Developing writing as a discourse skill

Fluency in writing

To be a fluent writer, it is necessary to write often and at length. It is also important to take into account sime advices:

• Think in English as you write: many students find difficult to think in English while they write. However, if you can do it while you speak and listen, you can do it while you write.
• Use the words you know: in writing, using the words you know means you should write your ideas using the words you are already comfortable with. So that, you can focus on ideas while you're writing.
• Keep riles in their place: too much emphasis on rules and grammar exrcises can hold back your development of fluency.

Children can be encouraged to choose and copy texts that they find interesting:items form the internet on their favorite pop star or player, or the rhymes learnt in class, or sections of their reading books that they enjoyed. The element of choice is to ensure that copying is meaningful and motivating. Another way to encourage extended writing is to ask children to write a jurnal, giving them a regular five or ten minutes in class to write whatever they want, or about a topic from the news that they are given, perhaps without worrying about correct spelling or grammar.

Complexity of written language.

In general, the level of the language that pupils write will lag slightly behind the level that they are comfortable with in speaking and listening.

The complexity of the written language depends on:

• the length and the purpose of writing
• the style and structure of the writing
• the content of the writing

And all these aspects depend on the level of language of the students.

*This was taken from  "teaching languages to young learners" by Lynne Cameron  pages 154 - 155.Cambridge Language Teaching Lybrary.

Learning to write for audience

The ability to write for an audinece requires selecting and adapting language so that other people can make sence of the writer's ideas and arguments. When  we are writing for an audience we have totake into acount the level, agem background knowledge of our audience and if we are going to use formal or informal language.

Writing for an audience should have a clear Audience, Purpose and Topic (APT). When we are writing in a Foreign Language (FL) we have to think beyond writing, we have to think about grammar and vocabulary. Activities in which we can practice this vocabulary and grammar are: letters and e-mail messages, articles about class events, essays on new films, simple stories, etc.

If we focus on how to teach children to write we have to take into account all the aspects mentioned previously and also teach them the following aspects:

• Editing drafts; these helo strudents to make some changes in their writing, if it is necessary
• Checking work with others; after they edited their first drafts they can check their writing with their classmates by reading it aloud in front of the group and after read it s/he can ask if her/his writing is understandable and if the topic is interesting
• Pairs-checking; after they edited and read aloud their writing they can chack with a partner if they have to make some changes on their final writing.

Written and spoken discourse

Written Discourse is:

• More grammatical
• More formal
• Has richer vocabulary
• Is stylistically more elegant
• Is planned

Spoken discourse is:

• The primary form of language
• There are not fully convey
• Is unplanned

Differences:

1. Time pressure: in spoken discourse we have little opportunity to come back and correct anything. In written we can re-read and re-write what we do not like.
2. The presence or absence of the audience: in spoken discourse we have a feedback immediatly. In written discourse we have to be sure that we write clear and express exaclty the meaning we intended to convey.

Main Features:

• Spoken discourse: hesitations, body language, strees and intonation, the main unit of grammar is the clause, noun and phrases ar short and post modification is less frequently, vague language is common, lexical density is low, vocabulary consist mainly of high frequency items, deixix (context), nominalization is rare, interactive expressions are frequently used, repetition and paraphrase are common.
• Written discourse: deletions, additions and correction are found in drafts, mod and attitude are conveyed mainly thourgh lexical choices, the main unit of grammar is the sentence often with complex subordinate clauses, noun and phrases are often long with pre- and porst modification, vocabulary is more specific and precise, lexical density is high, vocabulary often includes items that are rare of low frequency, reference outside the text is usually to background knowledge, nominalization is frequently, interactive expressions are uncommon, repetition and paraphrase are common.

Functional Grammar

Functional grammar is the general theory of the organization of natural language. FG wishes to be a theory whis is "functional" in at least three different, though interreleted senses:

• it takes a functional view on the nature of language
• it attaches primary importance to functional relations at different levels in the organization of grammar
• it wishes to be practically applicable to the analysis of different aspects of language and language use.

Lexical functional grammar is a theory of grammar that is, in general terms, a theory of:

• Syntax (roughly, how words can be combined together to make larger phrases, such as sentences) define different prespectives though which states of affairs are presented in linguistic expressions.
• Morphology (how morphemes - parts of words, such as the  parts of writers, namely the verb write, the "agentive affixes" -er and the plural markes -s -can be combined to make up words)
• Semantics (how and why various words and combinations of words mean what they mean) define roles that participants play in states of affairs, as designated by predications.

In addition, grammar is often taken to include phonology (the study of the sound systems of human languages), but LFG has relatively little to say about this.
In LFG, there are 2 parallel levels of syntactic representation: constituent structure (c-structure) and functional structure (f-structure)

• C-structures have the form of context-free phrase structure trees.
• F-structure are seen of pairs of attributes and values: attributes may be features, such as tense and gender, or functions, such as subject and object.

the names of theory emphasizes an important difference between LFG and the Chomsky tradition from which it developed: many phenomena are though to be more naturally analysed in terms of grammatical functions as represented in the lexicon or in F-structure, rather than on the level of phrase structure. An example is the alternation between active and passive, which rather than beign treated as transformation, is handled in the lexicon. Grammatical functions are not derived from the phrase structure configurations, but are represented at the parallel level of functional structure.

Integrating four skills

This is the combination of four skills, reading, speaking, listening and writing into the whole language. Some people think that integration of four skills diminishes the importance of the rules of listening, speaking, reading and writing that are unique to each separate skill. They are given a chance to diversify their efforts in more meaninful tasks. So we may be wondering why courses weren't always integrated in the firs place:

 

1. In the pre-CLT days of language teaching, the focus on the forms of language almos predispose curriculum designers to segment courses into the separate language skills.
2. Administrative considerations still make it easier to program separate courses in "reading" and "speaking"
3. There are certain specific purposes for which Ss are studying English that may best be label by one of the four skills.

However the most important is that integration is the only plausible approach, this is because:

1. Production and reception are quite simply two sides of the same coin
2. Interaction means sending language and receiing messages
3. Written and spoken  often bear a relationship to each other.
4. The interrelationship of written and spoken language is an intrisically motivation reflection of language and culture and society.
5. By attending primarily to what learners can do with language, and only secondarily to the forms of language.
6. Often one skill will reinforce another, we learn to speak, and we learn to write by examining what we can read.

Theme-based curricula can serve the multiple interest of Ss in a classroom and can offer a focus on content while still adhering to institucional needs for offering a language course.

 

What is important is to put principles of affective learning into action, this principles are:

• The automaticity principle
• The meaningful learning principle
• The instrinsic motivation principle
• The communicative competence principle.

All these principles are served by theme-based instruction courses that are able to get Ss exited and interested.

 

Numerous ESL texts books at the intermediate to advanced levels, offer theme-based courses of study; such text books catch the curiosity and motivation of Ss with challenging topics of real-life issues from simple to complex, they also focus on improving their linguistics skills. One of the topic, you are sure to find immediate intisnsic motivation.

Experimental learning

Closely related to conten-based and theme-based instruction is experimental language learning. This includes activities that language both left and right brain processing, that contextualize language, integrate skills and real-world purposes. What experimental learning highlights for us is giving students concrete experiences through which they discover language principles.

Experimental learning emphais on the marriage of two substantive principles of effective learning, principles exposed by John Dewey:

1. One learns best by doing, by active experimentation
2. Inductive learning by discovery activities strategies that enable Ss o "take charge" of their own learning progress.

Experimental learning techniques tent to be learner centered by nature. Experimental learning tends to put an emphasis on the psychomotor aspects of language learning by involving learners in physical actions into which language is subsumed and reinforced.

The episode Hypothesis

Episode hypothesis the text will be easier to reproduce, understand, and recall, to the extent that it is structured episodically. By this the presentation of language is enhanced if students do not get disconnected series of sentences throw at them, but rather sentencs that are inteconnected in an interest-provoking episode.

Task-based teaching

Task-based teaching makes an important distinction between target tasks, which Ss must accomplish beyond the classroom and pedagogical tasks, which from the nucleus of the classroom activity.

Pedagogical tasks include any of a series of techniques designed ultimately to teach Ss to perform the target task. This include formal and fuctional techniques.

Task-based curricula differ from content-based, we have in task-based teaching a well integrated approach to language teaching that asks you to organize your classroom around those practical tasks that language users engage in out there in the real world.

The principal idea is that all your techniques should be identified with just one of the four but rather that most successful interactive techniques will include several skills areas.

 

Methods to help the teaching of a foreign language

The necessity of learning another language has pointed out to our society. We lived in a world where the power has everything under its control. Each person has the ability of dominating more than one language. Considering this is important to say that everybody has different abilities when is learning a language. The teachers who teach the English language must observe the ability that every student has for making easier the learning.

 

There are several methods which help the learning of another language, especially English, like: Total Physical Response, Audio-Lingual Method, Direct Method, Suggestopedia Method, Communicative Approach, Grammar-Translation Method for saying something.

 

The Grammar-Translation method is used to help the Students toread and value the foreign literature; to speak and write better language that is learning. This method produce a good mental exercise and learn the grammatical rules of the foreign language. With this we can watch it does not to pay attention to the listening and pronunciation.

The Direct Method is not used in all schools, just in the private schools. The oral interaction, spontaneous use of the language, no translation between first and second language and the little or not analysis of grammatical rules help the learning in natural way of the English Language.

 

The Communicative Approach promote the communicative competence knowing when and how to say what to whom. With this method, the students are able to communicate efficiently and they manage the process of negotiating meaning with their interlocutors.

 

Suggestopedia Method, this method help the students to learn new vocabulary without translated words into their mother tongue. This is a relaxing method, so it makes students to absorb the knowledge of the foreign language. Decoration, furniture and arrangement of the classroom, the use of classical music, the authoritative behaviour of teachers and literature plays are the key elements of this method.

Task Based Learning approaches students to the different context of languages so they have the opportunity to interact. By interacting with others, they get to listen to language which may be beyond their present ability, but which may be assimilated into their knowledge of the target language for use at a later time.

 

The Audio-Lingual MEthod emphasized the comprehension of texts. Teachers based their teaching on a book containing short reading passages in their foreign, preceded by lists of vocabulary.

 

The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis. Like its name said, there is a hypothesis about how people can learn a language or if theu acquire the language. The acquisition is when somebody lives the language in a natural way, without grammatical rules, speaking rules, they just imitate the people that are arond they. And the learning is based on the all kind of rules about the language that they are studying, and many times this depends on what they want learn better.

 

Behaviourism this method says that everything can be explained in terms of natural laws ans man has no soul and no mind, only a brain that responds to external stimuli. This method teaches that man is nothing more than a machine that responds to conditioning and also says that we are not responsible for our actions.

 

Community Language Learning makes students interact with the teacher in many ways, the teacher gives advices, assistance and suport to the students who has a problem or is in some way in need. This method works with the translation, transcription, recording and group work to make a class more interesting.

Cognitivism Method says that there are a finite number of grammatical rules and with the knowledge of this finite number of sentences can be performed in the language. So the students are often encouraged to use rules to create sentences of their own.

 

First and second language. There are a difference between the first and second language learning, because how many we use a determined language and for what we use our mother tongue or a foreign language. The first language is that we acquire to speak first as child by behaviours. And the second language is that we use for social functions, for example to education, government or business.

 

Considering all this methods I think the best or one of the best is the TPR, because this method combine speech, action and achieve the goal of comprehension through physicial activities. This provokes a possitive mood to the learning.

When we are children to learn another language is imposed by our parents, and this is not good for the learning process, because is not for pleasure, then the teachers must look for a method where the children feel good in class and are interested in the learning of the foreign language.

 

the material used in the class is so important, for example, the books, pens, cups, furniture, evertything that the learninf process requires to the children learn better. The teachers selects the material for classroom will be used and they decide what and how to teach. They must consider the voice, actions and gestures, and the attitude for the children are interesting in the learning and that facilitates the learning process.

 

Finally, I would say that the variety of advantages of learning another language has permitted that the average of people who are learning a foreign language is increasing, which generates a complete society as for education and cultural knowledge. And the old people should be worried our children to they has a better education in their schools.

Is grammar the main goal of a second language learning?

It is known that a teacher of a foreign language has to develop all skills of a language in his students and at the same time he has to train his students for getting a good fluency and accuracy of the language. It is not easy work, because to have a higher level of language the students and teacher have to take into account that grammar has an important place in any language. However, there are different opinions on teaching or not teaching grammar explicity.

 

As we have been learning in the course of Principles English Language Teaching III, there are many theories about how to teach grammar. Certainly all theories have worked in different periods of time and have had their benefits for developing something new, which helps to learn and teach a foreign language. The believes about the bes way to learn whether teaching or not teaching grammar are varied for each people and  also it has to do with the purpose that people have about the language that they are learning.

 

According to the text "Should we teach grammar? (Part II)", grammar is similar to have sex and for this reason it is important in the life, I think that what the text mentions is tru because grammar is always presented in everything that we speak, listen to, read or write and it is supposd that the same occurs when we use a second language. I said it is supposed because not all the learners when speak or write the foreign language use an accurate language. It is for that text mentions that is necessary to take into account the three important elements, which are the goal of instruction or the time instruction, the structure of the target language and the style of the learner. The first one has to do with the time that teacher has for developing the course, because time could be determinating in the level that students get of language. More time instruction gives more input and a higher level. On the other hand, less time instruction does not give enough input and the level of the language is lower. The second one mentions that grammar should not drive the curriculum, because all languages are different in its structure. Finally the third one which is related to the age of students and for that reasons it says that each learner has different interests.

 

All those factors have their importance and will be good that each teacher has this in his mind. However those are not the only factors for taking into account, there are more like those which also are focused on more things and have different perception about teaching grammar.

 

This is the case of what H.D. Brown (1994) mentions in his book "Teaching by principles". He makes a question saying if teachers should or not teach grammar in language class and how to teach it. He also mentions that grammar and some techniques for learning a language have been a central parto in the history. He talks about the variables that Celce-Mauricia(1991) did about the role of grammar. For instance, the learner variables like the age, which makes grammar varies. Children do not care about grammar so it is not important for them. On the other hand, for adults is the main thing; beginners do not focus on it, but advanced learners do it; something similar happen with preliterate people that think grammar is the most important thing for learning a language. In the case of instructional variables skills like listening and reafing the grammar is less important, nevertheless fr writing it is the most important thing; the same occurs in formal conversations which focuses on fluency and on the contrary the inforal ones like speech demands grammatical accuracy and this is related to the porpuse that people have.

 

The importance of understanding and paying attention in all those factors should be taken a big place in teaching a second language. Besides this, the book of Thornbury, Sccot "How to teach grammar" (1999) says that all the learners are different because of their needs, interests, level ad goals and also he mentions that the evaluation of the activities has to be appropriate with the criteria of efficiency and taking into account some factor, for example the age, level size of the group, how the group is integrated, their needs and interests, their experince affects a class in different ways, so as each group is different teachers can not evaluate in the same form.

 

In conclusion, as we can see the three text that mentioned talks about meny factors related to whether teaching or not teaching grammar, nevertheless at the same time all of those are the same but with different names and they are divided into many ways; however they mean te same but in other words. Personally I think all those factores are too important for teachers, because it lets see the variation that they could have in their class and that not all the classes should be focused on grammar. It is true that grammar is important in language; in addition students should know the bases of this, but the purpose of learners is variable so teacher would make an evaluation about the group in order to know what are the goals and needs of the students, so that teacher can determine how much grammmar teach or whether teaching or not teaching grammar.

 

By: Miss Boop