Second Language Teaching and Learning

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Second Language Teaching and Learning

• Ling 316
• Lecture 4Teaching Writing

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Approaches to teaching writing

• Product approach
• concerned with end product
• focus on readability, so concerned with content,
  text structure, grammar, vocabulary, spelling etc
• Process approach
• concerned with the means by which a text is
  created
• focus on drafting and editing process
• Social interaction approach
• writing as interaction between writer and reader
• explains composing decisions in terms of writers
  projection of the understandings, interests and
  needs of readers

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Product approaches

• Genre approach Halliday (1994), Martin (1992)
• A genre is a set of texts which share the same
  social purpose and structure

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Major genre

• Major genres encountered in schooling
• narratives
• recounts
• reports
• explanations
• procedures
• arguments
• debates
• descriptions

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The genre approach

• What are the major genre encountered in an
  office?
• List them

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Major genre recount

• Social Purpose Recounts tell what happened

Text Structure Orientation Record of events Reorientation Last night we went to a restaurant with my family. It was my dads birthday. We ate a pizza and salad then ate some ice cream with chocolate sauce. After dinner at the restaurant we went home. Language Features Use of action verbs, eg went, ate Use of nouns to name people, places, things, eg pizza, restaurant Use of past tense, eg was, went Use of conjunctions eg and, then Use of an adverbial phrase, eg at the restaurant
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Major genre narrative

• Social purpose Narratives construct a pattern
  of events with a problematic and/or unexpected
  outcome that entertains and instructs us.

Text Structure Orientation Complication Resolution Once there was a little boy who was going for a walk along a bush track near a creek. He stopped by a rock to watch some tadpoles in the creek. As he leant over he fell in with a splash. Luckily his older sister had followed him. She heard the splash and ran to the edge and was able to rescue him. Language Features Use of particular nouns to refer to or describe people and things Use of action verbs, eg stopped, fell Use of adverbial phrases to indicate place, eg by a rock, to the edge
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Major genre reports

• Social Purpose Information reports present
  information about an entire class of things, eg
  mammals, the planets, rocks, plants, computers,
  countries transport, and so on.

Text Structure General statement identifies and classifies the subject of the information report Description behaviour appearance, Cheetahs Cheetahs are big cats. They run fast. They have sharp teeth. They have black spots. They have furry skin. Language Features Use of timeless present tense Use of adjectives to describe, eg sharp, black Use of statements to give information Use of action verb, eg run Use of relating verbs to link parts of body to cheetahs, eg They have sharp teeth.
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The teaching learning cycle
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The teaching/learning cycle Building the context

• Purpose
• introduce authentic example of text type
• introduce cultural context in which text-type is
  used
• introduce social purpose of text type
• explore register by
• building knowledge of topic of text
• understand roles and relationships of people
  using text
• understand channel of communication

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The teaching/learning cycle Building the context

• Activities
• Activities to reveal
• what the text is about
• what students already know about it
• Examples
• present context through pictures, A-V materials,
  excursions, etc
• brainstorm vocabulary from images, previous
  knowledge etc
• compare practices in different cultures
• predict content
• quiz
• Activities to establish
• who wrote the text, for whom, purpose for writing
• Examples
• discussions
• questionnaires
• Activities to explore mode spoken or written
• Examples

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The teaching/learning cycle Modelling and
deconstructing the text

• Purpose
• To investigate text structure and language
  features of this text type
• To compare the model with other examples of the
  same text-type

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The teaching/learning cycle Modelling and
deconstructing the text

• Activities
• Identifying text structure
• sequencing jumbled stages
• labelling stages
• sorting sets of texts into those which are the
  same text-type and those which are not
• comparing model with an example missing a stage
• Exploring text presentation
• identifying function of text features (eg logo,
  headings, bold letters, position etc)
• indicate position of blocks of text
• Activities focused on cohesive devices
  vocabulary networks, cloze, conjunction,
  reference. topic sentences
• Semantic maps
• Presentation and practice activities related to
  grammatical features of the text
• Activities involving pronunciation, spelling,
  decoding

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The teaching/learning cycle Joint construction
of the text

• Purpose
• Students begin to construct examples of the
  text-type with support
• Students develop ability to construct examples
  independently
• Teacher gradually reduces contribution to text
  construction

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The teaching/learning cycle Joint construction
of the text

• Activities
• Whole class construction of text through
  discussion, scribing, editing
• skeleton texts
• jigsaw and information gap activities to
  construct text
• small group construction of texts
• dictogloss
• self-assessment and peer assessment

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The teaching/learning cycle Independent
construction of the text

• Purpose
• Students work independently to construct texts
• Student performance can be used in achievement
  assessment

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The teaching/learning cycle Independent
construction of the text

• Activities
• learners construct own texts
• learners draft, edit and proofread texts
• learners critically evaluate their own texts and
  those of others and suggest areas for further
  work
• learners discuss the ways in which they position
  their readers

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The teaching/learning cycle Linking to related
texts

• Purpose
• Allows students to explore how what they have
  learned relates to
• other texts in the same or similar contexts
• other types of text

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The teaching/learning cycle Linking to related
texts

• Activities
• comparing use of text-types in different fields
• researching other text-types used in same field
• exploring how language feature used in this
  text-type is used in other text-types
• change audience of text and ask learners to
  re-write text
• changing purpose of text and ask learners to
  re-write
• personal recount (spoken) to newspaper recount
• description of specific thing to report on a
  class of things

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Major genre explanation

• Social Purpose Explanations tell how and why
  things occur in scientific and technical fields

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Other genre discussions, arguments

• Discussions The social purpose of a discussion
  is to explore both sides of an issue
• Arguments The social purpose of an argument is
  to present a position on a topic

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The Process Approach

• Expressivist view of writing
• thinking precedes writing
• free expression of ideas encourages
  self-discovery and cognitive maturation
• the process of writing is as important as the
  product
• because writing is developmental, teachers should
  not present models, suggest responses or focus on
  grammar
• no clear criteria for judging good writing

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The writing process

• Cognitive view
• writers have goals
• they plan extensively
• planning involves defining a rhetorical problem
  placing it in context, exploring its parts
• arriving at solutions
• translating ideas on page
• all work can be reviewed, evaluated and revised
  even before writing
• planning, drafting, revising editing are
  recursive
• plans and texts are evaluated in a feedback loop

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Process approach

• L1 and L2 process-writing research
• General composing patterns seem similar in L1
  L2
• Skilled writers compose differently from novices
• Skilled writers use more effective planning and
  revision strategies
• L1 strategies may or may not be transferred to L2
  contexts
• L2 writers tend to plan less than L1 writers
• L2 writers have more difficulty setting goals and
  generating material
• L2 writers revise more but reflect less on their
  writing
• L2 writers are less fluent, and produce less
  accurate and effective texts
• Hyland, K. (2002) Teaching and Researching
  Writing. Harlow, England Longman p26

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Social Interaction Approaches

• Meaning is created in interaction between writer
  and reader
• Skilled writers create a mutual frame of
  reference, anticipate what their audience will
  understand and provide greater elaboration when
  they expect misunderstanding
• Recursive drafting is a result of writer
  monitoring text for potential trouble spots

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Social Interaction Approaches

• Intertextuality (Bakhtin)
• Discourses are always related to other discourses
• Text-users are linked to a network of prior texts
  , which provide a system of options for making
  meanings which can be used by other text users
• These conventions make some interpretation more
  likely and preclude others, which helps explain
  the rhetorical choices writers make

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Social Interaction Approaches

• Contrastive Rhetoric
• Languages use different
• patterns of organisation
• approaches to argument structuring
• approaches to incorporating material from other
  sources
• persoectives on reader orientation,
  attention-getting devices and estimates of reader
  knowledge
• use of cohesive devices
• etc

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Useful source

• The texts used in genre slides are taken from
  the NSW Primary English syllabus, which is on the
  web site of the NSW Board of Studies
• http//k6.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.
• au/english/
• Click on Student Work Samples