NOTE: THIS WAS AN INSET SESSION CREATED FOR ENGLISH TEACHERS IN A LONDON TEFL SCHOOL - IT THERFORE NEEDS ADAPTING - SIMPLIFYING, EXPLAINING, RE-CONTEXTUALISING

 

WORKING ON WRITING SKILLS IN THE CLASSROOM

 

 

WHY SHOULD STUDENTS WORK ON WRITING?

 

1. to practise language skills

 

Written language is a different linguistic beast to spoken language in many ways. It gives students a chance to practise aspects of language they sometime don’t focus on so much when talking. These include:

 

• complex sentences

• higher vocab level

• connectors

• clause variety

• word order

• formal language

• punctuation

 

Also, writing is often a reflective process, which allows students to incorporate all kinds of language they have encountered previously into a self-created text.

 

 

2. To assess student language

 

Writing includes so much, and much of it is accuracy based. It brings together grammar, vocabulary, connected language, context specific language, etc. It is a great test of anyone’s English, and allows both teachers and students a great insight into the strengths and weakness of their language.

 

Note:

Some written language mimics spoken language – eg. informal letters, notes, emails, text messages, and , conversely, some spoken language is very much ‘written’ – eg. speeches. These are things that can also be looked at in the classroom.

 

 

3. to prepare for life outside the classroom

 

work: letters, reports, presentations, emails

study: essays, comments, summaries, reports, presentations

personal: emails, texts, letters, creative

 

These are just ideas. The best thing is to ask students what they want/need and concentrate on tasks which are as meaningful as possible and have high surrender value. It’s a little more motivating than writing a piece about ‘my favourite holiday’.

 

(also, exams: summaries, reviews, reports, letters (formal & informal), notes, guidebook contributions, essays, etc.)

 

 

SOME QUESTIONS TO ASK STUDENTS TO GET THEM THINKING WHEN PREPARING WRITING SKILLS WORK:

 

1. WHAT IS GOOD WRITING?

 

Some suggestions:

• Clarity

• Coherence

• Variety of vocab

• Variety of structure

• Organisation

• Appropriate format

• Interesting

 

2. WHAT IS THE POINT OF WRITING?

 

Some suggestions:

• Express opinion

• Recommend

• Give advice

• Retell a narrative

• Report something

• Complain

• Apologise

• Apply for a job

• Request

• Give information

• Summarise

• Give both sides

• Invite

• Make an offer

• Express yourself creatively

 

3. WHO IS YOUR AUDIENCE?

4. WHAT IMPACT WILL YOUR WORDS HAVE?

5. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO HAPPEN AS A RESULT OF YOUR WRITING?

6. WHAT KIND OF WRITING WILL YOU HAVE TO DO WHEN YOUR COURSE FINISHES?

 

The answers to these questions will have an effect on what and how students write and on what and how you teach.

 

 

 

 

WHAT WRITING TECHNIQUES CAN YOU TEACH THAT WILL RAISE THE QUALITY OF STUDENT WRITING?

 

 

1. Work on the sentence

 

Look at the component parts and use them together. Start with the main clause and build on it using adjectives, adverbs and sub-clauses.

 

So, ‘Jane looked tired.’

 ‘Jane, a City executive, looked tired this morning.’

 ‘Jane, a high-flying City executive, looked tired and stressed this morning.’

 ‘Jane, a high-flying City executive, looked tired and stressed this morning, as her children had been crying all night.’

 ‘Jane, a high-flying City executive, looked tired and stressed this morning, as her two young children had been crying all night, and she hadn’t had time to prepare for her lunchtime meeting.’

 

But let’s not go mad. A good sentence should probably contain 2 or 3 different clauses. These should be clearly connected together, so the sentence makes sense!

 

 

2. Work on the paragraph

 

Connect sentences together so they become a coherent, clearly written piece of connected English.

 

A paragraph often has a ‘topic sentence’ at the beginning, and then the rest of the paragraph elaborates on what it says. One paragraph for one ‘topic’.

 

 

3. Work on connecting paragraphs so they hang together to form a coherent piece of discourse

 

Look at introductions – setting up the rest of the written piece – and then look at creating a sequence of paragraphs that satisfies the ideas introduced.

 

 

 

When working on the above 3, you will need to look at particular writing techniques, such as connectors, relative clauses, participle clauses, and adding information, which are all detailed below.

 

 

 

4. CONNECTORS (Linkers)

 

These can be of two kinds:

 

1. conjunctions (within sentence connectors) – these join 2 ideas within 1 sentence

 

common conjunctions:

 

contrast: but, despite, in spite of, although, even though, even if, whereas, while, in comparison to.., compared to.., instead of.., much as

 

addition: and, in addition to, as well as, besides, not only….but also

 

reason & result: because, because of, as, since, due to, in view of the fact that, in case, so, in order to, or else

 

time: after, before, when, as soon as, whenever, by the time, since, while, no sooner…than, hardly….when

 

 

2. sentence adverbials (between sentence connectors) – these join the ideas expressed in 1 sentence with those expressed in the previous sentence

 

common sentence adverbials:

 

contrast: however, nevertheless, even so, despite this, in/by contrast, in/by comparison, alternatively, all the same, at the same time, on the contrary

 

addition: in addition, furthermore, moreover, too, also, as well, as well as that, what is more

 

reason & result: as a result/consequence, consequently, accordingly, therefore, thus, in that case, if so

 

time: afterwards, at first, before that, by then, ever since, meanwhile, in the meantime, finally, eventually, suddenly, subsequently, until then, within (minutes)

 

 

 

 

5. RELATIVE CLAUSES

 

1. Defining relative clauses

 

The basic rules are that a defining relative clause…

• gives essential info, without which the sentence doesn’t make a lot of sense

• usually comes after a rather vague noun (‘the man/place/time’, ‘all’, ‘little’)

• doesn’t need commas to separate the clause from the noun it refers to

• can take ‘that’ as a relative pronoun

 

2. Non-defining relative clauses

 

The basic rules are that a non-defining relative clause…

• gives extra info, designed to make the sentence more interesting

• comes after a noun whose identity is clear (‘my car’, ‘Bob Jones’, ‘The Amazon’)

• needs commas to separate it from the rest of the sentence

• cannot take ‘that’ as a relative pronoun

 

3. Ways of extending relative clauses:

 

1. shift the preposition to the front of the clause to make it more formal

 

eg. The issue which you refer to has now been resolved.

The issue to which (NOT ‘that’) you refer has now been resolved.

 

The President, who/whom we have great respect for, has decided to bomb Iran.

The President, for whom we have great respect, has decided to bomb Iran.

 

2. using quantities – all, some, none, half, a quarter, two thirds, both, several, etc.

 

eg. The suspects, some/all/none/half/several of whom come from the UK, were all released yesterday.

He made some important resolutions, some/all/none of which have since been implemented.

 

2. some useful fixed expressions:

 

The alarm bell rang, at which point the theatre emptied.

His nervous breakdown, the cause of which nobody knows, has left him completely incapacitated.

We all had to evacuate our homes last night, the reason for which is still unclear.

It could rain, in which case we should take umbrellas.

He got injured last month, since when he hasn’t played at all.

 

 

 

6. PARTICIPLE CLAUSES

 

1. Active (present participle – ing)

 

• Doing..

• Having done..

 

a. As an alternative to relative clauses:

 

The man sitting at the bar is my brother. (‘The man who is sitting...’)

You should take the path leading to the river. (‘..the path which leads...’)

 

b. As an alternative to adverbial clauses:

 

Walking down the street, I bumped into a lamppost.

(‘When/While I was walking…’)

Having finished my walk, and being in need of a stiff drink, I went to the pub.

(‘After I had finished…’)

 

 

2. Passive (past participle – 3^rd form)

 

• Done

• Being done

• Having been done

 

a. As an alternative to relative clauses:

 

The woman arrested this morning has been charged with murder. (‘who was arrested..’.)

The agreement, having been put together by the victorious powers, was deemed unfair by the losers. (‘which had been put together…’)

 

b. As an alternative to adverbial clauses:

 

Once taken, the effects of the poison are instantaneous and deadly. (‘Once it has been taken…’)

Having been neglected for years, the house is in a terrible state. (‘As it had been neglected…’)

 

 

 

 

 

7. Adding EXTRA INFORMATION between commas

 

• The US President, George Bush, came under fire as…

• London, a filthy, overcrowded hell of a city, is the capital of this fair isle.

• Mr Grungewick, possibly the fattest man to have walked this earth, was confined to his bed for the final desperate years of his miserable life.

 

 

 

AND!

 

ENCOURAGE YOUR STUDENTS TO:

 

• Use interesting adjectives and adverbs (though be careful not to over-egg the pudding)

• Focus on detail – not generalisations – it’s the small things which really bring a person or place alive

• Think of interesting synonyms – eg. for ‘talk’ or ‘walk’

• Not use words like ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘get’, ‘do’, etc. unless really necessary

• Be creative

• Be funny

• Take risks

• Be unafraid of making mistakes

 

 

 

 

 

WAYS OF APPROACHING WRITING A TEXT IN THE CLASSROOM:

 

1. Doing exercises

 

Controlled practice – gap fill, matching, etc – limited options, limited creativity.

This is really to focus on sts familiarising themselves with connectors, relative pronouns, word order, etc.

 

2. Guided writing

 

Use models, advice, organisational structures, notes, key words and concepts, etc to help students write a text

 

3. Process writing

 

Students work together – brainstorm ideas, make rough drafts, check each other’s work, etc – and also with the teacher, who advises, provides feedback, facilitates and encourages.

 

4. Free writing

 

Students write sth independently or respond to a title or task. The work may be authentic, or marked/fed back to at a later time

 

 

But whatever you do, get active!

 

In the classroom, encourage sts to participate actively in putting together a piece of writing.

 

The following comes from Scrivener’s ‘Learning Teaching’:

 

“A student can learn to become a better writer by (a) being actively encouraged and helped to follow through a series of preparatory steps before the final text is produced, and (b) becoming more aware of that preparation, so that it can be done more independently and transparently in the future. For example, we could help learners:

 

• choose a topic;

• choose a genre;

• get ideas;

• discuss ideas with others to get new perspectives

• select between ideas;

• sequence ideas

• make notes, diagrams, etc. to help organise ideas

• find grammar and lexis suitable for the text;

• do practical exercises on language items that will be useful;

• study sample and model texts similar to what they want to write;

• plan the organisation of their text;

• draft a rough text;

• get feedback on content;

• get feedback on language use;

• co-write sections of text in groups;

• make alterations and rewrites;

• write a final version;

• find appropriate readers.’

 

 

 

 

Some examples of writing activities:

 

 Exercises - cloze, write sentence responses (eg. complete dialogues), using key words to write complete sentences, correct errors, etc.

 Letters, postcards

 Picture stories

 School newsletters

 Questionnaires

 Write simple crosswords

 Group projects

 Group/Pair/Individual diaries

 Group/individual responses to tricky situations

 Dictation ex - teacher reads story involving tricky situation - student complete story, eg. with appropriate dialogues and descriptions

 Dictation - students in teams write down what teacher says - give time for group discussion

 Dictation as above, but include questions - lead to discussion

 Stories/dialogues/poems - individual, pairs, groups

 Copying

 Problem pages - read & respond, write own problems

 Written responses to music - feelings, write possible film scenes

 Written responses to pics (eg. from newspapers) - describe, write short story, etc.

 

 

NOTE!

 

Student writing is often very unsystematic, whether it be recording vocabulary, writing answers, etc.

 

As a teacher, encourage your students to write down answers, vocab, etc, as it gives them valuable language practice, and ensures that they are not just relying on orally repeating the answers of their better classmates to get by. Same with groups - they should be writing their answers down following any group/pair discussion. This also means the teacher can evaluate their language output.

 

Also, encourage your students to organize their copy books to reflect this - they should have specific sections for vocab, chronologically ordered pages for coursebook exercises, etc.