to write
ACCESS ENGLISH: Transforming the teaching and learning of English in East Asia Writing Task “Write an autobiography for Amelia Earhart” Q. What do ss need in order to complete the task?
ACCESS ENGLISH: Transforming the teaching and learning of English in East Asia Listen to the case study 6 different steps Note down the way in which the ss generate ideas. Think about interaction. Is it individual/pair/group work?
ACCESS ENGLISH: Transforming the teaching and learning of English in East Asia Step 1 – Review facts about Amelia’s life. Groupwork. T/F game. Step 2- Timeline. Order events of Amelia’s life. Talk to partner and then individually move into position Step 3 – Look at examples of auto/bio texts. T checks ‘I’ form Step 4 – Brainstorming with a mind map. Ss brainstorm in groups but each has a specific role Step 5 – T gives ss her own mind map and they can compare with their own. Group work Step 6 – T explains why we use mind maps and she also shows how it can be used to build 3 different paragraphs
ACCESS ENGLISH: Transforming the teaching and learning of English in East Asia Responding to writing “A man who has committed a mistake and doesn’t correct it is committing another mistake.” CONFUCIUS
ACCESS ENGLISH: Transforming the teaching and learning of English in East Asia Different types of response 1. Content – “I really enjoyed your work” 2. Design - “Why did you start with a story about your pet. You could have started by talking about pets in general.” 3. Selective correction – eg. T only corrects verb tenses or focuses on vocabulary used 4. Correction symbols – SP / WO 5. Change the person responding!
ACCESS ENGLISH: Transforming the teaching and learning of English in East Asia Using a checklist The teacher in the case study uses a checklist to encourage the ss to respond to each other’s work. Q. What questions are in the checklist? Eg. “Are there 3 paragraphs?”
ACCESS ENGLISH: Transforming the teaching and learning of English in East Asia Instant Writing builds confidence and enthusiasm a change of pace from planned writing more of a focus on fluency which relieves the pressure of being accurate different grouping are possible – children learn by watching others
ACCESS ENGLISH: Transforming the teaching and learning of English in East Asia Some activities 1. Dictating sentences for completion 2. Murder suspect (using pictures) 3. Writing acrostic poems
ACCESS ENGLISH: Transforming the teaching and learning of English in East Asia