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8/13/2019 Moon Reading

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Writing in the Young Learner (YL) classroom: a Neglected Skill?

Defining TermsWriting is an integral part of literacy development and, in some ways; it may seemartificial to separate out reading from writing. However, writing is a complex skill inits own right and so focusing on it, allows us to consider it in more depth. The term writing is , of course, amiguous as it can refer to oth the process or act of writingand the product e.g. Did you do any writing at school today ?

Writing a neglected skill?When we talk aout the use of writing in a classroom, it is worth clarifying whichpurpose it is eing used for as there are many in a school setting e.g. to assessunderstanding, to practise grammar and vocaulary, to control or settle children etc.! am particularly interested in writing as a form of communication and feel that thisfunction of writing is often neglected in classrooms. There may e good reasons forthis ut ! want to argue that if we neglect communicative writing, we are missing agreat opportunity for language development.

"ome people refer to writing as the #inderella among the $ macro skills, reflectingthe fact that it often does not figure very prominently in classrooms. %ichael &inceexpressed one fairly common view of writing when he wrote recently '())$* $+ thatnoody seems to like writing. earners say it is difficult and oring, or that theymake too many mistakes or that they simply dont know what to write.

"o what are the reasons for the negative perceptions of writing- "ome of the mainreasons may e as follows*. Writing is a complex skill to ac/uire, even for speakers and is not 0ust pickedup naturally like speaking. 1s &ygotsky pointed out, writing is a second order skill.

Written language represents spoken words which stand for things or o0ects in theenvironment. While initially childrens first attempts at writing may e encoding ofwhat they say, eventually they will need to e ale to move directly from meaning ormessage to written form. Writing is much more than speech written down.(. 2ounger children may not have fully mastered the physical control needed to putmarks on paper which makes writing a very tedious and laorious activity, wheneven transcriing one sentence may take them a very long time.3. Writing tends to take time to develop and so progress is slow, particularly in 4contexts. #hildren may make numerous mistakes which can dishearten teachersand pupils, particularly where there is a heavy emphasis on accuracy.$. Where the curriculum is heavily influenced y end of primary school exams, thetypes of writing can e very formal and unimaginative with little concern for tasks

and topics which interest children and give them real or imaginative reasons for ting5. %any primary school6age children in oth 4oreign anguage '4+ and "econdanguage '"+ contexts have no real reasons for writing in 7nglish.

Ke !uestions

!s writing a neglected skill-

What are the perceptions aout writing in 7nglish in your context- !s it

negatively perceived-

What are your learners attitudes to writing in the ( -

"ationale for #ncluding Writing in the YL curriculum

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1n important reason for including writing in the 2 curriculum is that it is a powerfulway of developing childrens language. 4irstly, communicative writing enaleschildren to experiment with and test out hypotheses aout their language which theycan then receive feedack on e.g. in one diary entry, a child referring to throatache 'proaly meaning sore throat+. "econdly, as 8atherine 9erera ':$+ pointsout, writing for a particular purpose creates needs for particular types of lexis andsyntax, particular ways of organi


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for immediate school success as examinations are usually conducted through penand paper tests which include the aility to e ale to write various curriculumgenres e.g reports, procedures, instructions etc. Writing skills may also e neededfor future 0os in such countries where 7nglish plays a ma0or role in society. Thereare, of course, many other contexts etween these two extremes e.g. some form oflimited #! type teaching where writing may play a more important role than in atype 74 classroom.

?ther variales which are significant for writing and help to create complexity in theoverall picture include whether childrens uses a roman script, whether thechildrens is relatively close to 7nglish e.g. 4rench, "panish , whether childrens has a different script from 7nglish e.g. Hindi, 1raic, #hinese, whether childrenare ecoming literate in the and 7nglish simultaneously or whether children arealready literate in their or a national language' which may e different from their+.

Ke !uestions

How does your teaching context affect the way writing is perceived and

taught-

How much writing is done and of what type-

1re children in your teaching context learning to write in more than one

script simultaneously - How does this influence their attempts to learn towrite in 7nglish- @oes it delay their progress- How does it affect the way-you teach -

What de'elos in childrens *riting?!n considering how childrens writing develops in the 4A(, it is important to reflectthe multi6dimensional nature of writing. 1 written text, at one and the same time,

represents a linguistic product, produced for a particular purpose and audiencewithin a particular social context, which has involved a numer of processes in itscreation. "o there is a need to consider development along a numer of differentproducts and process dimensions. @evelopment involves change. !t is not asmooth linear process ut is messy and characteri


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suggested y Centry ':+ for children in which early strategies includethe use of letter names, semi phonetic or phonetic strategies where childrenreali


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across more than one draft. 2ounger children had prolems retaining storyplans when asked to produce another draft ' %oon ()))a+

Bevising* children gradually extend the range of things they , if they do anyrevision limit it to cosmetic changes and do not revise spontaneously; theyneed to ecome aware of other aspects of text to consider when revisinge.g. ideas, organi


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the alphaetic system and related syntax, this can also create challenges aslearners may over6generaliereiter and"cardamalia :5+. This can seem overwhelming if we think of the task for children

as it re/uires the aility to use a large numer of interdependent skills, for example,the physical production of text i.e. handwriting which also involves spelling,punctuation, the need to find ideas relevant to purpose and then shape them into apiece of discourse which is appropriate to its reader, using appropriate and accuratelanguage and the need to manage the process of producing the piece of discourse.?f course, children do not necessarily attend to all these things and they find waysof coping y simply ignoring what they cant manage. >ereiter and "cardamalia':5+ who have done extensive research on childrens development in writingsuggest that the main prolems which children face are as follows*

How to keep goingWhen speaking, children have a face to face audience and human interest to

sustain and motivate them to talk. They are involved in taking turns and know thatwhen their turn comes they have to say something and they are prompted andsupported y adults when they get stuck. However in writing, these external andhuman prompts are taken away and children often find it difficult to sustain writing.

Access to Memory- What to write about#onversation provides many prompts to memory ut in writing such prompts areasent and children often find it very difficult to know what to write aout or to eale to get access to their memory to retrieve ideas. The use of rainstorming andother devices e.g. pictures can e helpful in enaling children to access theirmemory store and stimulating ideas.

Access to Discourse/ Genre tructure7xperienced writers typically draw on their underlying knowledge of genre structurewhen writing e.g. knowledge of how a formal letter or report is structured and oftendo so explicitly in planning and organi


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say. >y early adolescence, students are ale to create a plan for a text ut theytend to e entirely focused on what to say rather than on how to convince or createsome effect in their reader. 2ounger children are ale to do some simple planningut need assistance.

"e#ision=nassisted children tend to limit revision to surface changes and do not tend tothink aout larger prolems related to the reader6related concerns or organiereiter and "cardamalia:E+.

The first two prolems aove apply to most children writing in an ( ut the lastthree are proaly more applicale to 7" than 4 children as the former willdevelop their writing to a much higher level of proficiency. 1n additional prolem forall second language children is access to language. Whereas most children candraw on a wide repertoire of linguistic structures and lexis y the time they are E or, a child writing in hisAher ( will have a much narrower range to exploit and it maye far less automatic therefore re/uiring more cognitive effort to retrieve. "omepeople may argue that children need a threshold level of competence in the (efore they are encouraged to create written text.

Ke !uestions 1re the prolems mentioned aove ones which you have noticed in your

own teaching context-

What other challengesA prolems do your learners face in writing in 7nglish-

1re there differences etween 4 and " teaching contexts in terms of the

type of prolems learners face-

@o you agree that children need a asic threshold of 7nglish competence

efore they are asked to compose simple written texts-

1roaches to Teaching Writing in the T/YL classroom1pproaches to teaching ( writing tend to e influenced y developments in utchanges are slow to happen. %ore traditional approaches to teaching writing tend to

e concerned with the end product or form and with grammatical correctness. Thereare many classrooms around the world where a focus on product is still stronglyevident. However in recent years, more communicative approaches have had someinfluence on the type of writing tasks teachers use, leading to the use of moreinteresting and purposeful tasks e.g. writing a description of someone in your classso that others can guess.

!n the last few decades, there has also een interest in process 6orientedapproaches to teaching writing used with young learners through the work ofpeople like @onald Craves in the "tates and the Gational Writing 9ro0ect in the =.8.!n general, process ased approaches appear to e characteri


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concern a writer e.g. the ideas and their organihutanese 7" learners 'dyad+ 2ear ( 66: year old+

it can e viewed in two ways* it can e seen as an imperfect product containingmany errors or it can e viewed as a window onto the childs writing development,full of clues as to what the child already knows aout writing and can do, and aoutwhat he Ashe still needs to learn. 4or example, the child aove knows how storiesegin and she seems to know that stories are written in the past tense. "ometimesthe text may need to e viewed in the first way when there is a need to assess orevaluate the childs work ut it would e unfortunate if a childs work was alwaysviewed in this way.

How do we respond to childrens writing and what do we do when presented with atext like the one aove- ! prefer to use this roader term respond which includesthe idea of marking or correction ut indicates that there are many ways of

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approaching a childs writing. The way we respond depends on our eliefs aoutwriting and our purpose which may e to praise or value a childs efforts, to help achild to revise hisAher work, to show interest in hisAher ideas, to identify strengthsand weaknesses or to assess.

Ke 2uestions3 issues

What are the different ways you respond to childrens writing in your

context-

1re you re/uired to assess childrens writing formally in your context- !f yes,

how do you assess writing-

When assessing or evaluating childrens work, what aspects of writing do

you think should e focused on -

@oes marking or correcting childrens work help their writing to improve- !n

what ways-

How does the way you respond affect childrens attitudes and motivation-

Some final thoughts

Writing can e a powerful way of assisting childrens T72 development if it isappropriately staged and supported. 1ll T72 children are capale of producingsome form of simple text, even if it is 0ust a caption or lael for a picture or artefactand this achievement can e very motivating for children. However, childrenswriting develops gradually so it is important for us to take a long term view and notto e disheartened y what can seem slow progress at times. We can assist thepace of development y providing sufficient opportunities for writing, developingchildrens awareness of different aspects of writing and providing appropriatelytailored support.

"eferences>ereiter, #. D "cardamalia,%. :E The0sychology o ritten 2omposition.

Hillsdale* G.K.* awrence 7rlaum 1ssociates>ereiter, # D "cardamalia, % :5 #hildrens @ifficulties in learning to compose in

C. Wells, D K Gicholls ' 7ds+#a


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"kehan, 9. :: 12ogniti"e pproach to 3anguage +eaching* ?xford* ?xford=niversity 9ress

"wain, % ::5 Three functions of ?utput in second language learning !n #ook, CD "eidlhofer, > '7ds + 0rinciple and 0ractice in pplied 3inguistics. ?xford*?xford =niversity 9ress

&ince, %. ())$ Writing Bevalued. !n nglish +eaching 0roessional. !ssue ())$

,ther "ele'ant "eferences"mith, K D 7lley, W :: *ow 2hildren 3earn to rite* ondon* 9aul #hapman' useful review of various approaches to writing in +"amway, 8 @. ::3. J This is hard , isnJt it - J #hildren 7valuating Writing J +3

:uarterly &ol (EA( *(336(5"engupta, ". '::+. 4rom Text Bevision to Text !mprovement* 1 "tory of

"econdary "chool #omposition.

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