Teaching Writing Skills

The aim of this lecture:

 to think about writing as a skill
 to reflect upon types and mechanisms of writing
 to draw on activities for teaching to write.

Statements that can be marked as “true”, “false” or “debatable” (TFD) 1

Statements TFD
1. Writing is a process of ENCODING ideas on paper.
2. Writing CLARIFIES ideas born in mind
3. The PURPOSE of writing is to store information.
4. Writing can ADEQUATELY convey the message.
5. Writing is the same as speaking but IN LETTERS
6. Writing requires the knowledge of a written text FORMAT
7. Writing is done with the READER in mind

Writing as a communicative skill

Writing is a communicative skill to send, store and retrieve messages with the help of
written symbols. History of writing is very long. Writing originated in Mesopotamia and Egypt,
pre-Columbian America, possibly in India. The earliest evidence of writing is cuneiform script
from Mesopotamia at 3500 BC.
Modern writing systems are different and they include graphic representations of
morphemes and words (Chinese), graphic representations of syllables (Hebrew), alphabetic
representations of phonemes (English, Russian, Armenian, etc).
Writing in the foreign language classroom can be an especially enjoyable and meaningful
activity for learners than some more artificial speaking activities. Good writing tasks not only
provide useful language practice but also stimulate learners to express themselves in a creative
and personal manner as they communicate their own ideas, experience and feelings.
Learners do not simply write texts so that the teacher can correct their mistakes. Writing
is a purposeful and meaningful activity where they write in order to communicate with a
particular reader, readers, each other as well as with the teacher and, of course, members of the
target language community (pen pals, youth hostel manager, etc.).
Writing is not simply a transcription of the spoken word and, unlike oral communication,
writers have no way of checking how well they are being understood.Writing has to be better
organised and more precise than speech and this is expected of the writer who has time to reflect,
restructure and reformulate, unlike the speaker who communicates under the pressure of instant
communication in real time.
Good writing is a skill which needs to be developed and supported. Extensive reading
and listening are an important source of input. It is only through writing, however, that writing
skills are developed and regular opportunities for practice and free expression are essential.
Practice writing may be controlled or guided, for example by a model text to imitate, a
matrix to follow, key points to expand, etc. and useful language material may be supplied. In
freer activities, learners have greater responsibility for content and organisation and little or no
language assistance is provided.
Writing is thus viewed as a process where learners experiment as they reflect, plan,
discuss, draft, write and edit their own text. Mistakes are an inevitable part of the first stage of
this process and an indication that learning is taking place as learners exploit and extend their
developing competence.
Whatever approach is preferred at any particular stage, writing can retain an interactive

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Millrood R. 2001, Teaching to Write, Modular Course in ELT Methodology
1
dimension if learners are encouraged to work in small groups where they can first discuss the
task, share ideas, formulate sentences and then draft their texts individually or collectively.
Trends in the teaching of writing in ESL and other foreign languages
have, not surprisingly, coincided with those of teaching of other skills, espe
cially listening and speaking2.

Characteristics of Written Language

1. Permanence
Once something is written down and delivered in its final form to its intended audience,
the writer abdicates a certain power: power to emend, to clarify, to withdraw. Therefore,
whatever you can do as a teacher and guide and facilitator to help your students to revise and
refine their work before final submission will help to give them confidence in their work.
2. Production time
The good news is that, given appropriate stretches of time, a writer can indeed become a
"good" writer by developing efficient processes for achieving the final product. The bad
news is that many educational contexts demand student writing within time limits, or
"writing for display".
So, one of your goals, especially if you are teaching in an EAP context, would be to train
your students to make the best possible use of such time limitations. This may mean
sacrificing some process time, but with sufficient training in process writing, combined with
practice in display writing, you can help your students to deal with time limitations.
3. Distance
This is one of the thorniest problems writers face is anticipating their audience. Writers need
to be able to predict the audience's general knowledge, cultural and literary schemata, specific
subject-matter knowledge, and very importantly, how their choice of language will be interpreted.
4. Orthography
Everything from simple greetings to extremely complex ideas are captured through the
manipulation of a few dozen letters and other written symbols. Sometimes we take for granted
the mastering of the mechanics of English writing by our students. If students are non-literate in
the native language, you must begin at the very beginning with fundamentals of reading and
writing. For literate students, if their native language system is not alphabetic, new symbols have
to be produced by hands that may have gotten too accustomed to another system. If the native
language has a different phoneme-grapheme system, then some attention is due here.
5. Complexity
Writers must learn how to remove redundancy, how to combine sentences, how to make
references to other elements in a text, how to create syntactic and lexical variety, and much more.
6. Vocabulary
Writing places a heavier demand on vocabulary use than does speaking. Good writers will
learn to take advantage of the richness of English vocabulary.
7. Formality
Whether a student is filling out a questionnaire or writing a full-blown essay, the
conventions of each form must be followed.
For ESL students, the most difficult and complex conventions occur in academic writing
where students have to learn how to describe, explain, compare, contrast, illustrate, defend,
criticize, and argue.

Microskills for Writing

Like other language-communicative skills (listening, speaking and reading), writing is
a macroskill, which consists of several microskills.
Microskills for writing production can be enumerated as follows:

2
H. D.Brown, Teaching by Principles, San Francisco State University, 1994
2
  Produce graphemes and orthographic patterns of English
 Produce writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose
 Produce an acceptable core of words and use appropriate word order
patterns
 Use acceptable grammatical systems (e.g., tense, agreement, pluraliza-
tion), patterns, and rules
 Express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms
 Use cohesive devices in written discourse
 Use the rhetorical forms and conventions of written discourse
 Appropriately accomplish the communicative functions of written texts
according to form and purpose
 Convey links and connections between events and communicate such
relations as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given informa-
tion, generalization, and exemplification
 Distinguish between literal and implied meanings when writing
 Correctly convey culturally specific references in the context of the
written text
 Develop and use a battery of writing strategies, such as accurately assess-
ing the audience's interpretation, using pre-writing devices, writing with
fluency in the first drafts, using paraphrases, synonyms and feedback for
revising and editing.

Principles for Designing Writing Techniques

Out of all characteristics of the written word, along with microskills and
research issues, a number of specific principles for designing writing techniques emerges.
1. Incorporate practices of "good" writers
This first guideline is sweeping. But as you contemplate devising a technique that has a
writing goal in it, consider the various things that efficient writers do, and see if your technique
includes some of these practices. For example, good writers:
 focus on a goal or main idea in writing
 perceptively gauge (guess) their audience
 spend some time (but not too much) planning to write
 easily let their first ideas flow onto the paper
 follow a general organizational plan as they write
 solicit and utilize feedback on their writing
 revise their work willingly and efficiently
 patiently make as many revisions as needed.
2. Account for cultural/literary backgrounds
Make sure that your techniques do not assume that your students know English rhetorical
conventions. If there are some apparent contrasts between students' native traditions and those
that you are trying to teach, try to help students to understand what it is, exactly, that they are
accustomed to and then by degrees perhaps, bring them to the use of acceptable English rhetoric.
3. Connect reading and writing
Clearly, students learn to write in part by carefully observing what is already written.
That is, they learn by observing, or reading the written word. By reading and studying a variety
of relevant types of text, students can gain important insights both about how they should write
and about subject matter that may become the topic of their writing.
4. Provide as much authentic writing as possible
Whether writing is real writing or for display, it can still be authentic to convey meaning.
Publishing a class newsletter, writing letters to people outside of class, writing a script for a
skit or dramatic presentation, writing a resume, writing advertisements-all these can be seen as
authentic writing.
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 5. Frame your techniques in terms of prewriting, drafting, and revising stages
Process writing approaches tend to be framed in three stages of writing. The
prewriting stage encourages the generation of ideas, which can happen in numerous
ways:
1. reading (extensively) a passage
2. skimming and/or scanning a passage
3. conducting some outside research
4. brainstorming
5. listing (in writing-individually)
6. clustering (begin with a keyword, then add other words,
using free association)
7. discussing a topic or question
8. instructor-initiated questions and probes
9. freewriting.

Types of Classroom Writing Performance

Let’s consider the following major categories of classroom writing performance:
1. Imitative or writing down
At the beginning level of learning to write, students will simply "write down" English
letters, words, and possibly sentences in order to learn the conventions of the orthographic
code. Some forms of dictation fall into this category although dictations can serve to teach and
test higher order processing as well. Dictations typically involve the following steps:
 Teacher reads a short paragraph once or twice at normal speed.
 Teacher reads the paragraph in short phrase units of three or four
words each, and each unit is followed by a pause.
 During the pause students write exactly what they hear.
 Teacher then reads the whole paragraph once more at normal speed
so students can check their writing.
 Scoring of students' written work can utilize a number of rubrics for
assigning points. Usually spelling and punctuation errors are not considered
as severe as grammatical errors.
2. Intensive or controlled
Writing is sometimes used as a production mode for learning, reinforcing or testing
grammatical concepts. This intensive writing typically appears in controlled, written grammar
exercises.
A common form of controlled writing is to present a paragraph to students in which they
have to alter a given structure throughout. So, for example, they may be asked to change all
present tense verbs to past; in such a case, students may need to alter other time references in
the paragraph.
Guided writing loosens the teacher's control but still offers a series of stimulators. For
example, the teacher might get students to tell a story just viewed on a video tape by asking them
a series of questions: ''Where does the story take place? Describe the principal character. What
does he say to the woman in the car?...''.
Yet another form of controlled writing is a dicto-comp. Here, a paragraph is read at normal
speed; then the teacher puts key words from the paragraph in sequence, on the blackboard and
asks students to rewrite the paragraph from the best of their recollection of the reading, using
the words on the board.
3. Self-writing
A significant proportion of classroom writing may be devoted to self-writing or writing
with only the self in mind as an audience. The most salient (distinguish) instance of this
category in classrooms is notetaking, where students take notes during a lecture for the purpose
of later recall. Other notetaking may be done in the margins of books and on odd scraps of paper.
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Diary or journal writing also falls into this category.
4. Display writing
For all language students, short answer exercises, essay examinations, and even
research reports will involve an element of display. For academically bound ESL
students, one of the academic skills that they need to master is a whole array of display
writing techniques.
5. Real writing
While virtually every classroom writing task will have an element of display writing
in it, nevertheless some classroom writing aims at the genuine communication of
messages to an audience in need of those messages. The two categories of real and
display writing are actually two ends of a continuum, and in between the two extremes lie
some practical instances of a combination of display writing and real. Three subcategories
illustrate how reality can be injected:
 Academic. The Language Experience Approach gives groups of stu
dents opportunities to convey genuine information to each other. Content-
based instruction encourages the exchange of useful information, and some of
this learning uses the written word. Group problem-solving tasks, especially
those that relate to current issues and other personally relevant topics, may
have a writing component in which information is genuinely sought and
conveyed. In certain ESP and EAP courses, students may exchange new
information with each other and with the instructor.
 Vocational/technical. Quite a variety of real writing can take place in
classes of students studying English for advancement in their occupation.
Real letters can be written; genuine directions for some operation or assembly
might be given; and actual forms can be filled out. These possibilities are
even greater in what has come to be called "English in the Workplace" where
ESL is offered within companies and corporations.
 Personal. In virtually any ESL class, diaries, letters, post cards, notes,
personal messages, and other informal writing can take place, especially
within the context of an interactive classroom. While certain tasks may be
somewhat contrived, nevertheless the genuine exchange of information can
happen.

Writing (Practice) Activities

Summary
 Sentences
 Short reports and descriptions
 Linking words
 Text completion
 Flowcharts
 Pictures3
Sentences
 The words could be rearranged before being written as sentences.
 Jumbled sentences
 The sentences form a cohesive text
 Jumbling the sentences and asking learners to reorder them draws their attention to
reference words
 Expanding a sentence draws attention to word order in a challenging and creative way.

Short reports and descriptions

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Council of Europe, Communication in the modern language classroom, by Joe Sheils, 1993
5
 These usually follow on from a speaking, listening or reading activity and so lead to an
integration of skills, e g speak/listen, take notes and use your notes to write a report It is helpful
to provide a model of the writing task
Learner:
(a) read the report and transfer the information to the grid
(b) then carry out their own group interviews and complete a s i m i l a r grid
finally write a report using the model report in (a).
Before the report is written, a grammar phase could focus on the forms necessary for the
report, e.g. singular and plural forms, pronouns, possession.
Learners:
 Interview one another in groups using the discourse chain as a guide
 Take notes in a grid
 Each group reports its information to the class and learners then write a class report with
the aid of some key phrases

Linking words
Learners need specific practice in using linking words to ensure that their texts are not a
disjointed series of short sentences
o joining short sentences to form longer and more complex sentences
o drawing learners' attention to sequencers
o after studying the model text, they write a similar text about their own
day. Learners then complete a gapped text and put in the sequencers.

Text Completion
The content may be tightly controlled or simply guided by key words
o Learners first expand notes into sentences.
o In a chain game learners are free to complete the text. Each learner
completes a sentence, folds the sheet and passes it on to his or her
neighbour.
o Learners complete a series of sentences about themselves. They are free to choose the
content within certain limits imposed by the structure of the text.
o A series of ’’Wh’’ question words guided learners (Who? Where?, What?, When?,
Why?) they freely complete the blanks to create a meaningful text.

Flow charts
A flow chart provides language material as well as guidance on content and organization. Writing may
be completely controlled or guided.
 The language is provided. Learners simply transform present to past tense and choose
different options at various points,
 Learners first read several newspaper reports and compare the reports
 They then sum up what happened using the chart given, which shows the order of events.
Link words are provided
 In a freer writing activity, learners write a group report on an incident of their choice, having
first made notes in a flow chart to show the sequence of events.

Pictures
Pictures can be exploited to develop discussion and information-sharing activities leading to
collective writing:
 In small groups learners re-order a series of jumbled pictures and write a story which they
first prepare orally. One or two pictures may be missing and they imagine what happened.
 Learner A writes a description of a picture or diagram. Learner B then reproduces this with
the aid of the written description.
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  Learners work in groups (e.g. six if there are six pictures)
 Each learner in the group receives one of the pictures and writes one or two sentences about
it in the past tense
 Without looking at one another's pictures, learners pass around their 'paragraphs' They write
down what each one has written, making any corrections they think arc necessary.
 They then discuss and order the story correctly, making any necessary changes, e.g.
 adding cohesive devices, correcting mistakes (tense, grammar, spelling) Each group member
writes out the story in full
 All the pictures are studied and the story is checked with these. Any important facts which
were omitted are written in
 Learners then form new groups which contain at least one member from each of the
previous groups The six versions of the story are passed around and compared
 In a whole class activity, the stories can be used to construct a matrix which can serve as a
model for a freer writing activity where the content is not dictated by pictures but left to
learners' imagination variation: each group receives only one picture and collectively prepares
a few sentences on it. Learners then form new groups as described above so that each member
of the second group has a written description of a different picture. They share their account
and the full story is then written, using linking devices, changing tenses, etc. Each group
reads out its story and the class discusses them.

Marking
If you are required (or wish) to provide some more traditional marking/feedback on written work,
what are the options?
Task: Alternatives to traditional 'marking'
Your students have done some written work. You now collect in the papers, underline every mistake in
red pen and write a mark or grade at the end. That's one option, but why may it not always be a good idea?
What alternative options can you think of?
Commentary
Getting back a piece of work with a teacher's comments and corrections on it can be helpful. It can
also be discouraging, especially if there is too much information, if the information is inappropriate or
hard to interpret, or if the general tone is negative rather than positive. The red pen particularly has
associations for many people with insensitive and discouraging correction and judgement. Some
alternatives are listed below.

Variations On Traditional Teacher Marking

Here are some other options available to you:
 Use a green or a blue pen.
 Discuss the marking criteria with students. Agree a mark or grade.
 Write the correct answers in the margin.
 Use correction codes in the margin .
 Underline all errors of one type (e.g. all verb-tense mistakes, all spelling
mistakes, etc.).
 Write a letter in reply.
 Write nothing. Discuss the work with the individual students.
 Only write a comment about the meaning and message of the piece.
 Use errors from a number of different students' writing to devise an exercise,
quiz, game, etc. Or get students to create the exercise themselves based on their own
mistakes (more challenging than simply copying out correct answers).
 Give a dictation based on sentences from their work.
 In all of these options, there is one important guideline to bear in mind: tell students (or
agree) before the writing what will happen afterwards (e.g. ‘I'll be marking tense
mistakes only’).
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Correction codes
Some teachers like to use correction codes for marking students’ work.
Codes can indicate where an error is and what type of error it is. However, they leave the learners to do
some work in order to find the corrections for themselves. This may seem preferable to handing them
the correction 'ready made'. It is, of course, essential that the students understand your own set of
codes, e.g.
 V = verb problem (possibly incorrect tense);
 WO = word order
 WW = wrong word
 X = missing word
 SP = spelling.
It often seems inappropriate to point out every error; it can be dispiriting to get back work with
a large quantity of marks on it. You probably need to decide which errors you think are most important
or useful for the student to work on at the moment and then to draw attention to these.

Correcting written assignments

(a) Avoiding ‘pitfalls’
If the writing task has been prepared thoroughly, there should not be too much correcting to do. If
there are a lot of mistakes in many students’ work you should ask yourself what went wrong at the
preparation stage. (NB: It helps you to diagnose the problems if you write the essay you want your
students to write, before you prepare the preparation lesson). 4
(b) Training students to spot and correct their own mistakes
In the early stages students find this difficult, and so they need guidance in correcting their own
work. Gradually, this guidance should be withdrawn, until by examination time, students are better at
checking their own work and correcting their own mistakes.
(c) A method of marking
Here are some symbols that have been found to be useful:
s – spelling
c – concord (agreement: subject and verb)
s/p – singular, plural
w/o – word order
T – tense
V – vocabulary, wrong word or usage
app – appropriacy (inappropriate style or register)
p – punctuation (including capital letters)
Ir – irrelevant information
?M – meaning not clear
∧ – word missing
If you let your student know what kind of mistake he has made, he has more chance of correcting it.
You can withdraw your help in stages throughout the course, thus:
Stage 1 – (elementary) underline the mistake and write the symbol in the margin.
Stage 2 – underline the whole word/phrase and write the symbol in the margin.
Stage 3 – do not underline the word or the mistake; only write the symbol in the margin.

4
Jane Willis’s Teaching English Through English: A Course in Classroom Language and Techniques
(Longman Handbooks for Language Teachers Series, Longman ELT, 1982).
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Stage 4 – (exam classes) put a dot or x in the margin for each mistake.
(e) Awarding marks or grades for compositions
There are two main ways of grading a piece of writing: ‘impression’ marking and ‘split’ (or analytic)
marking.
• Impression marking: you read the written work through quickly and give it an ‘impression’ mark. In
an exam, at least two, preferably three, people independently should give an impression mark for
each essay, keeping a record on a separate mark sheet, not writing the grade on the essay itself.
• Split marking: you ‘split’ total marks, and give a proportion for each of the following:
– organization (plan, paragraphing, etc.)
– accuracy (grammar and spelling)
– appropriacy (style, register)
– content (relevance).
Depending on what form of writing it is, you adjust the proportion of total marks given for each
category. (For example, a business letter would need a low proportion of marks for content, and
higher than usual for appropriacy and accuracy). You could also add or subtract a few marks for
neatness, layout, etc.
For example,
org. 3/4 acc. 3/6 appr.2/7 content 3/3 total: 11/20.