Writing

Literacy

In the past, people tended to view someone as literate if they could

manipulate ‘.. a set

of discrete, value-free technical skills which included decoding and

encoding meanings,

manipulating writing tools, perceiving shape-sound correspondences, etc.

which are acquired

through formal education’ (Hyland 2002: 53). However, as Ken Hyland

points out, this view

has changed radically in the last few years so that now literacy is seen as
significantly more

complex, located as it is in social contexts, We judge people as literate, in

other words, if they

can read and write in certain situations and for certain purposes, some of
which are more

Prestigious than others, It is certainly true that to be deprived of the

opportunity to write is ‘to

be excluded from a wide range of social roles, which the majority of people
in industrialised

societies associate with power and prestige’ (Tribble 1996: 12). However,
in different domains

of life there are different literacies, and it is the exact nature of these
which seems to matter.

Filling in a form certainly suggests literacy at one level, but if the same
person is incapable

of putting together an appropriate letter of application, then they are

demonstrating a lesser

standard of literacy than someone who can not only write a letter of
application, but also

construct a short story or write a complex report. In the Christian world of

the middle ages,
sacred texts were only written in Latin and were only available to people
with Prestige and,

therefore, a prestigious kind of literacy. Not that much has changed,

perhaps, since in world

terms we might well say that, for example, being able to use information
technology successfully

is a mark of a kind of literacy still denied to the majority of the world’s

population. a

As we shall see below, the concept of genre is highly bound up with

literacy of this kind, in

that different written genres perform purposes for specific discourse

communities. In foreign-

language teaching, therefore, we need to decide what kind of writing we

expect from students,

and, therefore, what kind of literacies we are asking from them. This is
especially important

when students are studying English for academic purposes (EAP); the
actual discipline and

the level they are studying for will determine how ‘literate’ they should be.
.

In this chapter we will concentrate first on the ‘nuts and bolts’ aspects of
literacy, before

discussing issues to do with the writing process and genre.

Handwriting “ction takes o

It may seem strange to worry about handwriting when so much

communication takes place

electronically, in emails or by using word processing software. Yet there

are still many occasions,
even for the most computer-literate, when we have to write by hand. Many
Janguage exams

are still taken by candidates using pens and pencils, and we generally
write notes, postcards,

memos, journals, etc. in handwriting.

323
324

Ae

CHAPTER 19

Many students whose native-language orthography is very different from

English have

difficulty forming English letters and may have to be taught exactly how it
is done. This may

involve showing them which direction the writing strokes go in. For
example, the following

worksheet (designed for children learning to write the letter b) shows

writers where to start

(at the star) and how the strokes go. Gradually the written b becomes
fainter and fainter until

the students are, in effect, writing it on their own.

The ‘b’ will disappear. Try to trace it. Start at the *

**

Later on, we can get students to write words and sentences, showing
them, with the help of

solid and dotted lines (and little diamonds) how tall letters should be and
where the round

part of the 6 finishes, etc.

-Qn- On tee nee

O86 On ee ag
Handwriting is a personal issue. Students should not all be expected to use
exactly the same

style, despite copying exercises like the one above. Nevertheless, badly-
formed letters may

influence the reader against the writer, something which is undesirable

whether the work is

the product of some creative task or, more seriously, work that is going to
be assessed in a test

or exam. We should encourage students with problematic handwriting to

improve.

Spelling

Although incorrect spelling does not often prevent the understanding of a

written message,

it can adversely affect the reader’s judgement. All too often, bad spelling
is perceived as a lack

of education or care. This is not necessarily the case in emails, and SMS
text messages have

spellings and ‘words’ all of their own. Nevertheless, as we saw on page 24,
whereas it is perfectly

acceptable in some emails to have spelling which is inexact, in other

situations it is not.

One of the reasons that spelling is difficult for students of English is that
the correspondence

between the sound of a word and the way it is spelt is not always obvious
(see Chapter 2, F4).

A single sound (or more correctly, a single phoneme) may have many
different spellings (pa

poor, pore, pour, daughter, Sean), and the same spelling may have many
different sounds (ar,
word, information, worry, correspond). When students work on different
phonemes, we need

to draw their attention to the common spellings of those phonemes. We

should also get them

to look at different ways of pronouncing the same letters (or combinations

of letters) oF have

them do exercises to discover spelling rules. When students come across

new words, we can

ask them what other words they know with the same kinds of spelling or
sounds, When they

listen to recordings, they can study transcripts and/or copy down sections
of the recording.
WRITING

An issue that makes spelling difficult for some students is the fact that not
all varieties of

English spell the same words in the same way. Which is correct: color or
colour, theater or

theatre? How do we decide between the use of s and z in words like

apologise and customize?

The former, in each case, are British spellings, and the latter are North
American (though in

Canada both spellings of colour and theatre, for example, are used),

To help make things clear, we should get our students to focus on a

particular variety of

English (British or American English, for example) as a spelling model for

them to aspire to.

But we should also make them aware of other spelling varieties, drawing
their attention to

dictionary entries which show such differences.

One of the best ways to help students improve their spelling is through
reading, especially

extensively (see Chapter 17, A1). We can also draw their attention to
spelling problems and

explain why they occur. Copying from written models is one way to do this;
when students

see and reflect on their copying mistakes, their spelling ‘consciousness’ is

raised (Porte 1995).

Layout and punctuation ; ;

Different writing communities (both between and within cultures) obey

different punctuation
and layout conventions in communications such as letters, reports and
publicity materials.

These are frequently non-transferable from one community or language to

another. Such

differences are easily seen in the different punctuation conventions for the
quotation of direct

speech which different languages use, or the way in which many writers
use commas instead

of or as much as full stops, although comma overuse is frowned on by

many English-language

writers and editors. Some punctuation conventions, such as the

capitalisation of names,

months and the pronoun J, are specific to only one or a few languages.
Though punctuation

is frequently a matter of personal style, violation of well-established

customs makes a piece 0

Writing look awkward to many readers.

Different genres of writing ae laid out differently; business and personal

letters are diferent

from each other and emails have conventions all of their own. Newspaper
articles are J a out in

quite specific ways, and certain kinds of ‘small ads’ in magazines follow
conventiona omar

To be successful as writers in our own ot another language, we need to be

aware of these lay

j clearly as we can.

and use or modify them when appropriate to get our message across as IV

Approaches to student writing

There are a number of different approaches to the practic

the classroom. We need to choose between them, decidin, an

more on the process of writing than its product, whether we wan ihe

Written genres, and whether we want to encourage creative writing

cooperatively. We will want to build the ‘writing habit.

e of writing skills both in and outside

g whether we want students to focus

m to study different

ther individually or

Process and iti iti

product writing or on the writing

In the teaching of writing we can either focus on io Poy interested a the

aim of a task

; . , we

Process itself. When concentrating on the product. a of written genre has a

lot in

i sideratio

con the end Product. As we shall s* below an approach which values the
construction of

common with a product approach to writing, | ee

® ’ ‘ hing to be focused on (rather than the pr

€ end-product as the main thing

326

CHAPTER 19

Many educators, however, advocate a process approach to writing. This

pays attention to

the various stages that any piece of writing goes through. By spending
time with learners on

pre-writing phases, editing, re-drafting and finally producing a finished

version of their work,

a process approach aims to get to the heart of the various skills that most
writers employ

— and which are, therefore, worth replicating when writing in a foreign

language. Indeed, it

might be possible to argue that editing and re-drafting are even more
important when we are

writing in a foreign language than when we are writing in our first

language.

In its simplest form, a process approach asks students to consider the

procedure of putting

together a good piece of work. We might, for example, discuss the concept
of first and final

drafts with our students and then ask them to say whether the activities
listed here take place

at first or final stages, and to put them in the best order.

In reality, the writing process

is more complex than this, of

course, and the various stages of :

drafting, reviewing, re-drafting check your spelling -

and writing, etc. are done in a check your writing for unnecessary
repetition of
recursive, way: we loop backwards words and/or information

and move forwards between these decide on the information for each
paragraph and

various stages (Tribble 1996: the order the paragraphs should go in

37-39). Thus at the editing stage note down various ideas

we may feel the need to go back select the best ideas for inclusion

to a pre-writing phase and think write a clean copy of the corrected

version

again; we may edit bits of our write out a rough version

writing as we draft it.

Ron White and Valerie Arndt stress that ‘..

writing is re-writing ... re-vision — seeing with Planning Drafting

new eyes — has a central role to play in the

act of creating text (White and Arndt 1991:

5). Perhaps, then, it is better to see writing as

a kind of process ‘wheel’, where writers move

both around the circumference of the wheel

and across the spokes. And even when they have Final version? Editing

written what they think is the final version of

their work, they may still, at the last moment,

go back and re-plan or re-visit stages they had

thought they had completed. FIGURE 1: The process wheel

One of the disadvantages of getting students to concentrate on the

process of writing is that

it takes time: time to brainstorm ideas or collect them in some other way;
time to draft a piece

of writing and then, with the teacher’s help, perhaps, review it and edit it
in various ways before,
perhaps, changing the focus, generating more ideas, re-drafting, re-
editing, and so on. This

cannot be done in 15 minutes. The various stages may well involve

discussion, research, language

study and a considerable amount of interaction between teacher and

students and between the

students themselves so that when process writing is handled

appropriately, it stretches across the

whole curriculum. Not all students see this as a good thing, however. Many
will find it difficult

check language use (grammar , vocabulary, linkers)

check punctuation (and layout)

o ao ao &

so

—e

Final version
WRITING

to give enough time to the process and would rather finish a piece of
writing straight away. And

there are times when process writing is simply not appropriate, either
because classroom time is

limited or because we want students to write quickly as part of a

communication game.

However, none of these circumstances should prevent us from explaining

the process to our

students and encouraging them to plan, draft, re-draft, re-plan, etc. In

longer pieces of writing

(or writing for portfolios — see below), the writing process is at least as
important as the product,

and even in exam writing tasks, the students’ ability to plan (quickly) and
later read back through

what they have written in order to make any necessary corrections is

extremely important.

Genre

As we saw in Chapter 2, C2, a lot of writing within a discourse community

is very genre-

bound. In other words, writers frequently construct their writing so that

people within that

discourse community will instantly understand what kind of writing it is.

We know what an

advertisement is when we see it, we recognise poetry formats and we

know what a formal

letter should look like. Genre represents the norms of different kinds of
writing.
When teachers concentrate on genre, students study texts in the genre in
which they are

going to be writing before they embark on their own work. Thus, if we

want them to write

business letters of various kinds, we let them look at typical models of

such letters before

starting to compose their own. If we want them to write newspaper

articles, we have them

study real examples to discover facts about construction and specific

language use which are

common to that genre. This forms part of the pre-writing phase. -_

Chris Tribble (1996: 148-150) suggests the following ‘data collection

procedure as a prelude

to the writing of letters to newspapers. Students are asked to spend some

time every “ey

for a week looking at letters to the newspapers. They are asked to make
nore 0 particy "

vocabulary and/or grammar constructions used in them. For example We

might Ween em to

find any language which expresses approval or disapproval or to note own

any entences

they come across. They can use dictionaries or any other resources “yn sd
10 check

understanding. At the end of a week, they bring the results of their

research to

make a list of commonly occurring lexis or grammar patterns, day’s paper

and plan

The teacher now gets the students to read controversial ates a) incespone

letters (using language they have come across in the data ection Pi
veehope that they

those articles. Where possible, students should actually send their le

will be published, . .

A genre approach is especially appropriate for students of Engl for Speci

ee

However, it is also highly useful for general English students, even a °

them to Produce written work they can be proud of sider a number of

different

Students who are writing within a certain genre need to cons snd evleof
the genre, and

factors, They need to have knowledge of the topic, the Cee hom Many of
our students’

ine context in which their writing will be read 3 wes me rse but that does
not stop

writing tasks do not have an audience other than the teacher, of course,

Ose Working a if they di Id be seen as extremely prescriptive, encouraging

Asking students to imitate a given style could be eative act. One way
round

them t : iti f ‘reproduction’ rather than as a cr ree of a

0 see writing as a form of ‘rep + students are to have r eal knowledg

this — and something that is absolutely necessary }

327
328

B3

B4

CHAPTER 19

genre — is for them to see many different examples from the same genre.
This means that they

will be able to choose from a variety of features. However, at lower levels

this may well be

impractical, and so imitation may, after all, be a useful first stage,

designed as much to inform

as to enforce adherence to strict genre rules. Later, with exposure to

different examples within

a genre, it will be up to them to decide what to do with the data they have
collected.

Creative writing

The term creative writing suggests imaginative tasks, such as writing

poetry, stories and plays.

Such activities have a number of features to recommend them. Chief

among these is that the

end result is often felt to be some kind of achievement and that“... most
people feel pride in

their work and want it to be read’ (Ur 1996: 169). This sense of
achievement is significantly

more marked for creative writing than for other more standard written
products.
Creative writing is ‘a journey of self-discovery, and self-discovery promotes
effective

learning’ (Gaffield-Vile 1998: 31). When teachers set up imaginative

writing tasks so that

their students are thoroughly engaged, those students frequently strive

harder than usual

to produce a greater variety of correct and appropriate language than they

might for more

routine assignments. While students are writing a simple poem about

someone they care

about, or while they are trying to construct a narrative or tell stories of

their childhood,

for example, they are tapping into their own experiences. This, for some,
provides powerful

motivation to find the right words to express such experience. Creative

writing also provokes

the kind of input-output circle we described in Chapter 16, Au.

In order to bolster the ‘product pride’ that students may feel when they
have written creatively,

we need to provide an appropriate reader audience. In addition to

ourselves as teachers, the

audience can be the whole class. We can put students’ writing up on a

class noticeboard or copy

it and include it in class magazines. We can make anthologies and

distribute them to friends,

parents and other teachers. We can, if we want, set up websites for our
classes on the Internet, or

have students write blogs (see the example on page 338) which can be
read by others.

There is always a danger that students may find writing imaginatively

difficult. Having‘n othing
to say, they may find creative writing a painful and demotivating
experience, associated in their

minds with a sense of frustration and failure. A lot will depend upon how
we encourage them

(see Bs below). It is also important not to expect whole compositions from

the very first. We

need, instead, to ‘build the writing habit, providing students with

motivating, straightforward

tasks to persuade them that writing is not only possible but can also be
great fun.

Writing as a cooperative activity

Although many people in their personal lives write on their own, whether
at home or at work, in

language classes teachers and students can take advantage of the

presence of others to make writing

a cooperative activity, with great benefit to all those involved. In one

example of such an approach,

group writing allowed the lecturer to give more detailed and constructive
feedback since she was

dealing with a small number of groups rather than many individual

students (Boughey 1997).

Individual students also found themselves saying and writing things they
might not have come up

with on their own, and the group's research was broader than an
individual’s normally was.

Cooperative writing works well whether the focus is on the writing process
or, alternatively,

on genre study. In the first case, reviewing and evaluation are greatly
enhanced by having more
WRITING

than one person working on a text, and the generation of ideas is

frequently more lively with

two or more people involved than it is when writers work on their own. In
genre-based writing,

itis probably the case that two heads analyse genre-specific texts as well
as, if not better, than one

head would do, and often create genre-specific texts more successfully as
a result.

Cooperative writing is immensely successful if students are writing on a

computer. If the

screen is big enough, everyone can clearly see what is being created, and
everyone can make

small changes both during the initial writing process and also later on.
Students and teachers

can also email each other, of course; and just as with Wikipedia, anyone
can modify entries, so

with student writing on the Internet (or on an Intranet — that is on a hard

disk that everyone

in the school, or from a group can access), other students can alter things
that are there, and

gradually co-construct a final finished product.

Writing in groups, whether as part of a long process or as part of a short

game-like

communicative activity, can be greatly motivating for students, including

as it does, not only

writing, but research, discussion, peer evaluation and group pride in a

group accomplishment.

Building the writing habit

Some students are extremely unconfident and unenthusiastic writers.
There may be many

reasons for this: perhaps they have never written much in their first
language(s). Perhaps they

think that they don’t have anything to say and can’t come up with ideas. .

Whatever the reason, we need to help such students build the writing
habit so that they

Tecognise writing as being a normal part of classroom practice and they

come to writing tasks

with as much enthusiasm as they do other activities. One way of doing

this, of course, 8 aan

them interesting and enjoyable tasks to do. We must make sure, however,
that we give t “

€nough information to do what we have asked. We will want to make sure

that ney have cow

of the right kind of language to do the task. We need to be able to give

students i fs : comp e °

the task, too. Sometimes we may dictate half-sentences for them to finish
so ; ‘ t a 0 n

have to come up with too much information of their own. Sometimes ve ie

“ nts a ee

student or students as they do the task. Of course, we don’t want to com :

e on ne

Many ideas if this is going to stifle creativity, but we need ‘0 be rea vl

atterns and schemes

to make sure they can never say J can’t think of anything to write. Fin "ae
at venres that we

help students to write with confidence. This is the first stage of looking at
di ont oo ap with

mentioned above. If students are given a model for postcard wring . en

which hadente
their own slightly different version. Simple poems often prov h , ful
structure. Giving students

can say something meaningful while still being supported bya ce 4 I

onenont ht every writer

some kind of simple structure to write in provides the same Kind of supp

i they are given parameters and

i ves in front of a blank screen, he

constrains tewitewth ae are not suggesting that all writing needs to be

constrained

or aupported in hi way The ben of creativity first starts.

i al

OF supported in this way. The blank screen is the place where a Brea ee
cathy oe oo

Building the writing habit can be done with a range “a \ a ole enrol

writing by dictating half a sentence which the sree ‘ ar one Be ee elon

thirty I would like to ...). We can get them to write eae avitng what wore

espond at wa

Don’t run in the corridors). We can get students tor ee Sen ae of ruse
might

Or scenes a piece of music suggests, or by describing the

y i i ries that

i hi a piece of music makes them feel or write sto

Pp ny. The can write about OW

the music ‘tells them to write’ (Harmer 2004: 66). 7

330

Bé

B7

CHAPTER 19 a

Pictures can provide stimulation for writing-habit activities. Students can

describe pictures

or write descriptions of a wanted man or woman so that their colleagues

have to identify that

person from a group photograph. They can write postcards from a picture
we give them, or

create an interview with a portrait, say, from 200 years ago.

There are many writing games, too, such as story reconstruction activities
where students

have to build up a story from a set of pictures, each of which only one of
them has seen (see

below). We can get students into story circles where, in groups, they
create a story together.

The whole point of all these activities is just to get students to write for the
fun and practice

of it, rather than have them write as a skill. Building the writing habit falls
halfway between

writing-for-learning and writing-for-writing (see Bé below),

Writing-for-learning and writing-for-writing

We need to make a distinction between writing-for-learning and writing-for-

writing if we are
to promote writing as a skill.

Writing-for-learning is the kind of writing we do to help students learn

language or to test

them on that language. Thus, if we say Write three sentences using the
‘going to’ future, our aim

is not to train students to write, but rather to help them remember the
going to future. The

same is true when we get them to write (say for a test) four sentences
about what they wish

about the present and the past.

When we ask students to design a good magazine advertisement,

however, we are doing

this so that they may become good at writing advertisements. When we

get them to write a

narrative, it is their ability to write a story that counts, not just their use of
the past tense.

If we are to build the students’ writing skills (as opposed to building their
writing habits

or getting them to write for language practice), we will have to use such
writing-for-writing

tasks as often as is appropriate.

The roles of the teacher

Although the teacher needs to deploy some or all of the usual roles (see
Chapter 6, B1) when

students are asked to write, the ones that are especially important are as
follows:
e Motivator: one of our principal roles in writing tasks will be to motivate
the students, creating

the right conditions for the generation of ideas, persuading them of the
usefulness of the

activity, and encouraging them to make as much effort as possible for

maximum benefit. This

may require special and prolonged effort on our part for longer process-
writing sequences.

Where students are involved in a creative writing activity, it is usually the

case that some

find it easier to generate ideas than others. During a poetry activity (see
Example 6 below),

for example, we may need to suggest lines to those who cannot think of
anything, or at least

prompt them with our own ideas,

Resource: especially during more extended writing tasks, we should be

ready to supply

information and language where necessary. We need to tell students that

we are available

and be prepared to look at their work as it progresses, offering advice and

suggestions ina

constructive and tactful way. Because writing takes longer than

conversation, for example,

there is usually time for discussion with individual students or students

working in pairs

or groups to complete a writing task.

_ WRITING

e Feedback provider: giving feedback on writing tasks demands special

care (see Chapter

8D). Teachers should respond positively and encouragingly to the content

of what the

students have written. When offering correction, teachers will choose what
and how much

to focus on, based on what students need at this particular stage of their
studies and on the

tasks they have undertaken.

C Writing lesson sequences

In the following examples, the writing activity is specified, together with its
particular focus.

Some of the activities are about the nuts and bolts of writing (Examples i,
2 and 5), some

are designed to build the writing habit (Examples 5 and 6) and others are
designed to give

students practice in the skill of writing (Examples 3 and 4).

Example 4: Dino at the hotel - _ Activity: punctuating a text

Focus: : writing conventions

Age: .. young adult and above

~ Level: elementary

If we want students to learn about punctuation, they need to make the

connection between

the way we speak and the way punctuation reflects this. Commas, for
example, are often

placed at the points where a speaker would take a breath if they were
reading the text. Full
stops represent the end of a tone group, etc. .

The following task ~ at elementary level — asks students to punctuate a

prose passage using

capital letters, commas, inverted commas (quotation marks) and full

stops.

Students read the unpunctuated text from an elementary graded reader

( see page 283) and

then listen to the story on CD. This is so they can get a good idea of what
it is about. In pairs,

they then try to add punctuation. They can listen to the recording as many
times as they like.

20 april was dino bracco’s twenty-first birthday he worked giovanni his

boss at

the hotel grand brought him.a cake from the hotel kitchen just twenty-one
said

giovanni and then he put his hand on dino's back ah dino dino ... when I
was

twenty-one ... ee

‘dino ate some cake and smiled he was only twenty-one years old but he
was a

young man who knew what he wanted he had a plan

you must know what you want dino his mother said to him when he was a
cri

and he did he had a plan dino came from a very small town called rocella i
the

south of italy his mother and father were farmers rocella was beautiful bu
"0
one had any money dino was born there but now he lived and worked in
ven

he worked at the reception of the hotel grand _

From Hotel Casanova by § Leather (Cambridge University Press)

t on the board, OHT or a projected computer screen.

ted tex

We can put the unpunctuate and the rest of the class can say

Students from the different pairs can punctuate it, line by line eee

whether or not they agree. Punctuating poems 1n this way is also very .

331
CHAPTER 19

Activities: story reconstruction, story continuation

Focus: coherence and cohesion a

Age: young adult and-above:

Level: .-upperntermmediate ‘and. above.

Example 2: The bear

This sequence aims to make students aware of coherence — and

especially cohesive devices

— in writing. It is similar to Example 5 in Chapter 17 (page 296), but the

objective of this whole

sequence is to get students writing more coherently, using cohesive

devices appropriately.

The students are told that they are going to reconstruct a text about Kitty
Redcape, whose

grandmother lives in the woods. Kitty frequently goes there to have tea.
They are given a series

of cards and told to re-order them to make a story (the first one is done for
them). They need

to look out for clues, such as the use of pronouns, repetition of lexical
items and a coherent

order of events. These are the cards they are given:

iT a

G So he rode away, sadder, but alas no wiser. ]

H_ The bear, who by this time was fed up with ‘Oh shut up, you silly old
woman, he retorted. |

being ignored, followed the prince into the one eR eres ry

forest and ate him.

A (1) One day. on her way to visit her

grandmother, Kitty Redcape saw a handsome

prince.

C At that moment the prince rode by and

charged into the garden,

1 ‘I'm sure you were’ said the prince. ‘Come

on, let’s get away from that silly old lady and

go to my castle for iunch’

Ty Hert j + or two, but the

| Her heart skipped 4 bea'

, prince hardly noticed her as he rode by.

E ‘Hey! Watch what you're doing!’ said Kitty

Redcape's grandmother.

‘| have come ta.save you, young maiden,’ he

_cried, knocking the grandmother down in his

| haste to be by her side.

mE

Thank You for comi :

Ng to our rescue,’ Kitt

Redcape Said to the Prince, ‘though | have a

gun and w, j ,

myself? tlt® Capable of looking after

F ‘That silly old lady's my grandmother,

actually, said Kitty, ‘and | didn’t like the way

you spoke to her. And new that | can see

you clase to, | can't imagine why | thought

your hunt?’

you were good-looking. Why don’t you rejoin

t to her grandmother's

nouse, Kitty had forgotten about the Pree

but she was horrified to see the old lady

being attacked by a bear. :

By the time she go!

If students are having trouble with the sequence, we can point out, for
example, that the

first three cards all have the prince in them, and that this lexical repetition
helps to tie the story

together with a ‘chain of reference’. We can show them how he is used in

the same way in this

two-sentence sequence:
At that moment the prince rode by and charged into the garden. ‘I have
come to

save you, young maiden, he cried, knocking the grandmother down in his
haste to

be by her side.

After the pairs and groups have completed the task, they check to see if
they have all got the

same order (A, J, L, C, D, E, B, K, I, K G, H) and discuss why and how it is

arrived at.

We can now get them to develop more sentences about Kitty and her
grandmother, perhaps

going as far as making their own stories. For example, we might give them
the following

exercise:
WRITING

Read the opening sentence and then complete the sentences which follow.

When Kitty was on her way to her grandmother’s house, she stopped to
talk

to two woodcutters in the forest.

1. She .

2. They

3. It

4. The old lady

Alternatively, they can be asked to re-write the following paragraphs,

replacing Kitty

Redcape, the prince and the bear by she, her, he, him or it where
necessary.

Kitty Redcape often goes to visit Kitty Redcape’s grandmother in the

woods. One

day, on Kitty Redcape’s way to Kitty Redcape’s grandmother's house, Kitty

Redcape

sees the prince and Kitty Redcape thinks the prince is very attractive. The
prince

does not notice Kitty Redcape.

When Kitty Redcape arrives at the cottage, Kitty Redcape sees Kitty
Redcape’s

grandmother being attacked by a bear. Just then the prince rides into the
garden to

save Kitty Redcape and the prince is rude to Kitty Redcape’s grandmother.
The prince asks Kitty Redcape back to his castle for lunch but Kitty
Redcape says

no because Kitty Redcape doesn’t like the prince’s treatment of Kitty

Redcape’s

grandmother and Kitty Redcape doesn't fancy the prince after all. Kitty
Redcape

suggests that the prince should go back to the prince’s hunt and leave
them alone.

And that’s what the prince does. The bear follows the prince into the forest
and the

bear eats the prince.

If students are enjoying the fairy story aspect of this sequence, we can
then use a variation

of Julia’s story’ (see Example 7 below) and have them write their own texts
starting with a

Sentence we give them such as:

Once upon a time there was a handsome prince who lived in a castle by
the river.

They can then put their knowledge of coherence and cohesion into action.

Activity: writing a review

Focus: identifying genre features

Br young adult and above

upper intermediate and above

: ; ms they have
In this sequence, we want our students to write reviews of plays, concer or
" ve y ee

?..>2>

Seen, and to do this in a way which is appropriate for the kind of audience
(ei

>

imaginary) that they are writing for. a oe Ims from

F sty ask our students to look at a collection of reviews of plays and filn

e 295). For each one

newspapers, magazines and/or on the Internet (see Pramps 4 on page

295)

c. , . at’:

they have to use the following ‘reviewers’ genre-analysing

334

CHAPTER 19

REVIEWERS’ GENRE-ANALYSING KIT

Answer the following questions about the review you are reading:

MEANING

What is being reviewed?

Does the reviewer like it?

What, if anything, was especially good about the thing/event being

reviewed?

What, if anything, was especially bad about the thing/event being

reviewed?

Who, if anybody, deserves credit for their part in it?

Who, if anybody, should be criticised for their part in it?

Wha, if anything, does the thing/event remind the reviewer of?

CONSTRUCTION

How is the heacline/aption constructed?

What does each paragraph contain, and how are the paragraphs
sequenced?

What grammar and lexis is used to show approval?

What grammar and lexis is used to show disapproval?

By studying the reviews and answering the questions above about them,
students build up a

picture of how they are usually written.

We can now show them a DVD or get them to go to a play or a film. While
watching it

they make notes about such items as the plot, the characters, the
performances, the music, the

cinematography and the special effects.

Afterwards, students draft their reviews, using language — if appropriate

— from the reviews

they read previously. We can go round, encouraging and helping. If there is

time, we can read

the full drafts and give constructive feedback on each one. Students then
write their final

version, and later, when all the reviews have been read, the class can vote
on the best one.

Writing reviews can be greatly enhanced by having students write in pairs

or groups, keying

their opinions directly onto a computer screen. The discussion and focus
which this provides

will add to the creative nature of the activity in many ways.

Studying different writing genres - whether through a genre-analysing kit,

through data

collection, or even by putting a variety of texts into a corpus to run with

concordancing

packages (see Chapter 11, G2) ~ is a vital first stage in having students do
their own writing '?
specific genres.

_——

Example 4: Unsent letters Activity: letter writing

Focus: communicative writing

Age: any

Level: intermediate and above

In this activity, students are told that they are going to write a letter to
someone that they

would never normally write to. For example, they could write:
WRITING

- to someone who bugs you

~ to someone you have hurt or offended

~ to an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend, or an ex-friend

-toanunborn child =

-toanexaminer

- toa burglar who has ‘done’ your house

~ toa person who has helped you. without knowing it

- to the present owner of the house you used to live in

~ toa famous historical figure

From Letters by N Burbidge et al (Oxford University Press)

When students have chosen the recipient of their letter, they write it.
While they are doing

this, the teacher can offer help and suggestions if they want it.

When students have finished their letters, they can show them to their
colleagues. Their

colleagues have to be able to say who the letter is to and what points it is
trying to make.

Although these letters are only pseudo-communicative — because they

will not actually be

sent — they nevertheless fulfil all the characteristics of a communicative

activity (see Chapter

4, A5); students choose who to write to so that they compose their letters
with both purpose

and enthusiasm. They emphasise content rather than language for its own
sake.
Example 5:A poem —_—_ Activity: running dictation

: Focus: writing for fun/concentrating on writing carrectly

Age: any

Level: . pre-intermediate and above

In the following example (adapted from Davis and Rinvolucri 1990) the
basic idea of a

dictation has been altered so that it is the students who dictate to each
other (rather than the

teacher). It has a competitive element, is very active and is often

extremely enjoyable.

Students are put into groups. The teacher puts an Aq copy of the following
poem on a table

at the front of the classroom.

—— a y

A man bought a piano for his wife

which she constantly tunes

and polishes. He says her hands and fingers

are less flexible than once they were |

which is depressing.

She came home and she found it there,

a big surprise. Its brown respectability

dominates the room. He watches her straight back

and fumbling fingers in the evening city, lit

/ by brakes and klaxons. Peter Hedley

Each group sends a representative to the front of the class to read only the
first line of the

poem, memorise it, and then run back to their group and dictate the line.
When this has

happened, groups send a second (and then a third) representative to read

the second (and

third) line and take that back to their groups and dictate it.

335
336

CHAPTER 19

‘The activity goes on in this way until one group has the whole poem. The
teacher can then

give that group a further task while the others finish, or stop the class and
show everyone a

complete version of the poem for them to check their own version against.
They are then

asked to decide on their own title for the poem (originally called ‘Piano
Piece’).

An alternative procedure at this point is to ask all the students to write

down, in complete

silence, what the poem means for them — however flippant or profound
their response is.

They can, for example, write nothing if they feel like it. When they have
done this, they stand

up, still in silence, and go round reading what other people have written.
The effect of writing

and silence in this way can be dramatic and enjoyable.

There are many different ways of doing dictations, and when students
have some element

of control (or agency — see page 103), they are especially convincing. For
example, it is possible

for the teacher to read out a dictation, but have students pretend that
they have a control

button of the kind that you get with tape recorders, DVD players, etc. This
means that they

can say pause, stop, rewind, fast forward, etc. to control the teacher’s
speed and get repetition
if they need it. Of course, this activity works just as well if a student is the
one reading out the

passage they have to write.

Example 6: Ancient monuments’. Activity: writing a poem

-. Focus: creative writing »

Age: any

Level: lower intermediate plus

Simple poetry-writing activities are often extremely effective ways of

getting students to write

creatively, but within clearly delineated frameworks (so that they do not
feel oppressed by the

need to be too imaginative).

In the following example from Jane Spiro (2004: 88-90), students are going
to write poems

from the point of view of ancient monuments and buildings (this makes
much more sense

than it appears!).

The teacher brings in pictures of famous buildings, statues, landscapes

and monuments;

etc. which the students are likely to know. Alternatively, she can direct
students to websites

where they can see these things.

Students now choose one of these places. They are going to think about
what the place or
thing hias seen, has heard, has known, etc. The teacher may write up the
following on the board

(and ask students to think of completions):

You have seen ...

You have heard ...

You have known...

The teacher now divides the class into small groups. She gives them a
picture or name ofa

place. She may have a list for the students to choose from, and can move
round the groups

suggesting possibilities both about the monuments in question and about

the kind of things

the students might want to include in their poems (e.g. the sadness of a
king, camels in the

desert, the sound or war, the shouts of revolution, etc.).

The students now write their poems, but they can either write to the
monument/place (You

have seen ...) or take on its personality (and write I have seen ...). When
they have finished
WRITING

their poems, they can show them (without a title) to different groups to
see if they can guess

what the monument or place is.

Jane Spiro quotes the following student poem, produced with the
procedure we have

described.

The: Favamtials

| have Seen camels

And then cats

L have. seen Slaves

And then princes

| have Seen stone

And then marble

lL have. Seen life

And then. death

Of course this is not a great poem, but it has the air of poetry about it,
and, above all, it has

given students a chance to write creatively, however restricted the poetry

frame may be.

Example 7: Julia’s © ~~. Activity: story circle. . . a

Story. Focus: building the writing habit; cooperative narrative writing

“Age: any

Level: elementary and above

In this activity, students join together to write a story. However, there is an

element of fun
built into the activity and the results are not intended to be taken too
seriously. .

Students are put into groups of about five, sitting in circles. The teacher
then dictates a

sentence such as:

That day, when Julia came back from work, she knew something was
different.

Each student writes the sentence at the top of their piece of paper. They
are then asked to

write the next sentence in Julia’s story; all they have to do is write one
sentence which follows

on from this introduction. Lo

When all the students have done this, the teacher tells them to pass their
pieces of paper to

the person on their left. They all now have to write the next semtence of
the story which hy

just been passed to them. When they have finished, the teacher again
asks everyone ° ne

their papers to the person on their left. They all now have to write the next
sentence

story on the piece of paper in front of them. oo, - .

The procedure continues until the pieces of paper return to their original
ovens At th

Point the teacher tells everyone to write a sentence to finish the story off -
however ne “a

The students are then encouraged to read out the stories they have just
nn ed, . a _
are often highly amusing, and because many hands have collaborated i t *
prom “

has to suffer individual responsibility for the final versions. The teacher : “i
- vw ewone

that quite a few of the stories are heard by the class and that the rest are
available ;

else to read. . . , —

This kind of group writing is enjoyable and useful for developing ihn er,

it should be used sparingly otherwise it will lose its main attraction ~ that
of sp ;

337
338

CHAPTER 19 ee

Example 8: Such is life Activity: student blogging =

Focus: writing for communication

Age: adult

Level: any

On page 193 we discussed the value of keypals and blogging for student
writing. Students

can now post their own contributions onto the web so that others can
comment and react in

writing to what they have to say.

The following example shows a student blog in action, However, it starts

with a blog by

Rosa for the adult migrant English programme at St George’s College of

TAFE (technical,

further educational and vocational classes), in Sydney, Australia.

The blog she runs (http://ourclass2006.blogspot.com at the time of writing)

offers students’

views on a number of topics and posts photos of student activities. It has

games, descriptions

and grammar activities as well as sections for teachers. But it also

encourages students to

write blogs and make podcasts.

In order for students to learn how to become bloggers, Rosa sends them to
a tutorial site

(see Figure 2). Once they have done this, they are ready to go.
One of the students, called Jessie, set up her own blog entitled ‘Such is
life. One ot her

postings (see Figure 3) muses on how her life might change; it is

accompanied by a picture

Jessie has found to makc her posting more interesting.

Welcome to our Blogger.com Tutorial

So you want to biog. We are going to walk you through all the steps you
need to setup

a blog. You can set up a blog very simply. You can stop when you get a
confirmation

that your blog is set up. Or you can castomize it by changing the settings
of your blog.

Either way this is a simple process that can get you and your students up
and running.

Create you own blog

FIGURE 2: Rosa’s blog tutorial (opening page)

3 Cormments Collapse comments (05

bitola said...

triday, february 37, 2006 Hello Jessie |

My new life in TAFE

Your fotos is very beautiful

4 and your new sul of live § good.

Pid FGF

rosa said...

Hi Jessie. You are the first professional blogger | \

meet in one of my classes. You must share your

knowledge with your clasmates., Ic will help your

English a lot and cheyll learn so much form you.

ota

vuthy said..,

Hi jessie. Your photos is so beautiful and jam so glad of your

language. Smoking is not 3 good tdea for your health, also

drinking, so it's very good that you stop it now.

3308 DAZ

FIGURE 4: Replying to Jessie

WRITING

As with all successful student blogs, she gets some replies (see Figure 4),
and writing has

now become real communication,

Of course the task for the teacher and the students is to keep blogs like
this going.

Furthermore, teachers will have to decide how much (if at all) they
intervene to help students

with their English. In the examples above, there are points where a writing
teacher would

want to intervene. In a blog (or with keypals and chatting) we have to

decide how much

to leave students to communicate on their own, and how much to use this
as raw data for

successful feedback on student work.

Example 9: College transport Activity:. report writing

a Focus: - how reports are constructed; making notes

Age: young adult +

Level upper intermediate

In the following sequence, students are lead through an exam-type task

(for the Cambridge

ESOL First Certificate exam). The clear objective is to teach report-writing

skills.

The sequence (from First Certificate Expert by Jan Bell and Roger Gower,
published by Pearson

Education Ltd) starts when the teacher asks students to discuss the
following questions:
1 Which form of public transport do you prefer?

2 What is good and bad about public transport where you live?

The students can discuss this in pairs or groups before the teacher talks
about the questions

with the class. They then look at the following task:

It is difficult for students to get to your college. Public transport is not very
good and the college car park

is Very sniall. A committee has been set up by the principal to analyse the
problem and to recommend

what the college should do. You are on the committee, and you have just
had your last meeting.

You have been asked ta write @ report for the principal.

Write your report in 120-180 words in.an appropriate style.

Students have to look at the task and decide how many parts there are to
it, how informal

or formal the style should be (bearing in mind who ‘you’ are and who you
are writing to), 4 nd

what will make the reader think it is a good report. —

Once the teacher has discussed these questions with the class, they then
start planning for

the report by making notes under three headings:

Public transport Car park Possible solutions

buses every hour more students have cara write to bus company

They then match a typical four-paragraph sequence with what might be

written in each of
the four paragraphs.

Paragraph 1: Introducing the report a Focusona minimum of two points.

Paragraph 2: Describing the first problem b State the purpose of t «p0 *

tion

Paragraph 3: Describing the second problem c Givea clear summary of : he

situa ti n

Paragraph 4: isi recommending d_ Describe how you go .

phere aes e Only give relevantinformation.

f Give just one or two recommendations.

g Give the facts briefly and clearly without

" strong personal opinions.

339
340

CHAPTER 19

They can then match their notes about public transport, car parking and
possible solutions

to the paragraphs.

Finally, in this phase, students are offered three titles for their report: (a)
Cars, buses and

trains, (b) To and from college, (c) Student transport. They are then given
some language they

might want to use before being asked to complete the task.

When students have written their reports, they are asked to look at them
again and edit

them, considering the following questions:

© Is the information relevant?

e — Isthe style clear and natural?

¢ Does the report feel balanced? (Are different viewpoints presented

fairly?)

One of the reasons for this detailed writing sequence is that students are
learning how to

write successful exam answers (see the ‘backwash effect’ in Chapter 22D).
But the habits being

encouraged here — an analysis of the task followed by detailed planning,

drafting and review -

are the same habits which we have suggested for both genre and process-
writing sequences.
Portfolios, journals, letters

Many educational institutions and teachers get students to keep portfolios

of examples of

their written work over a period of time. These can be used for
assessment, since judging

different pieces of student work written over a period of time is seen by

many people to be

fairer than ‘sudden death’ final tests. However, using portfolios is a

somewhat controversial

alternative and not without its problems (see page 380).

Portfolios are also used as a way of encouraging students to take pride in

their work; by

encouraging them to keep examples of what they have written, we are

encouraging them to

write it well and with care.

For the Common European Framework (see page 95) portfolios are
considerably mor¢

than just getting students to keep examples of their writing. The European
Language Portfolio

has three parts:

e Language biography: here students reflect on their language abilities

using ‘can do’

statements (see page 96) to say things like I can understand numbers,
prices and times in

English. They can record if and why such abilities are important for them.

The language biography asks them to say what language experiences they
have had, and
reveals the fact that a huge number of school students in various countries
have rich and

varied language backgrounds.

Language passport: this is the ‘public’ version of the biography, and it

tells, in simple

tabular form, what languages the holder can speak and how well. The
learners fill in this

profile and can obviously amend it as their linguistic ability improves in

one language oF

another.

The language passport is the clearest possible statement of the

advantages and benefits

that accrue to people who speak more than one language, and it
reinforces students’ pride

in their language(s) profile.

WRITING

Dossier: this is where students keep examples of their work ~ projects,

reports, diplomas,

PowerPoint presentations, etc. The students indicate whether this work

was done individually

or with other students.

The ELP is not an easy option in terms of the time needed to complete and
read it by both

students and teachers, and it comes with many add-ons (such as a list of
‘can do’ statements,

see page 96) which make it somewhat cumbersome. However, it makes a

powerful statement

about an individual student’s language identity and helps them to reflect

on their learning.

Indeed, portfolios may be successful mechanisms by which teachers ‘can

not only diagnose

the learners’ skills and competencies, but also become aware of their
preferences, styles,

dispositions and learning strategies ..” (Nunes 2004: 327). As with student
journals and letter/

email exchanges between teachers and students, portfolios can have a

powerful effect on the

development of learner autonomy, something we will discuss in more

detail in Chapter 23A.

Chapter notes and further reading

Writing in general

On writing in general, see C Tribble (1996), T Hedge (2000: Chapter 9) and

J Harmer
(2004). T Hedge (2005) has a wealth of good writing ideas. K Hyland’s
important book

(2002) discusses research in writing and W Grabe and R Kaplan (1996)

write about the

theory and practice of writing in the Longman Applied Linguistics series.

Mixed composition classes _ ith f

N Ibrahim and $ Penfield (2005) describe the benefits of mixing ESL

students with first

language English speakers in a freshman composition class in the USA.

Literacy

E Helmer (2005) discusses twenty-first-century literacy. P Stapleton (2005

Internet literacy and its relationship to academic writing.

discusses

Spelling

R Shemesh and S Waller (2000) offer a comp

S Waller (2002), P Brabbs (2004), J Desmond

‘NLP spelling strategy.

lete book on teaching spelling. See also

(2006) and R Hamilton (2003), who has an

Process ws isi dents to

C Kelly (2003) stresses the need to focus of pre-writing rather thane sion
for a sach See

understand structure. M Vince (2004) sees the educational value of a pr PP

also J Harmer (2004; Chapter 1).

J Chau (2003) comes up with a three-step ee

less proficient student writers. K Hill (2005) wants (0 4

approach (ideational, sentential, relational) to help

. types and cognitive domains.

Genre

C Tribble (1996: Chapters 5 and 6) make

and T Dudley-Evans (1998) discuss teach

Chapter 2).

based approach. H Kay

nre-

sa strong case for a ge

. so J Harmer (2004:

ers’ attitudes to genre. See al

341
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CHAPTER 19

e Process and genre

R Badger and G White (2000) advocate a process-genre approach. J

Muncie (2002) wants

to find a place for grammar in composition classes. C Vickers and E Ene

(2006) show how

students can improve their grammatical accuracy by autonomously

noticing their own

writing errors.

Creative writing

C Rithlemann (2005) gives a number of ideas for students to recreate

dialogue, etc. on the

basis of material given to them by the teacher. S Mercer (2004) describes

getting students to

create different characters who can then be incorporated into play scenes.
A G Elgar (2002)

has students writing playscripts.

Penpals/keypals

See H Hennigan (1999) on how penpals became, in his words, ‘keypals”. K

Fedderholdt

(2001) describes a successful keypal exchange between Japanese and

Danish students.

‘To set up penpal or keypal arrangements, teachers can contact the

embassy of the country
they are interested in, post notices at teachers’ conferences or access
penpal sites on the

Internet such as the following three:

www.penpalgarden.com/ ~ a large free penpal site where you fill in details

about yourself

and indicate whether you want penpals of the same or opposite gender.

www.penpal.net — one of the largest free penpal sites on the Internet, you
can select

contacts by age and country.

penpal@nationalgeographic.com — a site where children are matched to

similar penpals

around the world. There is a small charge per person.

Writing examples

For more writing activities, see T Hedge (2005), J Harmer (2004: Chapters
4-6, 2007:

Chapter 8). On teaching writing for exams, see S Burgess and K Head
(2005: Chapter 4).

Weblogs

M Vallance (2004) set up a blog project for his students with mixed results.
The students

were enthusiastic but Vallance himself had to intervene to (a) provide

interesting topics,

and (b) stop students disagreeing with each other too violently. J Askari
Arani (2005)
discusses teaching reading and writing in this way. S Peters (2006) gives
clear tutorial

information about weblogs and A P Campbell (2003) explains weblogs

clearly.

Portfolios

The European Language Portfolio is clearly explained in F Heyworth and R

Blakely (2005).

A McDonald (2004, 2005a and b) discusses each of the three elements of

the portfolio in turn.