Teaching writing skills pdf

Teaching writing skills pdf

Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing Using a framework based on principles of teaching and learning, this guide for teachers and teacher trainees provides a wealth of suggestions for help-ing learners at all levels of proficiency develop their reading and writing skills and fluency. By following these suggestions, which are organized Writing remains one of the main ways you will be assessed in University, so it is an important skill to master. As a craft, writing is a complex task in itself, but it is made all the more challenging in University due to the specialised nature of academic discourse. Writing is My main goal in teaching writing is not to create brilliant writers, but to create successful students. It’s hard to be a successful student without being a skilled writer. Skilled writers have it easy. Skilled writers get more quality work done faster. When it comes to teaching writing, what I File Size: KB

Strategies For Teaching Writing Skills | Language Education | Teachers

IN LARGE ESL CLASSES BY SHOLA TIMOTHY BABATUNDE ABSTRACT Changing trends and shifting perspectives in the world continue to exert unmistakable influence on the language classroom.

Precisely, the renewed concern for the communicative tasks learners actually need language for continue to call for a progressive re-examination of matters relating to language teaching and learning. Ultimately, there is now a transformation of the language classroom from a dull, one-way traffic to an interactive and interesting enterprise. This paper takes an informed look at the 'USE' writing classroom where the teachers are called upon to cope with extra-large classes and at the same time ensure that the writing skills are effectively taught.

The paper thus proposes a teaching strategy that effectively and systematically takes learners through the stages involved in the teaching writing skills pdf and learning of writing. Thus, language teaching is exposing learners to language use by inculcating in them the ability to use language effectively to meaningfully express their feelings and understanding of the world, teaching writing skills pdf.

This consideration for learners' use of language informs the emphasis on the teaching of communicative competence. Communicative competence is thus being taught to enhance communicative performance. In spite of the intractable issue of defining what communicative competence is, there appears to be a concensus that communicative language teaching involves inculcating such relevant skills in the learner that will make him use language effectively in a.

meaningful, communicative situation. Rea puts it as the ability to communicate with ease and teaching writing skills pdf in specified sociolinguistic settings. Thus, performance appears to be the aim or goal of the Use of Language teaching. In this regard, the use of English USE teaching will not just be teaching language as a vehicle for the expression of functional meaning, but also as a vehicle for the performance of academic, occupational and social functions.

Following this perception, teaching writing skills pdf, one realises that the teaching of language skills should not just be a dull, one-way traffic in which the teacher demonstrates his knowledge of language and his rhetorical skills; rather it should be an interactive and pragmatic process, which will give students the opportunity to use English language in the classroom.

Students should be actively involved in the teaching process, teaching writing skills pdf. THE PROBLEM The ideal situation for an effective teaching of the Use of English in the higher Institutions in Nigeria is to have classes of between 20 - 30 students, teaching writing skills pdf, but this is a far cry from reality.

In most of the use of English classes in the institutions in Nigeria, we have between 50 to students. How does a teacher then handle such a class to achieve the effective teaching of writing skills?

Researchers in the area of large language classes have outlined some of the following suggestions e. Coleman,Nolasco and Arthur, Encouraging group cohesion by providing opportunities for frequent interaction, etc. Insightful as the suggestions are, the present writer still feels that specific suggestions could be given for the teaching of writing skills. As such the problem this paper intends to look into is how maximum efficiency and effectiveness could be achieved in the teaching of writing skills to teaching writing skills pdf groups.

Writing, according to Russo is "an interactive experience. Through writing we verbalise our apprehension of reality and the place of man in teaching writing skills pdf scheme of things. The writer is thus playing a mediating role between objective reality and the rest of mankind that make up the audience. Through what has been written, the audience also has an interesting insight into the personality of the writer and his perception of the world.

Writing is seen as a process, and studies in the area have revealed that four main activities are involved in the writing process. Teaching writing skills pdf instance, teaching writing skills pdf, studies carried out by Adegbija among others, reveal the following categories of activities a. A good writing course should take the students through all these processes systematically, and this has a lot of implications for the teacher. Adegbija emphasises the fact that the interesting activities earned out in the classroom which make learners to be personally involved, will not only stimulate the interest of students in writing, but will also arouse their awareness into the what and how of communicating in writing, especially if 'the classroom activities are made relevant to the specific disciplines of the students.

Hedge's Resource Book actually corroborates this. Hedge 5 proposes the following as the basic requirements of effective writing: a high degree of organization in the development of ideas and information; a high degree of accuracy so that there is no ambiguity teaching writing skills pdf meaning: the use of complex grammatical devices for focus and emphasis: a careful choice of vocabulary, grammatical patterns, teaching writing skills pdf, and sentence structures to create a style which is appropriate to the subject matter and the eventual readers.

As such, to effectively ascertain students' familiarity with the processes involved in writing and the basic requirements of a good written work, the teacher must personally supervise and assess the exercises given to the students during the use teaching writing skills pdf English lessons.

It is not enough to give group exercises and assignments that will be assessed together in the classrooms because, first, much lime is wasted on these assessments in the classrooms; and secondly, class.

assessment of essays makes the teacher liable to over-looking some important developmental errors of the learners, teaching writing skills pdf. This thus underscores the need for the teacher to personally assess the learners' works, so that he may have a direct contact with the essays and personaly assess and evaluate learner's progress. The organisation of the course content should reflect a proper integration of the link between approach and method.

Syllabus design has been seen as the level of analysis at which the following are crucial considerations: The method s to be used in line with the perceived objectives of the course; The informed flexibility of the analysed needs of learners; Insights provided by linguistics, especially as regards the content of language; The duration of the course Salient pedagogical considerations like classroom activities: teacher-learner roles and interactions: instructional materials, etc. I should think, however.

that course delivery should be made an interactive and integrative process in which learners actually practise the writing skills in the classroom. In addition, whatever emphasis would be placed on each category of the activities in the classroom depends on the perceived needs of the specific learners involved.

It is also pertinent for us to emphasize here that an English writing course should be seen as a continuous progression. This should be borne in mind when scheming and grading the course content. This perception should also inform course delivery by making it a systematic exposure of learners to the various stages of the writing process. The practical considerations in this paper are predicated upon this view of the writing course: that is.

writing is a continuous process requiring a practical and systematic teaching. The foregoing practical suggestions are a product of years of teaching writing skills to 'USE' students at the University of llorin. Again, a writing course should essentially be a practical one in which learners are progressively made to perform writing skills.

It will be impossible for. a teacher who has a minimum of eight to ten groups each containing about 60 to students, to give a writing assignment or test each week and return same after grading before the next class so that the errors could be discussed in the classroom.

We shall hence illustrate our method using a typical writing course for Economics and Business Administration students. The teaching aid to be used is the table in the Appendix. STEPS Sensitize learners to the writing needs of Economics and Business Administration. Students could be asked to discuss their writing tasks. The motivation for this approach is that in tertiary institutions we teaching writing skills pdf dealing with more matured students who are likely to be positively motivated if they are made aware of what the expected expertise is in teaching and learning the writings course.

This can be effectively discussed during a one-hour lesson During the next lesson, the table in the Appendix could be given to the learners. They could be asked to discuss the content in groups of three to five, for about two minutes. Each group would then be asked to give the oral presentation of their discussions.

This should take about ten minutes depending on the size of the class. Next, teaching writing skills pdf groups can now be enlarged to contain between 5 and 8 members each, to allow for a broader perspective in teaching writing skills pdf the next task. After the students have been asked to do an unguided brainstorming, teaching writing skills pdf. a set of leading questions on the table could be made available to the class, teaching writing skills pdf.

For instance, on the table under consideration such hints as the following could be given; teaching writing skills pdf the types of information supplied by the table; evaluate the influence of colonialism on the economic products and trading relations; examine teaching writing skills pdf prospects of these countries in the near future; what aspects of the information contained in the table are not relevant in writing a good essay on the table?

This could go on for the rest of the time for that period; and at the end each of the groups will give a report of their discussion in the form of an outline. This report will be collected for assessment. This lesson has been devoted to collecting information for an essay to be written. At the beginning, information collection does not have to be orderly to.

give room for a free flow of ideas. The next lesson could then be devoted to organising our points according to relative importance and relevance. The previous classwork would have been assessed by now. It would then be given to the groups to work on. The class could be given a topic which is an appropriate choice from al! the suggested titles in the previous lesson. They would then write a good outline using the previous classwork as the source of information.

Two copies of this outline can be produced by each group The teacher would collect a copy, while the second copy remains with the group. The teacher could then call on any member of the group to give oral justification for the outline done by the group. Apart from encouraging interactive and integrated language teaching, this step will ensure that everybody participates actively in group works. During the next lesson, a different material could be given to the class to work on, teaching writing skills pdf.

to allow for diversification and avoid monotony. The processes above on information collection could be repeated, but this time it may be faster. After this stage, each student could be asked to write a paragraph, which is supposed to be part of the body of the essay teaching writing skills pdf any of the outlined points, teaching writing skills pdf.

This is to teach paragraph development. The paragraph should follow a prescribed length, say about 50 words. This would be collected and assesses by the teacher. The next lesson could be devoted to discussing some of the shortcomings discovered in the assessed works. During this discussion emphasis would be placed on the qualities of a good paragraph, e, teaching writing skills pdf. unity, coherence, completeness, emphasis etc.

After this practical teaching, another exercise similar to the pre-teaching test could be given to the students. It could equally be collected for assessment. The process above would be used for every stage of the teaching. For instance, in teaching the writing of introduction, an exercise could first of all be given. From here, a good introduction could be taught from the background of a bad introduction.

In this lesson, such salient aspects of introduction like statement of discourse and topic sentence could be taught.

At the end of the course, it would be discovered that so much has been done, and the learners would have been made involved in the practical teaching of writing skills, teaching writing skills pdf. The systematic exposure of learners to the various aspects of writing through practice does not rule out die need for writing a complete essay. Indeed, we are suggesting that towards the end of the course, teaching writing skills pdf, an exercise should be given to the learners which will help them write a continuous prose, in which they will further demonstrate their competence of the skills required for writing good essays-skills they are expected to have acquired in the process of course.

The goal of language teaching, that is, communicative competence, is achieved through constant class participation and practice.

How to teach writing skills in ESL - Teaching students self-assessment

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Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing Using a framework based on principles of teaching and learning, this guide for teachers and teacher trainees provides a wealth of suggestions for help-ing learners at all levels of proficiency develop their reading and writing skills and fluency. By following these suggestions, which are organized Among the four language skills, the English language learners (ELLs) find it difficult to acquire writing skills than the other three skills, i.e. listening, speaking and reading Writing remains one of the main ways you will be assessed in University, so it is an important skill to master. As a craft, writing is a complex task in itself, but it is made all the more challenging in University due to the specialised nature of academic discourse. Writing is File Size: KB