WRITING POST-LESSON EVALUATION

This is a post-lesson evaluation of the Writing lesson plan that took place on 27th
November, 2008 at CELT Athens premises with a group of 5 Elementary students
from Afghanistan. The primary aim of this lesson was to teach students how to write a
postcard to a friend of theirs back in their hometown, using the writing-process
approach as means of interacting with their classmates to produce a genre, which was
achieved to a certain degree.
Initially, the lesson started off well, with a set of photos related to my hometown,
motivated them intrinsically, since all of them went around the walls of the classroom,
talking to their classmates about visiting one town in Paros over the other. On the
contrary, a couple of them did not seem to have grasped the intent of my questions
and resorted for translation in Farsi from their classmates. However, I do feel that, at
this point, I ought to have simplified my speech even more, so that they would have
understood what to say in the TL.
During the presentation stage, the photo of Joe set the scene in the model postcard
and enabled students what to expect from it; the fact that the model postcard had been
cut up into pieces facilitated comprehension of “content” and “audience”, since all of
them were able to reorder it, in their teams and specify who wrote the postcard, to
whom and the reason for doing it so.
An unfortunate moment, though, was the one of my using the vocabulary item
“fortress” to the simplified one of “castle”, which hardened comprehension of a
lexical item in the photo of Naoussa that had been hung up on the wall.
On the other hand, during three process writing stages, students enjoyed writing drafts
about narrating their summer holidays on the island of Paros, exchanging papers with
their classmates, reading through their life experiences and plans, editing their scripts
in their groups, without my assistance. One of the two groups, though, experienced
problems with the English script, since the group member that had been appointed to
write, was a newcomer in the group. At this point, I felt that I ought to have appointed
another writer in the group, but, I offered to help him with writing, by guiding him
how to write the ideas he wanted to express and write them up on the clearly well –
organized whiteboard.
Unfortunately, time did not suffice for students to transfer their drafts onto real
postcards, with stamps and addresses, but, it was assigned as a homework task for
them to do.

Action Plan:
• I ought to simplify my language with lower levels so that I will be understood
within group members.
• Group composition should be uniform, so that precious time will be saved and
more activities will take place.
• “Coherence” and “cohesion” may be achieved in model genres, in which
learners are invited to explore ideas and logical sequence, with T guidance and
prompting.