86948

The Writing Skills

Teaching of this skill should proceed through controlled, guided to free writing lunction of writing:

-    reinforcing and consolidating what has been leamt orally 9 storę in leamers' minds morę easily)

-    needed for correspondence notes, essays and in sitnation where orał communication doesn’t seem to be appropriate

-    provides" a means of individual and sometimes qnite personal expressions"

Kinds of w riting:

>    notation - grapliic representation of spoken utterance

>    spelling - when "reeognizable nnits of the foreign language are invdved"

>    writing practice - morę advanced form of writing - the written representation of combinations of words which might be spoken in specific circnmstances

>    coniposition - ideas are expressed in a coherent and cohesive way using specialized vocabnlary and stmctnre appropriate to the piece of writing.

Whv we teach writing:

-    course validity - eveiy skill should be taught

-    skills training - for professional purposes

-    stndy skills - ability to make notes

-    memory - for visual leamers

-    accuracy - for practicing using structures

-    rounding up - gathering activities

-    transfer of skills

Pro h jem s with teaching writing:

a)    strongcorrelation between writing skills in LI and L, who are not good writers and may have problems (or they can improve in both)

b)    correction is time consuming

c)    students unwillingness

d)    negative feedback may discourage the students

e)    solitary activity

Stages in process writing:

-    generating ideas (by brainstorming, using visuals etc.)

-    focusing - deciding what you want to say

-    structuring - ordering information

-    drafting - ways of beginning and ending different stories

-    evaluating - establishing criteria

-    re-viewing