ESL Writing Pedagogy

Chapter One

• Sentence writing is common in elementary ESL lessons.
• Students reinforce grammar and vocabulary by repeating or completing sentences.
• The focus should shift beyond sentence exercises to:
  • Communication with a reader.
  • Expressing ideas without face-to-face pressure.
  • Exploring a subject.
  • Recording experience.
  • Becoming familiar with written English discourse (text).

Speaking and Writing

• Writing is not merely speech written down; it's not a natural extension of speaking.
• Speaking is learned at home without instruction, writing is taught in school.
• Writing is difficult for many native speakers.
• Speaking and writing are distinct processes.

Differences between Writing and Speaking

1. Speech is universal, acquired early in life. Writing is not universally learned.
2. Spoken language has dialect variations. Written language demands standard grammar, syntax, and vocabulary.
3. Speakers use voice and body language. Writers rely on words alone.
4. Speakers use pauses and intonation. Writers use punctuation.
5. Speakers pronounce. Writers spell.
6. Speaking is spontaneous; writing is planned and can be revised.
7. Speakers interact with listeners. Writers face delayed or nonexistent responses.
8. Speech is informal and repetitive. Writing is formal and compact.
9. Speakers use simple sentences with "and" and "but." Writers use complex sentences with words like "however".

• Therefore, writing must be taught, not just "picked up."

Approaches to Teaching Writing in ESL Classes

• There are many approaches, varying by teachers, teaching styles, learners, and learning styles.

• Producing a Piece of Writing requires considering many factors:

  • Grammar: Rules for verbs, agreement, articles, pronouns, etc.
  • Syntax: Sentence structure, boundaries, stylistic choices.
  • Mechanics: Handwriting, spelling, punctuation.
  • Organization: Paragraphs, topic and support, cohesion and unity.
  • Content: Relevance, clarity, originality, logic.
  • Writer's Process: Getting ideas, starting, drafting, revising.
  • Audience: The reader(s).
  • Purpose: The reason for writing.
  • Word Choice: Vocabulary, idiom, tone.

• Teachers stress different features, leading to varied teaching approaches.

The Controlled-to-Free Approach

• Dominant in the 1950s-60s, based on the audio-lingual method.
• Speech was primary, writing reinforced speech through grammar and syntax mastery.
• Sequential: sentence exercises, then paragraph copying/manipulation (e.g., changing questions to statements).
• Students manipulate given material with prescribed operations.
• Controlled compositions minimize errors, making marking easy.
• Free compositions are allowed only at high proficiency levels.
• Stresses grammar, syntax, and mechanics; emphasizes accuracy over fluency or originality.

The Free-Writing Approach

• Emphasizes quantity over quality.
• Assigns large amounts of free writing with minimal error correction.
• Content and fluency are prioritized over form for intermediate students.
• Grammar and organization improve gradually.
• Some teachers begin classes with short, free writing on any topic for 5-10 minutes.
• This reduces fear of writing.
• Teachers read and comment on ideas, not correct errors.
• Students may volunteer to read aloud. Focus is on audience and content.

The Paragraph-Pattern Approach

• Stresses organization.
• Students copy/analyze model paragraphs and imitate passages.
• Exercises include ordering scrambled sentences, identifying general/specific statements, choosing topic sentences, and inserting/deleting sentences.
• Based on the principle that communication organization varies across cultures, so students need to practice "English" writing structures.

The Grammar-Syntax-Organization Approach

• Works simultaneously on multiple features.
• Writing is not seen as separate skills learned one-by-one.
• Tasks integrate attention to organization with grammar and syntax.
• Example: writing instructions for operating a calculator requires vocabulary, simple verbs, chronological order, sequence words, and sentence structures like "When…, then …"
• The purpose links to the forms needed to convey the message.

The Communicative Approach

• Stresses the purpose of writing and the audience.

• Encourages writers to ask:

  • Why am I writing this?
  • Who will read it?

• Extends readership beyond the teacher to other students (response, rewrite, summarize, comment) or readers outside the classroom.

• Adapts content, language, and formality to the audience. For example, describe your room to:

  • A pen pal attractively.
  • A pen pal's mother to highlight needed changes.
  • A blind exchange student in detail for taping.

• Real classroom readers role-play and exchange letters.

The Process Approach

• Shifts from the written product to the writing process.

• Writers also ask:

  • How do I write this?
  • How do I get started?

• Students realize first drafts are not perfect.

• With time and peer feedback, they discover new ideas and language.

• Prewriting activities include discussion, reading, debate, brainstorming, and list making.

• Brainstorming means rapid generation of words, phrases, and ideas without concern for order or accuracy, leading to connections and new ideas.

• First drafts are not corrected but receive feedback on ideas.

• Exploration of topics through writing, showing drafts, and using them to generate new ideas.

• Teachers provide time and content-based feedback.

• Writing becomes a process of discovery for new ideas and language forms.

Approaches and Techniques

• Approaches overlap.
• Teachers use techniques from various approaches as needed (model paragraphs, controlled compositions, free writing, sentence exercises, paragraph analysis).
• This book draws from all approaches and addresses various features of writing.
• Techniques stem from the assumptions that:
  • Writing means connected text, not single sentences.
  • Writers write for a purpose and a reader.
  • The writing process is a valuable learning tool.

Chapter Two

Techniques in Planning the Class: Seven Basic Questions

• Choosing classroom techniques is a daily task for teachers.
• Variety of techniques can be overwhelming.
• Basic questions help determine suitability for class, student level, and curriculum.
• Questions apply to all approaches.

Question 1: How Can Writing Help My Students Learn Their Second Language Better?

• Writing aids the learning process, but should not be isolated.

• Real-life writing involves speaking and reading.

• Students struggle with finding and expressing ideas, not just grammar and vocabulary.

• Typical textbook tasks (writing on a subject and teacher correcting) don't fully encourage communicating ideas.

• Build in activities that prepare students and give them opportunity to speak, listen, read, and write the new language to communicate their meaning.

• For example, "Describe tourist places in your hometown" can be done by:

  • Discussing the audience (e.g., travel brochure).
  • Listing places.
  • Comparing lists in groups and discussing choices.
  • Selecting top two places per group.
  • Reporting choices to the class and summarizing discussion on the board (vocabulary).
  • Writing a draft description for the brochure.
  • Peer review and comparison for effectiveness.
  • Rewriting the description independently.
  • Proofreading and partner checks for clarity, spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

• Engages students in varied language use beyond teacher direction.

• Writing lessons shouldn't be silent. Consider activities to help students use language meaningfully.

Question 2: How Can I Find Enough Topics?

• ESL teachers work hard to find topics, assign writing, and Mark papers quickly.

• Good topics are not explored enough.

• The longer students engage with a subject, the more vocabulary and structures develop.

• The problem is developing enough tasks from good topics.

• Students and their interests are an often-overlooked source (class discussion, questionnaires, free writing).

• Consider how many assignments to develop from a topic for full exploration.

• A single topic can generate a reading passage, controlled composition, sentence combining, scrambled sentences, dictation, lecture, role-playing, copying, letter writing, form completion, or graph interpretation.

• Students learn language and subject matter simultaneously.

• Finding enough topics means finding a few excellent ones and building a series of assignments around them.

Question 3: How Can I Help to Make the Subject Matter Meaningful?

• Practicing chronological order in writing a fictional daily routines, such as Mai Ling's, using a list:

  • 7:00 a.m. gets up
  • 8:00 a.m. has breakfast

• Makes the type of task more interesting and meaningful if only half students in class have a list of Mai Ling's activities.

  • Students with the lists know something that others do not.
  • Students can reconstruct the original list on the completed written account.
  • Students can write for each other about their own daily routine.

• Writer needs to interested in the task

• Personal topics (autobiography, family biography, pastimes, preferences, problems) permit real information to be conveyed

• If topics move away from personal narrative, specify a communicative purpose for each piece of writing:

  • Instead of: "Write a composition telling why you would like a new bicycle"
  • Try: "You have entered a competition to win a new bicycle. The winner will be the one who writes the most convincing reasons why he or she wants that bicycle. Try to win the competition."

• Guided and controlled writing:

  • The assignment to write a paragraph beginning with the sentence "A beach vacation is always relaxing" is only writing practice.
  • The assignment to "Write an advertisement for a beach resort and try to convince people to take a beach vacation instead of traveling abroad" gives the task more meaning for the writer.

• Make every task as meaningful as possible to both reader and writer.

Question 4: Who Will Read What My Students Write?

• Teachers correct errors, make evaluative comments, and rewrite students' sentences
• Students rarely see writing as a piece of reading for someone else

Specifying the reader establishes the goal of writing: communication with that reader

• Readers include:

  • The teacher, helping by reading and commenting on draft
  • One other student in the class, exchanging a draft with the writer and commenting on the draft he reads
  • A group of students in the class, reading a draft or listening to it read aloud and commenting on it:
  • Real outside audience: such a reader is addressed by, for example, a letter to a student travel organization, a class magazine of student writing, writing samples displayed on a bulletin board, a letter to a pen pal, or a description of a national custom for a school in another country
  • Imaginary outside audience: -students write for a specific reader, as in: "You are a landscape architect. Write a description for the city council of how you will design the new city park."
  • The student himself, writing a poem, a few notes, or a draft for his eyes alone

• Ensuring students know whom they are writing

Question 5: How Are the Students Going to Work Together in the Classroom?

• Topics, purpose, audience, and integrated language activities have been established
• Will they work together in class in groups in pairs or individually?.
• Will they write in class or at home?
• Group work is valuable for students learning to write.

Group discussion:

• Ask a question, such as “What is your favorite sport and why?” and ask students to discuss this in the class in small groups of four or five students.

• Students listen to the teacher and then plunge into writing.

• They rehearse the topic, they get ideas from hearing others, they make connectionssit

• The blank page is no longer quite so awesome.

• If working in pairs or small groups will be beneficial, then decide whether to select the pairs or groups ourselves or to let the students do that.

• Students benefit by helping each other with vocabulary, syntax, content, and organization and by doing a lot of speaking and listening to each other, and the teacher benefits by cutting down on the number of compositions he collects.

Question 6: How Much Time Should I Give My Students for Their Writing?

• Language activities and group work take more time than the usual writing assignment.

• Here are activities that a lot of writer say they do: though not necessarily all of these, and certainly not always in this order

  • They identify why they are writing
  • They identify whom they are writing for
  • They gather materials through observing, brainstorming, making notes or lists, talking to others, and reading
  • They plan how to go about the task and how to organize the material
  • They write a draft
  • They read the draft critically
  • They revise
  • They proofread for errors.

• Time should not be a constraint, and revision should not be a punishment, but a built-in part of the writing process.

• Plan the curriculum to include enough time for students to explore a topic thoroughly