1. Teaching Writing to Young Learner

2. The Young Language Learner According to Cameron (2001) level of young learners are: Age 3-6 years old: very young learner Age 7-9 years old: younger learner Age 10-12 years old: older learner

3. Characteristics of Young learners According to Brumfit (1991:7) some characteristics of young learners are: children are enthusiastic about learning; children love to play and learn best when they are enjoying themselves; children have fewer negative attitudes to foreign language; children’s language learning is more closely integrated with real communication; Children learn through five senses.

4. When should children learn to write in the foreign language? Children learning English may not write very much in the first year or two (Lee, 2001:23). They may still be consolidating their concept of print. Copying provides opportunities to practice handwriting, learn & consolidate their understanding of new vocabulary, develop an awareness of and confidence in English spelling and practice a range of simple sentence patterns they have learned to use in speaking. An important principle at all levels is children should not be asked to write something that they cannot say in English.

5. Pupils in the 2 nd year of schooling may move on to practice writing sentence and very simple. Much of this writing provides specific language practice as in selecting and spelling words correctly, using the correct word order, using grammatical structure and linking sentences with simple conjunction. Children enjoy personal writing, so it is good idea to personalize writing tasks wherever possible.

6. What do native speaker children write? Writing is a complex skill Children begin with “emergent writing” During first year of formal schooling, they learn tracing and connecting letters to make words.

7. Writing activities with younger children EFL children need practice with the mechanical basics of writing They can start with tracing and copying Activity involves word level writing Finger writing The course books contain written exercises at sentence level (gap fill, matching words or sentence with pictures) Teachers use guided writing (cards, invitation, letters, or posters)

8. Writing for Older Children They are ready for free writing (fill cartoon bubbles, write instruction, shopping list, short message) Introduce them to word processor (computer) They use writing for record keeping (notes, diary, or journal) Dictogloss is a creative way of using gap-filling and dictation in the UK by Jupp&Harvey (1996) from an original idea of Wajnryb (1991)

9. Dictogloss The steps are: 1. Prepare pupils with a range of pre listening activities to listen to a story to introduce the topic and key words. Give the pupils a list of the key words. 2. Read the story once again, not too fast. Pupils listen to the text a second time and give tick to the words from the word list. Afterwards pupils complete gap filling activities. 3. Pupils re-tell the story orally in pairs, using the completed gap- filling text and pictures. 4. Pupils now retell the story in writing working in pairs or individually, trying to reconstruct the text together or recreate the main meaning with grammatical accuracy and well organized idea. 5. Display finished version and discuss the story produced. 6. A variation is that pupils try to create a different ending.

10. The mechanics of writing Writing has its mechanical components such as: handwriting, spelling, punctuation, and the construction of well-formed sentences, paragraphs and text. the Handwriting Challenge: Handwriting can be difficult for some students. Areas of difficulty can include producing the shapes of English letters- upper case and lower case equivalent, the size as can their correct positioning with or without ruled lines, the writing style – from right to left can involve not only problems of perception but also necessitates a different angle and position for writing arm.

11. Teaching handwriting Teachers can follow a two-stage approach: a. Recognition Recognize specific letters within a sequence of letters. The teacher can draw letters or words in the air which SS have to identify. a. Production Teacher can give dictation of individual words and asks SS to write down, gives an alphabetical list of animals and SS have to write the words in one of three columns, gives questions and SS have to write one-word answer.

12. Teaching Punctuation SS at elementary level can study a collection of words and identify + rewrite which ones are written in capital letters or not SS are asked to give punctuations such as full stops and commas SS can be shown a sentence and ask to identify what punctuation is used and why

13. Copying Disguised word copying Copying from the board Making notes Whisper writing

14. Sentence Paragraph and Text Sentence production (elementary level): SS are given one or two model sentences and then have to write similar sentences based on information given or on their own thoughts Paragraph construction (elementary level): it employs a “substitution drill” style of procedure to encourage SS to write a paragraph which is almost identical to one they have just read. Free text construction (elementary level): it uses the technique of parallel writing but it leaves the SS free to decide how closely they wish to follow the original model or based on their imagination.

15. References Brewster, J., Ellis, G., & Girard, D. (2002). The Primary English Teacher’s Guide. (New. Ed), England: Pearson Education Limited Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching Languages to Young Learners. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press Reid, J. M. (1993). Teaching ESL Writing. United States of America: Prentice Hall Regents