THE WRITING PROCESS
Teaching writing is not easy, especially in a foreign language. Many EFL/ESL teacher simply do not get good writing from their students because certain steps are not followed towards writing - most teachers just ask them to write about a simple topic - e.g. "My life" - and end up with something like this:
My Life
by John Notmil
My life is nice. I get up, have breakfast and goto school. I come home and watch TV and then I have lunch and do my homework. At night, I go to bed. On the weekends I have fun.
Devastating, isn’t it? To avoid such blunders, we suggest the EFL teacher to follow a simple 6 - step program, which will in many ways better the students’writing.
STEP 1 - BRAINSTORMING
Divide the class in small groups and give
them a topic, such as "fun". Have them list as many words as they
can think of related to the topic. They should list all possibilities
that come to mind, even if they are not truly related.After they’ve finished,
have them share their results with other groups
Ex.: movies ------------------------ fun --------------------------- drinking
(*) As an option, the brainstorming grid can be done on the board with the class as a whole.
STEP 2. ORGANIZING THE IDEAS
Have the groups create sentences
based on their initial ideas. Give them some time for discussion . Tell
them to write at least three sentences about their topic.
When they’re done, have groups share their
ideas with the class as a whole.
STEP 3 - FREEWRITING
Once your students have discussed their ideas broadly, ask them to, individually, wite freely about the topic without worrying about grammar, punctuation or spelling, using as guide the notes that they took from the previous steps. Give them 10 to 20 minutes for that, depending on your availability of time.
STEP 4 - SHARING
Once they’ve finished their draft, tell them to once more get together in groups and share their writings by reading their compositions to each other. Each student should ask the reader at least one question and also give one suggestion about his composition.
STEP 5 - REWRITING
At this point, students should have organized and discussed their ideas, and might have clear ideas on what and how to write . Students then, individually, write their masterpiece with a clear idea, and not with a blank mind as most would if a kind of process hadn’t been used.
STEP 6 - PUBLISHING
Writers like to publish their work,
so once your students have handed in their papers and they have been
corrected, why not hang the papers on the wall and let them read
each others’ piece of work. I would suggest having a small "contest"
between them which would elect the best composition and that paper
would be given a small award, and copies could be made of it so that
everybody can take their literary winner home.
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