TEACHING WRITING

WHAT IS WRITING?

 It is the production of graphic

symbols as the speech is the
production of sounds.
It is arranging words to produce
something meaningful and
communicative.

 Writing is less stressful since:

It releases students from the
pressure of being anxious
when they are called upon to
speak facing others; the matter
which effectively blocks their
ability.

 WRITING AT THE EARLY

STAGES:

1- THE MECHANICS OF WRITING .

These are:
a. Writing in a new direction.
b- The shapes of new symbols.
c- Positions of these symbols in
relation to the ruled lines.
d- The capital and small letters.
e-spacing between letters and words.

F-punctuation :
-It helps learners to read in
meaningful word groups .and
understand what they read
- Express him self clearly in
writing
- Read aloud more fluently.

 Therefore English punctuation should be

taught at the beginning. These include:
- the capital letters at the beginning of the
sentences and in proper nouns.
- Full stops at the end of the sentences.
- The comma.
- The questions marks.
- Quotation marks.

2- COPYING:
- provide the necessary repletion practice of
the basic sentence acquired orally.
- provides ample opportunity to memorize
basic sentence structures and phrases.
- helps to learn the rules of penmanship,
spelling and punctuation.

In order to make it meaningful and

interesting learners should copy:
Questions given by teachers to be
answered later.
Address and telephone numbers of
relatives.
Proverbs and poems.
Anecdotes and recipe.

 Match words together.

Match words with pictures.
Put word in the correct order .

 This makes sure that student

think about what they are
copying and understand what
the word means ,it also gives
reason for writing the words .

 Here are some more tasks :

a- Match the question with the
answer then write them out .
b- Copy the true sentence only .
one picture with four sentences

c- Some of these animals are farm

animals, other are wild animals write
them in two lists " Farm animals ---Wild animals ".

3- DICTATION:
It exercises two functions of
language:
listening and writing.
At the early stages the following
are recommended:

 dictation of words and short

phrases which the students
have learned earlier. The main
purpose is spelling.
Short passages which may
vary in length from a sentence
to a short paragraph.

It is not more than ten minutes.

The teacher could read more
slowly than normal but not to
distort the natural speech.

 DEVELOPING WRITING SKILLS:

1- CONTROLLED WRITING:
using frameworks consisting of
substitution tables to compose a
text by selecting suitable and
meaningful items.
Arranging mixed sentences in order
to form a dialogue.
Using a model dialogue to compose
a similar one.

 Writing sentences with the help

of visual materials.
Writing a short paragraph in
answer to a series of questions.

Gap filling: listen to the teacher, then

write out the complete sentence.
-Re-ordering words: write the
sentences correctly.
-Substitution: write a true sentence
like this about yourself.

2- GUIDED WRITING:
The help and guidance are given
to the students in the form of
ideas. The teachers control is
gradually reduced.

 Guidance includes making the

students aware of the purpose
of the writing task. (how)?
Conducting an oral discussion
of the subject, providing the
students with key vocabulary
and the structures needed to
be used in the actual writing.

Examples:
completing a dialogue.
Writing a description or a narration based
on pictures.
Writing short reports based on
information obtained from written or
visual material.
Writing a paragraph on the content of a
story previously read.
Writing informal letters which has a
specific function talking about oneself,
activities.

 Give students a set of sentence

cues and have them write a
short narrative paragraph.
The procedure for this activity
may be as follows:
Make complete sentences
according to the model.

Model: The Smiths / Summer / in the

country/ spend
The Smiths spend Summer in the
country.
1. all / family / In the morning / to get up
/ around / 8oclock.
2. Mr. Smith / the kitchen / coffee / to
prepare / to go down stairs.
3. his / wife / then / breakfast / to go
outside / in / the garden.

 Have students examine a picture

and use a set of questions as a
guide to write a short description
of the picture.

The procedure for this activity

may be as follows:
Examine the picture in Activity 1
and write a description of it.

 Using the questions below as guide

lines.
Questions :
1. Does Mary have a nice room?
2. What kind of things does she
have in the room?
3. What do you like in Marys room?
4. Do you have a room like Marys
room? Describe your room in a few
sentences.

 3- FREE WRITING:
the teacher just gives the title
of the subject and the student
is responsible for the whole
task without any clues, ideas or
help from the teacher.