Out of a Writing
Conference: Speaking – Writing Connection
Utami Widiati
Sri Widayati
In our TEFL situation, it is simply
in the classroom that we expect our students to get the language exposure as
much as possible since the language is not used outside the classroom. Therefore,
every opportunity in the teaching learning process should be geared towards the
students’ using the target language. This paper highlights how oral
communication skills can be encouraged even in a writing class. With a
paradigmatic change in the teaching of writing, teachers do not value only ‘the
product’ but also ‘the process’. When translated into
the classroom, one of the features of this new paradigm, the writing process approach,
is ‘the conference’ which occurs between teacher and students as well as
between students. As Mol (1992) states, writing conference provides students
with immediate, meaningful responses to their writing, developing students’
ability to reflect upon their own writing and the writing of others in a
critical and constructive way. Looking back at our own experience in teaching
writing, the conference does not only scaffold the students in the process of
meaning-making but also cerates an atmosphere where they are actively engaged
in a ‘more’ focused talk. This is of paramount importance since our students
tend to speak in their native language even in the classroom.
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Widiati, U., & Widayati, S. (1997). Out of a writing
conference: Speaking – Writing Connection. TEFLIN Journal, 8(1),
68-78.
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