the students have written. When offering correction, teachers should choose what and how much to focus on based on what students need at this particular
stage of their studies, and on the tasks they have undertaken.
g. Principles of Teaching Writing
Nation 2009 claims that there are some principles in teaching writing. The following principles can be used to evaluate teaching and learning activities.
1 Meaning-focused Input
Learners should bring experiences and knowledge to their writing. Writing is most likely to be successful and meaningful for the learners if they are well
prepared for what they are going to write. This preparation can be done through the choice of topic, or through previous work done on the topic either in the first
or second language.
2 Meaning-focused Output
Learners should do lots of writing and lots of different kinds of writing. There are many elements of writing skills which are peculiar to writing. Different
genres use different writing conventions and draw on different language features Biber, 1989 in Nation, 2009 and so it is useful to make sure that learners are
getting writing practice in the range of genres that they will have to write in. Learners should write with a message-focused purpose. Most writing
should be done with the aim of communicating a message to the reader and the writer should have a reader in mind when writing. Learners should experience a
feeling of success in most of their writing. They should use writing to increase their language knowledge. The section on guided tasks in this chapter focuses on
this. Besides, they should develop skill in the use of computers to increase the quality and speed of their writing. Writing instruction should be based on a careful
needs analysis which considers what the learners need to be able to do with writing, what they can do now, and what they want to do.
3 Language-focused Learning
Learners should know about the parts of the writing process and should be able to discuss them in relation to their own and others’ writing. They should
have conscious strategies for dealing with parts of the writing process. Spelling should be given an appropriate amount of deliberate attention largely separated
from feedback on writing. In addition, teachers also should provide and arrange for feedback that encourages and improves writing.
4 Fluency Development
Learners should increase their writing speed so that they can write very simple material at a reasonable speed. Fluency development can occur through
repetitive activities and through working with easy, familiar material. The following section looks at how tasks can be designed.
h. Strategies in Teaching Writing
Harmer 2004: 11 states that students should pay attention not only in what
to write but also in how to write. Writing is more than to write. There are actually several strategies to write well.
a The way a teacher gets students to plan
Teachers need to encourage students to plan or think about what they are going to write. The simplest way is to plan the content of their writing and its
outline. In this case, there are a lot of ways to get their plan, actually. However, there are two common ways that are usually used in this stage. They are
brainstorming and guided tasks. b
The way a teacher encourages students to draft, reflect, and revise In this stage students are made to believe that their drafts are not the
finished products. They still need to reflect and revise them. It will lead them to collaborative writing. In collaborative writing, they will work side by side with
their classmates in order to produces a good writing. They will share any idea that is significant to their writing. Finally, their contribution will create a good finished
product. c
The way a teacher responds to students’ writing There are several ways to respond students’ writing. The first way a
teacher can do is responding to a work-in-progress. It is applied when shehe is talking to a student in a group while the others are still working on their own. The
second way is giving reformulation to students. In this way, shehe writes herhis own version of a good writing. It will be significant for them as a comparison with
their work. The last way is conducting peer response. It will be really welcome to students because teachers talk to each student
