Effective Strategies For Teaching Writing Skills

Kinds of writing: “Real life” writing: application forms, letters, s… Classroom/academic writing: dictations, letters, reports, essays, complaints, blogs, compositions, poems, advertisements, articles, reviews…

Approaches to teaching writing - Process approach: At early stages: for learning (writing itself) – tracers (Pinterest, bookshops) for spelling - copying, inward transliteration, extensive reading, games (Hangman, Scrabble, What’s the word) for drilling (grammar structures, etc) -Product approach: At further stages: for genre writing

Writing Strategy Writing as a product oriented activity: usually a final assignment Steps preceding writing: -Language (including linkers), grammar -Text structure -Layout (organisation) Writing: - For product - For revising, summarising, reviewing language.

Steps preceding writing assignment

What to do with a draft?

What’s the focus of the exercise?

Coherence And Cohesion

Other Writing Activities “Ancient Monuments” Focus: Creative Writing (A poem) Teacher’s Input: Student’s product:

“Story Circle”, or “Mad-Libbing” Teacher’s input: “That day, when Julia came home from work, she knew something was different”. “Running Dictation”

Evaluation (Feedback) Use a green pen instead of red Write the correct answers in the margin Use correction codes Write a letter in reply Create a composite essay using good bits and problematic bits from SS’s works. Discuss together Give a dictation based on sentences from their works Use errors from SS’s works to devise an exercise, quiz, game (or get SS to make this)

Ideas for Writing Assignments You want to sell your second-hand bike You want people to vote for you in the class election You want to inform a colleague who phoned and when You want to make people laugh You want to book a hotel for a visit to Vienna

Sources: J. Scrivener, “Learning Teaching” J. Harmer, “The Practice Of English Language Teaching” J. Harmer, “How To Teach Writing”