Developing the Writing skill in EFL classes product

Developing the Writing skill in EFL classes: product & process

Introduction In order to be able to select and use appropriate procedures & materials, as well assess their learners’ needs and progress, teachers need to be clear regarding the desirable outcomes of a writing programme and the processes involved in good writing.

Anticipated problems when developing the writing skill & possible solutions:

1 - Problems we expect to face when teaching writing: Writing is a complex process and can lead to the learners' frustration. Ø Students may react negatively to rewriting the same material during a process writing session. Ø concerns about grammar & vocabulary can often get in the way of the natural flow of students' writing. Ø Students cannot express themselves clearly and correctly.

Ø Students make different types of errors: 1 - Lexical and semantic errors: The misuse of words & word collocation. 2 - Discourse errors: - Lack of unity. - Coherence & cohesive devices. - Grammatical errors. - Spelling & Punctuation mistakes.

2 - Why should teachers be interested in a process to writing? Ø Focusing on language errors improves neither grammatical accuracy nor writing fluency. Ø Feedback is more useful between drafts, not when it is done at the end of the task. Ø The teacher needs to move away from being a marker to a reader; responding to the students' writing more than the form.

1 - Students should be encouraged to think about the audience and what the readers need to know. 2 - Students need to realize that what they put down on paper can be changed: Things can be deleted, added, reconstructed, organized etc.

3 - The different stages in a process approach to writing. a- Pre-writing: 1. Stimulate the students creativity. 2. Get them to think about how to approach a writing topic. 3. In this stage, the most important thing is the flow of ideas.

b- Drafting: Focusing ideas: 1 - During this stage, students write without much attention to the accuracy of their work.

c- Editing: Structuring and evaluating: 1. At this level, the writing is adapted. 2. Students should focus more on form and on producing a finished piece of work.

4 - Classroom activities: a- Pre-writing: üBrainstorming ü planning ü generating ideas ü questioning ü discussion ü& Debate.

b- Drafting: 1 - Students write quickly on a topic for five or ten minutes without worrying about correct language or punctuation. 2 - Working in groups, sharing ideas. 3 - Exchanging views: Different students choose different points of view and think about and discuss them.

c- Editing: 1 - Ordering: organizing the notes written. What should come first? and why? 2 - Self –editing: A good writer must learn how to evaluate his own language to improve through checking his own text, looking for errors.

3 - Peer editing & proof reading: - The texts are exchanged / interchanged and the evaluation is done by other students. - The students are some times asked to reduce the texts & to edit them concentrating on the most important information.

6 - Useful tips on how to carry out a writing lesson successfully. 1. Bring some energy and excitement to the process of writing in the classroom. 2. Create a writing environment that is authentic and purposeful. 3. Resort to group work to help decrease the students' fear and the complexity of writing tasks.

4 - Make your tasks lively and enjoyable and make the atmosphere of the class less intimidating by allowing students to work together and hence to assist each other. 5 - Spare no pains making positive comments to help build students' confidence & create a good feeling for the next writing class.

6 - Implement in your students the idea that their writing is addressed to a person, for a reason and with an expected response. 7 - Provide a real audience for your students by creating class magazines or by swapping letters with other classes. 8 - Make your students know that, as their teacher and audience, you are interested in their ideas.

9 - Train your students on the techniques of writing: listing, selecting and organizing. 10 - Help develop your students grammar, syntax, punctuation by analyzing stylistic features of good reading texts. 11 - Insist on responding to the content and how far the students have achieved their purpose for writing.

The End Thank you