Conferencing
Conference here refers to a private meeting between the teacher and each individual student. It is very important to talk face to face with students about their writing, pointing out their strength and weakness. For small classes, if possible, conferencing with individual student can be done once or twice during a semester and 5-10 minutes for a student. For a number of large classes a teacher teaches, there can be a class conference focusing on the main problems and features of good writings.
In commenting the students’ writing, teachers should keep in mind that teachers’ attitude can influence students’ confidence and motivation to write. So during the teacher-student conferencing, teachers need to encourage rather than criticize, be constructive rather than destructive and try their best to protect students’ self-esteem.
Even after the marks are given, teachers can still allow students to continue improving their writing. In other words, students can revise their writing again if they are not satisfied with the grade and a new grade can be given if better improvement is made within the time frame given to encourage individuals to be more self-directed in learning. 2) Process writing tasks No. Writing Task Writing Process Methodology You are going to write a composition entitled “The Pre-writing advantages Pair work stage and 1 Teacher disadvantage(brainstorminguide s of watching g ideas) TV”. Now you need to make notes of the things you’d like to discuss about. The following is a list of ideas about the advantages and disadvantagePre-writing s of watching stage 2 TV. Group work Decide (organizing on the ideas ideas) that your thinking are useful and remove any that you think are of little use.
Write draft/first a version of the Drafting/Composing composition Individual 3 stage based on the work (first version) ideas that you’ve decided to use. Revise your You reorganize 4 your work by shifting emphasis order or of changing the paragraphs. the work. can Revising stage ( second version) Individual work Peer correction
first version of Write the final version. need correct errors 5 grammar, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, and references.
From the above discussion, we can see that writing tasks can involve a lot of oral discussions. This is because writing and speaking are always related to each other because both are forms of language production, and in reality, much writing is done based on what has been discussed, for example, in group project work. And in teaching, we try to advocate integrated teaching of language skills.
12. 5 Motivating students to write
Is writing an interesting skill to develop?
The way to motivate students to write is a key point to the successful teaching of writing.
1)Make the topic of writing as close as possible to students’ life
Giving students a few topics so that they can choose what they want to write about can be a way to meet the needs and interests of different learners.
2) Leave students enough room for creativity and imagination Students like to use extraordinary ideas to write. 3) Prepare students well before writing Some pre-writing activities are necessary.
4) Encourage collaborative group writing as well as individual writing
Designing group writing activities once in a while can greatly motivate students to write. It can also provide an opportunity for different students to exercise different talents. In this kind of writing activity, they can help each other and learn from each other. 5) Provide opportunities for students to share their writings
You to any in Editing stage (final version) Individual work Peer correction
Teachers can organize class presentation or group presentation to allow students to share their writings. It can provide another opportunity for students to learn from each other. 6) Provide constructive and positive feedback
Giving feedback is integral part of teaching writing. Every student wants his/her writing to be read seriously by the teacher or their classmates.
The feedback should include at least three elements:1) positive comments on the good features of the piece of writing;2) areas for improvement; 3) your personal opinion on the issue the writer has discussed in his / her writing.
Feedback for each writing should be personal and specific so that it can help build up a trust between teachers and students. Students will feel more motivated to write if he /she realizes that the teacher takes his/her writing seriously and discusses with them in meaningful ways. 7) Treat students’ errors strategically
Teacher’s attitude towards errors plays a key role in motivating students to write. As making mistakes is an inevitable part of the learning process, teachers should encourage students to take risks to use new vocabulary and structures in their writing. If teachers often show negative attitude towards errors, students will not dare to take risks but use only very simple words and structures in order to guarantee accuracy. Eventually, they make no obvious progress in their writing skills. 8) Give students a sense of achievement from time to time.
Progress in writing is usually a slow process and it is not easily observable. And this can easily discourage many students. Therefore, enabling students to experience a sense of achievement from time to time is quite crucial in motivating students to continue writing practice.
Organizing a writing conference, displaying works in a writing exhibition in the classroom and publishing a class writing newsletter are all good ways to give students a sense of achievements. The limitation may be that we do not have enough space to exhibit all the writings of all the students. In this case, guiding students to create their own writing portfolio is a good way to encourage every student. Each portfolio can be a unique file of writing because each student can decide what to put in his/her portfolio and how to design it. A portfolio can demonstrate the progress made as one examines the whole writing process through first draft, second draft to the final product with peer editing comments and self reflection. 12.6 Using the internet to promote process writing Traditional way of writing
Research indicates, rather than handing in the ‘perfect’ final product, students are more willing to submit drafts one at a time to the teacher and revise their work after seeking comments or advice from the teacher (Warschauer,1995). In doing so, the traditional hand-in-and-return method will not suffice.
E-mail provides a perfect mechanism for students to submit drafts and for teachers to look them over at their convenience and send them back with comments--- once, twice or several times. New ideas are shared promptly and can be responded to quickly. Another advantage is that the teacher can easily store all the drafts of a document for later review and analysis of the revision process. All these help promote the application of the process approach to writing in ELT classroom. The students can send their work to each other to exchange and share ideas.
When writing through e-mails, students have a feeling of real-time writing. They feel that they are writing for real purposes of exchanging ideas.
Besides e-mails, Blogging and BBS are also very useful ways in teaching writing. The teacher can
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