Teaching writing: Issues from a British perspective

1. Teaching writing: Issues from a British perspective Clare Furneaux The University of Reading, UK Oficinas de Escrita no Ensino de Línguas, Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal 29 October 2004

2. Why teach writing? 1.   to use writing for teaching English? (the language: its grammar and vocabulary)? 2.   to teach English for writing? (vs English for speaking – registers and appropriacy)? 3.   to teach Englishwriting? (vs writing in the learners’ mother tongue – cross-cultural issues)? 4. to teach composing (i.e. how to write)?

3. A history of FL writing teaching A focus on product: • Grammar translation method: accuracy • Controlled-to-free: habit formation • Paragraph pattern approach: organisation • Grammar – Syntax- Organisation: organisation + grammar • Communicative approach: purpose + audience

4. Focus on process • purpose + audience + the writer’s process. • A process model (White & Arndt 1991): drafting structuring re-viewing focusing generating ideas evaluating

5. Focus on the reader • English for Academic Purposes: content & audience • The genre approach: rhetorical structure

6. Teaching mother tongue English The National Curriculum (revised 2000) Attempting to standardise education and to address…

7. Popular concerns Literacy skills of school leavers: • Accuracy (inflnc of txtng? too much emphasis on communication alone?) • Style (e-mail/chat appearing in other writing contexts) • Poor readers of print (prevalence of hypertext in on-screen reading?)

8. Primary School The National Literacy Framework: word, sentence, text strands for each year group The daily Literacy Hour: • 15 mins whole class shared text work • 15 mins whole class focused word work • 20 mins group & independent work • 10 mins whole class review/reflection

9. Secondary School Framework for teaching English Literacy across the Curriculum Word, sentence, text levels defined by year Text level – writing: Year 7 (age 11): • Plan, draft and present • Write to imagine, explore, entertain • Write to inform, explain, describe • Write to persuade, argue, advise • Write to analyse, review, comment

10. English as a foreign/second/additional language Contexts: • Language schools • Schools • Colleges • Universities

11. What writers need to know • content knowledge: of subject area concepts • context knowledge: of the social context in which the text will be read, including the reader’s expectations... • language system knowledge • writing process knowledge Tribble 1996

12. University-level issues • Native speakers need help with academic writing & study skills too. • Critical thinking skills need to be taught. • Plagiarism – from books, articles, websites, other students. Intended and unintended

13. Writing teachers need to remember Students need help: • with language • with composing • to see writing as discourse with a reader • to read texts as apprentice writers • to become evaluators of their own writing • to become independent writers.

14. Websites • Department for Education and Skills (DFES) 1997-2004 National Literacy Strategy (online) Available from: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/literacy • Department for Education and Skills (DFES) The National Languages Strategy http://www.dfes.gov.uk/languages/DSP_nationallanguages_activity.cfm • National Association for the Teaching of English http://www.nate.org.uk/ • National Centre for Languages http://www.cilt.org.uk/

15. References Tribble, C. 1996 Writing. Oxford: OUP. White, R. & Arndt, V. 1991. Process Writing London: Longman