after various process-writing activities, ask students to do the same writing task as at the beginning. Return the students’ initial work to them and ask them to compare the
two final products as well as their approaches to the task. You can also conduct a class discussion on the results, the benefits and the drawbacks.
7.8 Approaches to teaching writing: the genre approach to writing
Genre refers to the way that texts of the same nature are organised and the way that language frequently re-occurs in texts of the same type. For example, recipes are all
organised in the same way. Ingredients are listed and then the steps are described. All recipes contain similar language. If we want our students to write a recipe, it is useful
for them to start by studying how recipes are organised and the type of language that is commonly used, before starting on the work themselves.
If you want your students to write a film review or any other genre of writing, start out by studying various film reviews in class. Firstly, do some comprehension work on the
reviews for ideas see Chapter 6, Reading. Then study the film reviews with a view to analysing how they are organised. Ask students whether they can see any
characteristics regarding both language and organisation that are similar between the reviews. For example, do all the reviews finish with the author’s opinion? Does the
writer make a recommendation? Where is it placed, at the beginning or the end? Which tenses are used to describe the film? When you think that students have
enough information, summarise the characteristics for all to see. You can elicit this from your students. They can then use the summary to start planning and organising
their own film reviews. They can also incorporate examples of language items that they encountered, without copying directly.
When using the genre approach to writing, try to set tasks that students are likely to be involved in outside of class or that have some sort of relevance. For example, don’t
ask students studying English for their university course to write lonely hearts ads, unless of course it’s for fun in class
I have outlined two approaches to the teaching of writing; of course others exist. EFL writers have debated the issues surrounding the genre and process approach to
writing. I think that both have their advantages and both can help students produce good pieces of writing. I also think that the two approaches can be combined in one
writing activity through study of texts and then movement through the stages of writing. This, of course, will take time and can be developed into a writing project spanning
over a few weeks.
7.9 Shorter writing activities
The two approaches above can take time to complete. If you want to include short writing tasks into your lessons, here are two ideas:
i After a reading or listening activity, choose a character from the text or recording. Ask students to imagine they are that character and to write a postcard, e-mail or letter
in character. Remember to define the audience by indicating who the correspondence will be sent to, e.g. friend or family member.
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ii If you want to revise the organisation of a certain style of essay or the format of a letter, you can prepare an essay or letter, cut it up and ask students to reorganise it.
7.10 Using computers
If you have access to computers for use with your classes, it is good to have your students do their written work on the computer. Organise the students in pairs or
groups and have them create their piece of writing on the screen. They will be able to edit their work more easily on the screen than work handwritten in a book. The benefit
of working in pairs or groups is that there will be real collaboration and discussion surrounding the piece of writing. Before starting out, you should choose whether you
want students to use the spell check or not and set up the programmes or give instructions accordingly.
7.11 Penpals
This is something that motivated me to write when I was at school and it still works today. Students can get very involved with penpals. The advantage today is that
students can correspond by e-mail; a quick response to their e-mails is far more motivating than waiting 2 weeks for the post to come around
Try to set up a penpal project for your students. You can match them with people in another country or city; you can find such possibilities on TEFL websites and in TEFL
chat forums. If you don’t come across any, try to match your students up with students in another school in the same city or even with a different class in the same school.
You can allow time in class for conversing with penpals and encourage students to continue outside the class. If you don’t do penpal work in class, let students know that
you’re interested in them and their penpals. Ask them how they are getting on, what they are learning about the other person and what language they are learning. Do this
without criticising those who are not participating.
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CHAPTER 8: PLANNING A LESSON
