Context for writing: the use of visual materials

There are several writing activities that are picture or visual based, therefore is important to take them into consideration. Narration, dialogues, descriptions, directions, are example of written work that students may develop from a visual add. Teachers, therefore, ought to search for suitable pictures for the language proficiency that they are currently teaching. On the other hand, is very important to know the language needed to carry out the activity, for this teachers can use previous knowledge or give a whole new lecture about the topic, in both cases, learners should feel prepared for the task to come in order to be able to make it succesful. Of course there is also writing for fun involving pictures, just like picture linking, lost and found, desert island messages, cartoons, post cards, and many more.

Reflection:

Since everyone likes pictures, is important to consider these visual aids as a powerful tool, to creat writing tasks, it makes it more communicative, more realistic, and fun. The good thing about this is that we can use just one picture for multiple tasks, in different levels, and ages. I liked reading this since I had no idea, in what ways we could use picture sequences, picture descriptions, and all that. Please teachers use visual materials.

Developing skills

At intermediate level is important that students acknowledge their progress, for this teachers should adequate the writing program to their level, this means, not too easy and not way too difficult, but just about in somewhere in the middle. While choosing the activities that will be used int the writing program it should be taken in to account the variation, since is important to avoid boredom among students, give more importance to free expression activities with guidance, instead of the controling ones used with beginners. The activities that can be used with advanced levels can be the same that we use with begginers, but with a little twist, we will teach more advanced parts of the activity, such as, writing business letters, apologies, formal complaints, and within every writing we might teach something more and more difficult, such as, linking words, paragraph and sentence's structure. We must not forget, nonetheless, about the communicative activities which are, roleplaying and report writing, as well as the extensive writing, in other words enjoyable writing or 'writing just for fun' activities, such as graffiti, games, crosswords.

Reflection:

I think that for these student's in particular, as well as for advanced ones, is that we must study a bachelors, masters, any degree possible. Because we want to give them the right guidance to enter to the English spoken countries, with all their formal and nonformal way of writting. For this can only be acquire in school, we cannot expect them to know how to write, we must teach them word by word, sentence by sentence, and paragraph by paragraph. I know that if it wasn't for the Licenciatura I would not be able to teach this, because you as a teacher have to master all the knowledge before trying to guide someone through it. And, teachers, please !!, try to add some fun in all the activities that you do, so you and your students can enjoy the experience of good writing.

General Principles for teaching writing

When teaching writing teachers might choose among a variety of approaches. Fluency focus will be used if you want students to express what they want but in a free way, where it matters most how much and how fast you write. It can be teachers that consider more important to teach how to construct text, focusing on paragraph's structure, and not much on speed or quantity. And there's of course the approach that aims for purpose, meaning, this means we must teach students the communicative purpose of writing something. The teacher's role then will be to give students "realistic task" in order for them to understand it's importance and relevance in real life situations. Although teachers need to guide students throughout all the writing learning process, students should be given more flexibility and freedom when it comes to what, when and how they are going to write.

Reflection:

Of course, it's almost impossible follow just one focus, so why not used them all. Yeah use them all, but choose, or create the right activities for them. Remember to keep student's writing in an extensive level.

Learning to use the resources of the written language

While the copyright for this cartoon by Jerry King belongs to From Now On, readers may distribute and republish provided they reproduce the credit with a link to Jerry's Web site http://www.jerryking.com/ and to From Now On http://fno.org.

The most effective resource when it comes to writing is reading. It is not that a good reader will become good writer, but it will certainly help while developing meaning through writing. Nevertheless, in actual practice, students need to be aware of the purpose of the writing. In other words, teachers ought to set communicative writing activities, and first they have to point out the purpose of writing. Secondly, a purpose comes a reader, so teachers should emphasize the importance of knowing to whom is that text written for, in order to adequate the information, to the reader's level of cognition and schemata. Thrirdly, the text's structure should be taught paying special attention to the linking devices, sentences and paragraph formation.

It is also important to make clear, the difference between oral communication and written communication. Since they often have the same purpose, it is not expressed the same. While writing tends to adopt a formal structure, speaking always carries an unformal way of expression. So, student's need to learn that we do not write sounds.

Reflection:

As hard as it might seem, teachers should not give up on teaching how to write properly. I agree with those who state that student's might not know how to write correctly in their mother tongue, fact that makes our task a lot more difficult. Nonetheless, I strongly believe in the power of formal writing. As in speaking we have a formal way and an informal way to express the same message with the same meaning, but the decision upon using formal or informal expression will lay is to whom we will send the message, and it happens the same thing in writing, we might use informal writing will using IM and it is acceptable, but we will never use this kind of writing in academic writing to give an example. While for some IM writing will be the only way of writing, I have to say is up to us teachers to not let this happen, we need to teach the importance, relevance and communicative purpose of all kinds of formal written texts.