University of Algiers2 Mrs.

HAMADOUCHE
Department of English (2024-2025) Semester 6
Didactics. Groups: G2+G3+G12

TEACHING PRODUCTIVE SKILLS

Teaching Writing
The purpose of writing is to express ideas, thoughts and to convey messages to the
reader in a very correct spelling, punctuation, grammatical structure, and selection of
vocabulary.
The Importance of Organization
Organization
Before attempting to write on any subject it is necessary to develop and organize your
ideas and thoughts. Without proper organization, the writing may be disconnected,
unclear, confusing and difficult for the reader to understand. There are three common
techniques that can be used to help you organize and develop your ideas. These
activities are brainstorming, clustering and free writing. Each of these techniques is
easy to use and one or all of them may be familiar.
Brainstorming is the technique of listing any and all ideas that occur to the writer
about a topic. Not all the ideas listed will be used in the final product. Once they are all
listed, some will be deleted or modified. Ideas that do not relate well or specifically to
the purpose of the paragraph may need to be deleted. Some ideas may be changed so
that the ideas being presented flow more logically and smoothly. Suppose that there is
an assignment to write about team sports in high school. What ideas could be
incorporated into a well-written paragraph? Listed below are some ideas generated
from a brainstorming session for high school sports.

Clustering
It is another method that can be used to help organize thoughts about a topic.
Clustering is very similar to brainstorming in that ideas about the topic are put down
on paper. In clustering, the main topic is written within a circle in the middle of the
page. Related ideas or thoughts are placed in other circles around the main topic and
connected to the topic by lines. If there are lots of bubbles in the cluster, you need to

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decide what to write about and eliminate the items not specifically relevant to the
topic. You may have enough ideas or material for a couple of paragraphs. Look at the
example below, again using the topic of team sports in high school. In this example,
only the positive aspects of team sports are developed. Also note that related ideas are
connected together. If other ideas occur to you include them in the spaces provided.

Free writing is simply writing down ideas that occur to you as quickly as you can,
without regard to the final organization of the ideas. An important point about free
writing is not to stop writing. If you get stuck with one idea, move on quickly to
another. Students should not spend too much time worrying about grammar, sentence
structure, or organization when free-writing. The important thing is just to write.
Organization and correction come later

Seven steps in the writing process

1. Assessing the assignment
This step in the process involves determining what is to be written, for whom, and
where to get the information needed. Consideration must be given to the audience and
the purpose of the composition. The audience will set the tone (style or manner of
expression) and vocabulary use. The tone may be serious, humorous, personal,
impersonal, formal, or informal. The purpose of the composition will determine the
rhetorical form used. A persuasive essay is written in one way and an expository essay
in another. Information for the assignment may come from a variety of sources– your
own experiences or background knowledge (which may include your opinions and

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feelings) or from extended research of a specific topic with information gathered from
a library or the Internet. In addition, one must also think about how long the
composition needs to be, when it needs to be completed, and for academic papers, the
format to be used.

2. Generating ideas
Brainstorming, clustering, and free writing activities can be used to help the writer
develop ideas. Discussion of the topic with classmates or doing limited research in a
library may also be used to aid the writer at this step.
3. Organizing your ideas
Before writing the first words in any assignment, one must decide on the most logical
way to present the information. Depending on the topic, this may include
chronological order, order of importance, comparison, or cause and effect
organization. Outlining is one method to use when organizing your paper. When
outlining, first determine the main topic and list it. After the main topic is listed,
supporting ideas are listed under the main topic. When outlining, complete sentences
do not need to be used, instead use short phrases. Another method to use to organize
your thoughts is a tree diagram. A tree diagram is a more visual format than an
outline. In a tree diagram, place the main idea at the top of the page and use lines to
connect the supporting ideas to the main point.

4. Writing the first draft

The first draft is written after your ideas are generated and organized through the use
of an outline or tree diagram. It is important to consider your first attempt at the
assignment as a draft, and not the finished product. During the drafting stage, the
focus should be to put the ideas down on paper quickly and not worry about grammar,
spelling, etc. Once the first draft is complete, it must be critically reviewed and
analyzed to identify grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors in the editing stage. In
addition, the writer should ensure that the organization and flow of ideas throughout
the paper is smooth, logical, and easily understood by the reader. Start by writing the
topic sentence and then develop supporting sentences, following the logical order
developed in the outline. Ideas that were not in the outline, but that occurred to you
while writing the draft, can be inserted where needed to improve the composition. If
you draw a blank while looking for a particular word or phrase, leave it blank and fill
it in later.

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5. Revising
Revision may be done immediately after the drafting stage. Some writers put the work
aside and come back to it later. This allows them to attack it with a fresher
perspective. Revision involves adding or eliminating material and reorganizing it by
moving sentences around so the paragraph is more logical and understandable. During
the revision, your concern should be only content and organization, not grammar,
spelling, or punctuation. It is important to make sure that the organization of your
paper is complete before worrying about how to revise sentences. Many students
spend much time revising sentences, only to find out latter that, because of a change in
the organization of the paper, that the sentence they so laboriously worked on is
deleted.
There are several questions that can be asked during the revision stage that can help
the writer improve the material.
● Have you achieved your stated purpose?
● Have you said what you wanted to say?
● What is the topic?
● Is there a topic sentence and does it have a central focus?
● Does the paragraph have unity and only talk about only one topic?
● Are there any irrelevant sentences that do not support the topic sentence? If there
are, eliminate them.
● Is enough detail included in the supporting sentences to make the ideas clear?
● Are sufficient and appropriate transition signals used so the paper is logical and
coherent and easily understood by the reader?
● Is there a conclusion? Does it need one?
6. Editing
In reality, editing takes place all the time when writing. In the editing stage the focus
is on checking spelling, grammar, punctuation, vocabulary, sentence structure, and
page layout. When editing, check the following points:
● Spelling
Does the reader use American or British English? Remember that there are spelling
differences between some American and British English words. Whichever is used,
be consistent and don’t use both British and English spelling in the same work.
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● Punctuation
Is there a period, question mark, or exclamation mark at the end of each sentence?
Are there ending and closing quotation marks? Are commas, colons, and semi-colons
used appropriately to separate dependent and independent clauses?
● Grammar
Do all sentences have subject-verb agreement?
Is there number agreement of nouns, pronouns, and possessives?
Are there any sentence fragments?
Are the correct verb tenses used?
● Vocabulary
Is just the right word used to express your meaning?
Are too many words repeated unnecessarily? Remember, using the same word
over and over again results in boredom for the reader.
● Sentence structure
Can some sentences be rewritten, using a different structure, so they are more easily
understood by the reader?
● Page layout
Is the composition visually appealing?
Are new paragraphs indented?
If a block design paragraph form is used, does a space separate paragraphs?

7. Publishing
In this stage the final copy of the composition is completed; the one that will be
submitted for review. In most instances the final product should be done on a
computer or typed. Hand written compositions may be difficult to read because of the
differences in the quality of handwriting among individuals. Computers or word
processing program should ideally be used on all written assignments. Some people
may resist this idea if they have limited typing skills, but in the long run, it could save
time and effort. Revisions and editing of the composition are so much easier on a
computer or word processor. Typing mistakes are easily corrected, and even revisions
of whole sentences, paragraphs, or sections are simple and fast. In addition, most word

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processing programs nowadays have not only spell checkers, which alert the writer to
misspelled words, but also have grammatical functions that advise the writer of
possible problems with grammar and sentence structure. For a novice English writer, a
processing program is an indispensable tool.

Learners’ Problem in Writing

A big question that all of us ask at one point or another is: "What can I do to
write?" and "Why writing is difficult?" Coe & Rycroft (2000) presented the main
reasons why learner’s writing may be difficult to understand or defective in some
other way:
a) The sentence may not have clear punctuation: there may be commas and
full stops without any good reason, there may be no punctuation where it
should.
b) The idea may not have been presented in an order that easily makes sense
to the reader.
c) The relation between the ideas may not be clear because of the absence, or
inappropriate use, of linking words and phrases, such as although, for
example, lastly, on the other hand, and so on.
d) The writer’s attitude to what he or she is writing may not be clear: is he or
she describing, suggesting or criticizing something?
e) The ideas may not be grouped together into distinct paragraph, or the learner may
begin practically every sentence on a new line. Again, a paragraph-or a longer text-
may not begin with an introduction that leads the reader in the right direction.
f) A text may contain ideas that are not really relevant to what the writer
wants to express, or the writer may find it difficult to think of enough ideas.
To put it simply, it is important for learners to practice in combining the separate
skills in one compete, well- written text.