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Teaching writing: Issues from a British perspective

Clare Furneaux

The University of Reading, UKOficinas de Escrita no Ensino de Línguas,

Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal 29 October 2004

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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 English writing? (vs writing in the learners’ mother tongue – cross-cultural issues)?

4. to teach composing (i.e. how to write)?

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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

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Focus on process

• purpose + audience + the writer’s process.• A process model (White & Arndt 1991):

drafting

structuring re-viewing focusing

generating ideas evaluating

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Focus on the reader

• English for Academic Purposes: content & audience

• The genre approach: rhetorical structure

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Teaching mother tongue English

The National Curriculum (revised 2000)

Attempting to standardise education and to address…

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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?)

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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

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Secondary School

Framework for teaching EnglishLiteracy across the CurriculumWord, 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

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English as a foreign/second/additional

language

Contexts:

• Language schools

• Schools

• Colleges

• Universities

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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

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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

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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.

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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/

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References

Tribble, C. 1996 Writing. Oxford: OUP.

White, R. & Arndt, V. 1991. Process Writing London: Longman