Designing Tasks

Helping Learners Write

Meaning-focused Input:

· Learners should bring experience and _ knowledge_ to their writing. Writing is most likely to be successful and meaningful for the learners if they are well _ prepared_ for what they are going to write.

Meaning-focused Output:

· Learners should do lots of writing and lots of different kinds of writing. Different genres use different writing conventions and draw on different language features (Biber, 1989) and so it is useful to make sure that learners are getting writing _ practice_ in the range of genres that they will have to write in.

· Learners should write with a message-focused _ purpose _. Most writing should be done with the aim of communicating a message to the reader and the writer should have a reader in _ mind _ when writing.

· Learners should use writing to increase their _ language _ knowledge.

Language-focused Learning:

· Learners should know about the parts of the writing process and should be able to _ discuss _ them in relation to their own and others’ writing.

· Learners should have conscious_ strategies _ for dealing with parts of the writing process.

· Spelling should be given an appropriate amount of deliberate _ attention _ largely separated from feedback on writing.

· Teachers should provide and arrange for feedback that encourages and _ improves_ writing.

· Learners should be aware of the ethical _ issues _ involved in writing.

Fluency Development

· Learners should increase their writing speed so that they can write very simple material at a _ reasonable_ speed. Fluency development can occur through _ repetitive_ activities and through working with easy, familiar material.

Designing Tasks

· _ experience_ tasks try to narrow the gap as much as possible by using or developing learners’ previous experience.

· shared _ tasks try to get learners to help each other cross the gap.

· _ guided_ tasks try to bridge the gap by providing the support of exercises and focused guidance.

· _independent _ tasks leave learners to rely on their own resources.

1. Fill in the gaps with the appropriate words. One gap stands for one word.

1. A very effective way of making a task easier is to make sure that the learners are _familiar _ with as many parts of it as possible.

2. The learners should be encouraged to develop the _ habit_ of checking their work carefully before giving it to the teacher to be marked. A marking system helps them to do this by showing them their main weaknesses.

3. At the editing stage (different from the revising stage) students fix _ organization_style, grammatical and lexical correctness, and appropriateness.

4. Getting real _ responses_ to writing makes it come alive and gives it energy.

5. The goal in brainstorming is _ to use all their senses to explore a topic _. Students do not naturally know how to brainstorm; thus, you must teach and demonstrate the process.

1. Answer the questions below.

1. What can the teacher do if learners do not have enough experience to do a task in writing? Give examples.

writing to your students the teacher writes personal letters to each learner and they reply in writing. The only rule is each letter should offer the reader some new bit of information about the writer. This technique involves genuine communication between the teacher and the learners involves genuine communication between the teacher and the learners

Situational composition is a type of free composition. A situation is created using an advertisement, a letter, a table of numbers, etc. The learners must do a piece of writing that suits the situation

Letter writing can be an activity between members of the class. The class can be organised so that some people pretend that they are working in a bank, others are working in shops, a tourist agency, a factory, a building company, and a school.

Brainstorming and quickwriting. These activities could be preceded by relaxation activitieswhere learners are encouraged to use all their senses to explore a topic.The second group consists of systematic searching procedures such as

questioning (who, why, where, when...) or filling in an information transfer diagram. In all cases the learners have set steps to follow to make sure they consider all the important parts of the topic.

group brainstorming the learners get together in small groups and suggest as many ideas about the writing topic that they can think of. At first no idea is rejected or criticised because it may lead to other ideas. One person in the group keeps a record of the ideas.

With list making before writing, each learner makes a list of ideas to include in the writing. After the list is made then the learner attempts to organise it and this may lead to additions to the list.

Looping is when each learner writes as quickly as possible on the topic for 4 or 5 minutes. Then they stop, read what they have written, think about it and write one sentence summarising it. Then they repeat the procedure once more.

Cubing is when the learners consider the topic from six angles: (1) describe it; (2) compare it; (3) associate it; (4) analyse it; (5) apply it; (6) argue for and against it.

Using topic type grids. Information transfer diagrams based on topic types (Chapter 9) are a very useful way of gathering information before the writing is done (Franken, 1987). They can also be used as a checklist during writing.

Reading like a writer is when the learner reads an article or text like the one they want to write

2. When getting feedback from his peers the writer should get answers to certain questions. List the questions.

(Nation pp.117- 123) writers should receive comments on the ideas in their writing (Are there enough? Are they relevant?), the organisation of these ideas (Are they well organised? Does the organisation make the ideas clear and interesting?), the ways the ideas are expressed in the text (Is the language use appropriate? Is the language use clear?), and so on.

1. Describe a marking system when evaluating students writing.

It is probably more useful for the learners if the teacher does not correct their mistakes but shows them where the mistake is and what type of mistake it is. To do this a marking system is needed. Here is a useful one for the most common mistakes. The signs at the side of the page show the type of mistake, and the signs in the sentences show where it is. The learners should correct their mistakes themselves after the teacher has marked them.

4. Write the benefits of peer editing in writing.

Learners can be encouraged to edit through the feedback that they get from their classmates, teacher and other readers. Such feedback is useful if it occurs several times during the writing process and is expressed in ways that the writer finds acceptable and easy to act on.

5. How can the teacher use positive feedback to motivate his learners to write?

Positive feedback on the content of learners’ writing can do a lot toincrease the amount of writing that learners do and to improve their attitude to writing. This feedback includes comments like the following.“The part about the fire was really interesting. Can you tell me more about that? ” “You wrote that the end of the movie surprised you. What were you expecting? ” Written feedback like this tells the writer that their work is being read, is understood, and interests the reader. Another form of positive feedback is publication. This can take many forms. Reading written work aloud to others is a form of publication. Having your work circulated or posted on the wall of the classroom is another, and having it appear in a printed collection is yet another. Some learners are embarrassed by praise, especially in the presence of

peers. One way of dealing with this is to praise the piece of work not the person. That is, rather than say “You did a good job with the introduction”, some learners may find it more acceptable to hear “The introduction was very clear and well organised”.

6. One way of speeding up marking and making sure a balanced range of aspects of writing are dealt with is to mark each learner’s work using a scale. Each part of the scale can be accompanied by a brief comment explaining why that point on the scale was chosen. Draw the scale and say why it is useful for students.