Teaching the Productive Skills

“When you want to convert someone to your view, you go over to where he is standing, take him by the hand (mentally speaking), and guide him. You don’t stand across the room and shout at him; you don’t call him a dummy; you don’t order him to come over to where you are. You start where he is, and work from that position. That’s the only way to get him to budge.” Thomas Aquina

Reasons for Teaching Writing Reinforcement Language Development Learning Style Writing as a skill

Students need to be personally involved in order to make the learning experience of lasting value

General Approaches for Teaching Writing The Product Approach The Process Approach The Genre Approach

The Product Approach It focuses on how the final piece of writing looks. It is measured against a criteria of vocabulary use, grammatical use and mechanical considerations such as punctuation as well as content and organization. It focuses on imitation and churning out a “perfect” product. It requires constant error correction that affects self-esteem and motivation. The common procedure is to assign a piece of writing, collect it and return it for further revision, with the errors either corrected or marked for the ss to correct them.

The Process Approach Created in the mid 1970’s, it identifies 4 recursive, interactive stages in writing: 1.Prewriting 2. Composing/drafting 3.Revising 4.Editing It emphasizes revision and feedback from others. Correction is not central in the early stages. Some important elements are meaningfulness, personal connection and process understanding. Pre-writing and brainstorming activate each ss’ schemata

The Genre Approach Created in the 1980’s. It consists of 3 phases: 1.The target genre is modeled for the ss 2.The text is jointly constructed by T and ss 3.The text is independently constructed by each ss Writing takes place in a social situation and reflects a particular purpose, learning can happen consciously through imitation and analysis, which facilitates explicit instruction. It uses authentic texts: business letters, applications, etc.

General Guidelines The teacher should adopt the role of assistant and guide and work closely with students to encourage them, offering helpful feedback and suggestions. Teachers should directly train students about writing strategies. Teachers should integrate the four skills.

A Pragmatic Plan for Expanding and Refining the Writing Skills Be clear on what skills you want to develop Decide on which means (type of exercise) can facilitate learning of the target area Focus on what topic will ensure ss’ participation

Choosing the Target Area Consider: Level of ss Average age Motivation/reasons Specific future intentions for writing Expected outcome Focus (structure, tense, usage, creative writing, etc.)

Types of Writing Activities Controlled Writing: fill in the blanks, cloze exercises, copying, dictation. Guided Writing: free writing using prompts, story or text re-telling, creative writing, collaborative writing. They involve more editing: proof-reading, spelling, punctuation, shaping and publishing.

Activity 1: Simple Description with Visuals. (For cycles I & II only) Have students examine a picture and ask them to name the objects in it. Then ask students to write a paragraph to describe the picture. Teachers may request that students bring pictures of people, or the teacher may supply them (photographs or pictures clipped from magazines). Each picture should show several people in sufficient detail to reveal size, facial expression, dress, and other facets of character. Quickly walk the students through this activity, question by question, so they record the first thoughts and reactions that the pictures generate, rather than dwelling too long on one question. The teacher should ask students to examine their pictures closely, and explain that they will need to use their imagination for the activity. Some questions the teacher might ask are: - Who is the main character in the picture? - What is an appropriate name for this character? - How old is this character? - What emotions is this character showing in the picture? Describe the evidence that you have for this (e.g., facial expression, gestures). - What kind of work might the character do for a living? Give reasons to support your decision. - What might the person be thinking or saying? What makes you imagine this? - What other characteristics are revealed by the character's dress and stance? - What might have happened before the picture was taken? What might happen next? - How are the other characters in the picture related to the main character? What evidence makes you think so? - What is the attitude of the main character to the other characters? What is the attitude of the other characters to the main character? What are some possible reasons for these attitudes? - What might it be like to be the main character or one of the other characters?

Activity 5: Slash Sentences (For cycles I & II only) Give students a set of sentence cues and have them write a short narrative paragraph. The procedure for this activity may be as follows: Make comlete sentences according to the model. Model: The Smiths / Summer / in the country/ spend The Smiths spend Summer in the country. 1. all / family / In the morning / to get up / arround / 8’oclock. 2. Mr. Smith / the kitchen / coffee / to prepare / to go down strairs. 3. his / wife / then / breakfast / to go outside / in / the garden.

Sample Pre-writing Activity #2 Time allotment (5-12 minutes) Instruct students to record ideas briefly, using phrases and words rather than sentences. Students then may take the opportunity to develop their ideas further, or save their notes and ideas for use at a later date.

- Who is the main character in the picture? - What is an appropriate name for this character? - How old is this character? - What emotions is this character showing in the picture? Describe the evidence that you have for this (e.g., facial expression, gestures). - What kind of work might the character do for a living? Give reasons to support your decision. - What might the person be thinking or saying? What makes you imagine this? - What other characteristics are revealed by the character's dress and stance? - What might have happened before the picture was taken? What might happen next? - How are the other characters in the picture related to the main character? What evidence makes you think so? - What is the attitude of the main character to the other characters? What is the attitude of the other characters to the main character? What are some possible reasons for these attitudes? - What might it be like to be the main character or one of the other characters? Instruct students to record ideas briefly, using phrases and words rather than sentences. Students then may take the opportunity to develop their ideas further, or save their notes and ideas for use at a later date.