TEACHING WRITING QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1.What kind of writing should students do? 2. Point out writing activities as controlled writing and free writing- Implication for teachers. 3. How would teachers correct student’s written work? 4. Suggest possible techniques in responding to students’ writing. What kind of writing should students do ?  According to Harmer (1995:80), the type of writing teachers get students to do will depend on their age, interests and level.  The writing tasks/activities include writing postcards, letters of various kinds, filling in forms such as job applications, writing narrative compositions, reports, playscripts, advertisement, or poems. What kind of writing should students do? (continued)  There is no limit to the kinds of text teachers can ask students to write. Teachers’ decision will be based on how much languages the students know, what their interests are and what teachers think will not only be useful for them but also motivate them as well.  Below is the kind of writing teachers use for elementary to intermediate level (Doff, 1995: 148) A. Writing activities as controlled writing (Doff, 1995: 150-152) 1. Gap-Filling 2. Re-ordering words 3. Substitution 4. Correcting the facts 5. Dictation B. Writing activities as free writing (Doff, 1995:154-155) 1. Paragraph writing 2. Letter writing 3. Essay-writing Writing activities as free writing (continued)  Problem for free writing: When facing a free writing such as writing a paragraph to describe their own town or village, many students would probably find it quite difficult and make many mistakes. If so they would find the task frustrating and probably not learn very much from it.  Students would probably approach the task in different way and produce a wide variety of different paragraphs. NOTE TO THE TEACHER Thus the only way to correct their work would be individually, book by book, this would be very time consuming for the teachers. Therefore, teachers should help students progress beyond very controlled writing to freer paragraph writing by guiding their writing:  Giving a short text as a model  Doing oral preparation for the writing Writing correction  Correction is worthless if students ignore the mistake and correction.  Teachers have to ensure that students understand the problem and then redraft the passage correctly. Basic procedure for correcting simple written work in class  The teacher writes correct answers on the board, or gets students to write them.  As the teacher gives the answers, students correct their own work.  Then the teacher moves around the class to supervise what they are doing; or students can exchange books and correct each other’s work. [...]... order”, etc…  THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER IN TEACHING WRITING  - - Motivator Teacher motivates students, creating the right conditions for them to generate their own ideas Teacher gets students involved in creative writing activity so that students find it easier to generate ideas THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER IN TEACHING WRITING (continued)  Resource - Teacher should provide information and language where necessary... advanced classed and even with lower level classes, it is important for the teacher to correct students’ work individually  Over correction can have a very demovating effect One way of avoiding the ‘over-correction problem is for teachers to tell their students that for a particular piece of work grammar they are only going to correct mistakes of spelling or grammar, etc This will make students concentrate... Resource - Teacher should provide information and language where necessary Teacher offers advice and suggestions in a constructive and tactful way THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER IN TEACHING WRITING (continued)  - Feedback provider Teacher should give feedback on students’ writing tasks with special care Teacher should respond positively and encouragingly to the content of students’ written work Teacher chooses... work Overcorrection should be avoided Techniques in responding to students’ writing 1 Written comments 2 Talking about the papers 3 Providing a checklist 4 Students’ responses to students’ writing 5 Self-editing Example of a checklist  Check carefully to see whether all the subjects agree with the verbs  Check carefully to see if the verbs are in correct tenses  Check carefully to see if you have all . 15 0-1 52) 1. Gap-Filling 2. Re-ordering words 3. Substitution 4. Correcting the facts 5. Dictation B. Writing activities as free writing (Doff, 1995:15 4-1 55). TEACHING WRITING  Motivator - Teacher motivates students, creating the right conditions for them to generate their own ideas. - Teacher gets students involved