INVESTEŞTE ÎN OAMENI !FONDUL SOCIAL EUROPEANPROGRAMUL OPERAŢIONAL SECTORIAL DEZVOLTAREA DEZVOLTAREA

RESURSELOR UMANE RESURSELOR UMANE 2007-20132007-2013

POSDRU/87/1.3/S/62665

“Formarea continuă a cadrelor didactice pentru utilizarea resurselor informatice moderne în predarea eficientă a limbii

engleze şi evaluarea la nivel european a competenţelor lingvistice”

ACTIVITIES TO PROMOTE PROCESS WRITING

THE PROCESS APPROACH treats all writing as a creative act which

requires time and positive feedback to be done well

has the teacher move away from being someone who sets students a writing topic and receives the finished product for correction without any intervention in the writing process itself

has the students encouraged to think about audience: who is the writing for?

has the students realise that what they write can be changed: things can be deleted, added, restructured, etc.

1. Pre-writing activities

in this stage, the most important thing is the flow of ideas

prepare students for a writing task and activate, review or builds sub-skills that prepare them for completing the main writing task;

focus on the audience, the content, and the vocabulary necessary for the task

the role of the teacher is to stimulate students' creativity, to get them thinking how to approach a writing topic.

2.

During-writing activities

e

ngage students in recursive writing, self-editing and revisions;

a

s students are guided through writing and re-writing, the teacher

should guide them through areas such as syntax.

3.

Post-writing activities

h

elp students reflect on and revise their writing based on feedback

from an audience, such as peers and/or their teacher.

1. Pre-writing tasks

a. Brainstorming

students divided into groups produce words and ideas about the writing

b. Planning

students make a plan of the writing before they start;

these plans can be compared and discussed in groups before writing takes place.

c. Generating ideas

students write about the subject in six different ways - they:

1. describe it

2. compare it

3. associate it

4. analyse it

5. apply it

6. argue for or against it.

d. Questioning

In groups, students generate questions about the topic (this helps them focus upon audience as they consider what the reader needs to know). The answers to these questions will form the basis to the writing.

e. Prompts

a well chosen picture or song

written prompts (provided by the teacher or generated through brainstorming by the students). They can follow the five Ws and the H from journalism: who, what, when, where, why, how.

f

. Responding to tasks

W

hen students respond to tasks, whether written or

oral, they can learn new vocabulary, expressions,

grammatical structures and, pragmatic

information (how to structure a review, an e-mail,

etc).

g. Focusing ideas

Fast writing

write quickly on a topic for five to ten minutes without worrying about correct language or punctuation

Group compositions

working together in groups, sharing ideas

Changing viewpoints

different students choose different points of view and think about /discuss what this character would write in a diary, witness statement, etc.

Varying form

similar to the activity above, but instead of different viewpoints, different text types are selected.

2. During-writing activities

students are ready to write - they need clear instructions and resources to complete the next steps in the process: writing drafts, revising, self-editing, expanding;

students are allowed to use notes from the pre-writing tasks. They may also use a dictionary or spell-checker.

3. Post-writing activities

Re-read you story, make sure sentences make senseAdd phrases to make the story flow smoothly Eliminate unnecessary/redundant detailsProofread for spelling, vocabulary, grammar –checklistPeer editing and proof-reading Share with audience (website, online blog, a wiki entry, etc)

S

TEP 9.1-HW- PREPARATION, MOTIVATION AND COMMUNICATION

M

ake a list of ways in which the teacher can motivate students to write by

encouraging confidence and enthusiasm.

E

xample: She can get students to watch part of a selected TV documentary

(in English or in their own language) as a stimulus for ideas to help them

in writing.

H

ow important do you consider it is that the writing task incorporates an

element of real communication?

H

ow might a writing task incorporate this element of real communication?

STEP 9.2 -HW: TEACHING THE FEATURES OF PARTICULAR TEXT

TYPES

Before asking the students to write an example of a particular text type you

might want to go through some of the following stages. The order, here, is

jumbled. Put them into an appropriate order and justify your decisions.

Guided writing practice-the students write (parts of) a parallel text guided

by prompts (e.g. pictures or sentences which summarise paragraphs).

Exercises which practise particular features of the text type (e.g. ordering

paragraphs in the text, combining sentences using a relative clause).

Reading examples of the text type.

Analysing texts to isolate characteristic features of that text type.

S

TEP 9.3-HW: PROBLEM SOLVING

F

ind solutions to the listed problems. Report to the class

Possible Problem

Solution(s)

uneven proficiency

 

large group sizes

 

off-task behaviour

 

S

TEP 9.4-HW- WRITING JOURNAL

D

ecide on what can go into a writing journal.

T

HE END