Stephen van Vlack

Sookmyung Women`s University

Graduate School of TESOL

Teaching Writing - Spring 2007

Answers for Scott (1996) Chapter 5: Teaching Foreign Language Writing (Week 6)

1. What are some of the main approaches to teaching L1 writing?

According to Scott (1996), there are six main approaches to L1 Writing

-The Process Approach

Uses stages in the process of how writers write. We will become increasingly familiar with this.

-The Prose Model Approach

Use an already written text as a model for their own writing.

-The Experiental Approach

Using personal experiences to write about different things.

-The Rhetorical Approach

Writing as a dialogue-like process within the writer, starting with questions for brainstorming and continuing throughout.

-The Epistemic Approach

Basically tries to get the writer to use the knowledge they have about the world, both general and specific to help them achieve grace and control in writing.

-The Linguistic System Approach

Emphasizes differences in written and spoken language claiming that formal academic writing involves learning a new linguistic system. Unlike speaking, writing must be learned and involves different processes than spoken language acquisition and use. This is good for us because it means that as second or foreign language writers we may have an advantage over native speakers. We are taught written forms from the very start and they have to learn just as much as we do about the forms and practices. In addition, the FL writer may have already figured some of this out in their L1.

Approaches to ESL Writing

-The Controlled-to-Free Approach

Moving from more focus on simple forms to less control.

-The Freewriting Approach

Students write a lot of different kinds of unanalysed writings in the hope that a high level of practice will get them to internalize good writing practices.

-The Pattern-Paragraph Approach

This gets students to copy texts and try to emulate the style and forms contained in different types of texts.

-The Grammar-Syntax-Organization Approach

Grammar and syntax are the main focus of this approach particularly in how they can lead to and affect cohesion and coherence.

-The Communicative Approach

Purpose (function) and audience are the main concern in this approach which tries to get students involved in doing more real-world writing tasks and functions.

-The Process Approach

See above and beyond! We already know a bit about this!

2. Which of these do you think are most applicable to foreign language writing?

            The main distinction that we can see between L1 and L2 writing is that the approaches to first language writing are all more or less focussed on the macro level while approaches to second language writing are for the most part focussed on the micro level. Based on this simple observation I think that only one of the above mentioned approaches really can be used to great effect in foreign language writing. This approach is the process approach, but we need to bear in mind that there are many different things that we can do within the process approach. Like any other approach it does not spell out exactly how and what be done and in which ways. The process approach provides a certain framework sand some ideas, but is also very flexible. It's certainly possible to integrate many other approaches or techniques into a basic process approach-framework. In addition, this flexibility allows, elements of the process approach to be used in the very beginning stages of teaching writing. Certainly things like brainstorming and ordering are important exercises that can be done with even the youngest of children. Hopefully in the next half of this course as we turn our attention to the process approach you will be able to see demonstrated how the process approach can not only be done with adult learners endeavouring to practice the rigors of composition but can also be adapted and modified as a basic framework for getting students of various levels to get used to working with some aspects of composition.

3. How can you summarize the arguments against the ACTFL proficiency guidelines?

            The main complaint that many ESL writing teachers have about the ACTFL guidelines is that they seem to pretend that there is no such thing as transfer. The ACTFL guidelines are set up as a continuously developing scale which, to a large extent, parallels the developmental stages of native speakers in relation to writing development. It starts from the very lowest level and all the levels are designed against that low starting point. There is no accounting for the preexistence of knowledge related to how writing might work. In the ACTFL guidelines there is a clear focus on forms in that it is assumed that a lack of knowledge of or control over forms will similarly affect and limit other areas of writing. In this view, it ignores the possibility that strategies and planning ands other skills that are so important to writing may actually appear where grammatical/vocabulary prowess does not. It is as if all second language writers did not have a written first language, the processes of which are not available to them. In this respect the ACTFL guidelines are both vacuous and wrong, particularly for writing.

4. What does a good writing task contain?

            Above all a good writing task needs to have a balance between the micro and macro levels of writing. Students cannot do both well at the same time due to limited processing ability. This balance can be best ensured through the different levels and types of specificity in the set up of the task. In this vein the construction of the writing prompt to initiate the task is of paramount importance. The prompt should activate the background knowledge of the student writers and make it clear what the function/purpose of the writing is. In doing so it should also be acknowledged that different tasks involving different genres are to be seen as being more or less difficult. All these things must be taken into consideration.

As we mentioned in class, if you are dealing with younger and/or lower level learners, then you might be able to create this balance between micro and macro not in one single task, but rather in a chain of tasks. A task chain takes a single end goal and instead of making a single task to get students to produce that goal we break the road from their current state of knowledge and proficiency to the end goal into several stages (tasks) where pick up necessary skills and knowledge for the next stage in the chain until they get the end goal. In this way you not only get your students to learn by doing but you can also effectively keep a balance between micro and macro in the chain.

5. How can we rate the difficulty of different writing tasks?

            In general we can assess the difficulty of a writing task by thinking about the following:

genre

topic

degree of formality required

purpose

length

            It is, however, important to realize that there are differences for all students in relation to what is difficult and what is not. This is based on the simple truism that all students have different experiences and different interests leading to different skills and motivations. Certainly the older the students are the greater their individual differences.

Questions for Kroll (1990) What does time buy? ESL student performance on home versus class compositions.

1. Why is time such an important factor in writing?

            Because the question of time actually exists as a viable variable in writing, which it does not in any other skill area it is very important. Based on the simple presence of time as a variable it becomes an important question. It is also a matter of classroom management. Writing takes time, highly valuable classroom time. For this reason it's extremely important for teachers to think about and to know how much time might be necessary for a writing task. As writing teachers we constantly have to think about time management and what should be done in the classroom and what could be done at home. We have mentioned inn class that in the classroom we want our students to engage in a lot of pair and group writing projects so they can interact, and this is an effective use of the students and the classroom atmosphere. But ultimately students will need to learn to write on their own and at home when no one is there to help them or watch them. This at home deal is also supported by the believe that writing, is in the end, a solitary endeavor. Thus, in creating lesson plans developed around writing teachers need to consider carefully what might be done in pair work or group work in relation to writing in the class and this any classwork can be used to help direct the students in their out of the class solitary writing. All this is to be fun out because of the time it takes to do writing practice.

2. What is Kroll`s major claim?

            She wants to answer the research question: Does giving students more time to do a writing assignment generate better results? She wants to see if there is any validity in the practice of simply having students do their writing at home instead of in the class, therefore saving valuable class time. Her hypothesis, based on her experience as a writing teacher is that time is not, in fact, a significant variable in writing success.

3. How is her experiment designed? Does this suit her needs?

Kroll's experiment has a fairly classic design in that she has created two different groups, a control group, who will do their writing assignments in class under specific time limits, and an experimental group, who will do their writing assignments and home with out specific time limits. In addition, their writing will also be assessed on both levels of macro and micro to determine if there are important differences between the two related to the time variable. She endeavors to make this study clearer by having each student do not one but four different pieces of writing and has set up a special kind of rubric for evaluating their writing which she has adapted from ones that were already created. Based on this we can conclude that the design of her study is fairly well controlled and does indeed suit her needs.

4. Do her findings support her claim? Why or why not?

Yes and no!

At first it appears that there might be some meaningful difference in quality between the at home compositions and the in class compositions, but the statistical analysis showed that there was no significant difference between the two. These findings have led Kroll to argue that there are potential differences between at home and in class writing. She surmises that the students who are doing their writing at home did not use their time effectively because they did not know what to do with the extra time. This is an important point because she purposely did not prepare the students for how to work at home alone. If she had given the students some sort of preparation training on what to do at home on their own then the results may very well have been different and she acknowledges this in the results section.

For us as teachers of writing this opens up a very important point. Writing is still based on knowing how to use a set of skills which are very important. Unlike speaking, writing is also a skill which must ultimately be done alone. As teachers, therefore, in writing more than any other skill area we need to try to make our students autonomous. They have to learn how to do these things for themselves and an important part of learning how to write is learning how to write quickly without wasting time. In short, students must develop effective strategies and strategies are learned through practice, not instruction alone.