Writing for writing

Writing for Writing

The Objective:

·         To help students to become better writers.

·         To learn how to write in various genres by using different registers.

The Characteristics:

·         General language improvement may occur, but it is not necessarily its main purpose.

·         It is mostly quite separate from the teaching of grammatical or lexical accuracy, eventhough both may improve as a result of writing for writing.

·         It is still important to help students with handwriting, orthography and punctuation.

·         It is about helping students to communicate the real messages in an appropriate manner. 

The important thing in writing for writing:

·         Language is put at the service of a skill and a specific task, and where features such as layout and language choice including issues of register are focused on to help students write better in a particular genre or genres.

Writing purposes: 

·         Make sure our students have some writing aim.

·         The most effective learning of writing skills is the students are writing real messages for real audiences, or at least when they are performing tasks which they are likely to have to do in their out of class life.

·         The choice of writing tasks will depend on why students are studying English

There are three main categories of learning

·         English as a Second language (ESL):

It is used to describe students who are living in the target language community and who need English to function in that community on a day to day basis.

For example : recent immigrants and refugees will have specific writing needs such as the ability to fill in a range of forms, or write particular kinds of letters.

·         English for Specific Purposes (ESP):

It is for many students study English for a particular or specific purpose. The choice of topics and tasks for such students should not only develop their general language competence but also be relevant to their reason for study.

For example: people who are going to work as nurses in Britain or USA, will study medical English.

·         English as a Foreign Language (EFL):

It is generally taken to apply to students who are studying general English at schools and institutes in their own country or as transitorys visitor in a target language country.

The best thing we can do is to concentrate on a repertoire of writing tasks:

a.    Real purpose;

·         We can predict our students will probably need to perform at some stage.

·         The letters fall near “real purpose” end of our cline formal and semi formal letters of the same type.

b.   Invented purpose;

·         Relevant to students’ future need.

·         A popular activity is write letters to imaginary magazine problems pages in order to develop students’ genre analysing habits.

Exam writing:

Still have a writing component designed to discover the candidates’s integrative language abilities.

Integrative language abilities:

The ability to write texts displaying correct grammar, appropriate lexis,and coherent organization.

The differentiate between integrative test items and discrete test items;

·         Integrative test items display all these skills.

·         Discrete test items for only one thing, for example grammar point.

Creative writing is one area where the imagination has a chance to run free.

Creative writing tasks :

·         are nearer the invented purpose end of our purpose cline.

·         can still be very motivating since they provide opportunities for students to display their work.

·         The writing products of students can be pinned up on notice board, collected in class folders or magazines, put up as a page on a class site on a school intranet or on the World Wide Web.